One more trimester to go!

I decided it's been way too long time since I did a pregnancy update. First of all, we finally decided on a first name for our little man - Paxton. It means peace town, but we chose it mostly because it is unique and one we both liked. We still have to decide on a middle name, but I'm in no rush for that. I will say that I'm so much more laid back with this pregnancy. With Mason I knew exactly how far along I was and really kept up with where he was each week developmentally. But this go around I can't seem to keep up with where I am in the pregnancy unless I consult my pregnancy app. Currently I am 28.5 weeks along, but this preggo picture to the left was from a month ago. I've got to take another belly shot so Paxton doesn't get gipted in his baby book.

Pregnancy has been SOO much better the past month! I finally completely got over my nausea in the early part of January. I ended up being sick 4 more weeks with Paxton than I was with Mason. It was a miserable first part of the pregnancy, but I feel great now! I did end up with a cold that hung around for 2 weeks the first of February, but I'll take that over nausea any day.

Paxton is moving around like crazy these days, and I've started feeling him get the hiccups. This is definitely my favorite part of the pregnancy! It's amazing to feel our little guy moving around inside of me. With Mason I had a really bad pinched nerve the last 3 months of my pregnancy, but thankfully it isn't bothering me nearly as much this go around. I didn't have trouble with heartburn with Mason so I'm hoping the same holds true this time. The only thing that I struggle with is feeling tired. Which is no surprise because I'm getting up to go to the bathroom a couple times a night; I have a hard time getting comfortable at night (my pillows are starting to take over the bed); and my wonderful sleeper has been getting up at 6:30 bright and shiny the last couple of weeks...oh how I miss the days he slept till almost 8 most mornings. Now that I'm better I've started working on Paxton's baby book, Mason's homemade quiet time book, and working out in the yard. Originally I figured I'd not do as much with my garden this year with a baby coming, but I've changed my mind. It sooths my soul to be outside gardening and this warm weather has really got me going.

Last weekend I went to Oklahoma City for 2 birthday parties and a baby shower. My roommate four years of college (including the semester in Vienna), Jennifer, is having her first baby, Clare. She is the one directly to my right, and I was so glad I was able to go to her shower. The other two girls are college friends as well who are pregnant. Amber on my left in the polka dots is also one of the 6 of us gals that get together every summer. I rented a house with her and our friend Crislyn for a year before I got married (I find it funny that my youngest sister has an apartment with her sister). Then Michelle is another good friend from college who also went to Vienna with us. She was my travel buddy on a 10 day free travel across Spain. I always love catching up with my college gals!

I figured I'd end with a few pictures of Mason.

Leaving a friend from church's 2 year birthday party with his goodies.

My mom came a stayed a few days during the week about a month ago, and Mason wouldn't leave her side. He wanted her to do everything...including change his diaper (He's also like that when he's with Zac's mom). When she left I made the mistake of taking him to wave bye-bye in the driveway. It made him cry which made this hormonal pregnant person cry also! He sure loves his grandmas!

Exhausted

The past 18 days have been a whirl wind. In 18 days I've made 4 trips to Tulsa, a trip to Dallas, and and a short trip to Miami, OK. I came home last night more emotionally and physically exhausted than I ever remember being. I barely managed to eat dinner and shower before crashing in bed. This morning I took Mason to daycare since he missed yesterday and scheduled a 30 minute facial and 1 hour body massage for Saturday. My mom gave me money for a massage for Christmas, and I'm glad I hadn't used it yet. I decided to go ahead and blog about the past 18 days today or it wouldn't get done.
So 18 days ago I got a call from my dad that my grandpa's health had gone downhill fast and he wasn't gonna make it much longer (he had been in the hospital already for a week). So we left the next day to see him in the hospital and say our good-byes. Unfortunately he was out of it, and I don't know if he even knew we were there. We stayed there several hours and then went home. The next day (monday) Kayla went to see him, and she said he was awake and able to move his hands and mumble at you (although you couldn't understand him). So Mason and I loaded into the car and made another trip over see him, and I'm so glad I did. While he was tiring out by the time I got there I know he knew were there because he clasped my hand and tried to talk to me. Throughout that week family started pouring in from all over...Colorado, Minnesota, Texas, and Oklahoma. They had 6 kids...3 of them were their nephews and niece whom they adopted at the age of 3,6, and 9 when their parent died in a car crash. They have 15 grandkids (2 were unable to come) and 4 great grandkids.

