If any of you guys would still like to sponsor me for the Walk for Life that I posted about here, you can either email me, call me, or go to www.crcwalkforlife.org and choose my name from the drop down menu. Online, you can pay by credit card or choose to be billed later. If you want to give me your donation by cash or check in person, that’s cool, too. Or, if you would rather just be sent a reminder in October after the walk is over, you can tell me how much you would like to give, and they will bill you then.

Choices Resource Center is an excellent ministry that could really benefit from your financial support. God is really working though the center, and I am thrilled to be a part of it. If you can’t donate, please remember to pray for us. I am now counseling with clients on my own, and I really covet your prayers. I’m learning that it’s really a matter of going in with your heart right with God and being able to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Please keep me in your prayers. My shifts are on Wednesdays, so, if you think of me on those days, please pray for me.

Thanks, everyone!

Heather tagged me for this little meme, so here goes. I’m supposed to share six random things about me.

1. I love literature, and I enjoy reading almost anything. However, I really hate Shakespeare.

2. I refuse to let my kids watch Yo Gabba Gabba. Even though I’m sure it’s no worse than a lot of other asinine children’s programming, the skinny man in the weird, spandex jumpsuit freaks the crazy out of me.

3. I cannot roll my tongue or my r’s.

4. I love Contemporary Christian Music (think Leeland, Third Day, Bethany Dillon, etc. NOT old school CCM like Michael W. Smith, DC Talk, or Carmen) and I always kind of feel like I lost if someone tells me about a really awesome new song/album/artist that I haven’t yet heard.

5. I love to travel and go to new places. Even if I don’t particularly enjoy that place, I really like adding it to my list of places I’ve been to.

6. I don’t like petting animals. I hate the way it makes my hands feel dirty. Even if it’s your dearly loved, meticulously groomed chiuaua named Mr. Peanut with a darling little black leather Harley Davidson vest who kisses you all over your face because you are his ever loving Mommy….even then….I don’t want to pet him.

Now, I’m supposed to tag six other people. So, Joy, Alyssa, Faith, Lori, Jenn, and Laura…tag, you’re it.

“No, Sarah. You can’t have a tattoo before church. You can have one after church.”

(That one just made me insanely happy. )

This is the kind of kid people dream of having. I’m so proud of him!

From babycenter.com:

How your baby’s growing:

The most dramatic development this week: reflexes. Your baby’s fingers will soon begin to open and close, his toes will curl, his eye muscles will clench, and his mouth will make sucking movements. In fact, if you prod your abdomen, your baby will squirm in response, although you won’t be able to feel it. His intestines, which have grown so fast that they protrude into the umbilical cord, will start to move into his abdominal cavity about now, and his kidneys will begin excreting urine into his bladder.

Meanwhile, nerve cells are multiplying rapidly, and in your baby’s brain, synapses are forming furiously. His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be. From crown to rump, your baby-to-be is just over 2 inches long (about the size of a lime) and weighs half an ounce.

I’m feeling so much better with the nausea. The medicine they have me on has helped tremendously. I’m finding that I stay tired, and I really crash after class on the two nights I have school. After Choices and class on Wed and class on Thursday, I’m completely drained on Friday morning. Unfortunately for me, today was the beginning of the kids going to school at our church’s homeschool co-op all day on Friday. I had to be up at seven. It nearly killed me. I came home and went to bed. I slept for three hours, and I still feel totally drained.

I talked to a nurse on the phone yesterday, and she said I need to try to eat more and gain a little weight. I am majorly showing already, but I am still down five pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, due to how sick I was. The medication I’m on seems to take away my appetitite. I’m trying to eat more. Like I said, I’m already showing. To prove it, I’m going to post a belly pic. Apparently, I’m like that this time around.

Life has been full and very busy lately, and I guess it’s time for an update. 

Since the last time I blogged about what was going on with us, I went to the doctor, and she wrote me a prescription for a nausea medicine that has made my morning sickness go away. I take one pill when I first wake up, and I don’t have to deal with being sick at all. This has made everything in my life considerably easier…from going to school and doing homework to taking care of the kids. I’m so very thankful for that.

Chris is back to work, and back to his normal routine. Work and school. We have added teaching an Awana class to the lineup, though. We started two weeks ago with the highschool Awana class at church, and we are loving it. I really love working with teenagers, and am so excited to finally get to do what we’ve wanted to do for years.

Homeschooling Kyra is going pretty well. It sometimes takes up a large part of her day because she likes to procrastinate, but I think she’s  learning that if she just sits down and works hard she has more time to do what she wants. She has taken her first test in all four of her subjects and made 100% across the board, so I guess we’re doing okay. 

My classes are going well so far. Statistics was kind of hard Wednesday night, but I’m hoping as I work through the homework today I’ll have a better grasp of the material. Our first exam is next week over the first three chapter, and I’m seriously nervous about it. American Lit is going well. The professor is still very dull and boring, but the readings themselves are okay.

