Reassurance.

Today I got some annoying news.  My doctor's office called to let me know that my glucose tolerance test came back "high," which meant I failed Part I of the gestational diabetes test and I need to come back and take the three hour version...hooray.  And, OH YEAH, my hemoglobin/hematocrit levels were low, so I need to start an iron regimen to combat my anemia.

I won't lie...I cried about it.  At the risk of sounding whiny, I had a horrible headache all day after I took the one hour test for GD and iron pills notoriously destroy my stomach and make me feel miserable.  The thought of having to do either of these things made me want to throw up, but that being said, I just wanted to get it over with right away.  Unfortunately, that was not to be either, so it looks like I'll have to dread it for another week or so.

Now, I know I was a little over-dramatic to cry about it.  After all, I failed the one hour test with Penn and passed (just barely) the three hour test.  And then with Jude, I passed the one hour test, but ended up being placed on the GD diet anyway later in my pregnancy, so I really shouldn't have been surprised.  Not to mention, I'm on iron pills at least once every year.  Crazy hormones...

So, I ended up feeling pretty annoyed for the rest of the day and was not looking forward to going to my class for Experiencing God tonight.  As a matter of fact, when I realized that I would have to leave our house without eating supper in order to make it on time, I almost decided that it wouldn't hurt me to stay home one night, but finally I decided that for some reason, I just wanted to go.

So I went.  I was hungry and had to use the restroom mega-bad, but had no extra time to satisfy my appetite or my bladder.  I shuffled into my chair and found a stack (or smiley face shaped assortment) of little candies sitting at my seat as if someone knew I might need a little chocolate to tide me over until I got the chance to eat my supper.  Then, as I got a little more settled, one of my classmates, who I haven't even met personally, walked over to me with two of the cutest little flower pops made from baby spoons and baby washcloths.  She said she wanted to give them to me for my baby on the way.  Such a small token that meant a lot to me.

Aren't they cute?  I'm totally stealing this idea...

After a long, emotionally exhausting day, she reminded me that I was where I needed to be.  And I am so glad I didn't miss it.  So, to this nice lady (who's name I forgot to ask...I know...so slack), thank you for going out of your way to do something nice for someone you didn't even know.  You could have never known what a big impact that little gesture would make:)

God and the Little Things...

This is pretty choppy, but I'm pretty excited about it.  I couldn't figure out a way to write about this without it simply being a jumble of my thoughts, but I decided to put it out there anyway.  I hope you can find the meaning in it that I did.

Today I thought of something that I wanted (well really, it's something I've been wanting and trying to get for a little while now and it just hasn't worked out yet).  It was a somewhat selfish want...nothing like wanting health for my family or world peace or anything, but just something I wanted for Pack and I and our new baby girl.  No biggie.

After working through my Experiencing God workbook this morning, I had a rush of thoughts...

I wondered if what I wanted was something that was necessary for my home or just something for my and my family's comfort and enjoyment.  (comfort and enjoyment)

I wondered if God would be angry at me for interrupting His business of "preparing for eternity" while I ask Him to provide for something small.  (Would I be angry at my children for asking me to provide something small for them...HELLO...Christmas lists, anyone?)

I wondered what would happen if I just simply asked God for what I wanted and trusted that He would provide it.  (Either He would provide it, or He wouldn't...either way, I would survive)

So I did.  I selfishly, yet confidently asked God to provide me a way to get the couple of things that I had been wanting for our home in a way that would be impossible for me to do myself.

A strange series of events happened then.  Initially, I had an urge to write down exactly what I had asked for (which I didn't do because they boys got hungry and I had to make lunch).  Then, I forgot all about what I had originally wanted.  It completely left my mind, which was pretty unusual considering I've been thinking about it multiple times every day for a while now.  And finally...my husband called me (within a few hours) and told me that we were probably going to be seeing a little extra money in the next month or so, thanks to some changes that his work made (which will provide what I wanted plus extra!!!).

WHAT???!!!

Yep...by lunchtime, the God of the universe had shown me that He cares about my comfort and enjoyment...God cares about the little things.  He showed me that when I simply ask for something AND leave Him in charge (that's the kicker), He will provide it or something better.  God wants me to rely on Him for my every need and to express my wants to Him as well.

That was easy.

Matthew 6:25-27  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

Three.

My joy :)

I was reading the other day about a friend that just found out she's expecting her third baby (Congrats again, Chelsea!) and I was thinking to myself, "Wow...I can't believe she's going to have three children!"  Then I thought again and said to myself, "Whoa...wait a minute...I'M GOING TO HAVE THREE CHILDREN!"

It's amazing that I forget sometimes that this belly is going to someday turn into a baby, but I do.  The fact is, it never seems real until you bring that empty belly and lump of a baby home from the hospital.  There's no getting prepared for children.  You can prepare your house, but you can never really be prepared for how YOUR little baby is going to change your life. 

