Exhausting

Yesterday Nic and I set off for Roanoke with one goal in mind: to register for Baby U. Here's a picture I took of us right before leaving the 'burg.

Now give it's not the most flattering picture of me (hello awkward angle double chin) but notice how happy we look, like we're ready to conquer the day. Well unfortunately this is the only picture I got yesterday. I had fully intended to chronicle our adventure but after the first stop I was overwhelmed, dejected, and not so photo happy.

Our first stop was in fact Babies R Us. I was feeling good when we first arrived. The lady who signed us up for a registry was super friendly and helpful, the store itself is brand new so it's super nice inside but it all started going down hill when she let us loose with the little scanner gun. I hadn't spent much time researching what we should/shouldn't register for so we just started going up and down all the aisles looking like lost sheep.

It wasn't too long into this process that I realized you can't just say, "Oh pacifiers, that's a good idea, let me just scan this one" because there are A MILLION different pacifiers to choose from. If it's not that 20 different brands are available, there are 500 patterns or colors to choose from, not to mention taking price into consideration too. This same thing happened with EVERY item I wanted to register for. I could feel my heart rate start to race and that's when I realized it, I was starting to get overwhelmed. Thank goodness for my sweet little hubby who kept saying over and over again "It's ok baby, everything is going to be ok." We decided it was probably time to turn in the scanner gun shortly after that for both of our sanity's sake.

After that craziness, we decided it was time for a little therapy, a thing I like to call Chick-Fil-A. After happily ordering a #5, the 8 count with a sweet tea and honey mustard we sat down over lunch and the "Registry Checklist" to create an attack plan for our second stop, Target.

Target felt much better from the get-go. For one, I love that store, it may in fact be one of my happy places. But most importantly there were not nearly as many options (i.e. stuff) in their baby section so it made registering so much easier. We were in and out of there within an hour, feeling good about what we registered for. We both agreed we needed a reward after one intense day so we stopped at Sonic on the way out of town for some ice cream treats. Exhausted as we were when we got back home, I gained a little more strength from hearing the Hokies secure their first win of the season!

It Begins with Me

Nic & I both got slammed with our friend and yours, the common cold, for the large majority of this week so tonight when I got home from work I was in a no good, lousy, yucky mood (in other words, I was throwing myself a bit of a pity party). I was saying things like, "I'm a crappy campus minister, a lousy friend, a bad wife, and a terrible housekeeper"- all great things to tell yourself I know.

After dinner, while laying down upstairs, I heard a diesel truck pull up so I looked out the window and saw a FedEx truck parked outside my house. Immediately all my arm hairs stood to full attention and I thought, could this possibly, just maybe be a package for me? Seeing as we weren't expecting anything and the fact that I was in a crappy mood, I figured "Hmmph, it's probably for our neighbors." But imagine my surprise when he rang OUR doorbell and I heard him tell my handsome hubby "It's for April."

As Nic brought the package into our room I was glowing with excitement. Turns out it was a package from Compassion International with the following contents!

I received an email from them a few weeks ago about the opportunity to host Compassion Sunday at your church. So after talking to our pastor and receiving his permission I signed [nlcf] up and somewhat forgot about it till a couple of days ago. Compassion Sunday (9/26) is a worldwide day of making people aware of child sponsorship and hopefully adding more sponsors to the Compassion family. A large chunk of the package contained child sponsorship packets (which you can see to the right of the t-shirt) so people can sign up to sponsor a child on the spot. It made me so happy to see all those little kiddos faces and I really do pray that we'll be able to find a sponsor for most of them that day. Thank you God for unexpected blessings! And here's to hoping the t-shirt still fits in a week. Silly me kind of forgot I was going to be 27 weeks pregnant when I actually wore it :).

Fitting the Stereotype

Earlier this evening I told Nic to run and grab the camera because I was in fact: pregnant, barefoot, and in the kitchen.

I had to laugh at how I was fulfilling a stereotype but luckily my hubby doesn't believe that's how it should be-to his credit it was my choice to be in there. I was making chocolate chip scones which may be one of my more recent cravings :).

If you look closely at the picture you can see our sweet new back splash that Nic's parents helped us install. They along with my parents came to Blacksburg for the long holiday weekend and we spent most of our time "laboring" (note the irony of Labor Day there) on home improvement projects. It was such a blessing to have them around and to know that they really wanted to help us out. We (and mostly I mean they) painted the nursery, fixed the garbage disposal, installed a new back splash, fixed random things around the house, installed mini-blinds, and I'm sure there's more I'm missing. All in all it was a great weekend!