Spring time at Crooked Lake

- It's Loki chasing the chipmunks and making friends with the neighbors dog.

- It's kayak runs with three layers and a life jacket.

- It's cake and ice cream.

- It's finishing a good book by the lake.

- It's my dad wearing white socks with his sandals.

- It's my mom making me a birthday dinner even though I'm going to be 32.

- It's sleeping under the (fading) stars put on the ceiling by my aunt and uncle.

- It's eagle watching, loon spotting and otter spying.

- It's meals and games around the round table my grandpa made.

- It's coming home with (much) more food than we brought up.

About 21 weeks pregnant. Perhaps I'll just do baby bump pictures up North. =)

Pregnancy: 20 weeks

After he woke me up barking, Loki has decided to redeem himself by being all cute and snuggly on the couch next to me and I just can't bring myself to get up and do the housework that is waiting - not just yet at least.  So...

This week marks the half way point of my pregnancy and that's pretty hard to believe. We had our ultrasound last week and the baby looks healthy. Baby was active and moving around quite a bit.  For those of you wondering, Christopher knows the gender but I do not as he wants to know and I don't. I know that may not work for most couples but we think it will work well for us. So far so good anyway! You can try to get it out of him -- I think he'll be a vault! In fact, if I wasn't going to deliver this baby in a couple of months, I don't think I'd ever know what it is. =)

sucking it's thumb

Lots of people want to know how I'm feeling and I've been feeling fine. The first few months were a little rough but nothing horrible and after about 16 weeks, both the nausea and the extreme tiredness were gone.

We have several fun things planned for the summer and I think time will just fly by til October when we get to meet him or her.  My due date and maternity leave correlates well with the fall semester when Christopher will teach a couple of classes as an adjunct at Marquette as I'll (hopefully) be off the entire semester.  I'm going back to work part time after my leave and I am very excited and grateful to be able to work less. I'll probably stay on night shifts and we'll see how that works for us.

So we are slowly accumulating baby things and are coming to grasp with the fact that we'll be taking care of a tiny human in a little over four months!

There is grace enough for every day

{I probably should have posted this several weeks ago when I wrote it but I didn't ...}

There is grace enough for every day

When flags across the country fly at half mass and first responders make the ultimate sacrifice,

there is grace enough for those days

When three abused children die in a house fire in Milwaukee (an small news story which tugged at my heart) and the earth moves in China,

there is grace enough for those days

 When my husband yields his desires to my own and when we exchange hurtful words and ask for forgiveness,

there is grace enough for those days

Sometimes knowing grace is easy - in the embrace of good friends, in a warm dog sleeping on my lap or in the tulips that unexpectedly break through the soil. 

And sometimes knowing grace is hard - when people grieve, when children die.

But the grace given is never-ending. It is as simple as it is complex. As overt as it is hidden. 

Our job is to not discount that grace; to only see it when it comes easy. 

Acknowledging grace is a form of worship, giving thanks for what comes.

There is grace enough for every day ... sometimes you just have to look for it.