The funny thing is, even though I know that and even though I know how much crazier life can be with each additional child...I can't say three is it for me (and if Pack is reading this, he's probably cringing right now).  I just don't know how I can ever say that I'm done and I am a little jealous of the people I know who can "commit" to being DONE.  Very simply, I'm in love with the craziness of this life that we have been given and my children truly feel like a gift...how could I turn down more?

Are the pregnancy hormones making me crazy or what???

Rock me to sleep, Jesus

I'm taking an "Experiencing God" class at my church right now and the topic of quiet time came up tonight.  A consistent quiet time with God is always something that I struggle with and obviously, I'm not alone.  While we were discussing the topic tonight, someone chimed in with the response that we sometimes focus on the "block" of time we put aside for God, somehow thinking that if we put in our time, we can check "Time with God" off the list for the day and go about business as usual thinking that He'll bless that.

We're too busy to think about God during the day and then we're too tired at night.  Sounds like the life of a mom, right?

I know, as a mom of two (soon to be three) young ones, I spend many of my days in survival mode where I am in a constant state of exhaustion and motion and I can't really tell anyone why.  At the end of the day, the house is still a mess, we've done nothing educational, and sometimes haven't even stepped out of the front door.  Those are the days that life happens, I guess and as little time as I might have spent doing scholarly Bible study, those are also the days that I most desire to hear from my Savior.  When I crawl into bed some nights, I think about a passage that I read a long time ago in an awesome book by Brennan Manning.  He says,

The greatest gift any ragamuffin can receive from Jesus is the Abba experience. Jesus says we are to go to God with the unaffected simplicity of a child with his daddy. In  poignant psalm expressing childlike trust in God, David says, 'Enough for me to keep my soul tranquil and quiet like a child in its mother's arms, as content as a child that has been weaned.' (13:12) The little one is not an infant, but a weaned youngster of two or three who had been toddling around exploring the mysteries of his father's flashlight, key chain, and assorted coins left on an end table. The little ragamuffin suddenly wearies and staggers back into his mother's arms. Soothed by her affectionate words as she strokes his hair, the little guy falls asleep, tranquil and quiet.

Jesus invites us to become like a little child, to crawl into Abba's arms and let Him love on us. Though, as Alan Jones notes, "the most difficult part of mature faith is to allow ourselves to be the object of God's delight."

-- Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, p. 234.

As I'm learning more about God and who He is and what His will is for my life, I'm able to understand that God doesn't want me to pencil Him into my morning.  He wants me to let Him weave himself into the fabric of my everyday (messy, crazy, unorganized) life.  He doesn't see me as a student to be taught, but a child to be loved on.  And if there's anything that I know for sure, it's that as a parent, you cherish those moments that your child crawls into your lap just to be close to you.  We don't get angry when our precious children fall asleep in our arms, so why would God be upset with us when we fall asleep with thoughts of Him?  So when the gears in my mind don't want to stop turning at the end of a busy day, I'm going to let my mind wander into my Jesus' lap and let Him rock me to sleep.

"At day's end, I'm ready for sound sleep; for you, God, put my life back together."   
Psalm 4:8

Top This...

A good night's sleep.

Seriously.  Those have been few and far between lately.  Between my growing belly, my shrinking bladder, and an injured shoulder on my right side, I have not been able to get comfortable at night lately.  I'm fine sleeping on my left side...for a while.  But then, I need to turn.  And there's nowhere to go.  And it stinks.

Then there's my boys.  Penn rarely has ever slept through the night and usually comes in our room at least once only to be sent back to his room.  This usually wakes Jude up who is not so easily directed back to he bed, so he ends up snuggling with us for a while, which brings Penn back in the room because "that's not fair," and so forth.  We sleep in a queen bed (although we REALLY REALLY want a king asap) and the problem is clear as to why four-across is not comfortable.  Add into the mix that Jude INSISTS on sleeping on my right arm (hence the shoulder injury...thanks, kiddo), and I usually wake up into one grumpy mama!

But last night...I slept.  No one woke me up in the middle of the night, my shoulder did not feel as if it was on fire when I laid on it, and I didn't have to go to the bathroom not even once!  Heaven for this tired gal!  I realize that tonight maybe just the opposite, but I am so thankful for one night of peaceful slumber...and these days, you can't top that!

Baby name...CHECK!

I still can't believe it...

Penn (a.k.a.. Daniel Packard V) never had a "girl name."  We knew our first boy would be a namesake for Pack and we'd come up with a nickname, but amazingly, we never discussed girl names at all.  With Jude, after much deliberation, we had his "girl name" all picked out (although we never put a lot of thought into boy names until after we found out his gender).  His girl name would have been Riley Kay.  Fortunately, he ended up being a little boy, so we got to have a little fun with his name and choose something that meant something to us (Jude=a Biblical name with a good song and sounded good with Penn, and Tillman=for Tillman Hall at Clemson University where Pack graduated).  It all worked out because after a while, I decided I didn't really like the name Riley anyway.  It bothered me that Penn had a name with such great family heritage from both sides of our family and the next baby would have had a name that we just liked.  I wanted the name to have a story (and preferably a really good song).  For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with choosing a name for your children that you simply like the sound of, but I wanted an equal amount of thought and sentiment to go into each of my children's names.  

