Full term!!!

I am full term TODAY!!! Come on little Daniel, I'm ready for you to make your entrance!

Tumble Tots pictures!!

These are some of the best pictures taken of Molly at her Tumble Tots photo session when she was about 18 months old. Thanks to Gram for the beautifully knitted jumper!

More shots from Mary's visit

Thanks for all the great pictures Mary! I wish you lived closer so I could hire you OFTEN!


Molly at the pub

I never knew you could do so much with this stuff! Pretty cool!

Playing play doh with Aunt Mary. My sister is the best aunt/mom/playmate ever. She has unlimited energy and such a passion for kids. Ayden is very blessed to have you as a mom, Mary!

Love this shot!

My little girl is so prissy but loves some firetrucks. Maybe she will grow up to be a firefighter wearing pearls :)

Super cheesy

Molly and her two best friends

Church baby shower

In a country where so few people attend church or religious services of any kind, Bryon and I feel INCREDIBLY fortunate to have found such a devout and warm church as our church here in the UK, Alconbury Baptist. After being in the UK for only 9 months, the ladies of Alconbury Baptist threw me a beautiful baby shower for Daniel. The congregation may be small (compaired to my church back home) but almost every woman in the church attended the shower. I am so touched and thankful to Candice, Carol and Cindy for all the effort you put in making the shower possible. You all truly are my family away from home.

Mary and I at the shower.

Belly shot

We have a wonderfully multicultural church. Starting from the little girl and going around the table these ladies are from USA (little girl), England, me, New Zealand, Zambia, South Africa and Zambia. It is a real blessing to me worshiping with people from different cultures. It reminds me of the many mission trips I've been on and keeps fresh the reality of what a vast world we live in and how close we all really are to one another.

Kissing the belly. These are two of the three ladies who planned the shower.

The Zambian ladies singing blessings on Daniel while giving their gifts. This was one of the most special parts of the shower.

Thank you to everyone for all the wonderful gifts.

Bowling and Burgers

One night while Aunt Mary was here, we all went to the base Bowling Alley. We love this place but don't go very often. It is a greasy burger joint with lots of bowling lanes, huge TV's everywhere that always play sports or news, video games and lots of fun family friendly stuff. Here are some pictures from the night.

Aunt Mary showing us how it is done. She whooped Molly and Bryon in the first game. Then she got whooped the second game :)

Bryon showing his skills and excellent bowling form.

I bowled once and then Molly took over my game. She was enjoying it way more than I was and I'm sure she was a lot cuter than my prego self waddling down the lane. Actually her worst round was the one I did!

Getting psyched out for her turn.

Here she goes! She used a different color ball each time and there was lots of screaming and squeeling as she saw it roll down the lane. We got lots of stares and laughs thats for sure.

There it goes! It was no doubt a strike. She rolled a 110 on her best game.

Well, I did what I came to do. I beat everyone. Now it is time for my chicken nuggets, cya!

Mary's Visit

Aunt Mary is here visiting!!! We are LOVING having her here. Molly especially loves all the attention and we love the beautiful pictures she has been taking for us. Here is a glimpse of her stay so far.

Easter

More pictures from Easter Sunday. The Easter bunny pictures didn't turn out well but these are from our Easter pot luck and egg hunt after church. You won't see Molly in the egg hunt or bubble pictures because she slept through the entire event. As soon as she ate lunch she headed straight upstairs to her bed and did not get up until the party was almost over. We had a great time with great friends, but we sure missed our family from home!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, from our family to yours.

