Adelia's Birth Story

Adelia Faith was born Thursday, March 6^th at 1:29 am.  She weighed 8 lbs 5 ounces and was 19 inches long with a head of dark brown hair. It’s been a whirlwind since we first found out we were expecting her and so much did not go “according to plan”.  Yet through it all, it is easy to see how God had an ultimate plan and knew what He was doing.

We found out we were expecting while we were still in Branson, MO.  I was working an overnight weekend job and Chad was working at two different places.  Life was changing quickly for us.  The main job I had been working with Make Believers was coming to an end, and we had hit several walls in Chad continuing his education at Drury.  With those situations in our mind and the increasing difficulty to see either of our families, we began praying about moving back to the East Coast.  After talking with our families and some close friends, we decided to head to North Carolina.  Chad’s twin was already here and his parents were in the processing of moving to North Carolina as well.  Moving cross country is definitely not my favorite thing but we are so glad to be close to some of our family again.

One thing that we had to pray through when deciding on North Carolina is we would not have the option of having a home birth like we did with Ezekiel.  While it is technically legal in the state, the laws are so strict that it is nearly impossible to find a midwife who will do one.  We were extremely blessed to find a group of midwives in our area (they are pretty scarce in the state) who worked with the local hospital.  I fell in love with the first midwife we met with and so much of my anxiousness about having to have a hospital birth was put to rest.  I met with the second midwife and while I liked her, I immediately began praying that we would have the first one for our actual birth.

While I would have never chosen a hospital birth, God again knew what He was doing.  Towards the end of the pregnancy, there was some concern as the baby wasn’t growing like she should be. My midwife had me come in for another ultra sound and we found out that there was very little amniotic fluid left.  We then talked through our options and decided that it was best to go ahead and induced the labor (I was already 40 weeks and 3 days at this point).  So we went out to lunch, came home and gave Ezekiel a big hug and headed into the hospital to have our baby.  It was interesting arriving without actually being in labor but it gave us a chance to get through all of the paper work.  The labor went well despite having to have an IV and being hooked up to monitors the entire time (something I had planned on declining).  The hospital is very friendly towards natural births and had it so everything was mobile and shower/tub friendly.  We were blessed with a wonderful team of nurses that I can’t say enough great things about.  My prayers were also answered in being able to have the midwife that I wanted.  Chad described her best in saying, “It was like having a good friend, that was also a doctor, there for the birth.”  She was wonderful throughout the whole process.  Adelia did great throughout the labor.  There was a lot of concern between the low fluids and having to be induced that it would put too much stress on her, but her heartbeat never wavered once.  When she was born, we found that her cord was tied in a really tight knot which is most likely the cause of the low fluids.  When my water actually broke towards the end, the nurse questioned the midwife several times about it because there was so little fluid.  In the end, Adelia came out crying and wanting to nurse almost immediately.  Let me tell you, this girl knows how to eat. =)  Again, while being in the hospital was not my first choice, it was the best choice for our little girl.  I am thankful for the technology that alerted us to the fact that everything was not right towards the end.  I also had a couple of complications after the birth that again, we were thankful to be already at the hospital and have the medications necessary to take care of them.

After everything was done, we were taken to our recovery room and got some much needed sleep.  Ezekiel was able to come by later that day to meet his new little sister.  He wasn’t quite so sure about her at first (and quickly got distracted by all of the buttons he could press) but he is very attentive to her now.  He loves talking to her, giving her kisses, holding her, and makes sure to tell us the moment she starts crying.

And there it is…our birth story and the newest addition to our family.

Adelia Faith

For those of you who have asked, here is a little more about how we decided on Adelia’s name.  I started writing her birth story as well but the post seemed too long.  I’ll post it next for those who are interested.

Adelia Faith was the first name that Chad and I ever decided on.  It was a name that Chad had always liked, and I loved it upon hearing it. Adelia has a couple different meanings depending on where you look but when we think about it, we think of the Adelia flower. Chad enjoys referring to her as his “little flower”.  Faith is my grandma’s first name and I have always wanted to name one of my girls after her.

My grandma Faith has always been a special person in my life.  While I grew up on the opposite coast as her, I have very fond memories of her visits: walking to our neighborhood 7-Eleven for slurpies, spending time at the beach with our cousins, and playing a full game of monopoly (she was just about the only person I could get to play all the way with me).  I did have the blessing of living in the same state with her for a little bit when she moved to California but that was short lived as I headed to the East Coast after getting married. 

