Learning to be patient

Merry Christmas Eve to you all! I hope wherever you are you're enjoying the day and relishing in the hope this season brings. We're here in Blacksburg waiting on Christmas and the birth of our very own special Christmas present-baby U's official due date is tomorrow.

I've learned over the past few days that I'm not a very patient person and I do not in fact like to wait-I honestly thought for sure this baby would be here by now. I had no idea how hard it would be to wait either. Every time the baby moves I jump and think "Is this it? Is she coming now?"

Through it all we're both learning what it means to trust in God's timing and his plan, despite how difficult it may seem. I have to admit that I'm certainly drawn to Mary's story and song right now as I read the Christmas story in Luke 1. The ease with which she accepts the angel's words, “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” No ifs, ands, or buts about it she chooses to trust and take God at His word for like the angel said right before "For no word from God will ever fail.” That is my prayer right now that I would choose to trust Him both now and forevermore. I pray the same for you this joyful season!

What kind of dog is Mabel?

So we purchased a Christmas present for ourselves a couple weeks ago (a new mini video camera) and it turned out to be just the thing we needed to capture another Christmas present that came in the mail a couple of days ago (thanks Randy and Sam)! We'll let you know the results of Mabel's DNA sample when we get them back in 3 weeks. The company's brochure says they'll provide us with 3 different breed ancestries- the significant breed, intermediate breed, and the minor breed. Submit your guesses now!

Elf Yourself

This was our Christmas activity of the day, courtesy of elfyourself.com. Our favorite part is Mabel doing her break dance. Hope you too have a little Christmas fun with it!

Advent

April and I decided to celebrate Advent, the season in the church calendar where we prepare for Jesus' birth, this year by going through a devotional together. Gordon-Conwell, the seminary where I'm currently taking classes, sends out an Advent daily devotional book written by professors. I really enjoyed doing it last year, and feel like this will be a good thing for us to do together as we prepare for Christmas and the birth of our first child!

The first day's devotion was from Psalm 146, and these words have been echoing in my head since I read it as we wait for Jesus, the only one in whom we can truly hope:
"Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God,
Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever."
-Psalm 146:3-6

If you'd like to join us, you can sign up here to receive the devotional every day by email.

Since today is the last day of November, it's the end of our 30 posts in 30 days challenge. We only fell one short, which is really good for us!

I love Christmas cards and I love free stuff!

I've been reading about the free giveaway Shutterfly is offering on a bunch of the different blogs I follow, so I decided to try it out for myself. Turns out it's totally legit and super awesome!

I'm so excited about having photo Christmas cards again this year. We made some our first Christmas together and I've missed them ever since. I always love getting photo cards from other people too as evidenced by my refrigerator :). I love Christmas cards in general- it always warms my heart to hear and see what our friends and family are up to. We put up our Christmas decorations the other night and I already hung a "clothesline" for cards. It's totally empty right now, but let's be honest, I rush the mailbox every day like a little kid to see if any have come.

Shutterfly has so many awesome options to choose from that it was really hard to narrow it down to just one. But with Nic's approval, I think I decided I like this one the best:

Although I'm not always the biggest fan of bright colors (with some exceptions of course), I love the contrast between the black & white photo and bright lettering. I'm so excited to get birth announcements next month too when Baby U arrives! And believe it or not, even though I've always thought those photo calendars you see in photo departments at Walmart and CVS are super cheesy, these are actually quite tasteful and I'm starting to see how they might make cool grandparent Christmas presents next year! My oh my, how my mom was right when she said, "Never say never."

Desiring God

I picked up John Piper's book Desiring God this afternoon and decided it seemed like an appropriate time in my life to start reading it. To be honest I've always been a bit intimidated by the book and Piper's other writings in general. Books that contain paragraphs (no pages) that I have to reread multiple times to understand tend to frustrate me more than challenge me. After having some good quality time with God this morning though I felt like it was a good thing to do.

I'm only a few chapters in so far but I've already been intrigued/inspired by one of the quotes Piper includes from C.S. Lewis' book The Weight of Glory.

