Pictures!

Here are some pictures that I just received from Cornerstone's Alumni weekend in October. It was the first weekend in October and blazing hot! Thanks so much to Mindy Peterson for sharing these with me. Check out her website at: http://www.thisphotostory.com/ to find out more information about her. She got some great shots that weekend.

Tim and Noah were pretty fascinated by the skydive simulator. We didn't plan their outfits on purpose - brown shirts, khaki shorts. You'll just have that when most boy/men clothes look the same!The Alumni soccer team. Tim can't wait for next year! Apparently, it is as hard for 19 grown men to look in the same direction as it is toddlers to...

And this is my handsome new nephew, Ross, who arrived last Friday evening. We can't wait to meet him at Christmas! Big brother Alec seems to be enchanted by him. The other 2 big brothers are also adjusting well to their newest brother. I become tired just thinking about Tim's sister and husband having 4 boys ages 7 and under! They're fantastic parents.

When God Lets You Fall on Your Bottom, But Then Brings You to Your Knees

**Disclaimer: What I am about to write is not done to seek pity or sympathy. It is done with a broken and hurting heart and a chance to be honest in life and share what God is teaching me.**
This month has been hard. We have not received a paycheck and Tim for the first time (besides helping out a friend with some small projects for gas money) started a job for a client this past Monday. Yes, we took the trip to Fallingwater - mainly because everything was already paid for. We paid for gas, and quite honestly, Tim's birthday money paid for that (he didn't feel bad about it since it allowed him to see something he has dreamed of) and the trip was not taken without much discussion, crying, arguing, and pouring over the bank statement first. We also ate lunch, dinner, and lunch the next day off dollar menus at fast food restaurants.
God has been throwing one lesson after another at us. First, it was to show us how stupid we have been with our finances. We have been so cocky walking around with our "We have no debt" mindset that we weren't putting aside extra money into savings. We were eating out quite a bit, buying things for Noah, buying the little things here and there for ourselves that don't cost much separately and then you add everything together and it's more than you think. We sat down with our October bank statement (since that was a really good month financially and job-related for Tim and we wondered where it all went) and threw every purchase into a category. It was embarassing, absolutely embarassing. Had we actually stuck to the budget we had made months ago, we could have put a large amount into our savings and had Step 1 for Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover ($1000 in Emergency Fund) completed. It would have been a huge help for us in this month...but we didn't do that. We now kick ourselves, yet we're keeping our categorized October sheet and have it where we can see it so that we don't make the same mistake again. God has taught us the importance of good stewardship - a hard lesson to learn when you think you already know it. Ouch.
The second lesson is more of a reminder, that God never leaves you and will provide for your needs. It's rarely in the way I think He should handle it (just send me some random checks in the mail and I can pay the bills. Has anyone else ever prayed for that long-lost distant relative to die of natural age after a happy life and miraculously have known about you and leaves you their inheritance? Or is that just my overactive imagination?) More often it is in a way that humbles us. For instance, our current situation is that since Tim is self-employed and we have the pleasure of living in a state with a down-spiral economy for his line of business, we can't afford good insurance like what most people have through employers. Instead, we have a Health Savings Account, which I think is great and I have no complaints about it, yet it doesn't cover maternity. It also costs much more to have a baby than what the rep had told us to expect. We were expecting to put aside at least $8,000 and that's only for a no-complications birth with no anesthesia. We had no idea how we would afford this. Enter God. We now qualify for Michigan's Healthy Kids program, which is a form of Medicaid. Our stress of finding money to pay for our son or daughter is now not in our lives anymore. I also automatically qualify for WIC since I'm on Healthy Kids, and since I qualify and Noah is under the age of 5, he automatically qualifies as well. That will be a help with the groceries that we have been scrimping on lately. Yes, we're eating. We're just eating creatively as we like to call it (don't worry, everything is edible and a food.)
I think that a huge lesson Tim and I have learned from being on Healthy Kids and WIC (we had to do this when I was pregnant with Noah because I was laid off during my pregnancy so we lost our insurance and Tim's job didn't provide it) is that you can't judge people on Medicaid, Food Stamps, or Wic. More often than not, and I use to think this myself, most people assume that those using these services are lazy or women who get knocked up constantly to get support from the government or not trying in life. I would say we break that stereotype. We're definitely not lazy, I don't want to spend anymore time after this pregnancy knocked up, and we are trying. It's embarassing to answer a question on a WIC form that says "How many grades of school have you completed?" and answer "College graduate with bachelor's degree" and yet I need help.
Help. What a word. That's another thing we've learned. Tim and I are prideful. We needed to fall on our butts. We have a hard time asking for help when it comes to finances. We don't want to. We don't want to admit that we don't have everything together. We can ask for help moving, we can ask for help with needing a baby-sitter to watch Noah, we can ask for help as long as it doesn't require money. We were hiding our problems from our parents until my mom recently started to put together the fact that Tim was always home during the day when she would call and when I told her we hadn't started Christmas shopping yet. You don't want to admit that you're in your mid to late twenties with a child and another on the way and you don't know how you're going to pay for gas or groceries that week. She told me that if in two weeks we don't have money for Noah's Christmas gifts, than she is giving us money for them rather than supporting the angel tree family she usually does. She said that she knows the angel tree family and, although they do never seem to have money at Christmas, she has seen them buying cigarettes and alcohol throughout the rest of the year. Now there's something that will humble you: when your own mother pretty much "adopts" you as her needy family for Christmas.
That's when you realize you have become the person you stereotyped and your judgment about them was wrong. I'm not saying that nobody ever takes advantage of "the system," but we jump to conclusions too often without knowing the circumstances. You don't want to be the name on the tree that someone picks off, you don't want to be the woman with the toddler in line at the WIC office, you don't want to show your MIHealth card when you visit the doctor. Yet this is where God has us right now. This is the way He is providing right now...and He is providing.
I love the support system God has revealed. A girlfriend of mine and her husband have been in a similar situation so I feel I can be completely honest with her and she gets me. She knows. My mom told me that for a time early in their marriage they were in the same spot and eating a lot of ramen noodles and macaroni and cheese. We were having a great conversation with Tim's parents while visiting and Tim asked what their roughest time financially ever was. They said there was a time period in which they were eating lots of oatmeal and praying that there would somehow be enough money to pay bills. A counselor friend of mine said that her mom recently revealed to her that when my friend was young, they would hold garage sales just to have money to buy groceries that week. Her mom also started sewing their own clothes. My grandma told my mom that the reason she worries so much about us is that she and my grandpa were in the same spot years ago before my mom was born. Sometimes my grandpa was only making $1 a week and they had 2 kids at the time. What I love is looking at where these people are at now. I love the strength they all show, the careful way they handle their finances because they know that at any point something could happen. I love that they truly can empathize with you because they have experienced it as well.
God is not providing with money I can hold in my hand at the moment, but he is preventing certain bills from reaching our mailbox. He is providing relief when it comes to groceries. He is providing open lines of communication between Tim and me because we have to constantly discuss these things to make sure we are always on the same page. He is drawing us closer to each other and closer to Him. Tim said the other night, "This is an adventure, not one we pictured, but I still want to travel it with you. At the end of it, I want us to stand together to see how God brings us out so we can look back and praise Him for it as well as during it."
In conclusion, I think that God lets you fall on your bottom when you have some lessons to learn. Yet He doesn't leave you there. If you're at the bottom, the only good view is up and the only place to go is up. First we have to get on our knees and spend some time there. Then He will take our hands and help us climb.