My grandma has always been a wonderful encourager.  I used to (and still do) love writing my grandma as a little girl and couldn’t wait to receive a letter back.  She always seems to have a way with words.  Recently, she lost her last living sibling.  My mom passed along a wonderful tribute my grandma had written about him and given him several years ago.  It brings me to tears thinking how sweet it is that she didn’t wait till after he had gone to write this, and that her brother was blessed enough to read it.  How I wish that I would learn to take more time to let those around me know how blessed I am by them.

One of my favorite things about her is she embraces life as it comes.  Growing old can be a difficult thing but she has done it with so much grace.  After living in Pennsylvania for most of her life, she moved to the west coast at over 80 years of age.  She quickly got involved in the local senior center, made quite a few friends, and took up the Ukulele.  She got involved in some different aerobic classes and has stayed active as much a she can.  I pray that our little Adelia will inherit some of these wonderful attributes from her great grandma and I am excited that she will soon be able to meet her name sake.  As we have already learned in how Adelia entered our world, so much of life is out of our control.  What we can control is our perspective and learning to take life one day at a time living in the grace of God.

And that brings us to our prayer for miss Adelia Faith: that she will learn to grow and blossom into the woman God has made her, that she will learn to live in His grace, taking each moment as it comes, and learning to be an encourager to all she comes into contact with.

The Pinterest Challenge

I am in love with pinterest. Upon first discovery, I spent way too much time looking through things and pinning items that I will probably never use.  Chad thought it was another silly women thing and I don't remember exactly what he said but it made me want to challenge myself to actually do some of the projects I was pinning.

...and with that came the "pinterest challenge".  Basically I try and take 1 pin each week be it food, craft, cleaning, whatever, and do it.  I don't always get it done but my hard fast rule is if I pin new items then I have to do at least one.

With that being said I pinned more items these past couple days and thus had to do a project....I am actually quite proud of myself because in the last two days I did not 1 but 2 projects.  The second one I did yesterday was make homemade laundry detergent.  I've had the items for over a month now but just hadn't made it.  Since there are plenty of blogs out there on how to make it, I won't bother but here is the link to the one I used in case you are interested. http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2011/07/brand-name-laundry-detergents-last.html

The other one I did was a framed piece using Z's hand and foot prints.  I used this blog for instructions: http://www.thisgloriousday.com/2012/01/act-justly-love-mercy-walk-humbly.html

It was super simply and I love the finish project.

First, I took a piece of poster board I got at the dollar store for $.69 and cut it to my size. In the blog I think she said she did 16x20 but I made my 8x10 since Z is still so little.

 Next I had to find one of these =)

He wasn't so sure about the paint brush

Then I waited for the paint to dry.  

For the wording I had a metallic sharpie on hand that worked great.

And there you have it

On the wall above my desk. 

(I have since added pictures around it to make it not look so tiny on the wall)

And there you have it. My pinterest challenge of the week. =)

San Diego (Part 2)

 As AIM's West Coast Missions Conference wrapped up, I was left with a week to spend with my family and see some friends.  While I could bore you with a list of all those I saw, how bout some pictures instead?

Z playing the guitar with Uncle Samuel

Meeting Great Grandma Faith

Z and Aunt Joicers on her 6th birthday

He definitely got doted on by his cousins

All in all, it was a wonderful week.  One final thought: this visit I had the opportunity to connect with many different groups of friends.  I continue to be blessed by all the different people that God has brought into my life and it's amazing how each and every person ministers and challenges me in a different way.  So thank you to my California family (by blood and beyond). Until next time!

San Diego (Part 1)

These past two weeks I have spent in my home town of San Diego to help out with AIM's annual West Coast Missions Conference.  Well...the first week was to help with the conference and the second was to spend some time with my family. =) So much happened that I feel the need to separate this into two posts.

This year's conference was set-up a little differently as the AIM San Diego Team hosted it (normally headquarters hosts it).  What this meant was training the executive and assistant directors on everything it takes to put together a conference...it just happened to be a huge bonus that it was my mom and brother I was training. =)  I've spent a good portion of these last two months talking my mom and brother through the different steps of putting this conference together and even more, how to train those under them to run and put it together.

I then took on the adventure of traveling to San Diego with Z all by myself (which I've already written some about).  I was excited to touch down in San Diego and be mobbed by my nieces, nephew and siblings as I stepped off of the elevator.  I spent that night chilling with my family and mentally preparing for the next day.

Wednesday was filled with meeting with the SALT (Student ACTION Leadership Team) of AIM San Diego.  They each came individually or as a family group. I had back-to-back meetings from 9am - 6:30 pm.  Needless to say it was a full day.

Thursday was spent running through all of the last minute things and running errands for the conference.

...and then came the big day, Friday.  We again met with the SALT early to run through final details before the attendees arrived.  We had 69 students, parents and younger siblings attending the conference. This included the 26 AIM San Diego students, students from the San Diego area, and a team of people from Lompoc, Ca.

