Valentines Dinner Extravaganza

This past weekend was the St. Michael Church Annual Valentine's Day dinner. It has been a tradition for many, many years. There is always a nice dinner, music and a meditation of some sort on the feast of St. Valentine. St. Valentine's day was established long ago as the memorial of the martyring of St. Valentine. While Valentine was in prison he wrote letters to the faithful, encouraging them in the Christian faith. He would sign the letters, "Love, Your Valentine," as a term of affection.

The past three years, I have been priviledged to organize the Valentine's dinner. (With plenty of helpful hands - and experienced cooks. It really is a thrill for me. I love cooking for big groups and playing hostess. It is hard to go back to accounting after a lovely day in the kitchen with friends. Maybe some day, we will put together a St. Michael's catering company. :)

The pictures are courtesy of Gary McFarlan:

1. Me in the Kitchen

2. Ashleigh and Jeremiah in the Kitchen

3. Aidan and I dancing.

4. V-day cards for everyone to make for their sweetie.

A huge praise!

This week has been great, especially considering what it could have been.

Most people know that I work A LOT, and this time of year is especially bad. I was very nervous this past weekend knowing that I would be moving onto a client that has had a bad history of problems, long nights at works and weekends. This does not jive with an almost 3 month pregnant woman. I prayed a lot about it though, asking God to 1. provide me the strength to endure, 2. provide my supervisors with a measure of compassion when I need it most, and 3. for a relatively uncomplicated audit.

1. So far, I have been feeling much better, feeling sick only after about 7:30pm. I know that this is partially due to where I am at in my pregnancy, leaving the first trimester, but I believe wholeheartedly that it is also due to Grace.

2. The job that I was dreading has not been super demanding. We are working 12 hours a day, but I spoke with my supervisor, who is allowing me to get in at 7am, eat my lunch at my desk, and leave at 7pm at night. (Someone also brings in dinner for the team, so I get fed premium stuff. :) Last night was a salmon salad from Panera and fresh french bread. Its fun to ask a pregnant lady what she wants to eat) These hours may sound bad, but I know that it could be infinitely worse. Also, my supervisor has given me a rather light load. He is a father and reminds me that "stress is not good for the baby." When he said that today, I wanted to cry. Someone cares in this world of high paced business and go, go, go.

3. Only time will tell on the audit. We have just begun.

Praise God who provides for needs both great and small.

Thanks Uncle Evan!

Our borther-in-law Evan is a great deal finder. He just found a deal on a really nice jogger stroller..... I am going to love being a mom.

:)

Changes

Well, at 11 weeks, I am actually beginning to feel changes in my body. Though not visible to the rest of the world, my pants are getting tight. I went out and bought a bella band last weekend to try and keep using my regular clothes for a while longer.

My tastes have changed too. Ice cream and sweets (for the most part) sound disgusting to me. This is very odd because I used to crave sweets all of the time. Now what I want to eat is a bunch of cheesy, bready things (also big salads and lots of fruit). I want pizza and pretzels and bagels with cream cheese. Actually cream cheese is what I want most of all. I eat it with bagels, wheat toast, saltine crackers.

Work has been tough. We are on an 11 hour day schedule right now and I have been working on Church W-2's and 1099's and year-end statements. I kind of work, eat and sleep right now. It will get better though since I just finished the Church work tonight. Poor Nathan. He is getting neglected. it will be nice when I get to stay home.

Work is preventing me from blogging

Audits, W-2's, Financial Reports, oh my!


I will give an update of fun things soon!

First Sonogram

Here is our sonogram from Tuesday. At almost 10 weeks, the heart is beating and the little arms and legs are wiggling all around. This really was a great day. And also great to know that there isn ONLY ONE baby in there. The nurse checked up, down and all around- no one was hiding. :)

The Whittier Crisis Pregnancy Center is raising money for an ultrasound machine. I can see why now. Before the ultrasound, being pregnant has been very exciting, but day to day just feels like an extended flu. But here we got to see a bit of the miracle that is going on inside. The statistics on women having abortions after seeing their baby on an ultrasound are much less than those who have not. It is harder to be detached about killing something after you have seen its heart beating and moving around inside of you

And the Winner is.........

South Coast Midwifery!

After weighing the options, Nathan and I have decided that the best option for us is to go with a Midwife and have the baby at the South Coast Midwifery birthing center.

I have been to two visits with the OB/GYN. The doctor is pretty good from what I can tell and made me feel comfortable. This seemed like a good option....

Then we visited the Midwifery center. The center is beautiful. It looks like a well kept home and all of the birthing supplies are kept in armoires or closets. The staff was exceptionally helpful, cheerful, and knew a lot about the practice. Most of all though, I appreciated the philosophy of birth that Lorri Walker, the midwife shared with us. On top of everything, my insurance looks like the best possible kind for the Midwifery. Insurance companies usually do not cover midwives like they cover hospital births, so you have to use out-of-network benefits.

In other news, we also had an ultrasound today. There is ONE healthly little baby wiggling away inside of me. It was very fun to see it move around and to see the heart beat. Nathan took a video of it, so i will try to upload it soon.