Past two weeks

 

Sorry for the lack of updates. Not only have I been a little busy, but the last couple of days we have been having some internet connection issues and I haven't been able to get anything posted until today. 

Week of May 12

Week 26.  Poor baby probably went through more than he should have this week with moving, but he still seems to be doing fine!

Sunday - our last Sunday at State Street.  :-(  But I told you about that last week. 

Tuesday - Tuesday was my last day at work.  It was definitely very weird to think about that time in my life coming to an end.  They did order in lunch for my last day and had a surprise baby shower for me.   (Complete with chocolate cheesecake.  Mmmm).  They are some really great people to work with.

Wednesday - packing packing packing.  Oh and some of our friends from seminary just had a baby so we went to go see their little guy.  He made me so anxious to hold my little squirt.  We also went to the seminary and I checked out Lifeway's clearance section.  Since I'm going to be having some extra time on my hands I got 6 fiction books for $9.  :-)  That oughta keep me entertained for awhile.

Thursday - More packing.  And more packing.  Caleb's dad and brother arrived around lunch time with the trailer to load up all of our stuff.  We still had quite a bit of packing left by time they got there so we didn't start loading up the trailer until around 5.  We had several people from church who came and helped us load.  We can't thank them enough for all of their hard work. 

Moving while being pregnant was such a challenge for me.  I hated not being able to help more.   While there were people there helping us load I tried to keep myself busy packing up boxes of the little random things that were still left.  But after 2 days of being on my feet all day, my feet were screaming at me.  I tried to take small breaks but felt bad when all of these other people are there carrying out my stuff and I'm sitting there chilling on a bean bag stuffing my face with tater tot casserole. 

Thursday night we slept on our leaky air mattress that Glenn and Leah have dubbed "The Enforcer" since it forces you to snuggle.  We only had to refill it twice.  :-)

Friday - We got up and Caleb was so wonderful in getting everything that we had left loaded into the van and the car because going up and down steps loading up our stuff was kind of out of the question for me.  Since we don't have a place to stay we had to pack quite a bit into our cars, like 3 suitcases each since we are living out of them for an undetermined amount of time.   I also had my kids pets and plants that had to be loaded up so we could drop them off at my parents' house. 

We finally pulled out a little bit before 2:30.  We got to my parents and had dinner then headed back out and went to Mexico (It's in Missouri.  We didn't go to the country Mexico).  Caleb's Aunt Rachel and her husband are such a blessing to us by letting us crash in their basement for the days/weeks/months/years/decades/whatever amount of time God has us being homeless.  (We are hoping for just a couple of weeks at the most. Don't worry Rachel, we do plan on moving out).  Mexico is only about 25ish minutes away from Centralia where the church is, so we are still in close proximity to our new stomping grounds.

Saturday - we had no plans for the day.  NONE.  Nada.  It was wonderful.  I woke up itching to see those precious nephews of ours though.  We haven't seen them since March and they only live about 30 minutes away.....so we went to go see them and spent most of the day with them.  Christa and Bert sure do make some cute kids. 

Week of May 19

Week 27 - My oh my is this baby moving more and more every day. He seems to like to wake up right as we are going to bed.  I tried playing a game with him this week called "Lets see who can sit still the longest". Caleb poked my belly and told me he was trying to help me win. That was not the point of the game.  Lol.

Sunday - It was our first Sunday at Cornerstone.  My parents came and surprised us.  It was a great Sunday morning.

Sunday evening we had church again and someone accepted the Lord!  It was so exciting.  That's certainly always a reason to celebrate.  :-)  Such a sweet precious lady that we get to spend eternity with! 

My wedding rings also had to be packed away.  They were getting tight and I certainly didn't want to risk having to get them cut off.  So long pretty bling.

So the rest of this week we have been trying to find a place to live.  After driving around Centralia we started thinking that it might be better to buy a house instead of rent one.  We've been talking with a loan officer about trying to apply for a loan.  She sent me a list of documents that we would need and one of them was tax returns from the past two years.  Well those happen to be in a file cabinet in the trailer. 