That following Saturday Zac and I went back to Tulsa since all the family (minus 2 grandkids) was there...it is a rare occasion for us to all be together. I'm so glad grandpa held on long enough to see everyone, and I think everyone had a moment when they knew grandpa knew they were there. The following week he was out of it most of the time and hospice had taken over. I left Thursday to go to Dallas. I had already planned to visit one of my best friends from college who has a son Mason's age and to go to IKEA. I knew a funeral was on the horizon, but still wanted to go. Friday in Dallas I got the call that grandpa and moved on to a better place, but I stayed there since the funeral wasn't until Tuesday. So we went to Tulsa again yesterday as well as Miami, OK to the cemetery. On top of being sad over losing a very close grandpa (my first grandparent to lose) I had also been worried about a couple people very dear to me that are going through some heartbreaking times...not to mention being an emotional 6 month preggo. Needless to say the lack of sleep, stress, emotions, and cold hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday.

When I went to bed I had a 100 degree temperature, but after sleeping for 11 hours I a lot better. Before I get to the pictures, I will say I am thankful to see how God has been there during these times. My grandpa lived to a ripe age of 81 which is much longer than they originally thought. He lived a great life dedicated to the Lord and to his family. The Wednesday before all this happened I heard a lesson at our women's class at church that prepared my heart for all this. It was about when Jesus wept. He didn't necessarily weep at Lazarus' death (because he knew he would be healed), he wept because he felt the pain in sweet Mary's heart and well as the others. It is comforting to know that there is a God who truly aches for and with us. I've posted some pictures from the past year or so. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of Mason with him the last 2 or 3 times we saw him (I'm kicking myself for the that now!) Mason loved his great Grandpa Bean. Mason is pretty stingy with kisses, but he would always give him and a hug and kiss.

Grandpa Bean was a wonderful hands-on grandpa who will be greatly missed.

Change

Change is never fun, but we decided we might as well get started on the process before we're worn out with another baby added to the mix. So after the holidays we started with the paci or as Mason calls it "bobbie". It was a little hard for me because he said it so cutely and he just loved sleeping with his bobbie.

We decided to cut away a little bit of the paci every couple nights. He knew it wasn't his regular working paci, but it didn't stop him from sucking on it. After about 10 days we finally just decided to take it away completely....he was down to only 1/3 of the nipple (yes he was still somehow sucking on it). We timed it on a night that he was hanging out with a bunch of church kids for 4 hours one afternoon/evening so he was nice and tired. He cried for his bobbie several times, but did end up falling asleep after about 10 minutes of fussing. The next day he fussed for only about 5 minutes. After that he didn't fuss too much, but it did take him a long time to fall asleep (30-45 minutes). That paci was like a sedative, and he would go to sleep almost immediately. Now he would toss, turn, walk around his crib, etc. He still mentions his bobbie everyday, but not in a sad way. He usually says "bobbie bye-bye" or "bobbie go?"

After a week or two of no paci we moved on to the next change...crib. Mason will be sleeping on a twin size bed, but we decided to start with converting his crib to a toddler bed. The first time he had the freedom to move about he played for about an hour. He took clothes out of his drawers, books out of his box, and toys out of his toy box. When he finally fell asleep I found him out on the rocking chair.

