The Hero

He is the Hero who saves us;
The Hero who made us.
We are not forgotten.
In our desperate situation,
The Hero has come.
The Hero has won.
We are free!

Many choose not to see
That their chains have been broken.
They've rejected the Hero;
Didn't like how He looked,
Didn't want to hear what He said:
His words of freedom
Were distasteful to them.
Though they bemoan their slavish existence,
They won't be set free,
For they have called the Hero their enemy.

There is a Hero who loves us.
He has come and will come again.
The Hero always rescues.
The Hero always wins.
No Villain can defeat Him,
Or take what belongs to Him.
But the Hero never forces the one He rescues to be free.
They come willingly;
All but those who have fallen in love with their captivity
Instead of their Hero.

We need a Hero to save us.
We need a Hero to change us.
The Hero shows us ordinary becoming extraordinary
And vice versa.
We too become something more than we have been:

Loved,
Valued,
Worth Saving.
We have purpose.
We mean something to Someone--
The Hero who made us
And the Hero who saves us.

The Hero never abandons what belongs to Him.
Nothing will stop Him from reaching the one He loves.
He will go through fire and water,
Through pain and death,
Through the depths of hell itself,
To reach us--
To reach you.

You are the one He's coming for.
Look for your Hero!
He is mighty to save.
Look for your Hero!
He is here; He has come

FOR YOU

TV Show Addict

With each child we've had, I seem to end up spending a lot of time on the couch, whether because I am feeling sick, or tired during the pregnancy, or because I am taking the time to feed the baby after he is born.  As a result of all the couch time, with every baby I have also become obsessed with a different TV show.  Usually it's one I have never watched before and has been on TV for a while already. 

When I had Malachi, it seemed like I was always on the couch either feeding him, pumping milk, or holding him while he fell asleep.  It's hard to read a book while doing any of those things, so I watched movies.  A friend of mine had the first three seasons of Alias on DVD.  I had never watched it before, and skeptically watched the first episode.  That was all it took--from that point on, I was hooked.

I had a miserable pregancy with Israel, so I especially looked forward to the time of day when Malachi would take his afternoon nap and I could rest.  During that time, I decided to to try out the show 24.  Everyone seemed to think it was great, so I ordered it from Blockbuster Online.  It didn't take long before I was completely addicted.  Every day at nap time I would try to squeeze in as many episodes as I could.  I just had to see what happened next in Jack Bauer's day!

When Simeon was born, my parents came to visit.  My mom and I were watching TV and the show House was on.  The funny thing was, even though I didn't normally watch the show, I had seen that particular episode before.  However, I had never seen how it ended.  I programmed our DVR to record it, and since that particular channel was showing all the reruns, I soon had a plethora of episodes to choose from.  I would watch every chance I got.  If the boys went outside to play, I would try to sneak and watch part of an episode while they were out and I was feeding Simeon. 

Now I have only even known we were going to have a baby for about two weeks, but I can already tell you what my new TV addiction is going to be.  A friend of mine has been telling me for  long time about the show Friday Night Lights.  It's about football, which I am not a fan of watching, so I couldn't imagine how a show about it could be so great.  I do like movies about football, like Remember the Titans, but I didn't think I'd want to watch hour after hour of it. 

Recently, ABC Family picked up the show and starting airing it from the very beginning, so I decided to give it a try.  As the first episode began, I was doubtful, but by the end I found I had been pleasantly surprised.  I am now officially hooked on it.  Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, my watching is being regulated by the fact that I only get one show a day--unless I don't watch for a while and let the episodes build up, but who wants to do that?  And yes, I know I could probably watch them online, but since I can't watch it on my laptop, I'd have to sit in our somewhat uncomfortable computer chair for long periods of time.  If I was feeling normal, I might do it, but lately I have not been feeling great.  And we no longer have Blockbuster or Netflix coming to our door, so that's out.  Still, I look forward to enjoying my new TV show obsession, even if I do it slowly:)

Worth It

Lately I have spent a lot of time navigating the waters, so to speak, of being pregnant again.  For me, the first trimester usually includes "morning sickness" which doesn't actually only come in the morning.  It's more like "all day" sickness. 

So far I haven't actually been throwing up at all, just feeling nauseated all the time.  Today was hard, not because I felt so terrible, but because I knew I might be feeling a lot worse in the future.  I've been fighting a lot of anxiety about that. 

I try to remind myself that at the end of it all, I get a baby.  I'm looking forward to that!  Also, I've been trying to remind myself that I went through all of this with the three boys I already have, and that I definitely feel it was worth it.  I just have to look forward to the end result, which is a beautiful, brand new, baby.  Maybe even a girl this time!  But it is hard, knowing that nine long months are stretching out ahead of me and I will only be getting more and more uncomfortable. 

