Questions...

Is today the day I am going to have a baby?
Should I vacuum ONE MORE TIME?
What if my water breaks while I'm at Fareway or Target?
What will it be like to be able to bend over again?
Should I Swiffer the kitchen floor even though I scrubbed it just the other day?
Is this baby a BOY or a GIRL?!
Which doctor will deliver the baby?
Will baby like it's new room better than the womb?
Will I ever sleep again?
How long will I be in labor?
Will the baby have dark hair like it's mom and dad?
What will it be like to hold him or her for the first time?
When will my clothes fit again?
What will it be like to be able to see my feet again?!
Will the baby have really long legs and arms like it's dad? (It sure feels like it!)
How much will the baby weigh?
What day of the week will he or she be born?
What will Simon think of having a baby around?

How much longer do I have to wait to find out the answers to these questions?!?!?

Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him; (Lamentations 3:22-25)

FULL TERM!

Wow! I can hardly believe that I am 37 weeks along! Sometimes it seems like we've been anticipating this babe forever and sometimes it seems like it's snuck up on me. I'm really thankful for the way that the Lord has worked out every detail of this season of life. It gives me great comfort to know that this has all been a part of HIS plan and purpose for our lives. Proverbs 19:21 says: Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. I'm confident that God has a great purpose in all of this for Jed and I and for this little person and their future. In Psalm 139, David writes

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.

I love knowing that this little lady or lad is even more precious to God than he or she is to us! He knows if it's a boy or a girl, He knows what their name is and whether or not they will have dark curly hair like their parents. He knows their temperament, their smile, their eye color, where they will go to college and everything else!

I was reading through John the past few weeks and I came across this verse that was encouraging to me from chapter 16: When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. I was talking about it with a good friend of mine today who is also expecting a baby in August and she pointed out the excitement that this verse gave her because in the ESV translation it talks about bringing a human being into the world. Other translations use the word "baby" or "child" but the idea of bringing a human being into the world really made it seem much more real. In the NIV instead of "sorrow" it just plainly says "pain" - so I'm promised both pain but then JOY because of this new life. I'm honestly excited for both. I'm looking forward to labor being a memory and something that is over with because then I will know what it's like instead of it being scary and unknown and obviously I'm looking forward to the joy of meeting our baby finally!

Here we are at 37 weeks...

!!!!!!

Happy birthday Emmy Emmy Ann!

Happy 25th birthday! I'm so thankful for you! I love you!

Holiday weekend!

Even with it being summer and not working, I was definitely excited to celebrate a long holiday weekend with my husband and family. Jed got off early on Thursday and had Friday and Monday off from work - an extra long weekend to enjoy! We hit the road north to Minnesota on Friday mid morning (after an oil change debacle, Simon running away briefly and stopping in Ankeny to renew a drivers license). It was a quick trip and Simon did a great job in the car!
I didn't take very many pictures during the weekend except for on our golf outing on Saturday. My parents got both of us new sets of golf clubs for Christmas this year. I haven't gotten much use out of mine yet but Jed has really enjoyed taking on the sport! It was a GORGEOUS day on Saturday and it was fun to spend the afternoon outside enjoying the great weather! I didn't golf but I did drive the golf cart, which was pretty fun too!

I wish I would have gotten a good picture of him driving or putting instead of pitching the ball out of the sand pit - sorry babe!
After finishing their 9 holes, Jed and my mom returned the golf carts and decided to make ANOTHER tee time for Sunday afternoon too. No one golfed quite as well on Sunday but it was still fun. The rest of the weekend was spent eating LOTS of delicious food, visiting with extended family and watching the Twins vs. Brewers series on TV. Saturday night, our friends Seth and Heather made a pit stop on their midwest tour and stayed over at my parents with us. It was fun to catch up and talk about our upcoming BABIES!
Monday we got on the road and decided we needed to stop at the outlet mall and I'm so glad we did! We got a few good deals for baby and some awesome deals for Jed! Jed insisted that we needed matching 4th of July shirts to wear to celebrate the holiday and I found some at Old Navy - a tshirt and a tank top for $3.58 TOTAL! I'm glad to have only spent that much because I was not quite as thrilled at the idea as my husband was :) but everyone thought it was pretty funny. We couldn't get a good picture of our matching shirts on our own but Robin got one when we got to the 4th of July celebration out at the church camp.
Ridiculous.