I'm Still Here!

I can't believe it has been more than a month and a half since I last posted. Life has been busy, but good. I honestly thought I might be bored out of my mind not having a job for the 4 months before Jesse's arrival, but I have found plenty to keep me occupied, especially this last week or two as the nesting instinct has hit pretty hard. Here's a little bit of what I've been up to over the past month or so...

Over Halloween weekend we enjoyed a camping trip to Devil's Den with James' family. Hiking was pretty minimal since my previous attempt to hike at Petit Jean made me sore for days, but we had a great time hanging around the campfire, roasting marshmallows and carving pumpkins. Here are our attempts at pumpkin carving. We both set out with cool stencils, but James had some minor issues with his, and after several failed attempts (you can't see it here, but the other sides of his pumpkin are big holes where the pattern caved in) he settled for the traditional jack-o-lantern look.

The week of Thanksgiving my Mom, Mother-in-law, Sister-in-law and I made a fun trip to Tulsa for a day to do some shopping at Babies R Us and some other stores that we don't have here in Fayetteville. I think we literally spent 3 hours in Babies R Us. That store is huge. And, they have a nice section of gliders/rockers that can be "tested" at the end of the day when two pregnant women are worn out.

Here are Katie, Lisa and I posing with the two cousins-to-be (with due dates just a month apart). I'm thinking Lisa might not be able to fit in between us at Christmas. We'll have to take another photo then.


The same week, we got to enjoy Thanksgiving with both families. We had lunch at the Covingtons' and dinner with my parents and grandmother. We were especially grateful this year, since we now know what it's like to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas away from our families. Jesse even got his own spot at the table for lunch (well, he shared a spot with me):


After Thanksgiving we did some decorating, which mainly entailed putting up the Christmas tree.

This is my personal favorite ornament, although if Jesse comes before Christmas it will no longer be appropriate.

That's a little bit of what we've been up to. This past weekend we had a baby shower, and since then we've been working pretty hard on getting everything put together in the nursery, so I'll leave you in suspense as to the progress we've made there. I'll hopefully have a post about that in the near future (so long as I don't go into labor before then!).

Jesse's Nursery and More

Yesterday we were able to purchase furniture for the nursery, and I think that made it feel so much more real that baby Jesse will soon be here. The furniture was Jesse's present from my parents for my birthday (you see who's most important these days...just kidding of course), and we enjoyed getting to go pick it out yesterday. James must have been really excited about it, because he spent at least 5 solid hours yesterday afternoon assembling everything. The furniture looks beautiful in the room and fills up the space very nicely. It it hardwood with a dark cherry finish. We will also be adding a glider to the room, but we don't have that yet.





Not only does having the furniture make things feel more real, but last Thursday marked the first day of the third trimester. It's really strange to think that in just 10 short weeks he could be here, though it will likely be a little longer than that. I've continued to feel pretty good for the most part, but I'm beginning to think that the third trimester will be a lot harder for me than the first one was. I didn't really even feel that different during the first trimester, except for the times I got nauseous, which was really only when I first woke up or any other time I had an empty stomach. Even though most days are still fine, I definitely have a lot more aches and pains now, and it is starting to become difficult to do some everyday things, like putting on my shoes and bending over to pick something up. I have also gotten a good dose of insomnia here lately. I can't truly complain, though, because it is all for a good cause.

Jesse continues to grow and now weighs over 2 pounds. He is very active most days and I can be easily entertained watching his little feet kick my belly or seeing my entire belly ripple as he moves. I have also begun to notice that he often has the hiccups, which just feels like light, rhythmic taps in the same spot for anywhere from 30 seconds to quite a while (last night I think he had the hiccups for maybe 10 or 15 minutes).

Here are some belly pictures for proof of Jesse's growth. It took awhile for him to really pop out, but ever since we got back to the U.S., I feel like I've seen pretty big change from week to week (that's probably just because he really loves American food, right?).

Here we are at 18 weeks, still in Bulgaria, and not showing very much.

22 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

25 weeks

26 weeks

And today, at nearly 29 weeks, since we forgot to take pictures at 27 and 28 weeks

Pumpkin Stew

I've been meaning to try this pumpkin stew recipe for several years now. In our first young married class at church, someone brought it to a potluck and I thought it was such a cute idea. I just found this recipe on the internet, so I don't know if it's quite the same, but it's pretty close. Basically, it is just beef stew inside a pumpkin. The taste isn't really that different from normal beef stew (except for the bits of pumpkin in the stew), but somehow it just tastes better being served from a pumpkin. Lisa came over and braved eating out of a pumpkin with us.

Here are the ingredients (minus the meat, tomatoes and seasonings):




I would definitely recommend it, though it might not really be worth the trouble of gutting the pumpkin unless you're taking it somewhere, or unless you just have the extra time to spare (which I did yesterday). I ended up having to throw the pumpkin out and store the leftover stew in a separate container because the pumpkin began to collapse on the bottom and ooze orange pumpkin mess. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
-2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
-3 Tbsp. cooking oil, divided
-1 cup water
-3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
-4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
-1 large green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
-4 cloves minced garlic
-1 medium onion, chopped
-2 tsp. salt (though next time I might use less, because it turned out fairly salty)
-1/2 tsp. pepper
-2 Tbsp. instant beef bouillon granules
-1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
-1 pumpkin (10-12 pounds)

In a dutch oven, brown meat in 2 Tbsp. oil. Add water, potatoes, carrots, green pepper, garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 2 hours. Stir in bouillon and tomatoes. Wash pumpkin; cut a 6-8 inch circle around the stem. Remove the top and set aside; discard seeds and loosen fibers from inside. Place pumpkin in a shallow, sturdy baking pan. Spoon stew into pumpkin and replace the top. Brush outside of pumpkin with remaining oil. Bake for 2 hours at 325 degrees or just until pumpkin is tender. Do not overbake. Serve stew from pumpkin, scooping out a little bit of pumpkin with each serving.

The Seasons are Changing

I love it when the seasons change, but I think I especially love the beginning of fall. It's something about the crisp, cool mornings and evenings, the scent of apples and pumpkin spice, the changing colors of the leaves, pumpkins, shorter days, and hot tea and apple cider that I love.

Just as the seasons are changing outside, I feel like we are moving into a completely new (and unexpected) season in our lives (hence the need for a new blog). We didn't expect to be coming home from Bulgaria so soon; in fact, we both thought we would be there for a good bit of our lives. It's interesting to see how God leads, though. It could definitely be a temptation some days to think that we wasted the last two and a half years preparing for Bulgaria and living there for 10 months, but God has continued to give us peace and assurance that we made the right decision to come home and that Bulgaria was not a waste, but that it fits into His plan for our lives, even if we don't quite understand how at this point.

We are also moving into the new season of becoming parents. It is crazy to think that in just 2 and a half months we will have a little baby boy in our family (more updates on this to come). We can't wait to meet him. Though we know being parents will be challenging, we know it will also bring much joy to our lives.

Although we may be moving into a new "season" of life, we really see it as a continuation of the journey God put us on several years ago when we joined Wycliffe and then moved overseas, which is the idea I wanted to capture with the new blog title. We both see our experiences over the past 3 years as part of our journey and as being an important part of our lives, not as some disconnected mistake that we made, and we look forward to seeing God's plans continue to unfold in our lives.