And BOY did a lot of thought (and arguments and maybe a few tears) go into this one...

Anna Hazel

I had been thinking of the name Anna Hazel since after Jude was born.  Ann is a name that has been used in a lot of girl names in my family (my former middle name was DiANNe, as a matter of fact).  My mom's sister Ann is the eldest of eight children in her family, and although she has no children of her own, she has been like a mom to all of her nieces and nephews.  I've always wanted to be able to honor her by including her name in a little girl's name (if I ever had one).  My Aunt Ann is definitely the female leader in our family and is the best planner/hostess/baby holder you will ever meet.  Anna is going to adore her.

Hazel was my Grandmother on my Dad's side of the family.  She, along with her twin sister, Hallie, kept my twin sister and I from the time we were born until we were able to stay home by ourselves.  They taught us so, so much, and left us with a ton of awesome memories, but I'm always wishing we had paid attention even more.  We spent our time with them serving others, picking whatever vegetables or other foods were in season (WHEREVER they were in season), making crafts and home goods, and visiting relatives that I would probably have never know otherwise.  They definitely had a huge influence on the woman that I am now and I see a lot of both of them in me more and more every day.

The name for my new baby girl may seem ordinary or old fashioned to some, but the women that the name represents were and are truly extraordinary and I can't wait until the day when she understands where her name came from.  I know she'll be proud of it!

Blessings in the Storm

We are finally home from a really exciting, but really exhausting vacation.  We combined a birthday trip for the two of us (which I will blog about later) with a trip home to visit family and BOY was it an eventful week!  Aside from the fun things we had planned, we (along with the rest of the East Coast) dealt with an earthquake at the beginning of last week (whose epicenter was about 30 miles outside of our home) and a hurricane toward the end.

When we left Virginia last Friday (the 19th), we had no idea of what we would be missing...and I'm so thankful for so many things.  I was thankful that the earthquake wasn't more powerful than a 5.8, thankful that no one I know was hurt, and most importantly, thankful that we weren't home (because Pack would have been on the road and I would have been home with the boys...FREAKING OUT!).  And an earthquake is a scary thing, not even taking into consideration all the aftershocks that have continued to happen.  The scary part for us was that we had no idea if anything inside our house was damaged.  We would have to wait to get home to find out (not a thing was out of place, by the way...thankful).

And then there was Irene...

When we left Virginia, we knew there was a tropical storm in the ocean and we knew it was probably going to make landfall, but we figured it would probably strike the coastal areas (of which we are not), so we didn't make a lot of serious preparations before we left.  Just the normal security type stuff.  Then, while we were in San Francisco, we learned that Virginia was going to be pretty hard hit and all my friends in Midlothian were making emergency preparations.  We were thankful once again that we weren't home and that our boys would be safe in South Carolina while we were in hurricane-free California.  I knew we had a lot of trees around our home, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it, so we just didn't dwell on the worst case scenario and spend the time sightseeing and enjoying our time.  Then, on Saturday my next-door-neighbor called and I knew it must be bad news.  They were in the thick of the storm and called to let us know that a tree from their yard had fallen onto Pack's work truck....which was parked in the driveway next to the house.  They couldn't be sure there wasn't any damage done to the house itself, so once again, we had to just wait it out and see.

Well, we got home today and once again, we were thankful.  The tree that fell crushed the windshield of Pack's truck, but there was hardly any damage anywhere else on the truck.  Thankful.  Our house was unscathed (minus the yard, which is a wreck).  Thankful.  We have awesome neighbors that pulled out their chainsaw and went to town on the tree with Pack to make sure it was going to be light enough to move safely.  Thankful.  About five other men (three of which, we hardly even know), spent part of their Monday afternoon, lifting the giant walnut tree off of the truck while I backed it out the driveway.  Super-thankful.  Although the windshield was shattered, there was no water damage to any of Pack's things inside the cab.  Pack was thankful.  And the tree itself was VERY close to our house.  If we had been home, the family van would have probably been crushed instead.  If the tree had rolled off the truck, or fallen just a few inches in other directions, there would probably have been damage to the house.  As we cleaned up the yard and dragged branches and limbs to the curb, we couldn't complain about a thing.  We. just. felt. THANKFUL.  Thankful and glad to be home.

Oh, and we never liked that walnut tree anyway;)

TIMBER!!!

That was close...

The silver bullet saved the house!

The damage.  Could be worse!

Little Penn was working hard.  Jude was not interested.

Blowing sawdust out of the driveway.  Don't worry it's battery operated:)