Sometimes he will fall asleep on the floor, but usually it's on the chair. I made a little pallet on the floor next to the bed since he usually falls off the bed at night...it doesn't seem to wake him though. We bought a bed rail for the twin bed, but we couldn't use it on this bed because it didn't leave enough room for Mason to get up and down from the bed very well.After a week of the toddle bed I have found him asleep in the bed only twice and one of those times was today. So hopefully this will start becoming the norm. Thankfully he's done pretty well with the changes this month. I just can't believe my baby is getting so big!

Interesting Tidbits

I decided that it was way past time to mention some of the quirky things Mason is up to these days. When Mason was 18 months (he just turned 20 months) I was shocked when he pointed to the letter A on my shirt and said "A". I don't know how exactly he learned that because it's not something I had been working with him on (I had been focusing on colors). But since he seemed so interested in his numbers and letters I decided to go ahead and start. By the end of 18 months he could identify the numbers 0-6 numbers and say 2, 3, 5 as well as say the letters A,B,C,O,S, and I (actually he calls "S" five but I can see how that's confusing). I was blown away because at this point the only animal noises he would make was dog, cow, and elephant (he now does cat, sheep, and lion also). Apparently he doesn't care too much about what the animals say. Now he knows all his numbers to 9 (he still struggles actually saying 6 and 7) as well as many other letters.
Some other interesting things about Mason: He LOVES puzzles; he sticks his tongue out (like my dad) when he is concentrating on something; he loves to wrestle, do "Ring Around the Rosie", and wear hats-especially his yellow lego one; he is very opinionated about the books, movies, puzzles, etc that he wants; he says "no, uhu, no" while shaking his head if he doesn't want to do something; he is in the "mine" phase. Another thing I've been surprised about is his interest in praying. Normally we would just pray before dinner and occasionally lunch as a family, but now we are praying before every meal because if we don't Mason will tell us to. He wont even pray until we are all sitting at the table (unless one of us isn't home). Yesterday I was cooking dinner and while he was standing in the kitchen waiting for me to be done he clasped his hands, bowed his head, mumbled a few words, and then said Amen. He didn't know I was watching but boy did my heart beam for joy! (that was the first he prayed on his own...I guess he was hoping it would make dinner get ready faster) I hope he continues to grow into a spiritual young man!


I have had so much fun with him the past month or two! He is learning new words and doing new things everyday. I am so thankful for my little man! Here is a short video of him saying one of his new words "whoa". I'm pretty sure he learned it from the babysitter.

Seeing Santa

Mason had several opportunities to see Santa this year. First we went to our library (Rogers) to see their Santa and Mrs. Claus. They were so cute, and all the kids were given a super soft Build-A-Bear Reindeer. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures because as soon as we walked closer towards them Mason had a death grip on me and was screaming at the top of his lungs. We got near them for a minute, but I didn't make him sit on his lap this time. Even though he didn't want anywhere near Santa he talked about him the entire drive home (Santa, Santa, ho-ho-ho, etc).

The next day we took Mason to the Fayetteville mall to eat lunch with Zac and try out their Santa. I thought maybe we'd have better results this time since we had just seen him the day before. Here's a video of part of this encounter.

We actually got him to stop crying for a bit, but as soon as we went to put him on Santa's lap he started screaming again.

Five days later Mason had a Christmas party at his Mother's Day Out. I didn't realize it at the time, but it turns out that Santa was there and they had all the kids' pictures taken with him and mailed to us. Here's ours...

I kinda felt bad for our little guy because I really didn't know there would be a Santa at his school. I'd only planned on making him sit on his lap once since it's obviously traumatic for the guy. However when I opened up the card and saw the picture I couldn't help but bust out laughing. He really does love looking at Santa from afar or in pictures, but not up close in personal.

My thoughts

I have been wanting to blog about a book I read about a month that has had a huge impact on me, but have been so overwhelmed about what to say that I have failed to say anything at all. I have reread bits and pieces of the book multiple times and am still often brought to tears. The book is called "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns (theholeinourgospel.com also has several videos about some of the places he's been). It is an inspiring book about a man’s passion for bringing God’s whole gospel to the world.

