Nesting

I had read and heard from other women that "nesting" is a common behavior of pregnant women, but I was feeling a little nervous that I have not been doing anything that resembled nesting. I knew that I needed to start getting ready for Maya, but I had zero motivation to do any of the big projects I want to finish before she comes (like finishing the curtains in the office/new guest room). But, as soon as we had our baby shower and I knew we had all kinds of adorable baby clothes coming our way, I was inspired. First, I spent the better part of a day cleaning out the armoire in Maya's soon to be room as well as the dresser that will become her changing table (and finding a new home for all of that stuff!). So then the armoire was ready for all her cute little bitty clothes but I was unsure about how I would find baby hangers to hang everything on. If I lived in America, I would hop in the car and head to WalMart. Sometimes around here the most simple WalMart kind of item can be rather elusive and I was expecting to find that to be the case with the baby hangers. My plan was to go the "The 500 Store". This is kind of like the dollar store, but the day that I went there, they were mysteriously closed. On a whim I thought that a grocery store near the 500 Store might have hangers, so Matt and I went in , (me trying not to be too hopeful, so as not to be disappointed if there werent' any), but to my delight, we found these:

They only had a few bundles of five, so we bought all the baby hangers they had and for some strange reason, I was SO excited about these hangers! When we got home I hung them all up in the armoire and felt much more prepared for motherhood somehow. Then a group of visitors arrived bearing multiple suitcases full of adorable things for Maya from the shower that we just had. Bedding, clothes, hair bows, blankets, shoes and more! This girl could open her own boutique already!

And then Matt investigated what the uses were for several of the items we received:

What is a bottle brush for?

Why does she need a personal grooming kit?
Oh, now I see!

After doing mountains of pink laundry for the past few days (it was fun to wash such cute little things!) I decided today that I would clean all of the windows in our house, both inside and out. I don't know what came over me. They haven't been cleaned in a LONG time. Living on the 8th floor, this is no small (or always safe) task. It didn't exactly get done, and let me just show you why:

the door/windows in our bedroom

Windows in Maya's room . . .

And in the office/guest room

and the balcony door in the office/guest room

doors from the kitchen to the pantry/laundry room/storage room . . .

windows in the actual pantry/laundry room

sliding doors to the balcony from the dining room
sliding doors to the balcony from the living room . . .

and finally the living room windows.

So basically, I managed to wash the windows in the office/guest room, Maya's room, and the outside of our room. And then I was so tired I laid down on the living room floor and went to sleep. No wonder I have never tried this all at once before. This is a case of nesting gone wrong. Incidentally I have taken at least 2 more naps since then (as in 2 more naps all in the same day). I didn't even get 50% done! I should have gone to find more hangers instead!

She is Growing . . . 28 weeks!

SHOWERED WITH LOVE!

Today we had the most unlikely baby shower! Our good friends Alan and Amy, along with a whole host of wonderful people from Faith Memorial Baptist church gave us a baby shower for Maya Grace--via Skype! I looked up the definition of shower, and here are some of the meanings: to bestow liberally or lavishly, to deluge a person with gifts, favors, etc., to bathe in, to rain in a shower. That is exactly what this group of believers did for us. They LIBERALLY and LAVISHLY deluged us with gifts and with their love.

Getting set up for the arrival of a new baby is a very expensive and kind of daunting task here, and to be honest, after looking in a few stores at some baby items, I had become quite discouraged about the whole thing (and this is coming from a girl who loves to shop!). But Jesus is so faithful and so kind that through our friends Alan and Amy, He inspired this fellowship of people that we have never even met, to reach out to us as the Body of Christ and literally, shower us with blessings, with love, and with their support. This child will now certainly be the cutest dressed baby in the country!! And, Maya now has more aunties and grandmas than she will be able to count for many years!

It has been so hard to be away from our families for this long (it's been well over two years since we've seen many of our immediate family members) but we have also seen Jesus words' become so real to us when He promises: "and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much . . . (matt. 19.29). We are so humbled by the way this church chose to sacrificially give in order to love and bless us, and we're so moved that our Heavenly Father cares enough about our needs to meet them in such an extravagant and unlikely way--and not only to meet our needs, but to bless us with so much more than we could ask or imagine.

