T minus 3 days and counting

Our doctors appointment went well today. We are scheduled for the c-section Monday, but will not be given a definite time until Sunday. I was told I had the 3rd spot of the morning which is 11:30am. If the other 2 women go in to labor this weekend, then I move up. So we will not know until we get there how long it might actually take. He'll be here by Monday afternoon if not sooner. I am still having contractions and am 2-3 cm dilated so I could go into labor at any time.

I keep teasing Larry that Josiah will be a Super Bowl baby. I actually hope not, the doctor on call this weekend is not one of my favorites, So I'm praying he'll wait until Monday.

So we are T minus 3 Days and counting :)

No News Yet

Hello to all of you and thanks for checking in with us. We've been without Internet for the past 4 days, so I wasn't able to post. We're back online and plan to take the computer to the hospital with us so we can post pictures when our little guy gets here :)

We go back to the doctor tomorrow and will schedule the time for the c-section on Monday. I never thought I would make it this far. We had Eden at 38 weeks, so I was hoping Josiah would come a little early as well. He has dropped and I'm having contractions, but not on a regular enough basis to do any dilating. Maybe he'll come during the Super Bowl Party :)

Eden's first Car

Yaya and PawPaw got Eden her first car for Christmas. Unfortunately, when it arrived it was broken. We had to ship it back and our new car arrived this past week. Granddaddy and Daddy put it together for Eden while she was taking her nap. She was so excited to see it and have Daddy push her around. I don't think she'll be able to get it through the snow outside, so we'll wait for a nice day it try it outside. For now, Daddy is a great motor.

Thank you Yaya and PawPaw. Eden LOVES her pink car :)

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

We had about 2-3 inches of snow this morning. So Daddy took Eden out to enjoy this odd occurrence in Williamston. She really liked it at first, but wanted to go inside after about ten minutes. I will try to get some more photos later today, but I was afraid to get my camera wet. It was snowing pretty hard when I took these :)

As far as my labor goes, Josiah is still kicking and I'm having contractions, but not as regular as yesterday. I skipped the pineapple because I didn't want to have to trudge through the snow to the hospital. Multiple church members have called with the offer of 4 wheeled drive vehicles. And if that's a problem, Roger has offered his horse drawn sled :) Larry said that would be a great story and we would probably make the news if we took that approach. I'm not thinking that will be needed, but it's funny none the less.

Pineapples, Contractions, and Snow

Larry and I made a visit to the OB this morning and have been sent back home. I started having contractions last night and this morning. They are around 10 minutes apart. Unfortunately, this is not enough progression in labor to keep me or to go ahead and do the c-section. The contractions need to be about 5 minutes apart and I need to be dilating more before they will deem it "active labor." I don't know who made up those rules, becasue this sure feels like labor! The doctor said I can go on like this for days, or it could progress quickly. It's all up to God.

So I'm off to eat more fresh pineapple, I read an article in the waiting room how pineapples have a chemical in the that helps progress labor. I ate some last night but evidently didn't eat enough :)

We are supposed to have between 3-6 inches of snow here tomorrow as well. So I am worried about getting family in if the weather gets bad. Thankfully, our church family is AMAZING and will do whatever we need to help out. Eden has so many people who love her and have offered to watch her if we need it. Dalton has offered to take us to the hospital in his 4 wheel drive truck if the weather gets that bad. It's so nice to be so loved and cared for in times like these.

Please pray for us. I want Josiah to go ahead and come, but I also want him to have enough time to grow and his lungs develop. According to the doctors, I'm 37 weeks and 2 days, They will not stop labor if it begin, but they will not encourage it either. Like I said before, all of this is in God's timing. Josiah is His creation and will come when His timing is perfect. Waiting is not easy. But nothing about this pregnancy has been. It will all be worth it when he's here and I can tell him how much he is loved.

Girls night out

Last night I enjoyed a girls night out with Kelly and Andrea. We had a great time!

