Oh the Bliss!

I love my mom. She's funny and sensitive and patient and caring and prayerful. I love that she knows when to say something and when to hold her tongue, well most of the time. :) She came over yesterday to hang out and we just talked and talked and I learned so much about her side of the family. How gentle my grandmother was. How my mom can swear she never heard my grandma say a negative word about anybody in her life. If it wasn't positive or absolutely necessary for the conversation then she wouldn't say anything. I learned more about how I'm just like my Grandpa; how he's never met a stranger and he liked every person no matter what they looked like or what they believed. We laughed a lot and teared up at times. It was such a great night, a great time of togetherness. I'm so thankful for my mom. So, so thankful. Here it is, the day before my due date. I'm actually starting to think there might be something going on in the universe because several women hav...

It's kind of a peculiar quandary we're all in, isn't it? This waiting around for the baby and all. See, I know you're all wanting to call, but don't want to bug me, but really want to know how I'm doing, but don't want to seem pushy, so you don't call. And I sit here, wanting to make some plans or something to keep me from going crazy (I think I'm pretty close to crazy), but I don't want to call anybody because I don't want people to see my number pop up on their caller ID and have them stop whatever it is they're doing, be it working, napping, stopping at a red light, and give them the slightest bit of hope that I might actually be in labor. So we all sit in silence, waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Perhaps if this baby is a girl we should name her Patience. If it doesn't come out soon I'm tempted to name it Areyoukiddingme.

Some might say I had a pretty stressful week last week. In and out of false labor, Mark being sick and me sick with worry. I'm not a stressful person normally, it's just not a feeling I'm accustomed to. But stress must reveal itself in one way or another. Some people get sick, others lose sleep some might even go into labor, if that's the way their body chooses to filter out the stress. So what is the result of my stressful week? Sickness? Sleeplessness? LABOR??? I pulled out three gray hairs last night.

These past three days have been great. I have felt so much peace I think Philippians 4:7* has come to fruition in my life. Sort of makes me wonder; if we all pray for one person with such conviction as I know people have been praying for me, how much more joy would we see in our families and communities? I'm reading this really great book right now; 'Blue Like Jazz' by Donald Miller. I love reading a great book, and this one will probably go down as one of the "greats" in my opinion. Donald tells his story of his walk with Christ and doesn't make it sound all pretty and cheese-ball like so many Christian authors do. He is real about his struggles with God and church and Christianity itself. I feel like he's taken everything I've felt or feel about my faith and put it into words for me. He also sounds extremely like my brother Darren in the way he writes and his thoughts on many issues, it's almost as if I'm reading something Darren has written,...

Thankfully Mark woke up feeling MUCH better this morning. Thankfully it was just a 24 hour bug and he's nearly back to his old self. Ben and I are doing great thus far - I suppose there is still time before we're "in the clear" as to whether or not we'll get sick, but so far so good. I had a great doc. apt. yesterday and the baby is doing wonderfully. Very happy and content in my belly and that sounds good to me. Thankfully Mark had the last two days and today off work, so the timing of everything really couldn't have been any better. With Tina staying with us thinking the baby might be coming yesterday, she ended up being care taker and helper extraordinaire. It's so interesting to look back on certain times and see the reason why God was doing - or not doing - certain things. I am so thankful for the mighty prayers that gave me peace and comfort when I was feeling really down yesterday. Thank you, sweet friends. That was an example of the body of Christ ...

Mark is sick. So sick, in fact, if I were to go into labor in the next 24 (give or take 12 hours) hours or so he wouldn't be able to go to the hospital with me. Now I see why the Lord has kept this baby inside of me, it all makes sense now. Please, please pray that not only will Mark be 100% healed unfathomably fast, but that Ben and I will be miraculously immune to the bug Mark is carrying. (It's the stomach flu, and it ain't pretty). I haven't had any contractions to speak of today, as opposed to the 3 minutes apart ones I had yesterday, so maybe all this waiting is for a very good reason. That God, I tell ya, He is so good to give us what we need at times instead of what we want. So pray on, sweet friends.

... have patience, have patience, don't be in such a hurry. When you get impatient you only start to worry. Remember, remember, that God is patient too and think of all the times when others had to for you...

Back to the good old fashion list... today I am thankful for... ~ the refrigerator in the garage being fixed and functioning. This means less trips to Costco, woo hoo! I am thankful for Costco (especially because I keep seeing an increase of organic goods), but without being able to stock up I was having to go once a week or so, not my favorite thing to do. ~ Mark cleaning out that fridge -scrubbing and heavy elbow sweat were involved, he is so good to me. ~ being able to stock up on a lot of household goods today using coupons at Costco. $8 off diapers!! I also am so thankful for TWO stocked fridges. That is such a luxury, seriously. ~ sweet phone calls from friends seeing how I'm doing. ~ the "Have Patience" song I learned when I was, oh, a fetus? I feel like I've known it my whole life and although it's a children's song I think I've been singing it more in the past week than I ever did as a kid. ~ Mark's very considerate boss who let him come home ...