Working at Choices is going fantastic. I’m so loving the work that I’m doing there. I got to counsel for the first time Wednesday with a young girl there for a pregnancy test. I had sat in on counseling sessions before, but this was the first time that I got to do the counseling. I wasn’t very nervous, and it went well. It makes me think that I have chosen a good fit for a career in counseling. It seems forever and ever away before I will finish school and be ready for that phase of life, but it’s exciting to get to experience a small taste of it at Choices in the interim. 

My pregnancy is going well. Without the sickness to deal with, I hardly feel pregnant. A little more tired than normal, but that’s all. I’m  used to being sick constantly, and, then, by the time the sickness goes away, be far enough along that I can feel the baby kicking. So, this time, I’m not far enough to feel the baby move, and I sometimes forget for a while that I’m pregnant at all. It’s kind of nice. I’m more excited about the baby now, without the damper of constant sickness. My belly is growing already (I’ll try to post a photo soon), however I’m still down about five pounds from what I weighed when I got pregnant. Throwing up really took a toll on me. My baby has all his/her parts now, and is the size of a fig. That’s cool, no?

Life is definitely full right now, but it is good. Wednesday and Thursday are by far the busiest days of my week. So, today…Friday…is a big sigh of relief. I slept late, got up and fixed eggs, potatoes, and a piece of toast for myself, and then made pancakes for the kiddos. Since I ate, I’ve been catching up with some stuff online, and just generally chilling out. I’m fixing to start homeschool with Kyra, and go get some groceries. We have a homeschool covered dish dinner this evening at church for class registration for Friday school through our church’s homeschool co-op. We’ll get to fellowship with friends, and meet some other homeschooling families. Should be a full and fun day.

I am abundantly blessed.

September 11, 2001. I was an eighteen year old newlywed. Chris worked nights, and I worked very late. We were still in bed asleep in our first little apartment when someone banged on our door and woke us up. I got up and answered the door in my nightshirt to see Chris’ mom standing there looking alarmed. The first words out of her mouth…”We’re at war.”

I still remember how my heart stopped. I began to cry as Chris turned on our tiny television. He was in the Army Reserves. Combined with the overwhelming grief for my countrymen as we watched that plane fly into the tower over and over again, was the fear that my new husband would leave me to go to war. I went to work that night with an incredibly heavy heart. My coworkers and I talked of nothing else. No one knew who was responsible. Our familiar world had been challenged. I remember sitting alone in the computer room of that grocery store, going through the motions of that job, and praying that Chris wouldn’t have to leave me. It may seem silly to some, but I was scared to death that he would leave me and I would lose him…and I wouldn’t have a child to remember him by. We had been trying for a couple of months to get pregnant, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him going to war.

I got pregnant the next month. Chris didn’t get called up to go to war. Kyra was born in June, Chris got out of the Reserves a month or two after that, and his unit got deployed to Kuwait for a year that summer. 

Fast forward to today, seven years later…September 11, 2008. I watched a video of the attack on a blog. Kyra saw me crying. My little baby is six years old now. I had never told her about the events of this day seven years ago. Today I told her about the day our country was attacked. I told her about our fellow Americans who died that day, in hijacked planes and burning buildings. I told her about the firemen who continued to run into a burning, crumbling building to save all they could. I told her about the men on the plane who stood up to Evil and gave their lives in a field in Pennsylvania to save the lives of so many others. I told her that this is the kind of country we live in. Where terror is confronted by heroism. Where ordinary people do extraordinary things. I told her that this is a country worth defending.

I told her that the events of that day were why Uncle Aaron joined the Air Force. That our freedom was worth protecting. I told her that was why Uncle Jason went to Iraq…why Uncle Joel went to Afghanistan. It’s worth defending. It’s worth standing up and saying that we will not be crushed.

I stood in the kitchen and cried, and Kyra watched me thoughtfully. She asked, “Were those people who died saved?” Through my tears, I told her that some of them were, but not all of them. She told me that was sad. I told her that’s why we tell them about Jesus. We don’t know tomorrow. We have to tell them before it’s too late.

“That’s why Daddy’s going to be a Chaplain?”

Yes. That’s why Daddy is going to be a Chaplain. I told her that our soldiers risk their lives to defend our freedom, and sometimes they die. Daddy’s going to tell them about Jesus so that they will be ready to go to Heaven. They’re willing to die for us…we’re willing to send our Daddy to help them know Jesus.

Seven years later, and I have not forgotten. I still remember how I felt that day. I’ll never forget. With the new knowledge that their world can be scary, my little children won’t either. This new information didn’t leave them scared and afraid, though. It validated their belief that their Daddy is doing an important thing. They were proud of him…proud of our friends and family who serve. Proud to be Americans. Thankful for our freedom.

I’m no longer afraid that my husband will be sent to war. I know now that he will be. Now, I am ready.