Coming December 2013.....

I began this post weeks ago. I wanted to tell everyone about our new arrival, yet still desired to hold it close to our hearts, protecting he/she from the world, letting this be our hidden treasure.

And maybe I am afraid of what people will say.
"Holy cow, eight children! Don't you know what causes that?"
"Was this planned?"
"How do you do it? I could never have that many children!"

Shannon keeps reminding me, "We are not a target. We will be a beacon. We are a beacon."
I wish I shared his perspective as deeply.  I wish I could take comments and deflect them as he does, but they get my barbs up.
Really up.
He always has a calm, cool response that makes the commenter blush.  Heck, they make me blush when he relates the conversations to me!  Then, he will launch into a mini-sermon about the beauty of life.  This is not the guy I married...this is someone way better!

Anyhooo ~ just a bit of a catch-up from the last couple months.

3/28
We discovered #8 would be on the way right before Easter.  What a way to celebrate the gift of life our Lord gave to us on that first Holy Week and Easter Sunday.  I can't wait to hold a new baby right before Christmas. We'll be able to do a complete manger scene this year!

4/27
Shannon took the little boys and I out to dinner last night to celebrate.  While biking with Mom the next day she asked what we were celebrating.
I responded, "He said we were celebrating our new baby and some business meetings that went well."
She laughed, "Oh, that Shannon!"
And that was it.
I guess she'll have to wait to get the news in a more direct manner ~:o)

4/28
Ahhhh, nausea, I love you so.  Sounds sick, huh?  Well, whenever I feel the waves of nausea sweeping over me I tell myself it is a good sign.  The one pregnancy I didn't feel it didn't end up so well.
Thank you, Father, for this small sign that everything is going well when I cannot see it!
But the fatigue.
My daughters are going to begin wondering why Mom needs more naps than Grandma!  Shannon keeps emphasizing how poorly I have been sleeping.  Hopefully, I can hide behind that story for a while longer.

5/1
Shannon says he is going to begin having breakfast in bed.  He will keep a dozen eggs and some bacon  next to the bed and fry them on my back in the morning.
I'm that hot....and not in a good way!
I don't recall being quite this overheated in prior pregnancies.  Heaven help me come July.  I'll be found in some deep dark watering hole on some creek.  At least the kids will be happy.  They love swimming all day, every day.  We'll just bag dinner and eat Cheerios, milk, and fruit for the summer.

5/8
Today while on FB there was an announcement that the local pregnancy resource center needed pregnant women in their early pregnancies to use for ultrasound training.  Yay! That's me!  Shannon told the girls that they simply needed women to practice on to teach their volunteers about the machines so they had asked me to help out and told the girls they could go with me next Thursday.
Little white lies ~

5/14
We hiked Mt. Helena  today.  I have decided that I am going to feel cruddy sitting on the couch or hiking, biking, running, so I may as well get after it. I wore a Life is Good tee Shannon bought me that said, "Zero Tasking" on the front with a lady holding a glass of lemonade.  Every time I glanced down to see if my feet were making any progress while Nickles perched on my shoulders, my shirt was a cruel reminder that we had left our water in the car and this was certainly no afternoon in a lawn chair!
Zero Tasking???
I am expecting my eighth cherub, that is nowhere in my future.

Rest time ~

My legs hurt!

My tummy hurts.

My tooooooes hurt!
This was the 100 yards that he walked on his own.

It all came together for me about where Dom has been getting his info on the devil 

and why he thinks the devil lives in Helena.  

This cave is named The Devil's Kitchen...

that, coupled with watching too many Loony Tunes this spring,

I think I have most of his questions dialed...
or at least their origins!

5/15
This morning I am going to try to walk/run off this ill feeling.  Maybe if I go fast enough I can leave it in the dust!  Maybe I can even find some energy under a rock so I don't nap all day.  It's pretty bad when your husband returns in the evening and you have bedhead.
I keep telling myself pregnancy is only 9 months and billions of women have done this, so I'd better offer it up and look forward to the end result, while enjoying nurturing a small creation within me.
And I have given enough friends this advice so I'd better walk the talk.

5/16
We had the ultrasound this afternoon.  The older girls knew, or so they claimed.  Annika was surprised, however.  The techs kept referring to the baby as "him."  I'd hear Annika under her breath correct them, "Her."  Annika called Daddy afterwards and told him, then asked later if I thought Daddy had blown the secret yet.
It's amazing to see a little baby twisting and turning and waving its arms.  To think that this is a common gestational age for babies to be aborted makes my heart sink.  This little "mass of cells" is so perfectly arranged, how could we fool ourselves that it is okay to kill him or her?  Truly, we are all simply a mass of cells but a mass of cells that is so intricately arranged that only a Creator could have knitted us together so perfectly.

The beauty of life, its perfection, blows me away.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made!

Uncle Steve, we were thinking of you when we came up with an in-utero baby name for our latest edition!

Introducing "Shazzam Bell."