So Much To Blog, So Little Time...

So this past week has been wonderfully insane.

On Friday we closed on our new little house in downtown Richmond, and spent Saturday moving in. My Mom came and helped me finish the packing of the downstairs on Thursday and then Friday and Saturday we packed up the rest of the stuff before our amazing friends came to help us move Saturday morning. 2 hours before everyone was supposed to come to start loading the moving truck, we were in the middle of a serious thunderstorm, but God made it let up just in time, and we had clear weather for the rest of the day. It only took us 3 hours to move all of our things from the apartment into the house, and I also can't say enough about Diana Trantham, Diane Mulikin and Ashley Sliver for helping me do some pre-cleaning before all our stuff came to the house. I never would have gotten it done in time. I have a serious problem overestimating what I can accomplish on my own at 8 months pregnant. TJ's parents came later in the day and helped us unpack and even did some work in our backyard gathering limbs! We are so blessed to have such great family and friends. :-)

Sunday church was great, we had 3 services and it was a wonderful Easter. We spent the day at my Mom's so we could rest and not feel like we needed to be unpacking more of our things. Mom hid some eggs in the front yard and Siah had a great time finding them all.

Then Monday it was back to unpacking - TJ took a personal day, and I'm so thankful. By the end of Monday our backyard and house looked TONS better. There's still plenty to do, but almost all of the boxes are unpacked. At least the ones that don't belong in the basement. And those need to be organized. But since I'm not allowed to really try to lift them, I'm choosing not to think about it. We're also planning to paint at least the living room this weekend (if the doctor tells me it's ok for me to be around the paint, as long as I'm not breathing it while the painting is being done) and then I can finally hang stuff on the walls! And we can get curtains! And it will feel even more like home! I don't know if it's nesting or what, I'm just so anxious to get all the decorating, unpacking, and organzing done right now. Which is not humanly possible with our schedules and my enormous belly/diminished energy. :-)

Tomorrow is a Baby Ballet doctor's appointment, and from here on out it's an appointment every week! We're almost there!

The Facts of My Life

These are the facts of my life/things I'm thankful for.

1. Baby Ballet will be here in 5 weeks and 3 days. Holy Crap.
2. We are moving into our new house in 4 days.
3. Worship yesterday was amazing, both in church and at Pulse. I love worship so much.
4. Baby Ballet is more aggressive in the kicking department than Siah was. I think she'll do just fine handling him as an older brother. I do anticipate quite a little attitude to go with it, but I can't pretend I don't know where she'll get it from. :-)
5. I'm so thankful for so many people to help us pack, clean and move into our new house. We are blessed to have such a great church family and friends.
6. This past weekend was the first full weekend TJ has had off in I-honestly-can't-remember-how-long and I had an amazing dinner date with my husband. We never ran out of things to talk about.
7. Next weekend is Easter, and I'm super excited about church.
8. I'm having to fight a compulsive need to clean before I pack, instead of the other way around.
9. Josiah has not had an accident in a week, and he asks to go to the potty now.
10. That's all I have, but for the sake of an even 10, I could really go for a cranberry/sprite slush from Sonic right now.

Yesterday evening was rather exciting. We went to a going away party at a friend's house for Clark (he's going to be going to a ministry college and working in Ohio, I think, until then to save up money) . As tends to happen when you mesh 3 toddlers and a 5 year old with lots of toys and balloons, accidents happen. In this case, Josiah walked between a plastic bat and the balloons that were being batted. Poor little guy, he got caught right at the corner of his eyebrow, and it immediately swelled up like crazy. After lots and lots of tears, he finally decided he wanted to play again, so we stayed and he played with a Barbie "scooter-trash" for a while. "Scooter-trash" is what his Grandpa and Uncle Joe have taught him is the proper term for scooters and vespas. :-) We came home and I put ice on his eye while we watched Toy Story, and it looked sooo much better this morning. He's my little tough guy.

We have 10 days until the closing of our new house. Holy Cow. TJ and I are beyond excited about moving into our new house, and I can't wait to be there, but I hate packing so much. Fortunately, my amazing husband has been arranging a "packing day" with my family and friends for me, so that I'll have lots of help. In the meantime, I'm trying to pack several boxes up everyday, which is not as easy as you might think with a toddler trying to "help". And by help, I mean unpack. :-) But we are getting there, my walls are starting to look a little bare and things continue to be organized and purged, which I keep reminding myself is the biggest part of packing. We'll be closing on Good Friday, TJ will paint our living room that night, and we'll move in Saturday! Then we'll have 5 weeks until the baby gets here, which feels like a good amount of time to get a little bit of settling done. Maybe I'm being overly optimistic. I am going to be 9 months pregnant.

