ugh

Here is a good indication of our stress level this spring. I've been waking up scratching. I'm sorry for the gross pic... just thought it was kind of amusing in a sick way. We ran out of bandaids- they don't sell a box big enough when you use like a million a day, so I was forced to use Woody and Buzz Lightyear this morning. Welcome to the freak show.

It's a GIRL!! WHAT??!!??

We didn't find out the gender of Howie and Justice in utero. We went to the traditional 20 week ultrasound, stayed strong in the face of temptation, and waited it out. Although I'll say I was absolutely positive that Howie was a boy so finding out seemed superfluous, thus we really only had one surprise. This time around we were struck with indecision from the outset, for the main reason of "what if this is a girl???" But I was still pretty convinced it was a boy since that's just what we seemed to do, so I was content to not find out and I had Josh satisfied that another surprise would be fun.

Then enter my dear friend Jodi. She is such an amazing woman whom I love dearly. I have watched her walk through very difficult circumstances in her life over the last couple years with more grace than I would have thought possible. She is quite a woman. Anyway, one night Josh, the kids, and I were having dinner at her house and over the course of a couple hours she had us convinced that not only should we find out the gender of this baby but we should also give her the information straight from the ultrasound, which we wouldn't know ourselves, and let her make a cake, the filling of which would either be pink or blue. When we cut into it we would find out if we were having another boy (obviously) or a girl (not possible). She is one persuasive woman! But I think if I'm honest with myself I wanted to know all along anyway and she just gave us the nudge we needed.

So Josh and I went to the hospital to have the ultrasound. We told the tech who did it that we wanted her to look at the gender of the baby and put the info in an envelope without telling us anything. She did it without any clues. We walked out to the car clutching the envelope with the privileged envelope, sorely tempted to look but resolved to not. I delivered the info to Jodi as quickly as possible to get the temptation out of the house. She made a gorgeous cake with the telling filling but covered with both raspberries and blueberries, and we were in suspense for 24 hours.

Here's what happened.

So you can see that we were pretty shocked!! I was for sure that this was another sweet little boy to add to the man clan, which would have been just wonderful. But a girl. We won't know what to do with ourselves.

It was such a special celebration with precious friends. It was a way to share this baby early although we don't have any idea where we'll be when she's born! I'm so grateful to Jodi for all her hard work... isn't her masterpiece gorgeous?

The Times, They Are A-Changin

Well, here I'm returning from my 4 month blog hiatus, which was actually completely unintentional. We lost our camera cord for a long time (which I found in our move after we had already replaced it... why is that always how it works?) and then it felt daunting to do such a comprehensive update.

Josh finished seminary and graduated May 20th! It is wild that he's done! It was such a rich 3 years of our lives. Very trying and stressful on one hand, but also richly rewarding on the other. It's readily apparent how much our lives have changed when we remember that we came to St Louis with only Howie who was just shy of 1 and have now left with an almost 4 year old Howie, Justice who will be 2 in a few months, and #3 BABY GIRL due in September (more on that later!). Wild. God has been so abundantly faithful to us over these 3 years and we're so grateful.

This past Saturday we moved out of our dear apartment that served us so well over those 3 years and have moved to Peoria, where Josh will work with my dad while he continues the job search. We're so grateful to have a place to move where our kids feel like it's one big vacation and everything feels so familiar and normal and we can hang out with my loving family whenever, which is wonderful. Yet we miss our St Louis community desperately and wonder what the Lord has for us during this time of waiting. We know that he will continue to provide for us and will lead us to a job in his timing, so right now we're just remembering his promises and focusing on his goodness!

I do miss our apartment. Though I'm not sorry to leave behind the ridiculously squeaky floors that always prevented me from getting up before the kids lest they wake early too, the ant swarm which decided to take up residence in our apartment shortly before we left, and the stove that either didn't cook your food or burned it instantly since there was no temperature nuance whatsoever, I'm very sorry to have moved away from our seminary family who means so much to all of us. We spent a very happy 3 years with friends who felt like family, and though I know we'll keep up over the distance, it's so hard to not be able to walk out my door and spend time with so many special people instantly.

