My sister Cheryl makes aprons like these and they’re super-nice. The hoop in the neck makes it nice because you can see the baby (not speaking from experience, but from observation and hear-say). I’m sure she’d be glad to sell you one if you’re interested. =)

We’re enjoying another Saturday at home after a fun week with friends. Jim has been busy putting the finishing touches on his shop and fixing things that have been sitting on his “mending pile” for a long time. I baked a batch of bread and two pumpkin pies. We have a potluck after church tomorrow so I need to make some food for that. I also needed to sweep/mop the floors after having 9 people in the house this week. I usually use a mop, but I’ve been wanting to do a hands-and-knees scrub for awhile and for some dumb reason, I decided today was the day. I think that used up all the energy I had left and now I’m pooped. I’m not sure I’ll get to the last item on my to-do list–taking my two-mile walk! Jim and I are both filling in for Sunday School teachers tomorrow, so maybe I’ll sit and study my lesson awhile and see if I feel up to it later.

The Lyndakers (friends from Red Lake) were here Tuesday night through Friday forenoon. It was good to see them again and host them in our home. They know others in the community that they also visited with while they were here but we got them all to ourselves on Thursday. Arthur went hiking, Collin rode with Jim, and the rest of us went to Grand Caverns. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid and we all enjoyed the tour. We grilled two chickens for supper and had a relaxing evening playing games. I’m so happy they took the time to come and visit us!

Their visit was the last “big thing” on the calendar before the baby comes, since Jim decided NOT to go to the meetings in IL. I’m relieved about that, since I know how terribly disappointed he’d be if he missed the birth. While your comments didn’t make the decision for us, they did influence my opinion! =) Here’s to hoping my firstborn comes early like so many of yours did! I appreciate all the recommendations for baby stuff too. I spent a long time the other day googling this and that, since a lot of the specific things/brand names I’d never heard of before. I think Rachel’s recommendation of the Nosefrida was our favourite. I looked it up on Amazon and the top two customer reviews made us both laugh out loud. It’s worth reading just for the smiles.

My sister gave me some hand-me-down clothes and I washed them the other day along with the thrift-store stuff Carolyn and I had bought on our shopping trip. The first of many loads of little boy laundry. Both of us just sat and looked at it hanging on the drying rack and kept saying mushy things like, “Awwww, isn’t it cute” and “I can’t wait for Jimmy to come.” I’m sure dirty laundry will lose its appeal fairly quickly, but, well, you know…. =)

What would really just take the cake is if Jimmy ends up being Lucy after all. Now that we’ve gone and told everyone its a boy and started stocking up on boy stuff. The ultrasound seemed unmistakeable, but those surprises do happen. I think God would laugh.

I did have a good surprise last Saturday after I posted and said my due date was only eight weeks away. Jim and I were talking about some dates and schedule stuff and I realized I was a week behind–that my due date was in seven weeks instead. It felt like I was getting to “skip” a whole week of being pregnant.  Other than the month between Felix and Jimmy, I’ve been pregnant for over a year now. Seems long, but the elephant still has me by a good bit. I’m glad I’m not an elephant (although I feel as big as one at times).

I’ve been on a bit of a kick to use up old things off my pantry shelves. One thing that was stumping me as a lone can of mackerel that was here when we got married. I asked Jim how he used it and he didn’t know. According to the date on the lid, it was packed in Jan. 2007 and expired Jan. 2011. I figured one year past that wouldn’t kill us and found a recipe for fish cakes. The day I made them, I was dreading telling Jim what was for supper because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like fish cakes and doubted he would either. Turned out we both thought they were pretty good. I used up most of a jar of pear jam this week that I wasn’t sure when or how we procured. It was good too. Next thing up: some packets of dried “fish soup” that Jim picked up on a mission trip to Jamaica in 2008. Anyone wanna come for dinner?!

In closing, here’s Jim with the nephews last weekend. Love those boys!

Before we got married I repainted most of the living area in our house. Two rooms remained unpainted–the little laundry/entrance area and the office. I’ve talked about finishing ever since but never got motivated. Now it seems smart to go ahead and paint the office before we get all of the baby’s stuff set up, so that’s on my to-do list sometime soon. I got a small start on prepping the room today–taking things off the walls and such–but we’re having overnight guests next week and I don’t think I’ll have time to get the painting done before they come so the prep part is pretty much on hold now too. I think I’m going to be boring and use paint leftover from the rest of the house. No fancy baby nursery paint job. Maybe I’ll spring for cute curtains or something.