"If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ."

I had a good conversation with Nic about this earlier because it confused the mess out of me. I mean aren't we taught in Romans and the gospels to neglect ourselves? The thing I'm missing though is we do those things not just to do them but to become closer to Christ. I'm still wrestling with the quote and I left out the last paragraph b/c of length but do you have any thoughts?

Nursery Pictures

Here are a few pictures of our finished nursery. Now we're just waiting for the baby to come along and complete it!

Chick Flick kind of day

"Iris, If you were a melody, I'd use only the good notes"- Jack Black (Miles) in The Holiday

I love chick flicks. I know what you're thinking "Most girls do April." And while that's probably true, one of my absolute favorite things to do is curl up on the sofa with a good one. That's what I've been doing since I got back from shopping this afternoon. Mom, Kristal, and I headed out around 7:30am to catch some bargains. It was a lot of fun being out and believe it or not it really wasn't that crazy. I guess everybody else went to Target at 4am when it opened. A morning full of being on my feet wore me out though. I haven't wanted to move off the sofa all afternoon/evening. My sweet husband has taken great care of this swollen ankles pregnant gal and I am SO thankful for him. It's been a good holiday so far and there are still two days left in the weekend to celebrate. Here's to Christmas tree decorating and sleeping in!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a great day of cooking, eating, and relaxing, and now we (along with April's parents) are sitting around the TV watching the holiday classic Elf! April and her mom are heading out early to do some Black Friday shopping, so they probably won't stay up for the whole movie. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too!

Thanksgiving Eve

Today has been super productive. From cleaning the house to making a pecan pie I've gotten a lot done but the BEST thing is that I finished Baby U's nursery! The only thing left is to finish the mobile but everything else is in it's final home, set and ready to go. I can not begin to describe how much of a relief it is to have everything in place and put away. It really was a lot of fun to do and I'm super pleased with how it turned out but it was a lot of work! I'm starting to get really excited about her arrival too. We had our last childbirth class Monday night so I'm as prepared as I can be I guess for the whole labor/delivery thing. Now I've just got to practice some patience in waiting to meet her. Only one month from tomorrow (at least that's what my due date says)! I'll post some pictures of the nursery later this week- for now Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

the pigeon

Have you read this book yet?


If you haven't you totally should. Next time you're in Barnes and Noble slip into the children's section at the back of the store and find it, or anything by Mo Willems really, he's truly delightful. This has been one of my favorite children's books for a while now and today it actually inspired a piece of "artwork" for the nursery. I was pretty pleased with how it came out (not the best quality picture I know).


What's your favorite children's book? What do you remember begging your mom to read you night after night?

Black Friday humor

Have you seen the Target commercials for Black Friday yet? I think the leading lady is so funny! A friend of mine posted a link to this video and I think it's hilarious. Maybe it's just because I'm really excited to shop there on Friday!

Six Things Sunday

1. I'm taking off the whole week from work to get Baby U's nursery and "stuff" together. I am amazed at how much "stuff" such a little person can accumulate.

2. I've been working on the nursery mobile this afternoon that I mentioned in an earlier post. Turns out Nic is a better yarn wrapper than me, who knew?

3. Lately I've been acquiring AND using all kinds of coupons. I kind of get a little thrill when I see the discount come off the ticket!

4. Harry Potter 7 was so good. It kind of makes me want to reread the book.

5. I like almost green bananas, as far from brown as possible. I realize this is really random but I've had two today and I felt the need to share.

6. I'm really enjoying having a lazy weekend with NO specific plans. Totally what I needed!

Staying Home

Due to April being in the last stages of her pregnancy, we decided to stay here in Blacksburg for Thanksgiving break this year. This will be the first time in my life that I haven't traveled to be with family for Thanksgiving. We will be cooking and hosting Thanksgiving dinner here at our house. April's parents are going to come visit, and April's language partner, who is a VT graduate student from China, will also join us for dinner, along with her roommate.