I'm thankful for the chance to check out a new small group Bible study Friday night that Mark and I are thinking about joining. The four couples have been together for four years and that kind of history is such an asset when it comes to life experiences. Thankfully Ben was easy to put down at their house, a house we've never been to before, so he didn't miss out on any sleep and we didn't have to get a sitter. (Little baby in my belly, if you're listening, please be as good a sleeper as Ben. Please, please, please. Thank you.) My mom came down and walked the halls of the local mall with me for an hour to encourage the baby to come on out of hiding. And with this desire to stay mobile and active I've mopped and vacuumed and have done laundry, so that's a plus! I sort of wore myself out a bit so Mark and I choose to just lay around and go to bed early last night. I'm thankful for the last few days he's had off, he is so good with Ben and makes my days...

We finally decided on a name! Boy or girl - it won't matter - this little one shall be called.... Trixy ! What? It sounds like a dog's name? Well too bad because that's the name that fits. For a couple of days now I've had significant, constant and mostly painful contractions and for what? Nothing. Nada. Just hours of wakefulness and uncomfortableness. On one hand I love, love, love it (no, I really do) because it means that the end is near and that the baby is healthy and that my body is doing it's job. But on the other hand... well enough said. Trixy it is. At least we have a name.

It's 4:28 in the morning. That's right, AM . I just put in a load of laundry and I think I might paint my nails.

I have been thankful these past couple of days for the time we've spent with good ol' friends whom we haven't seen in a while - the Graham family! Silly me thought I'd make an "easy dinner" in the crock pot, what a crock! (hee hee) It took an hour to prepare it just to be put into the pot and another 5 hours to cook. It turned out alright, but next time I'll just stick to a Fitz favorite and have Mark do some steaks on the barbie, it's always a pleaser and it doesn't get much easier than that. Lesson learned. The Grahams have two very fun kids who are growing up right before my very eyes. Chance, the kinder gardener, has this deep big boy voice now that he surely didn't have when I met him 4 years ago. And Ashlynn is such a grown up third grader who carries on a lovely conversation and can still play hard with the best of them. Sweet family, I'm very thankful for them. Lisa also stopped by to bring the moses basket for our new baby to sleep...

Here it is folks, my belly at 37 weeks. Perhaps you might mistake it for the belly of a snowman due to it's coloring, or figure it's extreme whiteness is because of the stretching of the skin - like when plastic bends it gets whiter, but no, that is my belly in it's natural hue. White was a symbol of nobility back in the day, keep in mind.

This morning Mark, Ben and I got to see the baby via ultra sound! Ben was a little scared at first, probably due to his recent nightmare at his doctors office. But after a couple of minutes he was into it and after we left he said "I wanna see baby again." He's going to be a great big brother. It was neat to see the heart and the lungs "practicing breathing". We didn't peak and we didn't find out... a couple more weeks won't hurt anybody. :) I had a doctor visit right after that and she said everything was good to go. The baby is in an excellent position and all systems are go. So I guess it's just a waiting game at this point. My prediction is next Friday, not sure why - that's just the day that's been in my head. With Ben I always thought the 28 th , so I was only off my 2 days. :) We'll see. People have started to put in their requests... I think that's fun because I do it to my friends too. Mark has a 5 day stretch at work com...

There is a slight battle going on in our house between hot and cold. Yesterday, for example, it was 80 degrees outside, our windows were open and all of the fans were on. "Ha HA!" thought the ceiling fans, "I am the master of southern California and I will prevail." "No, no" the heater growled back as it hummed to life at 6am, "perhaps you rule the afternoons, but I reign over the late nights and early mornings." Lately it has been a tough call as to which climate control device is the most beloved in our house. I, personally, am partial to the heater. It's always been a lovely sound that simply adds an element of "cozy" to my life when it's running. But at 2pm yesterday afternoon the word cozy was the last adjective I wanted to describe our house. Enough with the battle already. I'm ready for a steady stream of coldness, it is winter after all. (I'm thinking of revamping my blog a bit. While the list was nice I've b...

So much to be thankful for! ~ our good health! ~ enjoying a beautiful morning at the park on a nature walk with one of our favorite families. Our kids had such a good time exploring and playing with each other, it was such a fun day for me. ~ having a great evening with our sweet friends (after spending all day with them, we decided to go over to their house for dinner and stayed past midnight) having belly laughs and good conversations. ~ my WONDERFUL AMAZING GRACIOUS GIVING parents who came over this evening and seriously cut my "to do" list in half. My extremely talented organizing mother cleared out an entire closet and found homes for everything while my dad kept Ben busy, hung things on the walls and cleaned the playroom. I sort of pitched in here and there, but really they worked their tails off. I'm so thankful for them!! ~ Ben's funny way of repeating everything we ask him to. Mark asked him if he could say "food" in Spanish and Ben replied, "...

Happy New Year! I do have one resolution this year, it's one I think I can keep because the result if I don't is so sad. My resolution is to take more pictures of Ben and the new baby with their great grandparents Nonny and Howie. I realized at the end of last year (3 days ago) although we've seen them many times over the year, we have only a pathetic few pictures to show for it. I think I take for granted that Ben gets to see them often. So this year I'm going to snap more pictures of them. Ben not being the huge fan of pictures should make this an interesting feat to accomplish, but I'm going to at least make an effort. So thankful for... ~ our visit with the Russel's. And I'm thankful Heather's letting me use her exercises ball, it's so wonderful in this last month of pregnancy to sit on it. ~ our visit with Jason, Carrie and the boys. And they're letting us borrow their infant carrier and double stroller! How awesome is that?? We are very th...