Baby time is fast approaching. My due date is eight weeks away. A lot can happen in two months (and a lot will!) but it doesn’t feel that far off. My sis-in-law and I went shopping on Thursday for baby things. She dragged me out in response to my earlier blog about hating shopping and wanting someone else to do it for me. I was happy with what we got, but disappointed that I came home without a few things I planned to buy for sure. Part of that was due to a remodeling project at Target. The store was in disarray and lots of the shelves were empty or missing. Jim and I had picked out a car seat there, and that was one big item on my list that was not in stock on Thursday. Come back in a week or two, they said. So I get to go shopping again! =) A question for you moms–what one thing would be on your “must have” list if you were advising a first-time mother who has no idea what all she really needs and doesn’t need and probably wouldn’t think of buying on her own?

Another question for you…are we crazy to plan on Jim going on a five-day trip to IL two weeks before my due date? Just curious. Our observation is that first babies don’t usually come that early, but I guess there’s really no way to tell. If there is any indication at all that things might happen early, he’ll stay home, but it seems important for him to be at these meetings if possible.

First, Jim and I celebrated our own little Christmas together on Friday evening the 23rd. It wasn’t the completely idyllic and restful evening we were both wishing for since we needed to pack and be ready to leave at 5:00 the next morning. We did have a nice dinner though, and exchanged the gifts we bought for each other. Our third Christmas together–time flies. Jim got me a headset to use with the phone/cell phone. That will save me a lot of stiff necks as I often do dishes or cook supper or other chores while I chat.

So here’s our Christmas dinner, some of Jim’s favourites: grilled steaks, twice-baked potatoes (loaded w/ sour cream, butter, cheese, bacon, etc.), green beans & bacon, succotash, bread, and apple crisp for dessert. And grape juice in the goblets. =)

We managed to get off early on Sat. morning–4:35 (yawn)–and arrived in OH a little before lunch time. We picked up J’s sister in PA and she rode with us the rest of the way. It was great to join my Steiner relatives for their annual Christmas dinner at noon–the first time I’ve been to one of those gatherings in years. Some of my cousins had spouses and children I’d never met, and a good number of them had never met Jim, so it was a good time of visiting and catching up. We left that gathering mid-afternoon and went to J’s parents’ home in Wooster for the evening. All but one of his siblings came home for Christmas, so we made a pretty good-sized crowd. We went to church with the family on Sunday morning and then had a big Christmas dinner and our gift exchange in the afternoon.

We stayed in OH until Tuesday morning. A good chunk of Monday was spent working in the yard. J had brought his leaf blower along and he worked without ceasing, while the rest of us pitched in with rakes and such as needed. In the evening we went bowling and then out for dinner with his siblings.

(In my defense, the camera batteries died at this point and I didn’t have opportunity to get more for several days.)

On Tuesday, we left OH and drove to Doniphan, MO, where Jim’s grandpa lives with an aunt/uncle and their family. We encountered snow about the time we hit the IN border, so that slowed us down a little. We took a lunch break just west of Indianapolis at Steak n Shake with J’s uncle’s family. They had been in MO and were driving back to PA. By the time we were done with lunch, the storm had passed us over and we had clear roads the rest of the way to MO. It was a long day of driving though. I think we left at 6:30 am. and arrived at 7:00 pm. Our time in MO was short but good. We enjoyed supper and the evening with family there and left at 8:00 the next morning for AL.

That leg of the trip was also long and uneventful. We stopped for a couple hours in Southaven, MS for a visit with the Miller family, friends of Jim’s from days gone by. Somewhere between MO and AL, we left the cold behind. J especially appreciated that! He’s not a winter-man. =) We pulled into Dad and Mom’s at 8:30 that night. They showed us around the We Care building and fed us peanut butter pie and then we dragged off to bed.

Our days in AL were very relaxed and laid back, a needed rest for us. We played lots of games, put a puzzle together, went for a drive to see the area, and soaked up the warm sunshine. One evening J went into the prison with Dad and gave the message for their chapel service.

   (see how big I’m getting!?)

One night we went out to David’s Catfish House for supper. David’s is one of those places where the booths are homemade, the bathroom stalls are constructed out of rough 1×4′s and corrugated tin, the floor is concrete, and the menu features fried food and sweet tea. J ordered oysters but wasn’t feeling that well so he didn’t eat them until we were traveling home the next day. (Cold fried oysters….yum, yum, eh?) He was surprised to bite into a rock-hard object in one of them and upon investigation, found this:

A pearl! I know this is a pathetic picture, but its about the size of a popcorn kernel, a little pinkish and shiny. From internet research, it would seem that it is probably not of any value, but I’ve had fun joking around about Jim’s “pearl.” If he gets rich off it someday, the joke will be on me.