Something unusual happened for me this conference in that I actually got to sit in on several of the classes.  Normally, I am teaching during these times or doing other tasks to keep things on track.  This year however, with the SALT leading most of the classes and then parents teaching several as well, I only taught during one of the class periods.  Also, we had a parent completely in charge of the kitchen with a wonderful team of helpers so I did nothing in that area either...other than to sneak some samples here or there. =)

We wrapped up the conference with three different presentations.  One at a church, one at an American Legion family picnic and finally, one at Seaport Village.  It was neat to see how versatile the art of mime is as we went from ministering to a body of Christians, veterans, and then to anyone who happened to be at Seaport Village that day.

Overall, the conference was a huge success and a wonderful way to spend time with my family but more on that later...

Oh and what's a blog without a couple pictures of a bunch of mimes?

Group Picture at Seaport Village

Libs after a mime paint class 

thank you for blessing me

Two weeks ago, I took on the adventure of traveling to San Diego via plane with my 4 month old son...all by myself.  I really wasn't too nervous about the trip as he is an easy going baby but I think any parent always wonders if their child is going to be the one screaming for the whole two hour flight.  On top of that, I had several people tell me to just ignore any comments or glances from people about Z (meaning people aren't always that pleasant when they find out that they will be traveling with a child on the plane).  While I was quite pleased with how he did overall, I was even more blessed by the people God placed beside me.

On my first flight, I had a window seat.  I sat by myself for awhile and then a gentleman sat in the aisle seat.  I was pretty sure he wouldn't be bothered by Z as across the aisle was his family including a two year old.  Then came our middle seat companion.  He was a middle age business man and was heading home after a business conference.  Any uneasiness I had about how he would handle sitting next to a baby quickly dissolved as he starting playing with Z and told me about his 9 grandchildren with another one on the way.  He (the gentleman) even took a nap for a portion of the flight which allowed me to nurse Z without worrying if it would make him uncomfortable.

On my next flight, I was supposed to sit in the middle seat. I quickly got moved over by a mom of two who insisted that I take the window seat.  She was sweet and that flight too was uneventful.  As I was deplaning, I  reached to get my backpack out of the overhead when another passenger insisted in not only getting it down for me but also carrying it off of the plane.

Needless to say, thank you to you if you were one of those people I sat with or saw a mom in need and helped out...here's hoping that my traveling companions tomorrow are just as understanding. =)

Kansas Mime Camp

This past week, Chad and I had the opportunity to take a missions team of 10 to Kansas to help run a mime camp there.  Including our students, there were around 50 young people participating in 5 teams.  I have helped at this particular camp 3 other times dating all the way back to '03 (yes, I am getting old....er).  The camp takes place in Rose Hill, Kansas and is a true small midwestern town that I have grown to love.  I have  many wonderful memories here and it was neat to be able to share them with Chad.

This camp is always a wonderfully exhausting experience.  It runs from 9-9 each day and we fill it with Bible studies, Bible memorization, learning new mimes, (delicious) food, and chapel...we even had some down time where we "gave" our students the opportunity to practice their public speaking skills with impromptu speeches about "why rubber duckies should have mustaches" and debates such as "flip flops vs. sandals".

Since the camp ran over 4 days (5 nights), some of the local families opened up their homes to us.  Chad and I (and Ezekiel) were hosted by a family of 5.  Host homes are always a favorite part of any of my trips.  We had a great time talking each evening with our hosts.  In the mornings, the children were always excited to finish breakfast and get to play with Ezekiel on the floor.  They had a blast trying to imitate his "superman" pose. =)  This was a particularly encouraging time for me talking with our hosts and asking some on how they had raised their children.  While I know all children are a work in progress, their children were well behaved and it was obvious that they were intentional in their raising and instructing of them.

Going back to the camp, on Thursday evening, the teams put together a presentation to showcase all of the songs they had learned the past few days.  In looking at the program and deciding what we wanted our team to do, we decided we needed a light-hearted song to open up the presentation. Chad didn't like that options we had available and decided that we needed to choreograph a new one....and thus, "Joe, Joe, and Jehovah"  was created. Chad came up with the story line of the song and we spent a good portion of Wednesday night looking for just the right music to fit the story.  Click here if you want to check it out.  I think we can safely say that Chad has officially become "one of those mimes". =)

Finally, yet another one of my favorite parts of this camp is we always put an all camp mime together.  This year we did "Exodus" which, well you guessed it, is about Exodus. Click here if you want to see what a song looks like with 50 mimes.

Overall, I was blessed to have yet another opportunity to minister with my husband and son and to get to spend a whole week together serving the Lord.