Oh Potty Training

I hate potty training so much. Maybe I should back that statement up a little bit. I really don't enjoy potty training. It could be a lot worse, Siah is doing pretty well all things considered, but I'm so ready to be done. The last 3 days I've put him in underwear and tried to get him to use the potty. The first day we had 4 accidents. Ugh. The second day we had 2 accidents, and today we've had 1 that might not count. So we are making progress. I'm still asking him if he needs to go, and taking him when I start to get nervous, but he's starting to ask me to go. The frustrating thing is that I know he knows when he needs to go. For a while he was asking me to go to the potty, but then I guess the excitement of it wore off and now he would rather keep playing with his toys. Fortunately, he doesn't like to be wet, so he tells me as soon as he has an accident. The one accident we had this morning happened when he came to me and said, "Potty". So I felt his pants and thought they were a little wet and that he had had an accident. So I took him to the bathroom, and told him to take his pants off while I grabbed a new outfit and underwear. I returned to find him sitting on his potty, fully clothed. He stood up and pointed down, and I realized that he had used the potty through his jammies. Apparently he forgot about pulling his pants down. So I'm starting to think that my original conclusion was wrong and he had maybe leaked before he went to the potty for real. Naturally, Mommy Guilt set in. My old friend. :-)

But now I am finally enjoying my cup of coffee - it has become so much more precious now that I'm completely down to one cup of caffeine a day, more on that some other time - and have decided to tell Mommy Guilt to beat it. We're doing fine, and we're just going to start over from now and keep going until Siah learns to do this potty thing completely. My mom keeps telling me not to worry, he'll be using the bathroom by the time he goes to kindergarten. Somehow, not so comforting. :-)

Cherished Outreach ~ March!

Well I'm just going to jump right into it. We had a really amazing visit to the club last night. My friend Stephanie came with me for the first time, and she did so great. The wonderful ladies at First Baptist put together some cute spring mugs filled with Reese's eggs for the girls and cookies for the guys that were a hit. A couple of ladies came and met with Steph and I at church before our visit to pray over us, over the visit, and the people we would meet, and we are definitely making that a regular thing. I know that there are lots of people praying for us as we go out, and we definitely pray before we go in, but there was something even sweeter about coming together with more women to intercede for this ministry.

We went in pretty much right after they opened, so for most of the time we were there they had no customers. We talked briefly with a waitress who was on her phone out front when we got there, and she seemed surprised and pleased that I remembered her name. The guys (security/bartender) were back to their usual polite-but-not-chatty selves, and we were really suprised to find 3 girls in the dressing room hanging out and getting ready. Lately they've stayed out of the dressing room, staying on the floor waiting for customers. One of the girls even mentioned as we were leaving that they needed to hurry up and get out there, because they aren't supposed to spend a lot of time in the dressing room.

As soon as we walked in the other waitress (as far as I know she's still not dancing) "A" lit up with a smile and hugged me when I asked if she remembered me. She has been gone for the last few months, and I found out that she has been recovering from a very serious surgery. Apparently she accidentally got in the middle of a bar fight a few months ago and ended up with several broken and fractured bones that required surgery. She said that it was her first night back, and we ended up talking for a long time. She's in the Reserves and found out that in 3 months she'll be shipping out for another year-long tour. She's not scared, and is excited about the chance to save the money she'll make while she's away, and even mentioned wanting to take one of Mom's history classes when she gets back (she met and talked with Mom for a long time in November). She's such a sweet girl and seems so out of place there. We talked almost the whole time Steph and I were there, and I ended up sharing my contact info with her because she hasn't really been able to make any friends in town and says she needs 'girl time'. I really hope she'll get in touch with me so we can spend more time together.

Stephanie did a great job, she went into the dressing room with me and ended up having this incredible conversation with the other 2 girls that were there. I was so glad she came, especially knowing that they probably wouldn't have connected with me the way they did with her, and was reminded how much God uses our story to reach out to others. In the course of their conversation, both girls opened up about their addictions and one told Steph her heartbreaking life story. Steph pointed out that compared to everything she's been through, dancing must not seem like a bad thing at all. This woman is trying to get clean, but please pray for her. The other girl shared that she was using anything she could and "didn't want to function". Every time we go in I'm reminded again that everyone there is walking around with more pain and open wounds than we could ever see.

Last month we passed out cards good for a free hair cut with Stephanie, and the DJ and his girlfriend both made appointments for today! Keep Stephanie in your prayers, and pray that their experience is a good one. When we talked to the DJ last night he said that if he and his girlfriend don't go home for the weekend, they'll be at church this Sunday. So there's a lot to pray about! Thank you to all of you who have been and continue to be so encouraging and supportive of this ministry, especially with your prayers.

