Harlan House

Well, our water is back on… what a huge blessing running water is! Now I can try to catch up really quick before I have the baby! I’m officially 37 weeks now, so once again the Lord has answered our prayers! Since Hannah and Erin were born at 37 weeks, I have absolutely no idea when this kiddo will make his/her appearance. I am huge, though- so at least we have a nice sized baby to look forward to.

Katy drew our neighbor Lyn a thank you card for letting us use his water while the past 3 days, but she was too shy to give it to him in person and wanted to surprise him. So, she crept over to his house and put it on his front step with 3 rocks on it to keep it in place. Then she ran home. After about 2 minutes she looked at me anxiously and said “Momma, I think that Mr. Shipley won’t find my card. Can you sneak over there and ring the doorbell and run back really quickly so he won’t see you?”

Needless to say, I am not “quick” these days, and I can just see all of my other neighbors wondering why the very pregnant lady across the street was playing pranks on her neighbor. Thankfully, we saw Lyn drive away a few minutes later and I was spared that embarrassment.

Hannah has been especially cuddly, sweet and encouraging the past few weeks. We like to say that she is our Hannah Bear, and she loves it. She even has started to (pretend) pour us some honey from her hive of bees every morning on our breakfast. It’s so cute! She’ll even come up and whisper “the bees are making more honey for you” and give you a kiss sporadically throughout the day.

Erin is big on compliments lately. She comes up to me and says “Beautiful Momma- you more beautiful than a live red rose/ tulip” and she says “Handsome Poppa- you my lovey dovey Daddy.” Very sweet, right? Now, can you guess the flip side of these comments? When Nate or I point out something that she doesn’t like (usually it involves bad behavior) she calls Nate “beautiful” and me “handsome” in a pouty voice or says I’m as “beautiful as a dead rose.” How do they come up with that? I have to try not to giggle when I’m disciplining her for being cheeky.

Okay, so Nate (being the kind husband that he is) knew I haven’t been sleeping well and let me sleep in a little yesterday. At least, he thought I was sleeping in- in reality, I was just trying to get motivated to turn over and move out of bed (did I mention the midwife said on Wednesday the baby is already probably 8 1/2 pounds???). So, I hear Nate call someone on the phone and say “Hi. I have a pretty big pool of water in our front walk with frothy bubbles coming out of it.” Needless to say, I was out of bed and in the living room in 2.5 seconds (okay, maybe 3!). Sure enough, our water pipe had broken and about 5 feet of sidewalk was submurged under muddy, murky water. Thankfully, it was from the water pipe going to the house, not the sewer! The concrete sidwalk literally is buried now underneath all the silt and dirt that poured over it. These things seem to happen to us on Fridays, when no one is available until Monday. Thankfully, one of our church friends knows a good excavating guy who at least was able to get his equipment out here today. So even though he can’t do the work yet because the stores that have the parts are closed, we still know we are first on the list on Monday morning and everything is in place. Now we’re praying that I don’t have the baby until Tuesday or later (I’ll be 37 weeks on Monday) so we won’t have to have construction going on less than 10 feet from our living room when I have the baby. Our neighbor Lyn has been awesome enough to let us use his water while ours is shut off. We are so blessed to live by good people and to have an amazing church family. God is good!

I’ll keep you updated with baby news. I’ve been contracting on and off but nothing consistent yet, so that’s good!

We had a good time this weekend up in Coldwater, Michigan, celebrating Katy’s 6th birthday and our niece Lainey’s 2nd birthday. We did a joint party since Stephanie (my sister-in-law) and I are due only 1 1/2 weeks apart from one another and they live up in Lansing. This way both families still got to celebrate our little girls together! I have some great pictures but I’m still waiting for the blogmaster here to help me out with my computer troubles, so they may be posted at the same time as we post new pics of the baby! By far the most treasured of Katy’s gifts came from MaMoo (Nate’s mom)… She made her a sleeping cap and nightgown “a la” Laura Ingalls style (Katy’s in love with the Little House books). She absolutely loves them.

Today was our monthly sabbath meal after church. Three daughters of our friends the Apelands (the family that were missionaries in Ireland for years) were baptized- what an honor to be present for that! They are an amazing family.

Everyone had fun swimming and talking after the baptism and meal, and Tim (the other elder at church) got an extra special surprise when he got pulled in- he was sitting with his back to the pool and had no idea it was coming… check out this awesome picture taken by one of our fellow Trinity members…

follow this link to see the photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonswerens/823461258/

Isn’t that hilarious? We love hanging out with our church family so much… it’s been a huge blessing to us since everyone in both of our families lives out of state.

The other day I took the girls to one of the nearby lakes to have a picnic lunch, and as we were eating, Erin asked me if they could go fishing (Nate usually takes them to this lake when they go fishing). I am not a fisherman, and I was formulating how to say this to Erin when Katy replied in her best “I’m the big sister and I know everything” voice, “Mommy doesn’t have fishing skills.” I half expected her to go on, saying… “or nun-chuck skills or computer hacking skills…” Katy loves Napoleon Dynamite (we edit certain parts), and would gladly choose that over  most other traditional kids movies. I think it’s because every time we visited Auntie Tara in Zion we would watch it at night, so she associates the movie with Auntie Tara. But she does actually laugh in the appropriate places, so maybe she just shares our sense of humor. Maybe we’ll try out an edited version of Best in Show, too… that 2 left feet thing is hilarious! 

Hi everyone! We decided to start up a blog so it would be easier for everyone to keep track of us… hopefully you’ll enjoy it!

We’re currently trying to get the house unpacked and ready for the baby at the same time, along with some repairs that needed to be done. I can’t wait to paint our bedroom after the baby is born… the guys who rented from us painted all of the white trim, ceiling, and closet brown (tootsie-roll color- bleh!!!) and the walls a darker blue… so it’s pretty dismal. But, I can’t be around primer until after this kiddo comes, so that’s what we have to live with for the next few weeks. I don’t mean to complain… it’s just difficult when you’re “nesting” and want to make everything cheerful and homey and your room looks like a cave.

The girls are super excited about their new baby brother or sister. They continually give me kisses on my belly and say hello and I love you- and usually are rewarded with a kick! This baby is really active compared to the activity level of the girls at this stage. Does that mean a boy? Who knows, except God of course! I have no “gut feeling” at all… I just would like a healthy baby!