HELP!!

I know that Christmas has just ended. To many, the thought of preparing for next Christmas is just about unthinkable. Because it takes me so long to do anything crafty, I know I need to start early. That's why I've already started. Started what? Well, I want to make a "Jesse Tree." Many of you (especially those raised in a more "traditional" church) may already know about Jesse Trees. For those who don't, the Jesse Tree shows the lineage of Christ as the Messiah. There are devotionals for each night and a corresponding ornament for the 25 days of December leading to Christmas. I want to make the ornaments, which is where my problem lies. I've tried Googling to find patterns, but most of them look like silly little hand drawn pictures that adults download for kiddos to color during Sunday School. I want these ornaments to look nice. I know I could use Chrismons, but even those tend to be cross stich patterns rather than a downloadable and printable picture. Read: I don't do needlepoint of any kind.

So, if you have a good resource you can send my way (or have a friend of a friend of a friend who would have some good info) I would LOVE to have some nice looking Jesse Tree ornament patterns.

As a side note...why is it that, in general, the Christian community doesn't take pride in what they do? That the world can make BEAUTIFUL ornaments, but when trying to find patterns for beautiful BIBLICAL ornaments, it is down right impossible? What kind of message does that send to the world, that we don't take the time to do things WELL? Boggles my mind...

PS--Don't let my side note distract you from the real question of finding patterns for my ornaments!! HA!

My wonderful husband

Yesterday was great. People asked how our Christmas was (the typical chit-chat you have with people who don't know specific questions to ask you) and my answer was "Mine isn't over--Jeremy hasn't gone back to work yet!"

I woke up yesterday morning at 8:30 to Hannah having fun in the bathtub. Jeremy had already fed her breakfast and was giving her a bath. He basically took care of her all day apart from making her lunch and dinner. I not only slept in but I had a morning nap and an afternoon nap. (And I didn't have to wake up when Hannah got up!) By dinner at 5:30pm I had only been awake for 6.5 hours that day. It was WONDERFUL! When I went to bed that night I wasn't so exhausted that I couldn't sleep. If only everday could be so blissful!

May I be the first to say...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Ok, I think Christmas starts on Christmas Eve. By the time we were in middle school we always opened our presents on Christmas Eve night so that we could be less rushed on Christmas Day to eat a great breakfast and head to my grandparents. And since I think I live closer to the International date line than any of my friends, I've managed to get to Christmas first :) So....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Anxious about everything

"Be anxious about nothing..." Really? Nothing? Lately I feel like I'm anxious about everything. Well, maybe not everything, but certainly most things that come along with having a baby in Korea. It takes such daily discipline to not be anxious about these things! I'm glad that there is hope that I don't HAVE to be anxious! Praise God! Here are a few things that plague my brain...

1) What if it snows and the hour and ten minute drive to the hospital takes three hours?

2) What if I go into labor on the weekend and the and ten minute drive to the hospital takes three hours?

3) What if I don't realize I'm in labor and then I give birth in the car?

4) What if I think I'm in labor and get to the hospital and I'm not? Do I stay in Seoul or do I come home? What about Hannah?

5) What if Benjamin is only two weeks old when Jeremy leaves for Alabama and I have to do the two hours of newborn screaming by myself every night?

6) What if Hannah flips out about Benjamin and Jeremy is in Alabama and I have to deal with all of it by myself?

7) What if I ge to the hospital and they are stinkers about putting me on the EFM and I'm strapped into the bed the entire time?

8) What if the roommates in my recovery room listen to shoot-em-up movies at three am (poor Meisje!)?!

(BTW--this is me at 34 weeks!)

Slow schedules

Somehow it has happened. I've successfully cleared my schedule this week and have done nothing apart from being a mom, wife, and friend for three days now. Tomorrow's agenda? Make bread (in the bread machine), make a crust for a tart, and go to the Hospitality House. That's it. I can't remember the last time my schedule was so "light." I'm THRILLED!

Third trimester fatigue (plus the lingering affects of jet lag and ministry craziness) has just about wiped me out and I have gotten into a bit of self-preservation mode. Jeremy has significant time off over the next week and a half (which should help to average out the time he HASN'T been at home the past two weeks) and I might get to nap everyday!!

This is great!!

Jeremy updates

The biggest news to be told is that Jeremy found out that he got an 18 month school assignment at Wright-Patterson in Dayton, Ohio as his next assignment. He'll get his Master's in some kind of Engineering Management degree. School starts in August and we'll be there until March 2008. WE'LL BE IN THE SAME TIME ZONE AS MY FAMILY!!! I've NEVER been able to just pick up the phone with our parents or my sister and not think about what time it is where they are. I'm thrilled. And, we'll only be a three hour drive from my sister's house. Can we say ROAD TRIPS?!?! Two families from Osan have already PSC'ed there, one of which has six kids and is a lovely source of parenting knowledge (the Volchecks) and the other loves Hannah and will be willing to babysit from the get-go (the Meadors). God is good :)

On to the not-so-fun news. Jeremy is currently suppose to be leaving on February 24th for a five week training in Alabama. Need I say that this is just one month after Benjamin is suppose to be here? Read: Rhodes babies are late babies. He could be just two weeks old when Jeremy leaves. Needless to say, I'm less than happy about this arrangement. His major is trying to get things changed and have us leave in May, but it doesn't look so good from this end of things.

So sing with me "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the Facts of Life, the Facts of Life!" (Gotta love 80s TV show theme songs!)

Let it snow!