But in order to keep from sounding like Debbie Downer, we are upbeat about what the future holds and so grateful for how the Lord has provided so much for us during this time of waiting!

Here are some pics of our last few weeks.

The boys playing at Stacy Park, one of our favorites

Justice lounging. He loved these little chairs that belonged to our precious little neighbor Ellie.

Josh's bunch of supporters! We were blessed with many members of my family and also Josh's sister Liz who we so enjoyed spending the weekend with.

Me and my dear friend Sharon. We spent so many wonderful hours together and walked through the 3 years with each other.

Look at these three goofballs! Love it!

Josh with Liz and Em

Us and the Loneys- these two are seriously the funniest people ever. My stomach was always in stitches whenever the 4 of us got together. We miss them so much.

And toss in Bryan Chappell, the seminary president

Bryan, Josh, and John- these 3 spent a lot of time riding back and forth from the seminary to Gulf Drive!! Thanks for all the rides guys!!

Josh being crowned with his stole. The graduation was wonderful, but I'll say putting those stoles gingerly over every graduate's head did take a significant amount of time. But who's complaining? Just sayin.

Our precious friends- we got to go out one last time after baccaleaureate to Pi. The best pizza ever. We had a wonderful time.

Us and the Looneys. They are such a precious couple and we miss them dearly.

Us and the Policows- we loved going to Grace & Peace with them! Such special friends!

This is really going back some time, but here are the boys in their Easter finery! We had a wonderful day celebrating!

Here are the brothers hanging out. At times the best of friends, at times the worst of enemies. In other words, frenemies. We're working to maximize the friend part and minimize the enemy part, with much prayer and shepherding! They're so precious!

OK we have lots of other news to report on, but this will have to do for now. Much more coming!

Pathetic Silence

I can't find my camera cord. The camera is dead. I thought that it was somewhere in our room but now I have no idea. It's depressing. I've been waiting to post, hoping that the cord would mysteriously appear so we could have pics galore. But no such luck. So here are some pics from my phone (which aren't great) to give you an idea of what we've been up to.

Entertaining ourselves in the basement. The winter is beginning to wear on all of us. Howie is repeatedly asking for summer and can we go on a picnic despite the snow and ice on the ground. Since we are desperately missing playing outside, we're playing with outside toys down in the basement.

Here is Howie looking like a million bucks, doing the aforementioned basement entertainment. He was dressed to the nines for church and we squeezed in a quick bike ride before we left. Howie actually has an amazing turn radius, which I never would have discovered had he not found it fun to veer so sharply between poles in our basement. Who knew??

A Close-Up of the Outfit... Josh said he looked like a therapist. I could see it.

Bundling up for quick walks- we got out for a while on a bit of a warmer day to get some fresh air and reacquaint ourselves with our neighborhood!

This pic needs no explanation.

Grocery shopping- the boys thought this was pretty awesome. Especially when I busted out the lollypops.

Watching the Colts be completely un-clutch and dissolve in the playoffs yet again- I have nothing more to say on that topic.

Well, I'm hoping to find our cord and get some more pics up! But that's something for now!

Thanksgiving in Peoria

We had a delightful trip to Peoria for Thanksgiving last week! Howie and I baked a vanilla cream pie for our contribution. This was my first attempt at a pie with a real pastry crust, and it was hard. I can't say that I was very proud of the crust- it was pretty tough and crunchy, but the filling was delightful. Howie was a good little helper. We cubed butter together for the crust- he tried to convince me to let go of the knife and let him cut by himself, and that gave me a good laugh. I had a very difficult time getting the crust rolled evenly and smoothly and then fitting it into the pie pan. Oh well- I'll hope for a better result next time but at least the inside was good. We spent Thanksgiving at my Aunt Martha and Uncle Glenn's house, and it was delightful as ever. The boys always so enjoy being with family!

