Plans

Two days before Christmas, the kids were going crazy off in another room somewhere. We were kinda in a hurry to get out the door to go have lunch with my family. I was half dressed, make-up on but hair still wet.

Meanwhile my mind was completely somewhere else....I was "late."

Which is unusual.

So I did what's absolutely normal for a woman who is in a hurry, half-dressed, with screaming kids in the other room. I took a pregnancy test. You know, just to confirm what I already knew....that I wasn't pregnant.

I learned 2 very important things in about 30 seconds.

1. Pregnant!!



2. I should never EVER take a pregnancy test without Brandon being home, ever EVER again.
He is my sanity in moments such as these!!


So here we are, 11 weeks pregnant, expecting Chancler baby #3 around August 18th!!  We're elated, ecstatic. Thrilled. Overwhelmed, yes.
But in awe at what God is doing.

I'm getting ahead of myself though.

Backtrack to two days before Christmas again, and here's the conversation I was having in my head.

"Pregnant?! Wait...let me read the instructions again....."

"PREGNANT?!"

"Um, God, you know that you're moving our family to China, right? This isn't really what we discussed.  I'm not real sure you understand here.  This isn't in our current timeline. It's gonna throw things off. Let's re-think this..."

All to which I feel like God was responding with, "SURPRISE!!!!!!"   Accompanied by a big smile.

Surprise?!?! um, yeah. To say the very least.

Bewildered? Confused?  That hits the nail on the head.

But because it's not unlike me to completely question God's timing, it took me awhile to wrap my brain around having another baby.

God was merciful and gracious with the way He began to reveal His perfect plan in the timing of this baby.  Really, He should have slapped me in the face with a fish. It's what I deserved.

I've always heard that children help bring about our own sanctification. With Eden and Salem, they've chipped away big chunks.

And now God is using the unborn. This tiny baby growing inside me that I can't even feel move yet, is being used by it's creator to sanctify me. To chip away the rough edges. The areas of my life that screamed for me to be in control, to rely on my own timing, my own plans, and the future of our family.

My fears about March and my desire for different timing with our departure, are now being seen in a completely different light.
I'll be 19 weeks pregnant by the end of March. Perfect timing to find out the gender of this baby (so we'll know to pack pink or blue stuff) before loading on a plane and saying farewell.
Traveling 36 hours overseas at 20 weeks pregnant is far more tolerable than traveling in the first trimester, or the opposite, when I'm as big as a barn (as I would be in summery June).

We'll now be departing in early April, allowing us 3.5 months in our new home to get acquainted with our new city, new culture, new teammates, buy furniture, and get our new home set up to be ready to come home to when we return there from having a baby. We'll probably be leaving the country again at 36 weeks, just like we did with Eden, having a baby in a country South of China, and hopefully return home mid-September, with plenty of time to adjust to life with a newborn before Christmas season...a season that holds millions of opportunities of sharing about our Creator, the Perfecter of our imperfect plans.

Remember God's big smile that I mentioned earlier?
Maybe it was because literally just hours after writing about Eden's plans to buy a baby sister at Target, I took that pregnancy test.

Or maybe it's because He just might know what He's up to.

Cabin Fever

Except that I wish we were in a cabin in the mountains.

Really I guess we just have House Fever. And we're going stir crazy.

Today is the first day in 5 days that Eden hasn't run a fever. She's still coughing non-stop, but at least, for now, the fever is gone.
So we've been stuck inside A LOT the past few days. And the three of us have read all of the books, have played with every single toy, and have sat through Toy Story 3 more times than should be allowed.


They've been pretty good sports about helping me go through boxes and organize garage sale/dumpster stuff.


After exhausting our other options, we got a bit more creative.




Who needs sand, when you have rice?! Fortunately for us, we're moving to a place where rice isn't in short supply.


This was actually my awesome friend, Blythe's, suggestion. She's a kindergarten teacher, which means that she's all things brilliant when it comes to creativity. I've been trying to come up with creative ways to work with Eden on writing her letters. Eden thought it was cool writing A's in the rice.


And when all else fails we go back to the basement with the Jump-O-Lene!


Notice the reoccurring theme in these pictures?!  It's been 5 full days of jammies. Pathetic? Maybe.
Especially for 5 days.  But jammies pictures are so fun.

And is it not precious that they're holding hands in a couple of these?!
Maybe someday they'll look back on these and think that they were best friends and never, ever, fought.

Did I mentioned that we're going stir crazy?

The New Jingle

Since Christmas, Eden has had a new jingle that is her favorite song to sing while riding in the car.

Though, her version goes a little more like this...

Joy to the Wurld!

The Lord has come.