I'm excited to help cook Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. I've cooked turkeys before, but we will be making a few staples that I've never tried before: mashed potatoes and real turkey gravy, real green beans (cooked with bacon!), and pecan pie. We had a "Southern" Thanksgiving dinner with our Homegroup (church Bible study group) this week, and April and I made collared greens and fried okra. Staying home for Thanksgiving is really giving us a great cooking lesson - I've already been on the phone with my mom a couple of times for help!

The Evening's Festivities

We're going to see this in a couple of hours and I'm so excited. I'm also a little scared :). I mean I've read all the books so I know how it all ends but that doesn't mean I won't cover my eyes a couple times during the movie. Enjoy your start to the weekend!

Adoption

Today's blog is a shout out to our friends Rob & Jess who go to our church, [nlcf] downtown. Rob & Jess are in the process of adopting a little boy, Riley from the Ukraine. They shared about their experience at our Sunday morning gathering this week. You can see what they have to say about the whole experience here.

For some reason God has always put adoption close to my heart. In fact I love to follow several other blogs of families who are/have already internationally adopted since my friend Lauren started working here after college (note she doesn't work there anymore). I'm so excited for Rob & Jess as they move forward in this process and in case you forget their website you can follow their progress by clicking on the Riley button!

Fail

So I failed yesterday. I totally forgot to blog. I realized it before I fell asleep last night but it was so late and I was so tired that I just didn't care. I'm sorry to all my loyal readers-I've gotta say 15 days straight was a pretty good run and I plan to keep blogging till the end of the month but still I failed.

Last night the BCM threw us a baby shower for Baby U and it was so much fun! Each of our bible study groups got together to give us a present and then the whole BCM gave us the stroller that I was wishing for!! Another exciting event was getting a quilt that wonderful Allison made for baby U. Each of the families decorated a square and Allison added other fabric squares to make it super cute (note the excitement pictures below). It was so fun much to celebrate with our BCM family and I enjoyed the fact that Nic finally got to join me at a baby shower! Enjoy the pictures.

Photo Shoot

As promised here are some of my favorite pictures from our photo shoot yesterday. These were all taken by my fabulous friend and photographer Emily Harrison. By the way, when did I get so big?????

Blessed Beyond Measure

It's been a great birthday-I've had tons of Facebook birthday shout outs and texts! We took some maternity photos with my excellent photographer friends Chelsea & Emily this afternoon. And tonight we had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of our student leaders. The leaders were so sweet and many of them gave me a card with sweet messages inside which totally made my day. A couple of them even made me a red velvet cake (my favorite of the moment)! Just a few minutes ago we even had birthday carolers come to our door. I am beyond blessed by my friends and family! Here are a few pics of the family now- if you can't tell we're all pooped and partied out :).

Short Recap

Today was a fun-filled, action-packed adventure. It started off with a baby shower, hosted by my lovely friends Kristal and Lisa. It was such a blessing to have friends from all chapters of my life come together to celebrate this little baby. Hopefully, I'll post some pictures soon (when I get them).

This afternoon, Nic and I went to Roanoke for the Stocked Market Bazaar. This was part of my weekend birthday celebration, so Nic graciously and willingly pushed through the crowds and the Christmas music. My parents ended up meeting us there, which was a lot of fun. After running a few more errands in the "big city," we grabbed a birthday dinner at Logan's Roadhouse. It was a great way to kick off my birthday eve (note previous post about being a birthday nut). All of this activity has left me worn out and without enough energy to come up with more than this short recap of the day for now. Goodnight.

Tonight was Battle of the Air Bands at BCM. This was the third year for the event so I guess you could call it an annual thing now. It's exactly what it sounds like too- a bunch of people get together and "air band" a song- it's every wanna be rocker's dream come true. We had some great entries this year including P.O.D., a Top Gun Melody, the Blackeyed Peas, Paramore, KISS, Jason Mraz (and 5 others), Parliament, Iron Maiden, and a Pokemon something or another. P.O.D. ended up taking it all. Whatever the end result, it's always a fun evening full of laughs and sing alongs. Here are a few pics to enjoy.