The newlyweds! Carrie and Brent!

Grandma and Grandpa eating with the crazy 3-year olds

Marnie and Carrie

Aunt Marnie reading to John, Howie, and Pax

This is just because I thought my nephew John looks hilarious. Here he is, playing in Grandma's basement with Howie, saying "cheese" as enthusiastically as he can for the camera

Harry Potter, Interrupted... The Tale of a Date Night Gone Wrong

On top of the lovely surprise party Josh threw for me (see below), he also took me to see Harry Potter #7 on opening day! (yes, they picked my birthday for the opening of Harry Potter. That means something.) We went to a local theater called The Moolah on the campus of St Louis University- it was such a fun place to go because you can sit on couches (if you get there early enough) and eat food and drink beer- not your normal movie theater fare. We were very excited to go there and see the movie!! So we gave the boys their dinner and put them in bed and left them sleeping in the care of our dear friend John, who was so gracious to come sit on the couch and listen for the boys, heaven forbid that they should wake up. We left with plenty of time to get to the show, confident that the boys would sleep peacefully and wouldn't even know John had been there (although we did brief Howie earlier in the day so he wouldn't be freaked out if he did wake up. Unfortunately that's not possible for Justice... oh wait, is this foreshadowing?). Our overconfidence was our first mistake, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We got to the theater with 30 minutes to spare, but we were still the second-to-last people in a very long line. So obviously our shot at a couch was gone. But we went into the theater undaunted when the doors opened and still got a good seat in the back. I put my phone in the cupholder so I would see it light up if John called. The movie started and was going swimmingly when all the sudden, to my shock and horror, my phone lit up. John was calling. Oh dear. Not good. I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Justice was awake and inconsolable. (An aside: Justice has always been somewhat of a fireball. He has known what he wanted since Day One, and he has always made it known. Usually what he wants is Mama. When he wakes up all the way usually only Mama can get him to go back to sleep. So waking up to a strange man? Not a chance that he would go back to sleep. Not a chance.) So Josh answered John's call, and proceeded to talk to him a couple times in the next 30 minutes while John tried to settle Justice. All for naught, we thought, so we left the theater and got in the car to head home. (This all started maybe a little less than halfway through the movie.) As we were pulling out of the theater John called back and said that Justice had gotten quiet after John put a movie on for him to watch, and he was able to lay him back in his crib and so far no more noise. So John told us to go back into the movie theater and finish the movie. So we re-parked the car and ran back inside (don't forget that we had read the book, so we had a basic idea of what was going on). We sat peacefully for probably 10-15 minutes when I saw my phone light up. Again. This time we knew it was for real. There was no going back, no finishing the movie. It was over. So we left for the last time to go home probably about 30 minutes from the end. Justice had woken up and was quite upset that Mama still wasn't home. Poor John got much more than he bargained for and was so gracious. Oh well. We decided to netflix the movie when it comes out and for the next several years just hold our breath on date night! It was fun anyway! Such is life with little kids in the house!

Surprise Party!!

My birthday was November 19th, and it was very well-celebrated! Josh threw me a surprise party, complete with 45 friends (counting kids!) in our very packed apartment and delicious Mexican food! It was such a blast! I've got to say that Josh was acting a wee bit suspicious all day, but he did a wonderful job- it was so much fun! Thanks to my friend Coralie for these photos!

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE??

In truly Josh fashion, all of our friends came to the microphone (Josh did manage to procure a microphone) to announce the Mexican dish they brought to the party. Here Lisa displays her glorious food.

Mary Beth with some luscious cupcakes

John with Corona- always a safe bet

Our awesome new neighbors Justin and Danielle

Our wonderful friend Dick from church- he brought some fabulous tacquitos

Add a lot of kids to the mix and you get some serious craziness!

Thanks to everyone who came! It was such a blast!