Our night started with a pedicure. I have wanted a pedicure for weeks now. There is just something about having pretty painted toes that makes you feel like a lady. Well reaching my feet and breathing tend to not happen at the same time lately, so it was either get Larry to paint my toes, which I'm sure he would love to do :) or to get a pedicure.

The whole experience was great except as the workers were trying to figure us out when we first arrived. They thought Andrea, (the one in the center of the picture above) was my daughter!!! Now, I know I look maternal. I'm ready to pop in fact, but Andrea is 25, married and has 2 children of her own that are older than mine!!! I laughed, she has to explain to her guy that she wasn't in school. They thought she was a teenager. It must be nice to look that young :)

After our pampering, we went to a Japanese Steak House and had a delicious dinner. 2 people at our table were having Sushi, I wanted sushi so bad, but that will have to wait a few more weeks. No raw fish while pregnant. Dinner was great, and Larry enjoyed the leftovers.

After dinner, we made the fastest run through Target ever. They close at 10:00, but I was able to get some neat stuff for Eden in the $1 section and some stuff for Josiah that I had been looking for around Williamston, but couldn't find. When I got home I realized I was overcharged for some of my item, so I'll have to go back next week. Durn, Another trip to Target....how sad :):):)

To my amazing husband, Thank you so much for watching Eden and letting me have a night out. I had so much fun and was encouraged by my fellow pastor's wives friends. It was nice to have a grown up dinner :)

Trouble with technology

Larry and I joked that we went back in time this week. Monday our TV started to act up. Our TV was OLD, the color was a little off, but it worked. Well it works no longer. OK so no TV....no big deal. We can use the 19 inch in Josiah's room. I didn't want it to stay in his room anyways.

Then Tuesday we canceled our aircard, which we use for Internet service, because it was just performing so slowly! We live in an area where we can't get high speed, so this was our next option. It was expensive and didn't work well. We decided to try Verizon's aircard because it is supposed to work better. I'll let you know. Anyways, we got the card on Thursday while in Greenville, but it didn't work when we got it home. Larry took it back Friday, and now we're back online. So I had 3 days with no Internet service.

Then the radio in my car decided it wasn't going to work. We had put my car in the shop, I have no idea why it came back with the radio messed up, but the car is old too :) Thankfully it started to work again. So maybe it was just upset with the mechanic that worked on it.

I thought by Wednesday, Gee what did we do before all this technology!!! I had no TV, No Internet and the radio in our car didn't want to work. I thought Boy this is just weird!!!

It was so good for me to be without all the interuptions. I was able to catch up on lots of cleaning, work in Josiah's room (it's almost done), make a great pot of clam chowder and started to read a new book. This week was a reminder of how much time I waist doing things that just don't matter. I think God was giving me a glimpse of how things need to change before Josiah gets here. So I have resolved to spend less time watching TV and look for opportunities to do other creative things.

Redneck Woman

Barefoot and Pregnant!

I'm a Redneck Woman!

These were so fun to take!! For those of you who know me and my feminist background, you'll get a kick out of the barefoot and pregnant picture on top :) Plus, I'm from the city. The irony should not be missed. However. you never know what country living is going to do to me :)

The Lady who owns the Bed and Breakfast where we shot these pictures has a good old fashioned work truck with this great license plate on it. I thought Larry and my family would get a kick out of it. So I had a few pictures taken with it. Getting up on the hood was challenging, but so worth this picture!!!!

The whole time I was doing this I had that Redneck Woman song playing in my head. Hope you get a laugh from it too :)


There are more pictures on Andrea's flicker account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/finadrea/

Andrea, These are so Fun! I love them and will have to get one of these framed!

More Pictures/ Belly Shots

Here are a few more pictures from yesterday :)

Belly Shots :)

This is my favorite :)

To all of you who've asked for Belly Shots, Here you go!!!

Andrea, these are AWESOME. I love them.

