Baby Shower!!

This morning was my first baby shower, thrown by a handful of the women from Jonathan's family. It was totally lovely, very Christ centered, and it was great to see some people that I haven't seen since our wedding (and it was very hard to talk and fellowship with them then!). We also got some great stuff that we were very happy to get, especially some items for the nursery that Jonathan really, really wanted (and yes, I wanted it too!).

Here are some pictures:

This is the cake table, with a close-up below

Decorations in the living room:

Our cousin Natalie, who did a really sweet devotional instead of a game, which I loved. She had a piggy bank and a basket of gold dollar coins with a card that listen a virture, along with a short prayer and verse. We then passed the piggy bank and deposited our "blessings" into the bank, and prayed each virtue for our little girl. It was very meaningful and was my favorite part of the shower.

This is my 2nd cousin (and the newest addition to the family), Katie. She and our little one will be about five months apart. She has the craziest hair, but she was so cuddly and cute (and yes, she had two blowouts while we were there, so yes, we know about that part, too!).

And of course a picture of the mommy-t0-be, at her most exhausted state I've been in at a long time, but at a happy 31 weeks.

It's a Miracle!

I shouldn't use that word, but at this stage, sleeping through the night certainly feels like a miracle! I haven't slept all night in ages, and it felt so wonderful! I should enjoy it while it lasts, because I know it won't happen much from here on out for the next few months. :-)

It is definitely a calmer week than last week; I'm taking X to the doctor today, as she has not been herself in awhile - she's lost weight and isn't sleeping, but is tired and cranky all day. Then Jonathan and I get to go back to the OB Wednesday morning, the kids are out of school on Friday, and we head down to Columbia for five days Friday night! It should be a good weekend; Jonathan's dad will be in town, I have my first baby shower, a Premier Designs' Leadership Club dinner Tuesday night, we are working for MaMa for at least a day, and it looks as if both of Jonathan's parents will be leaving on Sunday, so we'll have the house to ourselves for a couple of days, and the downtime is much needed right now! I can't believe April is nearly over... where has the time gone!

And... we hit 30 weeks on Sunday! 3/4 of the way there! Woohoo! I keep dreaming about her... we are so looking forward to her coming (but not too soon!).

Here's some new pictures of us and the kiddos - enjoy!

What a Week!

Phew! I'm so glad it is Saturday! The boys are going roller skating this morning, so it just leaves us with the four girls for awhile. It has been a crazy week - field trips, DSS visits, my trip to the hospital, getting one of our girls ready to leave when her adoption is finalized in the next week or so, keeping the house up to DHEC and licensing standards for a surprise inspection we know is coming soon, doctor's visits to have warts removed and tonsils checked, training new volunteers... argh! It was busy!

It's been a good week, too; we've paid off two more of our smaller debts this month (a total of nine in the past two months), we had a ball yesterday afternoon cleaning house with all the kids (did you know you can clean a 6500 sq foot house in about two hours when you have seven kids helping out?), so if the weather holds, we'll go out for ice cream this afternoon. I'm feeling 100% better than I have in the past couple of weeks, everyone is finally well after about 2 1/2 weeks of a very nasty gastrointestinal bug. Then to top it off, Jonathan and I got to have a free date last night - we'd been given a gift card to the movies for Christmas, so we even splurged and got concessions, which we never do. However, that is the last movie we see in the theater until baby comes; I simply cannot sit for two hours in a chair without my tailbone lighting on fire!

I've also finally started on our daughter's baby blanket this week (I know, I know - it's a little late!), and Jonathan has put the nursery up and is probably 90% done with it. It's also been a week of dreaming - future jobs, saving a down payment for a house and how long that will take when we are debt free (this is of course after we start saving for retirement and a college fund for Baby Rogers), when we would want to start trying for Baby #2, etc. We're content here, but it is fun to plan for the future as well.

When Jonathan downloads pictures from the digital camera, I'll have some more pictures to post, but none right now. Have a blessed day, and I'm off to get the kiddos up before the toddlers wake up Jonathan!

My Day Didn't Go As Planned...

...when it includes a trip to the hospital for contractions.

Yep, you read right. I'm now the proud "owner" of a pre-term labor scare. Very not fun to wake up in the middle of the night hurting and wondering "is this a contraction or not", 'cause I've never had them before! But after about 8 in two hours, I called the OB and he told me to go on in. Needless to say, Jonathan is praying that Baby Rogers will be born in the day or at least after seven o'clock in the morning. Dragging him out of bed was not nearly as easy as getting one of the other houseparents on the campus to come crash on the couch.

The good parts of today? Well, it was a great trial run of what "B-Day" will be like; everything went perfectly smooth as we checked into the hospital and we even got to ride the special reserved "Mom Express" elevator up the 4th floor (which is the OB floor and yes, the elevator even has a sign on it with that). People, if you are pregnant, register early at your hospital! It makes emergency trips like this go so much easier and quickly!

But anyway, we were lead straight into our room, where I changed and was fitted with the fetal monitor. About five minutes into listening to our daughters heartbeat, yep, there came another contraction! I was so glad I had one there and that quick - I was scared they were going to think of me as the crazy-first-time-mother-who-thinks-every-ache-and-pain-is-labor. I had two more within 30 minutes, but by that time, they were pretty sure they knew what was causing my pre-term labor: an untreated and undiagnosed UTI. I didn't know that could cause pre-term labor, but yep, about 30-40% of women in their last trimester that have untreated UTI's go into labor early. It even says that in "What To Expect When You're Expecting", which of course I had to look up UTI's when we got home.

So now I'm home, doped up on meds, and though I still have the occasional contraction (they've gotten much, much less as the day has passed), I'm having a love/hate relationship with the medication I'm on. Love it because it keeps baby where she belongs for ten more weeks, but I hate it because it makes me groggy and kind of shaky. But she's been loving the attention; I think she's thrown a party in my uterus because she's been dancing a TON today, especially when she was hooked up to the fetal monitor. But they all say she seems to be perfectly strong and healthy, which makes us glad. The only other real downer I had to deal with today is that I had to postpone a Premier show tonight, but the hostess is a friend and she was very understanding.

Well, I love you all, but this has just about ate up the last part of my energy. I'm think I'm off to shower and go back to bed (and even maybe finish paying the rest of the bills). I'll keep you posted!

Baby Update

We are in our third trimester! Woohoo! I don't look it too much, but I'm sure I'll really pop out soon. But things are going well; I still feel really good and my glucose test came back fine, which is a blessing! So here's the latest preggers picture at 28 weeks:

Challenge! :-)

Good morning, Friends!

I wanted to pass this over to y'all; as you know, we are working hard at gaining financial peace and security in our lives, and wanted to challenge you to a project that we are working diligently on over the next month. I've mentioned before that we are members of Dave Ramsey's MyTotalMoneyMakeover.com. MyTMMO is an online community where you can interact with others who are working on their total money makeover everyday (this includes having an emergency savings account, paying off debt, saving for retirement and college funds, etc)!

Right now, as well as working on paying off our debt, we are working on putting together our families "I love you drawer", in case something were to happen to either of us. That way the family wouldn't have to worry about any kind of money issues. I just wanted to challenge you to do the same thing! See if you can get it done in 30 days or less. If you use the link below you can sign up for a free 30-day membership!

http://www.mytotalmoneymakeover.com/friend

Enjoy!

--Debbie