Easter Blessings

Easter Sunday was special this year for a few reasons. At our church on Easter we celebrate baptisms with a church ceremony and then everyone heads down to Ocean Beach where baptism candidates are "dunked" into the ocean to symbolize their new life in Christ. This year, Guy's childhood friend Damon was baptized and asked Guy to be his sponsor. At the same time, one of our Young Life girls from San Francisco asked me to sponsor her baptism. It was a very meaningful time for us to share in this ceremony with dear friends. It's a wonderful celebration as tons of people join on the beach to support the candidates. They enter the water with their pastor and sponsor, go to about knee-high and the candidate is dipped backward into the water. We included some pictures of the special day. Guy went in with Damon and the pastor (last picture). I decided to go part-way and then Wendy and her pastor went the rest of the way. I think Avery was excited to be at the beach as she kicked the whole time, but I wanted to be careful not to go too far. It was awesome to watch and pray for Wendy as she was led to the baptism waters. What a special day!

37 Weeks, She's Legit

Christie hit 37 weeks this past Saturday and we could not be more excited. 37 weeks is the time at which the baby is considered full term. You wouldn't know that from Christie, though. Sometimes she forgets that she is pregnant. She continues to be very active and has not slowed down one bit. She has truly been blessed and could not have asked for a better pregnancy. We know Avery can come any day now and we can't wait!

Showered with Love

Just when I thought this pregnancy journey couldn't get any better, I was showered on Saturday with an overwhelming display of dear friendships and a lifetime of memories. Great friends (and bridesmaids) Tiffany and Wendy put together a baby shower at Wendy's house that included friends from near and far, spanning years of my life from childhood to college and years in San Francisco. I loved seeing friends I hadn't seen in months and am so grateful for the miles many drove to be there. Wendy and Tiff did a great job with the details. We had a yummy brunch and then broke into groups to recreate nursery rhymes that were written in frames for me to sing to Avery. While I opened gifts, Tiffany had the groups perform their nursery rhymes- too cute! I can't wait to sing these custom lullabies to our precious daughter! Thank you to all the amazing women who celebrated together on Saturday!

Babysitters for Life!

As most of you know, Guy and I spend a lot of time with high school kids for the Young Life outreach work I do. The past 6 years has been filled with unbelievable blessings as we've met incredible kids in San Francisco and Marin. The kids in San Francisco were able to share in our journey of dating, being engaged and getting married and the kids we've met this year in Marin have loved sharing our journey through pregnancy. The kids have gotten excited as my belly grows (and moves!) and we learn together about the miracle of how God creates life. There have been some awesome teachable moments- like learning and sharing with them that in week 17 we receive our fingerprints and how this makes us so unique and special. Or all of the ways our creation has intentional purposes- nothing is random, they are not accidents. This is good news to so many kids we work with- simply awesome. One of the coolest things is that the Young Life girls can't wait to babysit Avery. They ask all the time how soon she's coming and when they can take care of her. We can't wait for her to grow up being loved by these amazing kids! I couldn't resist including a pic from last week's SuperHero YL club- nothing like a preggo SuperHero and her hot husband (nice duds and wig, Guy!) We have too much fun...

a little Air time for daddy-to-be!

The past 8.5 months has been an awesome adventure and mostly focused on my changing body and the development of our amazing daughter. With all of the fun monthly "belly pics", baby showers and goodies we're collecting for our new life with baby, my amazing husband doesn't get much air-time. I have been so grateful for how helpful and involved Guy has been through this whole journey- taking belly pics whenever the mood strikes me, sitting in endless hospital classes to learn the "how-to's", painting the nursery and assembling all kinds of new baby gear. He even endured the latest task I "had to have done" of re-organizing the entire garage last Saturday! Guy is an amazing man and an unbelievable husband. He's so excited for Avery's arrival, he keeps telling me how many "girlfriend" days I'm going to get because he can't wait for daughter/daddy outings. So, for what it's worth, I wanted to document my gratitude for all to hear- especially since the nurses tell us not to be surprised if I say things I don't mean during labor :-) Here are some pics of my baby daddy- even proof of all the goodies he's assembled for us!