8 & 10

currently i am 13 weeks pregnant, but i have been saving these for a few weeks. i had been wishing, hoping, praying to make it to 12 weeks, to be "in the clear", but that day came and went with many tears. this whole week has been incredibly emotional, especially when i went to my dr appointment on wednesday and they could not hear a heartbeat on the doppler, tried an ultrasound and could not find one that way either, finally after about 15 minutes we were able to see the baby moving around and a heartbeat (mind you its the old not so fabulous machines that are in the room instead of the high tech amazing ones the u/s tech's use). i was a basket case. not that wednesday was the first time i have balled my eyes out to my doctor. we had an amazing 15 minute conversation in his office about my friend who lost her baby, my 4 previous miscarriages, and God's perfect plan for each life that HE creates. it was the most encouraging conversation i have ever had with any doctor. i mean i know all of the right answers, God is in control, He is the Creator, He gives and takes away, blessed be His name... however, sometimes, especially in the midst of pain those almost seem like empty words on a page. i know that He is in control, even if the life of my baby does not go the way i desire it to. its still hard to trust. so each day i try to make a conscience effort to give Him my heart, my life, and the life of my husband, Eli, Levi, baby #7 (fruitcake/sweetcake/button depending on who you ask), daughter/s in africa and loved ones. im still a work in progress.


belly pictures from 8 weeks




baby at 9 weeks


belly shots 10 weeks


Levi walked up and kissed my belly himself while i was shooting the picture


and Nikon has my camera so no 12 weeks :-(

reading & 700 club

i do realize that BopBop is wearing the same shirt as the picture from early Dec, but these are taken more recently.





the boys, especially Eli, love to sit with Nana as she eats breakfast and watches the 700 club. precious memeories.


cant wait to get my camera back from nikon for more pictures that are hopefully not so terrible in quality.

broken-hearted

tears tears and more tears have been shed over the weekend as one of my best friends was due just two days after me... and at 12 weeks lost her baby. it has hit me so hard. i cried myself to sleep on saturday night. i am broken-hearted for her as she lost of her precious baby. so incredibly sad that she has to face the death of her tiny baby and the difficulty, heartache, and grieving process that she will be facing in the coming days, weeks, years. it hurts so bad that my baby will be a constant reminder of pain and i hate that it will obviously be awkward and difficult to walk out a friendship for some time.

it makes me very scared and nervous about the life of my little one. the books say that 12 weeks is the breath of fresh air cause you are "out of the danger zone and in the clear" but clearly that is not always the case.

a blog friend, Raechel, posted an amazing post yesterday as it was national sanctity of human life day it is totally worth reading and exactly what i needed to be reminded of yesterday..."to give thanks to the One Who shapes each of us as He sees fit to carry out His perfect will."

Nana

upon Lyn's request for pictures of Nana.

overwhelming feeling

there is much in my life that should be overwhelming...
but its not the 3 kids under 3, the moving within the next month 2 1/2 hours away from my husband, the boys daddy, my dr & hospital, the fact that if history proves itself i will be on bed rest come april due to preterm labor, yet our house wont be ready til sometime in june if all goes well, we are still not sure where chris will live, have no clue what would happen and where we would move if i were to need to be closer to my dr & hospital before june, how exactly i am going to juggle 2 kids & 2 dogs in a neighborhood that i will have to walk my dogs every time they have to go out, the fact that i do not have any friends in hilton head and absolutely nothing to do until it warms up (because there really isnt much to do except beach, pool, tennis, golf, miniture golf, and shopping), the fact that the boys and i will be driving back and forth and back and forth a couple times a month, and the list goes on...