We went to church with Dad and Mom on Sunday, had a quick lunch with them, and then left for home. J had hoped to stop at a cousin’s home in SC, but they weren’t home. We considered driving straight through, but we were both pretty tired and emotionally drained, so we spent the night at a hotel in Jonesville, NC. We finished the trip yesterday morning. It was SO GOOD to be home again, but we were only here long enough to unpack and eat some lunch before leaving again.

Some close friends of ours had a baby by c-section on Saturday afternoon that had inhaled a good bit of meconium and was in very serious condition at birth. The baby was flown to the university hospital about an hour from here and is, at this time, stable but critical. They have her sedated and hooked up to a machine that bypasses her lungs, hoping to give her lungs a chance to heal. The future is still pretty uncertain and they’re pretty much taking things day by day, hour by hour. The mother was released from the local hospital yesterday and hadn’t even seen the baby yet, so we helped them pack up some things and make the trip to Charlottesville. They plan to stay there indefinitely, so we helped them get their stuff carried into the home where they’ll be staying and sat with them at the hospital for awhile. The maze of machines and wires and tubes around that baby is astounding.

We’re praying for God’s mercy and healing. It feels like just another situation in a pile of others that make us so aware of our helplessness and our dependency on God. At the same time, our flesh wonders where God is and if he hears and cares. My heart has felt so heavy and sad for them; for my brother and his wife who are already seeing increased signs of deterioration in their baby who has a fatal genetic disease unless God intervenes in a miraculous way; for my sisters and cousins and friends who have experienced miscarriages in the past year; for us and the baby we lost (and fears for the baby we have–will he be okay?)… It is a continual process of surrender and trust.

We got back from C-ville last night at bedtime. Both of us were very tired. This morning, we woke up to thickly falling snow and a white world outside our window. So beautiful. A little hard to remember that just two days ago we were nearly breaking a sweat in the 75* sunshine in AL, but lovely in its own way. A front tire on J’s work truck was completely flat, throwing a little wrinkle into his morning routine, but he’s off to work and busy with inventory–that annual tribulation that accompanies welcoming in the new year. I have an appointment with my midwife today. I’m fairly certain that her eyebrows will hit her hairline when she sees my weight gain. =( Instead of asking if I had a big Thanksgiving dinner or telling me I can eat a few more Christmas cookies, she’ll probably put me on a bread and water diet for the next two weeks. Traveling and sitting and eating out and eating in and snacking and Christmas dinners and did I mention snacking? and sitting some more have all taken their toll and I have not been as conscientious as I should have been. The scale shed tears when I stepped on last night. Jimmy seemed to handle the trip just fine. The first while, he was so still I was starting to get worried, but the last three days, he’s been methodically rearranging my insides and seems to never need a break from his activity, so I’m guessing he’s just fine. I think I did pretty well traveling too. My ankles did get a little bit swollen for a couple days, but I didn’t make us stop for potty breaks every hour and other than my sore back, I’m just fine as well.

I’ve been blessed reading your “year-in-review” blogs and Christmas letters/cards. I especially appreciate the pictures you’ve sent and am enjoying my updated bulletin board filled with friends and memories. Jim says he’s tired of seeing our wedding photo on people’s refrigerators and we tossed around the idea of sending our own Christmas mailing but decided to wait until March after the baby comes. So you were not forgotten by us, you just get to wait a bit longer for some real mail and a new picture for your fridge. =)

Last year, I posted something on my blog around Christmastime, asking if any of you had special traditions or ideas for making the holiday meaningful and memorable. A few of you shared your ideas (I’m always glad for more!) and one of them kept coming back to me as we talked about reaching out to our neighbors.

The idea was for a Nativity Supper. Before each course of the meal, a portion of the Christmas story is read from the Bible and then foods are served that correspond with the scripture. As she told me, the first reading was about the angel coming to Mary and then she served an appetizer of wings. The next reading was about Jesus’ birth and the shepherds, followed by the main entree of shepherd’s pie. The last reading was about the wise men and her dessert included gold-wrapped chocolates.

I thought this would be a great way to invite some of our neighbors into our home, get to know them better, and also include some meaningful “reason for the season” input in a not-so-threatening way. The problem has been the busyness of the holiday season and we ended up with only one couple accepting our dinner invitation–and they’re the ones who are believers already. I’m kind of disappointed about that, but we’re going to go ahead and maybe next year we’ll try again.

I’m going to keep my menu very similar to the original idea. That means I get to try my hand at making wings for the first time. For the main course, I’m making shepherd’s pie, a rustic multigrain bread and probably a fruit salad of some kind. I’m not sure what dessert will be yet, but I did get some gold “nuggets.” I was sure that one of the candy companies made a chocolate called “Treasures,” but I couldn’t find them anywhere so I settled for Hershey’s Nuggets.