Caleb went out and tried to find the file cabinet in the trailer.  He called me and asked me to come outside and help him.  I went out there and the front door to the trailer was open with some things sitting in the driveway.  There was still a lot of stuff piled up right at the door of the trailer and I couldn't find Caleb.  After calling out his name I found him like this in the middle of the trailer.  I'm not totally sure how he managed to get himself back there, but he did.  All I had was my cell phone and I definitely wanted a picture.  I should have taken more pictures so you could get more of the gist of how far back there he was and the tight space way up high that he had to crawl through to get there, but I didn't want to frustrate him with taking too many pictures.  I'm sure it would have been funnier if you had been there but unfortunately I was the only one to witness it. Unless there are creepy neighbors.

In that picture he had found the filing cabinet and was sitting on it, he just had to figure out how to get it out.  He was able to maneuver it fairly well and it would have been a whole lot simpler if I could have lifted it and slid it the rest of the way out.  There's no way I could lift that thing before I was pregnant so there was definitely no way I was going to attempt it now. 

I have a picture of him with the filing cabinet once we got it out, but that picture won't load. I guess I can't push my internet abilities too much today.

Friday

We went to Hannibal to get our transcripts for the loan paperwork.  Caleb's dad and brother were there doing disaster relief since Hannibal got a lot of wind damage from the storm last weekend.  Caleb went to help them out and I got to spend time with my sweet friend, Lydia.  We got to swap pregnancy stories and enjoyed some time outside eating at Sonic.  It's great to live closer to friends again.

Saturday

I made Oreo balls!  They aren't as pretty as Grandma Connie's, but they still taste delicious.  I'm ready for Memorial Day festivities!



I love this man who will mash oreos for me.




We've been able to spend time with several different people from the church this week. We definitely feel at home here with these people and know without a doubt that this is where we are supposed to be.  We may not have a place of our own to call home and there are still other unanswered questions, but all of that will be revealed to us in the right time and we know that we have nothing to worry about.

After living in Indiana for two years, it almost seems weird to be back in Missouri.  There's just little things that happen that make it more and more real.  I changed the time on my watch back one hour.  We don't have to change the states in the GPS anymore.  Other people have Missouri license plates other than us.  Highway names have MO in front of them.  Family lives in a day trip's distance away from us. 

We're home.  :-)

Week of May 5th

Week 25.  Baby is doing good!  He seems to move around more and more every day.  Sometimes it's cute, other times it hurts.  And then sometimes I just poke him back.

Sunday - we went to church with Glenn and Leah in Chattanooga and then drove back to Indiana.  It's crazy how much difference there is in gas prices.  In most of Tennessee gas was around $3.13/gallon.  The closer we got to Louisville the higher it got, all the way up to the $3.80s.  Blech.  Fortunately gas is a tad bit cheaper in Indiana than Louisville. (And it's even cheaper in Missouri!)

Monday - we had baby's monthly doctor appointment.  Everything seems to be going fine.  He's measuring exactly where he should be at this point.

Wednesday - my replacement at work started on Wednesday afternoon.  I think she's going to be a great addition, I just wish that I had more time to spend with her to teach her everything.

Thursday - Caleb got up early and headed to Missouri for a day trip in hopes of finding a place to live.  He looked at three different places but wasn't very impressed with any of them, for different reasons.  We are still going to move next week, just without a place to call home.  We're trusting in the Lord to provide exactly what we need. 

He posted this picture on facebook with the description of "Yesterday I made the trek to Missouri to look for a place to live. At about 8 a.m. I saw this rainbow. I'm just hoping it's not a sign we'll spend the next forty days living in a box that smells like a zoo."

Him and me both.

Friday - Friday morning I woke up wanting pancakes.  It's the first time in quite a few weeks that I actually craved pancakes.  After my shower I decided to wear my hair frizzy and wavy in return for having time to make pancakes.  It just so happens that we have some strawberries that need to be eaten in the refrigerator.  Then I found a dab of cool whip that was left in the freezer that certainly needed to be eaten before moving.  Oh then I found a bag with just a few chocolate chips left in it.  So clearly the only solution to trying to use up some of the food that we have before we move is to make chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries and cool whip. 

It was totally worth the bad hair day.

fuzzy cell phone pictures don't do justice to this deliciousness.