We woke up this morning to 8" of snow on the ground. Because the "road condition" was red, no one was allowed to drive their car around on base. With me in my pregnant condition (growing by the day) and Hannah unable to walk the mile to church, we stayed at home and played in the snow. After getting all bundled up and getting outside, Hannah decided she didn't much care for the snow. Well, maybe she didn't care for the fact that she couldn't really walk in her snowsuit. At any rate it was very evident that I would not have been able to take her out and play with her in the snow had Jeremy not been at home. Just too physical for me at this point, especially with all the clothing on. So, Thank you, God! that you sent the snow on a weekend so Jeremy could go play with us!

Diapers, Pacifiers, and Other Holy Things

First let me start by saying that the title to this blog is actually the title to a really good devotional book for mothers that I got right before Hannah was born. Each of the chapters is about three pages long with actual application principles at the end. It's just what the mother of a newborn needs to get connected to God during a mid-night nursing session!

Diapers--While in the states Hannah hit a growth spurt and outgrew all clothes she had and even her cloth diapers. She wore the small size for five months and then the medium size for eleven months. It took a couple of weeks to decide whether we wanted to continue and buy the large size. But in the end we decided it was worth it and purchased them on Nov. 30th. They were shipped priority mail on Dec. 2nd. We finally got them today. Gotta love APO addresses.

Pacifiers--Jeremy has been trying for months and months to get me to wean Hannah from her paci. I've been beyond nervous to do so, but I knew that I didn't want to have two kids crying for pacis in the middle of the night. So we decided that the exhaustion of jet lag would help lul her to sleep and weaning her off the paci when we got back from the states would be about the best time we could do it. We were right. This is night #11 without a paci--she hasn't taken one with a nap, either! Mind you, this is the child who has recently as Thanksgiving week cried for over thirty minutes because someone didn't know the "nap procedure" and failed to give her the paci at nap time. PRAISE GOD. (I know, as soon as Benjamin has a paci, she'll try to take it from him and we'll have this big battle on our hands, but we are prepared...)

Other Holy Things--This morning was the first morning that Hannah has slept past 6am since we've been back from the states. Why is this is so important? When she wakes up so early, I don't have my morning alone time with the Lord to get prepared for the day she will reek havoc upon. And would you know that THIS week is when she decides that she needs to SCREAM when she doesn't get what she wants when she wants it? And she SCREAMS when she is "done" with her nap, which is not really when nap time is over, but she thinks that it is. And she SCREAMS because she wants me to be constantly holding her? Oh the things I'm in for when Benjamin arrives....

However, I must say that I have two friends who have recently had wee ones, and I'm getting so excited to hold my little 8lb bundle of squishy flesh. I'll be exhausted and mentally frazzled and my body will be going through WWIII as far as hormones, but isn't it worth it?!?! (At least a couple of times!!)

The unexplanable

Hannah is still jet lagged. It isn't horrible, but she can't seem to get back to her normal schedule of sleeping from 7pm to 7:30am. Waking up at 5am is not my idea of ok. Between her lack of sleeping, my lack of sleeping, and my mound of "welcome back to Korea--you have a lot to catch up on before you celebrate Christmas" work, I'm about at the end of my emotional and physical rope.

And then moments like this morning happen. Hannah has started cuddling. Sort of. She likes to sit facing me in the rocking chair wrapped up in a blanket in the darkness of the morning when she is suppose to be sleeping. (Have I mentioned that she has also decided to stop eating?) This morning she spent an hour and a half telling me she was hungry and me trying to tell her to go back to sleep. Finally I relented (I should have done it sooner!) and gave her graham crackers.

After eating all the graham crackers she started looking up at me and smiling. Then patting my face. Then snuggling closer to me. And finally she started coming up to my face with hers, touching our noses together and then giggling. So I did what any normal mother would do--I played with her like this and giggled for over 15 minutes, savoring in all of these wonderful moments while my little girl is still a little girl, while her skin is soft and her hands are small, while she still thinks I'm the most amazing woman on the planet.

And then I put her to bed. And she is asleep. It's a shame I actually have to wake her up this morning to go to MOPS.

Testing one, two, three

I don't know why, but I've never tried to email a blog posting to my blog. Maybe I would blog more if I did it. So, now I'm trying it to see if it works :)

We are hitting the dusty trail tomorrow. Our plane leaves at 6:00am from Charlotte, which is an hour drive from Jeremy's parent's house. So, at 2:30am we'll wake up, at 3:00am we'll leave, have the scary weigh-in-of-the-baggage time, and then sit around in the airport for about an hour (if all goes well) before we get to board the plane.

From Charlotte we go to Dallas. From Dallas to Tokyo. From Tokyo to Seoul. Our plane is suppose to touch down at 9:00pm local time on Tuesday, Dec. 5th. Then through customs and HOPEFULLY the bus that goes directly onto base will still be at the airport so that we can pay $90 to ride to Osan. But, with four suitcases, a double stroller, a car seat, a pregnant mommy and a very active (but possibly very cranky) little girl after 30 hours of traveling, we thought that taking the direct bus and paying the money would be better than trying to get on the city bus and taking TWO taxis to our apartment. Mind you, we will still need to take a taxi from the bus "stop" on base to our apartment. And then lug all of the stuff to our place. Thank you, God, for an elevator!!

The weeks have flown by. We have done fun shopping. We have done a lot of "strategic" shopping, as I like to say where we buy things we know we'll need and can't get in Korea. We've watched movies and football and been wined and dined. We've seen old friends and family and actually had a date or two!

And now, it is back to the grind of daily living, the hustle and bustle of work and home and ministry. It's good, but it's hard. I'm constantly trying to figure out ways to make it easier. Maybe one day I will. If I do, I'll let you know.

And maybe I'll be as good as Susie at my blog :)