For now, though, I just get to experience the paradox of looking at food and thinking how good it is, while at the same time being somewhat repulsed by it.  Ah, the joys of expectant motherhood!

Baby Boom

A new adventure is beginning for us!  In the not too distant future, we will be adding to our family. 

A few weeks ago, my body began behaving strangely.  I noticed odd little things that usually only happen when I'm pregnant, such as heartburn.  I was very suspicious. 

Finally, last week, we aquired the infamous pregnancy tester to find out if I was right.  Aaron got a fancy digital one, apparently putting more trust in a more expensive tester.  As a result, instead of a mere plus sign, we got to see an actual "YES" in the results box.  How fun! 

I am now about six weeks along, which means, according to a baby website I have been looking at, that the baby is about the size of a lentil bean right now.  Last week it said the baby was only the size of a sesame seed, so that's a considerable amount of growth for one week, if you think about it. 

The same website also calculated that I will be due May4, but since my children seem to enjoy showing up fashionably late, it will probably be closer to May 14. 

We are all hoping for a girl this time.  Malachi refers to the baby as "baby sister".  I don't think it would be too bad to have another boy though; we already have three, after all--what's one more?  And boys are a lot of fun.  They get into a lot of trouble, but they're a lot of fun.

So that is our exciting news, which most of you who read my blog already knew about, but I felt that I ought to write something "official" about it:)

Here's to number four!

Park Days

This summer was really hot, but as the days have been cooling down, we've been going to the park a lot.  What's almost more fun than the park for me, is getting some great pictures of the boys.... 

Simeon

Israel

Malachi

We even tried a couple of parks we've never been to before in Loveland.  One was a park with a kid-sized train that they could takes rides on.

Simeon is at an age where it is more fun to eat sand than ride a train:)

A Change in Strands

For quite a while, I have been growing my hair out.  I thought this was a great idea, until I realized how long the "awkward in-between stage" was lasting, and how much longer it was going to last, and added the fact that I will probably end up just wearing my hair in a ponytail most of the time.  I began to wonder, "Why am I going through all of this just so I can wear my hair in a ponytail?  I could cut it and it could look really cute without me having to do very much at all."  So that is what I did. 

Here is me before the haircut. 

And here is my hair now!

Name That Tree

This week has been very unusual so far.  Well, unusual is pretty usual for us, but this week has been extra-special in that department. 

I went to the bathroom and my two lovely oldest boys snuck out the front door.  It was almost as if they were waiting for their chance, and as soon as I closed the bathroom door they looked at each other and said, "Let's go!" 

At first when I went outside I couldn't see or hear them.  I even went to my neighbors house to see if they had gone over there.  Finally, I walked around the side of the house and found them, sitting on the hood of our van, picking berries off of the tree by our driveway.  I shooed them heartily into the house and tried to explain the dangers of eating unidentified berries.  Then I called Poison Control. 

They told me to try to identify the tree to see if it was poisonous.  They said to take a branch to a nursery and ask them what it was.  But I have three kids and I don't want to pack them up into the van to go find a nursery, so instead I tried the internet.  Let me tell you, there are a lot of websites dedicated to identifying trees.  However, not one of them was able to identify my tree. 

I spent a good hour and a half to two hours looking for the name of this tree, and it just was not there.  Upon further questioning, the boys said that they didn't actually eat the berries.  Whether they were telling the truth, I don't know, but they didn't get sick either way. 

Later that night, we went to Del Taco for dinner, and as we were sitting there, Simeon, with no pre-warning at all, opens his mouth and spews out everything he just ate and drank.  Then he just moved on, like it never happened.  He wasn't upset or fussy or anything.  Aaron was the unlucky person sitting next to him, so he got puked on.  It was so bizarre.  Here I have two kids who I thought ate strange, possibly poisonous berries, and they're fine, but the kid who didn't eat any berries gets sick?  Life just doesn't make any sense sometimes. 

We took the kid home, bathed him, gave him pedialyte (which he didn't like at first, but warmed up to in the end) and put him to bed.  I started to wonder, "What if he did somehow eat a berry?"  Back to my tree search, just in case.  Still no luck. 

The next day, I was stressed out trying to take care of Simeon--who woke up with diarrhea and had vomited again, so he needed another bath.  The boys, I think, could sense I was stressed and reacted to it by becoming very needy and whiny, which did not help at all.  As the day went on, Simeon was doing better, and eventually Aaron came home so the boys could focus their attention on him instead of me.  It already feels like a long week, and it's only Wednesday. 

In the midst of it all, I still cannot figure out what kind of tree we have next to our driveway.  It's driving me crazy.