The Bible talks a lot about how much God loves his creation and especially his children, and you know God’s heart has to be breaking when he sees what so many of his children are going through. The book mentions that 40% of the world’s people make less than $2 a day and that 26,575 children die each day due to mostly preventable causes related to poverty. At first I thought how can God allow his precious people to suffer, but I’ve realized that God is waiting for me to be his hands & feet to these impoverished people. I am reminded of the passage at the end of Matt 25 where it talks about feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, etc... “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” The book mentions a mother in Haiti who was trying to give her children away because they were literally starving to death. As a mother myself I can’t imagine what an awful feeling that must be. It literally breaks my heart!

I am so thankful to have been blessed to likely never have to experience that, but the question is what am I going to do about those that aren’t so fortunate. I can look around my house right now and see so many objects that we don’t really need that could have potentially saved multiple lives across the globe. Over the past month I’ve been thinking how am I going to let this book as well as God’s Word truly change my life. When Jesus walked the earth he spent most of his time healing the sick, broken hearted, oppressed as well proclaiming the heavenly kingdom. 1 John 2:6 says “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” I can sadly say that I have not given enough thought, money, prayer, and the good news to those who are truly in need physically and spiritually. I pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to open my eyes to what needs to be done. One thing is for sure, we need to redo our budget and give more of it away. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him” (1 John 3:17). I have lots of possessions in comparison to much of the world and if God is in me and his heart is breaking for the poor, sick, and oppressed it’s time my heart breaks for them in a way that calls me to action.

I STRONGLY encourage all of you to read the book as well as look at website worldvision.org to find ways to help. There are endless options available besides sponsoring a child from providing livestock, education, water well, etc. While some parts are sad overall it is a very inspiring book! I’m hoping to get The Gospel Quest for Christmas that is a study guide & DVD for those who have read this book and are still trying to figure out “What now”.

"Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now." Saint Teresa of Avila

Cousin Time

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the Bray side of the family! We got there Wednesday night and stayed till Sunday which was nice to not feel so rushed like we do most weekends. God had blessed me with low level nausea the day of and surrounding Thanksgiving so I was able to enjoy the family get togethers. I did throw up two nights at the beginning of the week and two nights at the end of the week so I’m definitely not over the sickness, but it was nice to have a few good days with all the family around.
Zac and I went to the doctor last Tuesday, and the doctor is 99% sure that I’m not having twins based on the size of my uterus. I can stop worrying about that now! J When we were listening to the heartbeat the baby was moving around like crazy. I couldn’t feel it at the time, but you could definitely hear it. It looks like we’re gonna have another active one. Right now I’m 15 weeks and the baby is about the size of a navel orange. Within the past couple days I’ve started feeling fluttering feelings when I’m laying down real still. Hopefully it won’t be long till I can actually feel him/her poking around. BTW we find out the sex December 19th!

Here are some pictures from the past week. I got very few pictures of the adults and none of the awesome spades tournament hosted at the Matthews house (Zac’s aunt).

Saturday Britt, Kayla, and her clam came by for a few hours on their way home from my parents. Mason had a lot of fun with Zane. Zane had him laughing hysterically, and later on Mason wouldn’t stop kissing him.

Of course it wasn’t until Sunday that Mason really started playing with Curryn. I guess he finally decided to forgive her for always taking his toys. The video shows him trying to kind of wrestle with her.

On Monday night we started putting up our Christmas decorations. Of course Mason tried to help. He’s actually done pretty good about not pulling the ornaments off (knock on wood). He has touched them, but not yanked them. It’s taking a lot longer to get everything decorated this year because I can only handle a little bit at a time, but it’s worth it because it just makes the house seem all warm and cozy!

He loves talking on the phone so much that he'll use just about anything!