Saturday - A lot of times when someone is preparing to move, they have a garage sale.  What do we do the Saturday before we move?  We go to garage sales.  I found a couple of multi family sales on craigslist that aren't too far away from where we live.  One place that we went to was a family who was raising money for an international adoption.  I found 5 books (3 for me, 2 for baby), and 10 little boys clothes, all for a total of $3. Yay!

Saturday afternoon was my first baby shower.  I am so thankful for all of the wonderful ladies in our church.  They had a turtle themed shower with yummy food and some baby shower games that were really fun.  I know that they put a lot of effort into it and it was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  Caleb also enjoyed himself by going to go see Ironman and going shopping for tools.

Saturday night I packed the first box!  My flower pots are ready to go!  There were several that I wanted to get rid of (like ones that were just old pickle jars and stuff like that) and several that I really wanted to keep.  I wanted to make sure I got those sorted in case Caleb started packing up that room while I was at work or something and I didn't want him to pack away everything or get rid of any that I wanted to keep.  And I was looking for things that I wanted to get rid of so that we could fill up our garbage can before trash goes on Tuesday.  :-)  So if nothing else gets packed, I'll still have my flower pots. 

In case I forget to post next week in the midst of our move, this morning (Sunday) was our last Sunday at State Street Baptist Church.  They were so sweet and prayed over us during the service.  Also, since it's Mother's Day they passed out flowers to some of the mothers.  I scored some flowers since I'm the youngest mother.  They are really pretty!

this was the best picture I could take just by leaning over the couch arm rest.  getting up off of the couch is a lot of work these days.

Also, we were telling everyone goodbye as they were leaving the church.  Karis is a girl who was adopted from China a little over a year ago and is just the cutest. Once she learned my name she always says hi to me and even named one of her hands after me!  (In her orphanage they didn't have toys so she would always play with her hands).  Well today she came up to me and her eye level is right at my belly.  She put her little pointer finger on my belly and said "What is in there??"  I told her it was a baby and she looked puzzled as she tried to figure out how there was a baby in my belly.  She asked me a few more times what was in my belly, and then she walked over to Caleb and put her finger on Caleb's belly and asked what was in his. Caleb explained to her that all that was in his was his breakfast.  No baby.  We all had such a good laugh over it.  :-)  She definitely made my day.

One last picture to leave you with.   Apparently getting your prom pictures taken in the lift on a fire truck is cool.  And I can be a creepy neighbor.

Week of April 28

Week 24 is over!  I haven't been sleeping as well these past couple of weeks.  But I did get a new pillow to sleep with!  It's a Boppy cuddle pillow.  It supports your hips, back, and belly.  It is wonderful.  :-)  Also, I have found out that baby doesn't like long car rides.  He hates when anything is touching my belly and will kick it until it moves.  However, there's not much I can do about a seat belt during a car ride, so I just enjoy his kicks.

Circus
We went to the circus!  It wasn't as good as I remember it being as a kid, but still good.  My favorite part was the elephants, and I even got a few pointers from them on how to get up when laying down.  Animals are smart, you know.

 

Chattanooga
Friday morning we headed to Chattanooga to visit our friends from college, Glenn and Leah.  Glenn and Caleb are so crazy similar.  It's nice for Caleb to have someone to do his guns/guitars things with while I hang out with his wife and do more girly things.  :-)

This is how Glenn greeted us as we arrived.

Glenn and Caleb went shopping for tools and ammo and stuff while Leah and I went to Babies R Us to register for my wee little one.  We got to park in expectant mother parking! 

Leah and I also went and got to try out a bunch of Mary Kay products while the boys made knives.

There's a used bookstore in Chattanooga called McKays and we love going there whenever we visit.  We went Saturday night and left with this stash for $13.

Caleb and Glenn also fixed deer hearts. 

The raw hearts.  Blech.

And this also happened.

And Leah gave me a thirty-one backpack to use as a diaper bag!  I was telling her what I wanted in a diaper bag and this is even better than what I was wanting!  It opens from the top or the side and has these little nifty moveable compartments and several pockets inside.  I'm super excited about this.  :-)

 

Moving
We still haven't found a place to live in Missouri yet.  I'm sure something will come up soon (considering we are moving in less than two weeks I'm really hoping something will come up soon!).  We also haven't started packing yet.  One of these days we will... :-)

Also, now that this week is over, I only have seven more days left of work.  SEVEN!  I'm going to miss that place so much.