Fond Fall Memories

Nic & I made some delicious brunswick stew for dinner this evening. It was so tasty and it makes SO much that we'll be eating stew for days. Brunswick stew always reminds me of my childhood. Around my hometown it was a common fundraiser for churches to make a huge pot (I'm talking like a witches brew kind of pot) of stew and sell it by the quart. My mom would always buy tons of the stuff and freeze it because it makes a great dinner when you're in a hurry.

Here's the link to the recipe we used. We made a few adjustments to the recipe. We used corn, lima beans, blackeyed peas, potatoes, and skipped out on the onion and okra. I also recommend adding more salt than they suggest. Hope you too get to enjoy some tasty stew!

Birthday Nut

I'm a big fan of my birthday. I mean I know most people are but I REALLY like my birthday probably to a point of obnoxiousness. I have no problem telling people in the days leading up to and on the actual day that it's my birthday :). So just so you know my birthday is this Sunday (11/14)!

When it comes to birthdays (or life in general) I'm not the biggest fan of surprises. I would just rather know whats going on so I can prepare myself. I still get excited whether I know or not! I remember one birthday in college (maybe my 20th??) I woke up and my roomies acted as if it was just another day. No one said anything much to me, maybe a wimpy 'Happy Birthday' but not much else. Nic was in town visiting and I kept asking him "What are we going to do today?" His response "I don't know we'll figure something out."

Well this is where my true 'only child' self came out and all I could think was, how can you be so lame, how dare you take such an important day so lightly, "we'll figure something out"- why the heck haven't you figured something out already? Well in case you haven''t figured it out already I was furious the rest of the day at Nic, my roomies, and the whole world. Later that evening he kept insisting we go to my friend Megan's house, who I was also quite sure had forgotten this very special day, so it was with great reluctance that I walked in her side door.

What do you know they had planned a wonderful surprise party for me with tons of people and fun! I definitely stuck my foot in my mouth that day and you better believe I was doing some serious apologizing :). Here are a couple birthday party posts from recent years!

2007

2009

Forest Fire in Blacksburg

So when I left 6:33 tonight I thought I smelled some sort of fire burning all the way into Christiansburg. Turns out there's a forest fire in VIRGINIA. According to the news about 80 acres have burned so far. Craziness.

With the few snowflakes we saw here in Blacksburg on Friday and everybody talking about it on Facebook I can't help but start to think about Christmas. I've gotta admit that everytime I walk past Christmas paraphernalia in a store I get just a little bit excited and I have to walk the other direction to avoid buying some little snowman/reindeer/substitute any little cutesy thing really.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the sofa telling Nic "I just want to go buy something. I don't care what. I just want to go shopping." Its moments like these where I realize I'm not quite as non materialistic as I like to tell myself I am. And then today I was reminded of Advent Conspiracy, a movement that encourages us to: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All.

The thing I appreciate about AC is they clearly state on their blog-We’re not Scrooge. We love gifts. We just think you should give gifts that actually mean something, rather than gifts that’ll make the rounds at the next white elephant party.

So I've been thinking a lot today about my need to buy more stuff and how God is calling me to respond to him through it all.

Less Ordinary

Over the past few weeks I feel like God has repeatedly been challenging me to examine my life and not just settle for the ordinary. Today was one of those days where he brought it to the forefront of my attention again. You see I'm really good at stuffing things like that deep down so they don't inconvenience me and God doesn't seem to be a fan of such behavior.

Right now I'm not exactly sure what "living a life less ordinary" means for me. I do know he's calling me to really examine how I spend my days and what consumes my time; to ask myself the question "Is this for his glory and purposeful or just a routine and for my own good?" I know I should (and want to) commit to pray through this instead of coming up with answers on my own. And with this I know it's going to take some time but I am hopeful that God will answer and challenge me through it all. Look for more updates about this as it unfolds!