Home for Awhile...

What a crazy past couple weeks! We have been gone more than home and it has been exhausting. As of now we have no travel plans until the weekend before Christmas, so I have a good month to just be in one house.
Tim and I went to Mill Run, Pennsylvania a couple weekends ago to celebrate his birthday. He has been wanting to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater so I planned a weekend trip out there. It was a nice weekend away for the two of us, with my parents watching Noah while we were gone. After touring the amazing house, we headed to Tim's parents for the rest of the weekend and had a chance to visit with family.

The infamous view of Fallingwater that you will typically see in books.

The morning that we left, I had a voicemail informing me of the death of a friend of my family's. Since Tim has been slow with work, we were able to stay at my parents' house for a couple days until I could attend the viewing with my parents and sister. It was so weird. She was my parents' age, the mother of a childhood friend of mine. She has a husband and three daughters, two who are engaged. The oldest, my age, is getting married next month and it is heartbreaking to think that her mom will not be there...that the hurt will still be so fresh...although I doubt the hurt of losing a parent ever goes away.
We finally arrived home and I knitted like a mad-woman to finish some projects to sell in a craft show that Jeana and I were a part of. Overall, it went...ok. I don't think anyone sold much of anything, really. It was a weird time of day and in an odd part of town, although the house it was in was gorgeous. It was a fun experience though, and it got me out of the house for the day and I got to spend some time with Jeana and a woman we used to work with in admissions at Cornerstone, who was there selling some things as well. We are putting some of the leftover items in a craft fair on Cherry Street in Grand Rapids this Saturday, and are entered in another one on December 15th. Somewhere within all that craftiness I have to find time to read "The Count of Monte Cristo" for the book club I'm in. I had better start that... Just one of the many recent projects. This one is from the book, "Bend the Rules Sewing." If you are a sewer, I would highly recommend it. The patterns are adorable, fun, and somewhat simple! Just ignore the water bottle model-head. =)

After being home for a whopping 6 days, we took off again for my parents' house, this time to celebrate Thanksgiving. We went earlier than usual so that Tim could paint some rooms at my grandma's house. We had a great time while there. My parents recently bought a Wii (before they became sold out everywhere) and you would not believe how much exercise that provides! My arms have finally stopped aching from the boxing and tennis.