Photo Shoot of Andrea and Travis

How fun!!!!

This is one of my favorites :)

Tricky lighting makes neat photos.

Photography has always been a hobby of mine. I took classes in high school. That was back in the good old days of 35 mm film. I even learned how to process and develop my own film. That was many, many, years ago. Now photography has moved into the digital age and the art has changed quit a bit. There are ways to create images and change existing images that just wasn't around back then. The basics of good pictures is still the same, but the technology has changed a great deal.

Now I'm beginning to take it what I've learned in the good old days to another level. Since moving to Williamston, I have purchased a DSLR camera, a Rebel XT. I love this camera, and the many things I can do with it.

I have also found the encouragement of a fellow pastor's wife, Andrea. Andrea has a natural eye for things of beauty and has taught me a lot about the technical side of photography. She has also taught me to think outside of the box when it comes to backgrounds. It's what I like to call "ugly pretty." (I totally stole that from Trya Banks, from the Next Top Model)

For instance, my favorite photo from above was taken in the ugly overgrown field across the street from our house. But the backdrop looks beautiful. Andrea's editing is also a key to making these photos look so good. She has a talent for editing as well. That is another thing I need to learn. The other pictures are from a church member's barn. The barn has lots of neat features, but it also has a pig and goat stalls that you have to watch out for.

Larry asked me how I thought things went. I said it was nerve wracking and fun. Andrea pushes me to learn how to use my camera. Most of these were taken in manual mode and I purposely underexposed them because the light was so harsh. They turn out great. I probably wouldn't have tried that if it wasn't for Andrea's encouragement. I would have left the camera on one of it's auto settings and been done with it. The pictures wouldn't have looked so good, and I wouldn't have learned anything new. So we both got something out of this shoot. She loves the pictures and I learned to try new things and some of the technical aspects of my camera.

The other difficult thing is that I'm 37 weeks pregnant and feeling HUGE!!! I teased Andrea and Travis about going into labor with all the squatting and awkward positions I was getting into. I said it might trigger my water to break. I was litterly laying in the street in to get the Black and White photo above. But I loved every minute of it :)

You can see more of the pictures we took on Andrea's flicker account here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/finadrea/

or her blog here:

http://dreawd.blogspot.com/

Andrea, I'm glad you liked them. Thanks for teaching me more technical stuff and giving me a great opportunity to think outside of the box. :)

Happy New Year!

There is just less than an hour left in the first day of the New Year, and today seems to have past by as quickly as last year did. During dinner, my parents and Larry were talking about how fast 2008 past by. My Mom said, "you just wait, Before you know it, it'll be 2010!"

In reflecting on how much our life has changed this past year, Larry said, "well think about all that has changed in the past 3 years." He's right. our life has been a busy blessing of life, love and change.

We we're just getting engaged in January of 2006, We were married in May 2006 and pregnant with Eden in October 2006. We were blessed with Eden in June of 2007. Larry was in school full time and working full time and finally graduated in December of 2007. Then began the search for a church. God's lead us to Williamston, NC where we know without a doubt, we were called to and love. We moved here in April of 2008 and got pregnant with Josiah in May. Major changes over just a short amount of time.

Larry pulled out the video camera and hooked it up to the TV. We watched life through Eden's life. Our first Christmas married (pregnant with her) Her birth, first few months of life, eating her first foods, her first Christmas and birthday, and this Christmas. I am so amazed at how much she has grown and changed in the past 18 months. She is becoming such an awesome little girl.

2009 will bring the birth of our son and who knows whatever else God will bring. We are blessed beyond all expectations. God has been so good to us!!! So as I sit here reflecting on how life has changed so much and knowing this year will bring challenges, joys and trials, and fun. I'm looking forward to 2009. I hope you are as well :)

****These pictures were taken back in October by my friend Andrea. We used them for our Christmas gifts for our parents and Christmas cards. Our family loved them, so do I. Thanks Andrea!*****