Engaged Couples

April asked me to guest post today, and I was more than glad to help out since I haven't blogged in quite a few months. We're worn out tonight from spending most of the last two days at BCM for our annual Engaged Couples Weekend. This year, we had 7 couples of current or former BCM students who will be getting married within the next year. We went through some different pre-marital counseling topics, including family, conflict, finances, sexuality, and Biblical foundations for marriage with these couples. We also took time to get to know them and let them ask any questions on their mind about marriage.

I love getting the opportunity to share my experiences and the little wisdom I have about marriage with others, especially students. It's encouraging to see these people wrestling with questions about what a God-honoring marriage and life after college looks like. I also love being reminded of the rich Biblical roots of marriage. It also gives April and I a chance to take a fresh look at our marriage and how we are living up to our commitment to each other and to God to die to ourselves every day and serve one another in love. I'm reminded of a verse that was read at our wedding ceremony: "We love because [God] first loved us." - 1 John 4:19

This year, we asked some friends to share some advice and things they wish they'd known when they got married so we could share it with our engaged couples. This was one of the most challenging and encouraging responses to me that we shared:

"I'm not sure anyone is really ready for marriage when it happens. So much about marriage requires dying to self and our culture has glamorized weddings and being married so much, that when the honeymoon is over, people end up disappointed in their spouse. When you think marriage, think dying to self, because that's what it will take to make it work. Before you judge your spouse, take a hard look at how that person has had to die to self to be with you."

Our "graduation" photo

Inspiration

I was talking to a friend today about working out and for some reason it made me really excited! I've been thinking for a while now that I'd like to run another race after Baby U arrives and today's coffee talk may be the final push I needed. I had a ton of fun running this race back in March and the idea of training again actually gets me pumped.

This time I'm thinking a 10 miler. So tonight before dinner I was searching for 10 mile races in Virginia that occur long enough after Baby U arrives that I can actually train for them and not too far away that I lose motivation.

Here's what I came up with:

In Lynchburg on September 24

In Washington DC on October 9

The race course for the Army 10 Miler is through the middle of DC and around all the monuments. I think it would be so cool to run in this but they have a bit of a time restriction. You have to run at least a 15 minute mile, which I think I can handle, but it would really stink to train for so long, get hyped up the day of the race, start running and be told midway through you have to stop. I guess I have a little bit of time to figure it out- it never hurts to dream big though!

Go Hokies!

According to Google Maps we live about 2-2.5 miles from Lane Stadium but tonight for some reason you'd think we lived right next door. I'm not sure if it's the cold air, a night time game , or simply that Hokie fans are LOUD but we can hear it all here at our place. I think I forgot in general how crazy night time games are. Traffic started getting heavy around campus before lunch and tailgating had started long before that! It's fun though to have so much excitement around town and I will be sad when college football is done for the season.

This weekend Nic & I are helping lead an Engaged Couples Weekend (premarital counseling) for 7 engaged couples. It's always one of my favorite parts of the job so I'm looking forward to it. I'm also excited because our weather forecast for Saturday looks like this:

I love the first snowflakes of the season. Hope you're staying warm and enjoying the evening wherever you are too!

DIY Nursery Style

I don't have much time today so I'll leave you with some design ideas I'm thinking for our nursery. I can't seem to find a mobile I like so I'm thinking about creating my own. I like this one:

and it doesn't seem too difficult to make. The only thing I'm unsure of are the flowers, my nursery theme is polka dots, so I'm thinking about using circles instead. Thoughts? Ideas?

When we were in Cincinnati a few weeks ago I bought a bunch of different sized white photo frames and I'm planning on making an asymmetrical arrangement on the "orange" wall of the nursery. I got this idea from a blog I follow called Young House Love. I absolutely love their design ideas and I love that they desire to make things simple and cheap too! The hard thing now is figuring out what to put in those frames.

I'm planning on taking off the entire week of Thanksgiving so I'm hopeful I'll get most of these projects done during that week. Here's to hoping Baby U doesn't come 4 weeks early!