Tim, Noah, and me at the Festival of Lights Parade in Howell the night after Thanksgiving. It was so cold, the parade started late, and we were unwisely at the end of the route...so we only got to see a few floats before heading home to save our frozen limbs.

Now we are home again. I'm glad we came back on a Saturday so that we could attend our church this morning. It turned out to be a distracting service for Tim and me, as Noah's nursery number was displayed on the screen and that hasn't happened since the first time we attended over a year ago. It turns out he was playing catch with someone, tripped, and hit something on his way down. His tooth sliced open his lip and I have never seen so much blood come from a toddler's lip. It took a few minutes to stop the bleeding and now he is running around with a fat lip that is sporting a gash. Thankfully, it didn't happen right away so we could at least experience what turned out to be the emotional part of the service for me.
There are a lot of things going on in mine and Tim's lives right now, most of them being financial. I had (another) breakdown last night about it and Tim was great at reminding me the ways that God has continued to provide for us, even if they haven't been checks in the mail like what I wish would happen. Today, Matt was recapping this month's series and started describing the second week, which we missed due to Tim's birthday trip. I've taken the summary from his blog (http://web.mac.com/journeymatt/iWeb/matts%20blog/blog/blog.html):

"we looked at Isaiah. He was someone who didn’t feel good about himself or the situation he was in - his country is falling apart and his king has died. But he sees God in a real way for the first time and it changes everything. He shifts from “Woe is me” to “Wow, it’s God”. Isaiah’s message to the nations and to us is turn to God and find strength (Is. 12, Is. 33, Is. 40). The theme for this week was Relying on God’s Strength by shifting our perspective from the problem to the Provider. We talked about how we view life through filters...like the Lions. We can’t put hope in them because they have let us down so many times (like TODAY). So, let’s shift to view life through the filter of God. This is more than just positive thinking. It is trusting that God is with us, faithful to us, and that His divine power can give us everything we need for life. When we stop dwelling on the situation and shift to the solution in our Savior, we can find that our problems don’t seem as big because God is bigger and we can find strength for every day."

I felt like God had hit me in the head with a 2x4, explaining to me that my problems are starting to overtake me. They occupy my every waking thought and drive me crazy as I try to figure out a solution on my own. I needed to be reminded, like last night by Tim, the ways that He has provided for us and that He will continue to. He is the Provider. It's not usually in the ways I expect, but I never seem to be displeased with it when I look back. I just become so impatient in the time of waiting to see how He is going to work, or what miracle He is going to perform to get us out of the jam we're in.
I'm so thankful this weekend - for an awesome and loving husband, for an adventurous and adorable toddler, for a life inside me that I do not yet know by name but by movement and that unbelievable bond between a mother and unborn child, for family and friends, for a church filled with outstanding people, for having no debt, and for knowing the love and forgiveness of a God who continues to speak and provide even if I feel deaf and alone.

My baby boy...

...is not so baby anymore! We converted his crib to the toddler, well actually, we did the daybed so that he would still have a rail on one side. He loves his new freedom of being able to get in and out of bed when he wants. We love that he wakes up, turns on his light, and plays by himself for a bit in the morning before coming to get us. Added sleep for us!

"Helping" Daddy convert the crib. Testing out the mattress.

This is where we have found him the past 2 days during nap time. We have to gently move him back into his bed.

Can You See What I See?

Focus on the Family gave a grant to the Muskegon Pregnancy Services for an ultrasound machine. They were looking for pregnant women between 6 and 20 weeks to train on. Who can turn down a free ultrasound? Not me. Especially since it will be another 5 weeks before our "big" ultrasound where we find out gender, make sure all the anatomy looks correct, etc. and I have been longing to see my baby!
Apparently, he or she is very active as they kept telling me this while trying to get a good shot. I like this one because it is almost identical to one of Noah's 20 week pictures. They both have a hand by their heads in the picture. Like brother like...baby. So can you see the baby in the photo?