It's Friday

It’s Friday

“And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
John 19:17-19


It’s Friday, and all of Jerusalem is quiet. In the upper room, the Passover Supper has proceeded by the ceremonial cups of wine and breaking of unleavened bread. The final cup has been drunk and the feast is over and the disciples fall into conversation trying to understand about the importance of the act they had just been taught. Later, Jesus finishes teaching with his disciples and He asks them to stay awake and pray with Him. But it is Friday, and they tire and fall asleep. It is Friday and Jesus, in a sense, is all alone. His disciples are fast asleep and His heart is pumping at what He knows is before Him. His heart is aching, falling deeper into the realm of agony. The sweat upon Jesus’ face and forehead begin to change color to a deepened hue of red. It’s Friday, and out in the open space walks out Judas followed by soldiers who arrest Jesus in the garden where He was praying. It’s Friday, and the disciples are now hiding, and Peter’s denying that he knows the Lord. Jesus is standing before the high priest of Israel, silent as a lamb before the slaughter. Jesus is then lead before Pontius Pilate where He is scourged in hope of drawing sympathy - but it is Friday. It is Friday and Jesus is beaten, mocked and spat upon! The Roman solder are flogging our Lord with a leather scourge that has bits of bones, glass and metal that tear the flesh from the body and the Son of Man stands firm as they press the crown of thorns down into His brow. It is Friday and the crowd yells out; “Crucify Him!” See our Lord walking to Calvary, the blood dripping from His body. See the cross crashing down on His back as He stumbles beneath the load. The Roman soldiers are driving the nails into the feet and hands of my Lord and He cries out “Father, forgive them.” Yes, it is Friday. Friday, and our Lord is hanging on the cross, bloody and dying. It is Friday and Mary is crying her eyes out, the disciples are running in every direction like sheep without a shepherd. It is Friday and as the sky grows dark, the people say; darkness is going to rule the world, darkness is going to be everywhere. But what they don’t know is that it is only Friday. It is Friday and even though the world is rotten, as rotten as it is now, we know that it is only Friday. Friday. . . But Sunday is coming! It is Friday and Jesus struggles to draw himself up on the cross so He can speak. He clenches His teeth against the pain until His knees where straight again so he could breath and cry out “It is finished!” Jesus is hanging on the cross and Heaven is weeping while hell is partying. The earth trembled and the veil of the Temple that separates sinful man from Holy God was torn from top to bottom – all because it’s Friday!


It was on that horrible day 2000 years ago that Jesus the Christ, the Lord of Glory, the only begotten Son of God, the only perfect Man died on the cross of Calvary. Satan thought that he had won the victory. Surely he had destroyed the Son of God. Finally he had disproved the prophecy God had uttered in the Garden and the one who was to crush his head had been destroyed. But that was Friday, Friday….Now it's Sunday. And just about dawn of the first day of the week, there was a great earthquake. But that wasn’t the only thing shaking because now it’s Sunday. The angel of the Lord is coming down out of Heaven and rolling away the door of the tomb. The guards posted at the tomb to keep guard of Jesus body have disappeared, shaking in their boots. The Lamb that was silent before the slaughter is now the resurrected Lion for the tribe of Judah for He is not here, declares the angel! He is risen indeed. It is Sunday and the crucified/resurrected Christ has defeated death, hell, sin and the grave – all because it’s Sunday! And now, everything has changed. It’s the age of grace, God’s grace poured out on all who would look to that crucified Lamb of Calvary. Grace freely given to all who would believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary, was buried and rose again. All because it is Sunday.


For some of you it may be a Friday. Things may look dark and desperate. Your friends and love ones may have forsaken you and quite frankly – you may feel like you haven’t a friend in the world. Maybe you are in deep pain and agony, either spiritually or physically or both. Maybe you are feeling crushed as it were and not sure you can bear the load another minute. And just maybe you are at a point of just giving up. Friend, there is someone who loves you more than a brother or a sister, mom or dad could ever love you. He is the Son of God, God the Son; the Lamb that was Slain who now liveth. While it might be Friday, your Sunday could be three days away. Hang on, live your life for Jesus and look for Sunday to come…


“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words, And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.”
Luke 24:1-9



- This was taken from an email sent to me. May it be a blessing to you on this most precious of all holidays. Thank you Jesus, for your death on the cross FOR ME but more importantly thank you that you resurrected and we now can have hope.