Faith Memorial, we can't wait to meet you all in person, and we thank you so much for counting us part of your family and loving us in this way! Alan and Amy, thank you for being the catalyst for this outpouring of love, and for your continued love and support. Words are not enough and it sounds so trite, but words are the best we can do, and so again, we say--thank you.

it was so cute how they displayed all of the gifts in the crib!

our wonderful hostesses for the shower

they projected their laptop screen so everyone could see us

25 Weeks

Well, here I am at 25 weeks. . . I feel a lot bigger than I look in this picture though! :)

This Girl Can Move

Well, don't worry, that title is not self-descriptive. I'm talking about our daughter in utero-Maya. The girl is all over these days, letting me know she is there and ALIVE! I clearly remember the first time that i felt her move (of course because I didn't write it down, i have no idea when that happened). I had decided that I was going to lay down on the floor, and be really still, and concentrate really hard, and maybe I would feel her move. It was unclear at first whether I was feeling baby movement or just normal digestion, but after rolling on my sides and pushing where I thought I felt something, the feeling moved around to different places and I knew for the first time, I had felt my child move! It so exciting! Since then it has become MUCH more obvious when she is moving, and now she's to the point where any time I am sitting down for very long, I can count on her "waking up" and stretching her legs. All this to say, I have felt kind of bad for Matt all this time, because it's like I've had this special secret exchange with our daughter that he has been left out of. Of course he also got left out of a lot of other special things, like the months of vomiting, the growing pains, the tossing and turning, the leg cramps and twitching, and most recently the tossing and turning. But this special thing I really wanted to be able to share with him, because it felt like such an important confirmation that indeed, there is a little HUMAN growing inside of me and she wakes up when she wants and she sleeps when she wants and she is getting bigger and stronger. So, with all of this in mind, and after weeks of waiting for those little nudges to get big enough for him to feel, I was determined that he too, would feel Maya kicking. I laid down on the couch, and waited until she was in the mood to really kick up her heels, and had him come and kneel beside me and put both hands on my belly. I had him put some pressure to make sure he didn't miss it. And we waited. . . and waited. . . and then she did it. She kicked (or somersaulted or punched, who knows) enough for him to feel. It was so cool! We waited for her to do it one more time, just to be sure he had felt her. It was so much fun to finally get to share that moment with Matt after weeks of feeling her on my own, and always reporting to him, "She's kicking now!". I'm looking forward to many more moments like that where we look at each other in wonder over something our child has done. We're still pretty easily impressed though, at this point, all she has to do is move around to get us teary-eyed!

5 Years Together!!!

We celebrated 5 years of marriage this past week!!! We have both commented on how it feels like we've been together forever, and we can't imagine life without "us". For our anniversary, my sweet husband planned a two-night getaway to a nice hotel up in the mountains and it was wonderful!!! He knows me soooo well, and knew that at almost 6 months pregnant, it was time to get his hot (literally) mama out of the city and into some cooler temps!

For all of you fellow Kansans, it was like getting to flee the summer heat of Kansas for Colorado! (only we have a LOT more humidity here, and only A/C in certain rooms of the house, excluding THE KITCHEN and bathrooms, and public transportation doesn't have A/C, plus we do a good bit of walking . . . sorry, end of whining). Anyway my man planned to take me away from all of that to a really nice hotel up in the ski-resort area of our country. We actually accidentally skied down a run to this resort last winter, only to find out that it is a private lift back up, only for hotel guests (which is kind of an inconvenient time to learn such information, after you have skied down what i nicknamed "the hill of death"). After a short break and an expensive bottle of water that we shared four ways at the lodge, the lift guy was nice enough to let us ride the lift back out of the area to the public areas for the ordinary folks.

So . . . matt took me to that resort for our anniversary get-away! As we drove out of the city up and up and up, the temperature dropped steadily until it was about 20 degrees cooler up on the mountain!!! We drove around with our windows down and i even wore a sweater one evening as we strolled around the hotel grounds!! For this constantly sweaty and overheating woman, it was a DREAM!!! There were a few times I got a little nervous because I couldn't seem to catch my breath (the air sure is thinner up there), but it was totally worth it!

When we arrived in our room we were initially disappointed b/c our room was pretty small with a very uninspiring view (and let me just say that during the summer, because of all of the tourists from all over the MEast and the world, hotel rooms are CRAZY expensive EVERYWHERE around here, so matt had forked out some cash for this little room that was practically in the basement) and matt was real disappointed and felt we were being WAY overcharged for the room. BUT, it all turned for the better when we realized that our room rate included not just a huge (and delicious) breakfast buffet, but also a second meal, either lunch or dinner, for each night that we stayed! We only had to eat out one meal the whole time we were there and the shower had AMAZING water pressure, there was a great pool that matt swam in twice (he LOVES to swim) and I swam with him once. We laid around and watched TV and read and it was a wonderful way to celebrate our anniversary.

Right after we got back into town we had a Dr's appointment and got to see our little Maya swimming and dancing around, healthy as a horse, so it was a great end to our weekend away, looking at what our marriage has produced and generally being in awe at all that it has meant to us (and hopefully to others) these past 5 years!!!

Baby Picture