Things to Remember...

Here are some random things I want to remember about this pregnancy:

1) At 32-33 weeks I began to waddle and no matter how hard I try to walk normally now, I just can't:)

2) I don't like baby hiccups. They feel like an irritating muscle spasm that won't stop.

3) I like to watch him roll around and see all of the weird shapes that it makes from the outside.

4) I like it when it seems I can feel just one or two of his fingers tracing something inside- it tickles!

5) I can't believe he was head down in so many ultrasounds until the 32nd week ultrasound- here's hoping he turns around sometime soon

6) When Josh talks to him and puts his hand on my belly he moves towards him

7) He definitely is either irritated by or in love with music, because he moves a lot whenever music starts playing near me:)

8) He still sleeps at night with me and doesn't keep me awake and I appreciate that:) He usually starts moving about 10 minutes after I wake up in the mornings

9) I still don't have heartburn and I know to be very thankful about this. The food I eat has never really seemed to bother me or him.

10) I sleep with 5 pillows now and I sleep pretty well all night, but getting up is getting harder.

11) My hands have just begun to swell a little and it makes them ache pretty badly

12) I still never really have any cravings, but things I really like are: cold milk, cereal, ice cream, grapes, orange juice, meats, pasta dishes, and lemon popsicles (which I only found here one time, but they were amazing while they lasted).

About 6 1/2 weeks left. There is still a lot to do. Today I'll be picking up some more things I will have to have at the hospital- diapers, diaper rash cream, and house shoes. Fun:) I go for my next doctors appointment this week. I'll have fetal monitoring again, an exam, and an ultrasound done. I really hope I have a good picture of him to post this time!

First Baby Shower!

Last night my friends and teammates Christie and Sarah gave me my first Baby Shower. It was a surprise to me when they told me a week ago to plan on being at this event. It was so exciting to have all of my friends in one place for the first time. God has truly blessed me with many loving friends over the past 3 years here. They seemed to have an enjoyable time together as there were all anticipating this party and what it would really be like. We heard from several of them that they had only seen this type of thing done in the movies. :) It's not a tradition here to have a party for an expecting woman, but they thought it was a very generous way to help a friend and to celebrate motherhood.

Christie, Sarah, and our friend Maria prepared and decorated for the party. They did a great job and the place looked wonderful. We had the party up at our new facility and it was also a great opportunity to show all of our friends where we host many of our programs and events now.

Sarah is now around 22 weeks pregnant and I am 33 weeks pregnant. It's been a blessing to share this experience together. She is also expecting a boy!


Here are some of the foods we made for the party. You can see the traditional, open-faced sandwiches that are often served at events here. We've really grown to love them. One of my favorites is the one I made for the party with the mandarin oranges on top. It's a fresh garlic, paprika, and tvaroh cheese spread with the oranges on top. It sounds like a strange combination, but it is so good. The cheese is not a kind you can find in the US, so I'll miss it one day when I can't make it just like this anymore.


As you have heard before, it is a tradition amongst our team to make shape-cakes at times of celebration. Of course, you can see the special shape I received for my baby shower:) Christie, as always, did a great job of making the cake and the icing was homemade, also. It was very yummy, even if it did make my face turn red at first:)


They also made me a diaper cake, which had bottles on the inside holding it up. I love it! It also came with special tea bags on the inside. They have a tea here that they encourage you to begin drinking right after delivery. It's supposed to help with recovery and with breastfeeding. All new Moms here recommend it and encourage you to drink it in the hospital to help you after delivery. One thing we've discovered over the years is that they have a tea here for everything!


So, after we all got to know each other better and had some time to eat, we began playing some games:) Here you can see my good friend, Petra, racing me and my friend Jana in a bottle-drinking contest. Petra won. The bottles were for newborns and you had to suck so hard to get any juice to come out. I ran out of breath and energy and had to pass mine off to a teammate to finish:) It was a lot harder than I thought it would be!

Here you can see Evan, Jana, and Maria racing to pass a pacifier from one pen to another without dropping it. This was a really funny game and also more difficult than it first seemed it would be. Me and my friend Stana were laughing to hard to do it well and kept dropping it between us so, again, my team didn't win this competition either:) But we had fun!