I encourage you to keep looking for ways to centralize the real Gift of Christmas in your celebrations, and also for ways to shine the Light to those around you!

Gingerbread men from Esther Shank’s cookbook (not a terribly sweet cookie and stays soft–I don’t like crispy gingerbread), caramel-filled chocolate cookies (yummm–my new favourite!), white chocolate cranberry cookies (a make-every-year staple recipe), and cranberry apple muffins (part of the snack I served; a new recipe that I’m sure I’ll use again–I did leave out half the coriander).

Now what I really, really, really need to do is get my cookie loot in the freezer so I quit eating (or being severely tempted to eat) one every time I walk through the kitchen!

This year has been a difficult one for my family in relation to babies. Three of us had miscarriages and now this. I struggle at times with the WHY? questions and with trusting in God’s goodness. It is one thing to say that God is good, has good plans for us, wants to bless us, and so on…and another to truly believe when circumstances feel just the opposite. We have prayed many times that glory would be brought to God through our lives, but right now it is hard to see the glory. There are so many questions with no good answers. I confess I have my times of doubt, fear, worry and disappointment with God, but I am committed to holding on and trusting even when I don’t understand. I have been challenged to cultivate a heart of gratitude. While I shed tears and sorrow over our losses this year, I remind myself to give thanks for the safe arrival of baby Kyra and for Jimmy, who seems to be perking along alright if my size is any indication. =)

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:33-36.

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This has been one of Those Days. After Jim left for work, I rushed around getting myself ready for work and preparing my food for our church Christmas banquet tonight. I was supposed to make a huge pan of baked rice pilaf and realized yesterday that I wasn’t going to get home from work in time to bake it. I made arrangements with Lisa to drop it off at her house on the way to work and she was going to bake it for me. I got out the door with very little time to spare and mostly enjoyed my day at the market. The morning was kind of slow, but I got the special treat of a surprise lunch with Jim, who was working nearby. Sales picked up in the afternoon and I was happy to get off two hours earlier than I expected. I picked up my rice and brought it home to bake myself. I used my extra hours to do the dishes, make the bed, and catch up on other things I didn’t get done this morning. At 5:30, Jim called and said he’d been on his way home but got an emergency call and wouldn’t be home in time to go to the banquet. It didn’t sound like much fun to go without him, so I decided to drop my rice off and come home. The rice recipe said it should bake for 1.5 hrs. When I went to get it out of the oven at 6:00, it was almost as raw as it was when I put it in at 4:30. I slightly panicked, cranked the oven to 425*, and hoped it would get done fast. At 6:30, it seemed mostly done, so I rushed off to church. Fortunately other people had made rice that they were serving first and my being 20 min. late didn’t matter. The people in charge even gave me two plates of food “to go,” so Jim and I got in on a bit of the banquet when he got home at 7:30. It has been raining steadily all day and just changed to snow and blustery wind. While it is a bit disappointing to miss the banquet, it’s a good evening to stay home and relax after a busy day.

I’ve been wanting to buy a few more apples for winter eating and my favourite kind is Fuji. Most of the orchards are sold out, but the largest orchard in our area has a fruit stand nearby that still has a good supply. They’re pretty pricey at $25/bushel, but every week they put one variety of apples on sale at half price. I’ve been calling to find out their specials every week and it is always something like Red Delicious or Rome or something else I’m not really interested in. I’ve asked the lady a couple times about the Fuji and she always tells me she highly doubts that they will go on sale since they’re such a high-demand apple. The orchard closes on Dec. 17, so I knew time was running out and I pretty much gave up on getting my Fuji apples. When I called today and the lady said the special was Fuji, it felt like a special gift from God. Counting my blessings….

I put up our Christmas decorations today. I made this two years ago and I was so proud of how it turned out.

My new freezer! Please notice the lack of frost build-up inside. My sis-in-laws helped me move everything over last Saturday.

We had to get pictures taken for our church directory and even though we went with good intentions of not buying any “extras,” we caved when we saw these.

Jim proudly putting together the crib we bought.

I made a huge batch of pumpkin cinnamon rolls one Saturday. They weren’t as ooey-gooey as I was hoping for, and I ended up with three large pans full, so I shared them with friends. There are still some in the freezer. Yum.

We kept Lincoln while his parents were at the hospital with the new baby.

  
Jim getting Mr. Turkey ready for the grill. Me getting Mr. Turkey ready for the dinner table.

The Heatwole clan.