Last Weekend

Before I bring you up to speed on this weekend I've got to cover last weekend. We've had so much going on the past month everything seems to blur together at times- on to the weekend's events though!

Nic & I took advantage of a free Friday night and went on a fun date night filled with Chinese food and Life As We Know It starring Josh Duhamel and Katherine Heigl. We both figured this movie was pretty timely considering it's about two people who have no knowledge of raising a baby, learning how to. And despite it's D- review from Entertainment Weekly I absolutely loved it, it might be right up there with 27 Dresses for me when it comes to romantic comedies starring Katherine.

After the movie our good friends Jess & Micah got into town for the Duke/VT football game. Micah and Jess are dear friends of ours. Nic & Micah carry special memories from their days of being an RA in Pritchard to embarking on the real world together in Northern VA. It's always so good to catch up with them and no matter when we last saw them (a year ago or 5 days) we can always pick up just where we left off. I'm a terrible photographer and didn't get any pictures of the four of us together but I did manage to snap one of Nic & Micah and the "Titan" his truck. The Titan carries a special place in our hearts- it moved us into our first apartment in Philly and carried our first (and current) living room furniture from IKEA to our house!


Saturday our church hosted a craft fair and I sat at my friend's booth for her most of the day (she had to work). We didn't have tons of people come but it was a lot of fun just being there! That evening we went out for a fun friends in town/Hokie win Mexican dinner.

Sunday afternoon we drove to Roanoke to meet up with some Philly friends, the Drummonds, who are now living in Indonesia. It was so good to see them and here about their work in Indonesia. They're expecting their second little boy any day now so it was fun to hear stories and get advice from their parenting adventures.

Whew......that was a lot. But hey I blogged 2 days in a row and that's saying something!

Mission Impossible

My mission for the month: to blog every day (weekends included). I realize this may seem like a lofty goal given my recent history, but hey you gotta dream big right? I was just telling Nic how I feel like for once I have tons to blog about. So we'll start with today's happenings.

We just got back (like 30 minutes ago) from our first childbirth class. All day I've been a little nervous but I worked up my courage and "put on my big girl pants" as we were driving to the hospital tonight. One of my health care practitioners was actually teaching the class (and will be for the next 3 weeks) so that was reassuring and exciting because Nic had yet to meet her. There are 13 couples in the class and I bet 4 of them are due within a few days of my due date! As the class got started and the teacher was explaining what we'd be covering over the next month I was thinking ok I can do this, this is all good. Anatomy & Physiology was one of my favorite classes in college so I'm totally down with picture diagrams and charts. And it was all good until she put the video in. That's when it started to go down hill. I could feel my palms start to get sweaty and my stomach start to hurt, it was 7th grade sex education happening all over again.

Ok so I may be exaggerating a bit there. But it definitely was my least favorite part of the evening. Overall though I'm way excited to be there (and Nic agrees). It's cool to see and understand how the whole process works and it made me even more excited for Baby U's arrival-less than 2 months to go :). Here's a picture of Nic & I for my 32 weeks belly pic. See you tomorow!

Baby Shower Pictures

As promised here are some pictures from our two fabulous baby showers!

From Cinci:

Presents! See the little push toy with the orange wheels? Turns out that was Nic's favorite toy as a cute little toddler and his aunt gave it to us to have for our own little baby!

Sam & I before the shower got started.


Cute little cookies from the Bon Bonnerie!

Katy and I at the shower. I can not believe she's a junior now!

And I know this isn't a "shower picture" per say but it is a picture of Randy & Sam's cute little new puppy Luci!

And now a few from Danville:
Fun little diaper cake made with nursery colors-Thanks Kristy!

A few of our guests.

Cute little polka dot cake. In case you can't see it that says "Future Lil Hokie."

Opening presents with my childhood friend Ashley right next to me. Our moms have been great friends all of their lives too!

I can't say thank you enough to those of you who came and help put these showers together. Nic and I feel super blessed and love- so thank you!