Then I spent some time opening gifts from everyone. We were blessed to receive many wonderful gifts. My friends here were very generous and we are so thankful for them. You can see my good friend Stana sitting beside me. She is due 8 days before me. It's been really great to go through our pregnancies together. We've enjoyed many laughs together, as well as sharing information about where to buy things for the babies.


We played some more games together. In these two pictures you can see by our faces that it was not as enjoyable of a game:) (by the way, you can see my friend Petra's sweet belly here- she's due 2 weeks before me) We had to test different baby foods and guess what their flavors were. Again, this game was harder than it first seemed. The carrots tasted so much like tomatoes that we lost that one when we guessed incorrectly! Below you can see me tasting a green pea and rabbit combination that I will never try again:) We got the green pea part, but we knew there was some horrible kick to it that we couldn't identifty.... I would have never guessed it was rabbit. Yuck! We also had a rice and tuna combo that we didn't guess had tuna in it, but we guessed correctly the califlower one. You couldn't miss it. I drank a lot of sweet juice after this game to get rid of the tastes. Wow, our poor kids.... :)

You can also see in this picture a pacifier hanging around my neck. They were going to make me suck on it anytime I lost at a game. I'm glad they changed their minds, because I lost at every game we played!

Here is just one last picture of everyone together enjoying visiting and eating the yummy food. We had a really great time together and I'm so thankful for everything Sarah and Christie did to make me feel so loved and special! It was a great party!

Visit to the Doctor

Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. We had a nice visit to the doctor today. My urine tests were normal and my blood pressure remains low/normal (118/68). The fetal monitoring was great. We forgot to take something to record the heartbeat with, but we will next time when we return in 2 weeks. Josh loved getting to hear it this time- it ran around 150 bpm the whole time. It was also fun to watch him kick against the belt:) They took some blood for general testing and we should know the results in 2 weeks. The physical exam went well- no changes yet and no problems noted. The ultrasound showed a sweet and healthy boy playing around a lot. Unfortunately, he remains head up. I'm to continue to take it easier, though I'll continue working as well, and I'm to keep doing the daily exercises to encourage him to move back head down. Otherwise, he's doing great. He weighed in at around 3 lbs 10oz. He's over 17 inches long and we're in the 8th month now! Whoohoo! I guess it really is time to start preparing more and to get around to picking out a name in the next 6 weeks or so:) I don't have a good picture of him this time, but hopefully I will next time.

I return in 2 weeks for a full check up with fetal monitoring. I will then have another appointment the following week for only 20 minutes of fetal monitoring. I will then have one last appointment with my doctor a week after that for another full check-up and fetal monitoring. After that, my appointments will be at the hospital so the doctors there can get to know me and so we can do all of the pre-baby paperwork and orientation to the hospital. Crazy, but seems like a really good and careful system here. I really like it so far. Thanks again for your prayers!

More pictures...

Josh took some pictures today of me in our apartment and outside in the park across the street. It was a lot of fun, though embarrassing at times to be stared at. We already look like foreigners most of the time and today we weren't helping that out very much by walking through the park with our camera:) Oh well. I really enjoyed it and I really like the way they turned out. We took a lot, but I'm only putting up a few on here for now. It takes a long time to download and I'm about to take a nap so I'm being impatient:) I hope you enjoy them! Please pray about our appointment tomorrow and that everything is still progressing well! I look forward to seeing him again tomorrow- and to hearing his heartbeat!

The Big 30!

Well, our baby turned the big 30 last week:) Somehow saying I'm in my 31st week this week makes the end seem much closer. Everything is still going well with the pregnancy. Sleeping at night is starting to get a little more uncomfortable with all of the positioning and turning and pillows and tiny lung space, but overall I think I still sleep well during the night:) He still keeps my day and night pattern, which I really like, and which helps me to sleep so well I'm sure. He's very active during the day time. He's started moving lower already and doesn't really kick so much into the ribs anymore as he does some kind of painful twirl/movement more into my hip sockets and bladder. That's not so fun! He gets the hiccups a lot, but only started doing that more recently. So far I don't like them at all:) What I really like is to watch his movements across my belly. Our next doctors appointment is next week, on Tuesday morning. I'll have my first 20-30 minute session of fetal monitoring and I look forward to that. It will be the 2nd time I get to hear his heartbeat and for much longer this time.