Well team, it's been a great weekend/start to the week. Saturday we had our first women's conference at the Vineyard, and it was so great. There were about 35 women there, and I really enjoyed the chance to hang out and get to know the faces I see every week, but don't know very well. Mom gave a great talk about the household of God, and I was really encouraged to have a Paul/Barnabas and a Timothy in my life. I've felt strongly about the importance of mentoring and discipleship ever since my involvement with Campus Outreach. I grew so much as a result of meeting regularly with a mentor and learning from her wisdom and example, and doing bible studies together. Mom explained to us that it's important to have a Paul/Barnabas (someone further along in their faith or life that you can meet with for encouragment and counsel - someone who is not a 'yes' man, but can get in your face when you're in the wrong) and a Timothy (someone that you encourage), citing Titus 2:3-5:

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers, or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God".

Then we heard testimonies from Stephanie Liby, myself, and Margaret Thornberry about life, love and legacy. It was really cool and I was inspired to have faith that moves and a legacy that pleases God.

This Sunday the whole experience at church: worship, sermon, and fellowship were all amazing. Hearing testimonies about a revival and awakening happening in Richmond was so awesome, and I love worshipping at the Vineyard so much more than should be allowed. I can't wait to see where we're headed next. Without going into too much detail, it's also been a great day today of wrestling with biblical principles. Not that I necessarily enjoy feeling like maybe God is asking me to do something differently than I've always thought was right. But I'm so thankful that when I come to God with a question about his will and seek him, he answers. I hate saying something that gets said all the time, but God is faithful. I guess if the angels can say Holy Holy Holy for all eternity, I can say God is faithful, even if people get tired of it. :-)

And finally, we found out today that everything is done and we can close on our house! We're still waiting until the end of April, but I'm so excited all the paperwork stuff and loan application are done! I got some flower seeds at the women's conference and I can't wait to start planting them in front of our little house. Happy summer ahead!

Houses and Panic Attacks

So obviously, it's been a long time since I've posted. There's been a lot going on, but I didn't want to talk about it and have things not work out. We've been looking for a house, and couple of weeks ago, we went back to the very first house we looked at. I had immediately loved this house, but TJ didn't like very much. Somehow, though, he kind of came around and now loves it just as much, if not more than I do! So we went to see it a second time, with Papa, and made sure we would be able to make the remodeling adjustments we'd like to, before we made an offer. Then we made an offer, and came to an agreement (after the typical haggling). :-)

Then came the real hassle. We went to get all the paperwork together to send in our mortgage application. Which would have been fine, but somehow a couple of my parents' loans with another bank showed up on my credit report. So the mortgage loan officer needed a letter from my parents' bank/credit bureau stating that my social security number was not affiliated in any way, shape or form - now or ever - to those account numbers. But you would have thought that these were the nuclear launch codes, it was so hard to get that stupid letter. I did get a letter stating that we had brought this error to their attention and that it was being disputed and fixed, but it had no specific information (i.e. account numbers or ss numbers). And I understand that they're trying to protect everyone's privacy and keep from getting sued, but it took almost a week to get this taken care of! First our friend at the bank tried to deal with the credit bureau people, and went back and forth with them, and then I finally got their number and after convincing two seperate people that I had, in fact, called the right department, we got down to writing the letter I needed. So after getting my permission to fax a letter with my social security number and my mother's account numbers (they didn't need her permission for some reason, go figure) to our mortgage loan officer, it's finally taken care of. But it was a little stressful. So now we're just waiting for them to process our application and for the house to be inspected/appraised! When we close, I'll feel good enough to post some pictures. But for now, I'm feeling kind of superstitious about showing pictures before the deal is 100% done. Our closing date will be April 29th, and we get to take possession right away. So we'll move in, and I'll have about a month before we have a baby. Talk about a busy couple of months.

Then in the middle of dealing with all of this stuff, I get a text message at 2:00 am one night from TJ saying that he almost went to the ER from work, because they thought he was having a heart attack. Talk about waking up quickly. TJ's always trying to do more than he should with church, on top of our house/mortgage stuff, and working 70-80 hours a week, and while he was at work he had gotten an email from one of the board members at church asking him to coordinate a remodeling job for the children's area. And apparently that just sent my poor husband over the edge, and he couldn't breathe, turned bright red, and freaked out his co-workers to the point they had him in the car before they realized he wasn't having a heart attack. So he's stepping back from some of the teams he helps out with at church, and the next night a couple of his co-workers brought him brown paper bags that had his name on them and said "Just Breathe". :-) Like I said, a lot going on.

Baby Ballet continues to get bigger and is still kicking me like crazy. This week though, one of my least favorite parts of pregnancy kicked in: acid reflux. I read somewhere that if you have a lot of acid reflux, it means your baby will have a lot of hair, and that was definitely true for Josiah. The doctor literally vacuumed out my uterus after Siah was born trying to clean up all the hair. It seems that Baby Ballet will also be born with a full head of hair. But I know I won't be complaining when we get to put the cute bows in her hair. I can't wait!