Molly at 18 months!

Today is Molly's year and 1/2 birthday. 18 months has gone by so fast and in just 7 1/2 weeks we will have little Daniel here with us as well. Anyways, I thought you might be interested in an overview of Molly so here ya go!

Mobility- She started walking at 10 months but now she runs and even runs on her toes. She is in Tumble Tots which is basically a kids gymnastics/balance class. This has really helped her alot. She is able to walk on balance beams, climb towers, climb up monkey bars (not totally coordinating moving her hands and feet together but getting very close). She jumps on trampolines, climbs up on any chair by herself.

Eating- She is a great eater. Her favorites are pizza, yo baby yogurt, eggs, grapes, oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and anything that we are eating. We have started introducing her to lots of different raw veggies lately which she has taken to pretty well, especially raw broccoli, she loves that. And she likes red peppers surprsingly well. I will probably do olives next. She likes almost any and all fruit. Everyday on the way to playgroup she eats an apple by herself. I don't even peel it, just give it to her and she goes to town. She is able to use her fork and spoon all by herself! She ate oatmeal squares cereal with milk this morning for breakfast and only spilled minimally on her bib. She eats her own yogurt cup each morning and an applesauce cup for snack. She doesn't like us to help her unless she is so hungry she can't get the food in fast enough. She even holds the sppon properly and sometimes sticks her pinky up like a little prissy thing.

Play- She is involved in two 'mum and tot' playgroups, a total of three days a week. One is on base(tuesday and thursday) and the other is at our church(monday). She is getting to know all of the children and moms really well and starting to explore. She was doing especially great my second trimester but has started to get really clingy to me again. I think she senses something is different and it makes her a little anxious. Her favorite things are books (especially the elmo ones from Becca), her little tikes car and balls. We have been working with her on flash cards and she can almost identify any animal you show her and lots of other stuff (clothing articles, transportation, etc). Cows and dogs are her favorite and we see them almost every day since so many of them live in our neighborhood :)

Verbal- She talks NONSTOP, however, most of it I cannot understand. She does have quite a good vocabulary though. Her favorite words are daddy, dog, duck, sticker, chip, cookie, dirty, bath, and NO!!!

Sleep- She sleeps 10-12 hours a night depending on when we get her down. Since Bryon's car went kaput last week, we have been taking him to work at 8am every day. So now we put her down around 7:30-8pm and she gets up around 6:30-8am. She takes about an hour nap during the day, on most days. It is usually in the car driving home from our daily activities. The newest sleeping development is her new cribmate. She now sleeps with a stuffed puppy dog. Mom and dad, this is the dog we accidently took from Scotland (and later paid for once we realized it was packed in our bag). She takes a bath, brushes her teeth, gets lotioned up and dressed, reads two books and goes to sleep snuggling her puppy. It is really cute. We see her chatting with the puppy and nuzzling him in our video monitor.

Physical- She has all but two teeth in. Horrah! Her hair is getting really curley and growing fast (finally). Poor little thing was bald for so long and now she has a good bit of cute curls. She even lets me put pony tails in and hairbows. She is a size 5 shoe, size 18month clothes and size 4 diaper.

Personality- She is a complete prissy girl. She hates being dirty, likes to carry around a purse, likes to wear my jewerly and my shoes, and eats with her pinky stuck out. I was planing seedlings the other day and she saw my hands, pointed at me and said "dada, dirty!!!" She wouldn't touch me until I washed my hands. She is a very affectionate and loving child. She would sit on my lap, give me wet kisses, and snuggle with me all day if I would let her. She is also empathetic and caring, if another child around her cries, she will cry too. She will usually go over to them and pat them on the back or give them a hug/kiss. If someone takes her toy away or is mean to her she just looks at them and blows them a kiss. If she is really tired or sick, she may scream "NO" and take it back but that is very rare. She usually will go find another toy or just come sit on my lap.

That's all I can think of for now! Have a great weekend everyone!