non of that is what is overwhelming me right now

my heart has a totally overwhelming sense of loss, heartache, desire, sadness, urgency for my daughter/s in ethiopia. i am brought to tears often with the sense of loss that she will be facing in order to one day become part of our family. since november i have had a few dreams where i have seen our little girls face. i am certain that she is already born. i hate that she is or will be facing hardship, i hate that she is going to face loss at such a young age, it breaks my heart to even think about her family and what they are or will be facing, will they willingly give her up for adoption? will they passaway and someone else places her in an orphanage? undoubtably they will face some form of hardship, financial, physical, or even worse spiritual. my heart breaks for her enat (mother), my heart breaks for my one day daughter, i am brought to my knees in prayer, break down to tears at the most random times of the day (like tonight while washing dishes, the other day while driving, in the middle of the night while i cry myself back to sleep).

i feel guilty that my thoughts are so consumed by her that i may be missing out of praying for the kids that are in my arms and growing in my belly right now. honestly i have to keep reminding myself that God is in control, He knows all of the details, He knows that if we would have started the adoption process in june like we were planning (although our hearts wanted to have already started but due to family circumstance that is not possible) that we would not be placed with the daughter that God has planned to join our family. oh but my heart still hurts to have to wait any longer. its hard for me to not question God as to why on earth He would make things increadibly clear just to make me wait that much longer. i am incredibly blessed with a miracle baby growing inside me, but it was not my plan and its a bit difficult to understand Gods timing. i secretively like to plan, get my ducks in a row, and organize my life (dont look at my house not everything is organized... too hard with toddlers)... God is showing me TIME & TIME AGIAN that HE IS IN CONTROL NOT ME!

i almost feel like im an israelite wondering in the desert for 40 years. they wondered for 40 years for the unbeliving generation to die off... ok so i am only 26 (next month 27) but for the last few years i really feel like i have been wondering. have totally been exactly where i dont want to be. i have complained about it, grumbled, been ticked off beyond measure. hmm sounding incredibly familiar to the israelites. maybe its my unblief that i dont trust God that He really can move mountains even the hardest of hearts or take my super clean husband to the trash dump of ethiopia... my huge mountain i want to live in africa, yet i feel very stuck in columbia. i just have to keep believing that He is in control, He is in control, HE IS IN CONTROL!

movin, movin, movin

curve balls keep flying

the most recent one is an extra move in our near future
we have prayed for someone to care for nana and He answered, just not in our timing, not quite sure of the "urgency" however, it is what it is. why should i expect "normalcy" when life is never normal or easy. chris' aunt and uncle from indiana are moving down at the end of feb which means we are moving out. im just not going to be part of the circus if we were to stay til june-ish when our house is finished because life under one roof would look like = 6 adults (1 with alzheimer's & 1 hormonal pregnant mama), 2 toddlers, and 4-7 dogs... yeah no thank you. so the boys, dogs, and i are moving to hilton head to stay at my parents house, while chris stays in columbia to work and build our house. praying about with whom he should stay. thankfully we are going to be able to keep our stuff boxed up in the back bedrooms of our current house. so i can do a little at a time, without it cluttering my house.

i got a jump start today... i packed all 14 boxes that we got from publix, 3 trash bags of junk, 2 trash bags for His house, and i even cleaned my house. hopefully we will be picking up more boxes tomorrow (as long as they dont throw my saved boxes away as they did on sunday) so that more packing to be done!

by the end of the summer, when we move into our first real house all by ourselves, it will be my 32nd house to live in! crazy huh if you dont believe me i can list them all for you

Dear Nikon

Dear Nikon
I have a love hate relationship with you. I love the D-SLR cameras that I have used of my friends but hate the lemon of the point-and-shoot that is mine. I have called and emailed you more times than I can count in the last 20 months. I have returned, repaired, and even gotten my camera replaced, yet still there are issues! I seriously am beyond frustrated. For compensation for my time, the crappy pictures you have produced, and missing moments of my precious boys, I do believe you could repay me by upgrading my camera to a D3100 and I would love you forever!