Let her lu-seeev the King!

And ehhhhvrrrryyyy song...

Nuh sed uh ni kuhhhh

And heaven and manger scene,

And heaven and manger scene,

And heeeaaaa and heaaaaaven, man-ger scene.

eh...she's got some parts right. And some parts are at least on the right subject. And one line even sounds Chinese. At least to most of you out there, it does. :)

Taos or Bust

I married into a cool family.

And by cool, I mean awesome.

They love Jesus. They love having fun. They cook good food. The list could go on...

They love family. They love doing things as a family.

Which includes owning a family business. They own a business that sells chainsaws. Well, technically not just chainsaws. But really, the chainsaw part of it... that's insanely cool.

They don't just sell chainsaws as a family though, they take cool trips together as a family.

I was invited to my first annual MLK weekend ski trip shortly after Brandon and I were engaged. And when I found out that this was a yearly tradition, I knew I scored big by marrying into this family.

You can't go wrong with an annual family ski trip.

It was the inaugural ski-weekend for me. My very first time to experience the yearly tradition (even before joining the family, no less). It was a weekend with awesome skiing, some laughter at Napoleon Dynamite, and some awkwardness by sleeping in a king-size bed with Brandon's sister and mom. Thankfully, they gave me one of the edges of the bed. :)

Minus the two years we were in The Big Chicken, we've managed to make it on the annual MLK weekend ski trip every year since.

The tradition goes like this...

A cabin is reserved. A different cabin every year (so far). Which really, adds to the excitement as you can't be absolutely positive of what's waiting behind the front door of the cabin. Could be zero water pressure. Could be a mouse. Could be a hidden movie theater. Could be sheer awesomeness.

Then they plan a menu and buy food. And really, it's only appropriate to buy enough to feed a small village. Partly because there were 23 of us there this year. And partly because that's just part of the tradition...being ready to supply food for an army. Plus, when the weekend is over and we bring the food home, there's enough to completely restock a pantry. I benefitted from that this year. (thanks guys :)

Every year that I've been around, we've gone to Taos. Though I've heard rumors of them skiing other places before. 

And Taos it was this year. Which turns out was a great decision. They had good snow this year.

(brandon, kristin, david, amber, justin, austin)

We decided to go out on a limb this year and let Eden have her first attempt at snow skiing. Brandon and I both learned when we were about her age, so we thought we might as well try this year since it'll be several years before she has the chance to try again.



Long story short:
It was free for her to try. Free ski rentals. Free lift ticket. Even though she didn't like it and didn't get the hang of it at all, I'd still have done it all over again.

Extended version:
BUT, if I was to do it all over again, I'd make sure and have her boots and skis ready for her so she wouldn't have to hang out during that whole process. I've forgotten how much of a pain it is to rent skis and boots. By the time we'd done all of that, she was already tired, hot, and hating the process of skiing. Plus, she felt completely unsure of the slippery snow underneath her skis. We couldn't even get her to stand up on her own. Though she thoroughly enjoyed skiing between our skis over and over, our backs REALLY didn't appreciate that.



She's all smiles above. But don't be fooled. There was some serious tears melting away the slopes up there. But she was cute. She gave it her best shot.
We'll give her a few years, and she'll be a regular ski bunny in no time.

Brandon and I both got to ski a full day together the next day.
It was the group consensus that day though, that we're getting old, and enjoying the "old people" style of skiing much more these days.
A few years ago (ie: pre-kids) we could ski non-stop for hours.
This year, we enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate almost every 2 runs. Which of course increased our bathroom breaks. But no one complained about having to stop so often. Secretly, we were all thankful that we weren't the only one that had find a bathroom.



The kids hung out with BonBon and Uncle David the next day and got to sled down the driveway.




It's a tradition that I'm going to miss getting to be a part of over the next few years.

But still, an annual tradition that makes this family even more awesome. It's so nice to be part of a family that even has traditions that will be missed.  

New Year - New Look

I'm not real big on change. I don't handle it very well.

Which is kinda amusing since God is moving me to the other side of the planet in a few months.

But since January 1st tends to bring about the motivation for change, I'm going with it.

I'm blogging with it, rather.

It's not drastic. I'm sticking with my comfortable white and black crispness that makes me feel comfortable and not too risky or "out there."
But it was time for a new header. You know... that thing up there at the top. ^^^^

And what makes it worthy of actually posting about is that it's taken me the past 2 hours or more of working it out, figuring out html code, and burning up the kinks of crazy blogger land.

And so, it won't be until Jan 1st of next year (if ever) that you'll see a new header on this page. It took entirely too much effort for such a little change!!

All photos were taken by the wonderful and infamous Stancy!