Thanks,
Keely

crumbles

there are so many of my heartstrings that have been damaged as of late. good things that have gone awry. i feel like not even trying anymore. cause then if its not a dream it cant be shattered.
- missions/vision trip to uganda/kenya
- twins
- adopting 2 girls from ethiopia (put on hold)
- created for care adoption retreat

i feel like everything i touch that has to do with adoption or africa crumbles.

worst snow day ever

living in the south we all act like little kids when it snows. everything closes and we just take the day to play our little hearts out. hey, it rarely happens so we live it up! well today not so much... since we are all getting over h1n1 i get to be the mean mama who says no one gets to play outside. so far the boys have not been as upset as i would have expected. but to say that we all have cabin fever from being under lockdown for a week, is totally an understatement. i have two who can't sit still to save their life and their boredom is driving me crazy. looks like tomorrow will be the same thing as we are supposed to get a 1/2 inch of ice on top of all this beautifulness

my geeky boys

backhoes

Pine Street will soon... well not so soon... be our new place of residence. i say no SO soon because we just found out this week that due to some silly paperwork and hearing with the city of columbia we have to turn in some paperwork that only gets approved once a month so we will have to wait until after our hearing on feb 10th to move forward with the next step... but until then we are clearing the lot, getting sewer, and praying that the water tap they found today will work which would save us a bunch of mula! so happy to say that we got the price of our lot down 50% of asking price!

p.s. for those of you who know we are sick... we were there for 15 min ONLY because we had promised Eli for a few weeks that he could ride the backhoe and he asks us everyday! so i was the super awesome mama who bundled her kids up drove 1/2 hour each way so that my boy could have his backhoe day... had to bribe him with chick-fil-a (drive through people no i didnt infect anyone) to stop the tears of not being on the backhoes working with daddy all day! back to the couch we all sit and recover and rest!

Medical update...

we have H1N1

no wonder we feel so so terrible!

also my gall bladder checked out fine at my apt today... however, not sure if thats good or bad as i still have tons of pain. waiting it out just a bit longer before going to a gastro to get a scope down my throat.

dr trips

this is how we spent our days this week... at the dr and in the hospital

we are all really sick. im not one to complain, but i have not felt this miserable in i cant tell you how long, if ever. we have the croup coupled with nasty coughs, fevers, body aches, chills, sore throats, sore ears, and the nastiest congestion ever.

we could use some prayer. the boys are on pain relievers and steroids, chris is taking a steroid inhalor and musinex, and i just get to take tylenol and water! its supposed to last 5-7 days for the boys... chris is on day 5, levi day 3, eli day 1 and the dr today told me it will be well over a week before i feel better.

it was such a blessing to have our friend Josh as our dr today. a bright surprise, comfort, and encouragement. we got tip top care. he checked on us a whole bunch more than normal er visits.

so thankful that Chris was able to stay home from work so i could sleep while the boys kept coming to snuggle and nap all throughout the day. not to mention that we slept pretty much the whole morning at the hospital.

thanks for your prayers

giving in

to peer pressure... well sorta... since there is NO reason to look back at the last year, because when I do I normally see the bad stuff instead of the amazing thing... instead I am going to look ahead to the year to come. I re-read the book "Don't Waste My Life" by Piper the other night. what an encouragement, especially on the topic of looking ahead, setting goals, and putting it in writing for more accountability.

so without further ado... my goals & passions of 2011 in random order
- daily, deeper communication with Christ
(i could stop there because thats all that really matters)

-be involved in something to do with orphans in Africa (if you have any suggestions please let me know)

- advocate for adoption

- begin the adoption process

- reach out to my new neighbors (come april)

- build relationship with a lady from Egypt i met in chickfila

- involvement in church

- looking forward to getting off the waiting list for Community Bible Study (in depth study of the Word)

- prayerfully gain more patience for Eli

- be less critical of Chris

- spend more one on one time with Levi

- learn to let the recurrent family drama of cutting words go in one ear and out the other

- read more tv less

- 1 hour or less of comp time (only if i am in the Word first)

- stay organized (esp in new house... everything needs to have a place... be thorough in downsizing)

-more structured learning for Eli

-learn to knit

- continue my creative cooking

- coupon and budget WELL!!! SNOWBALL our debt away!!!!

some favorites

these are our some of our favorites this christmas... but the best gift of all was to throw up as soon as i rolled out of bed due to my little christmas surprise aka fruitcake