We tried to tour our local hospital on Monday, but they were beyond capacity with women in labor so they weren't able to show us any labor rooms or surgical areas. I hope to return next Monday and see everything there. I have some really great Czech friends here who have already been sending me lists of what I will need at the hospital, where I can buy those things, how to talk about them in Czech, etc. That's been really great! Even though we don't know where we will be moving to, yet, I've begun buying a few more "essential" items in the event we need them anytime soon. (By the way, we hope to begin looking at apartments next Tuesday, so please pray about that process with us). This week I bought a baby tub:) It was fun! Most apartments here don't have a sink big enough to bathe a baby in and not all apartments have a normal-sized bathtub, either. Some only have built-in, square shaped, showers, or something that combines the two, but is much smaller than a normal tub size. We will be looking for one that comes with both a shower and tub, hopefully. I also bought some diapers and wipes, some newborn warm sleepers, and some hospital supplies for me. I also (I know it's early, but that's just me:) packed my hospital bag and a small supply bag for the baby. I thought just in case he happens to come early I will be prepared and won't have to worry about Josh figuring out where everything is or where to buy everything. The shopping/finding everything in Czech process here can take so long sometimes- especially when it's a new area of life that we haven't shopped for before, or learned a lot of the vocabulary for before. Also, half of our bedroom is already packed in boxes, so it looks a little crazy in there already.

Before I move on to other fun events going on here... no, we still do not have a name picked out. We'll get to it, eventually:)

Below are some pictures of the reason why I haven't blogged in a while... these are from our new facility:

Children's Room
Children's Room
Main RoomFuture Computer and Teaching Room

Prayer, Study, Office Room

So, except for a kitchen area in progress, these are the rooms we have mostly finished in our new facility. We've been working on it for about 5 weeks now and have been hosting events here for 2 1/2 - 3 weeks now. It's going really well and we are very thankful to have this place. Especially for our teen ministry and our young mothers ministry, both of which have outgrown our homes over the summer time, we are taking advantage of this new place and all the different things we can do there. Each of us on the team took responsibility for different rooms and then we went to work painting, finding furniture, cleaning, organizing, etc. Of course, we all helped each other with most of it. Sarah K. and I did the childrens room (though we had friends paint it for us:). We've already hosted several events here. Each week we have after-school hours from 2-6pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays to give the teens we know a place to go after school. We play games together, talk, tutor with homework and with English learning, etc. On Wednesday evenings each week we host a Christian program for teens that is similar to the program they had each day at camp. We sing songs, play games around a certain theme, watch videos or have small devotionals for them, and then some discussion group time. Some is in English and some is in Czech. It's good for all of us and it's great that many teens are regularly visiting us now. We hope it will only grow and grow! This week Sarah K. and I will begin again our Moms and Kids English class we have done before. This time will have even more focus on Bible stories and Christian childrens songs and we are really looking forward to that. Many of our friends are inviting some of their friends and that is always a good sign. We just hope they will all come! Please pray about all of these events we are doing each week and that God will shine through us to all of these different people. Our relationships are going much deeper now and we are thankful for that and the opportunity it gives us to share even more from our lives and from the Bible with these people.

Good times...

I don't have any pictures to go with this one, but I will post some more soon. I just wanted to give a quick update since it's been over a week since the last post. We just had an awesome weekend retreat with many other Christians from some surrounding countries. It's an annual retreat hosted in our country. This year we were at a beautiful camp site about 2 hours from Olomouc. It was cool and beautiful there. We even noticed many leaves changing along the drive there. I love fall, so I'm really looking forward to this season we are entering now. Here in Olomouc some of the trees have been changing for 2 weeks or more. Fall here seems to begin so early, but it takes it's time. It was beautiful well into October and even early November last year.

At the retreat we enjoyed a wonderful time of singing, listening to different speakers on the topic of being an example of Christ, catching up with old friends we see only 1-2 times a year, and playing games together. I am also thankful that we were able to take with us 2 very dear, non-believing friends from Olomouc. They wanted to join us to see what this type of retreat and time of fellowship really means. They actively participated and, I believe, truly enjoyed their time with us and with the many new people they met over the weekend. Please be praying with us that it was one more step they were taking towards God. We had a wonderful time together.

We also, this week, hosted our first teen event at our new facility- tonight actually. I won't say a lot now because I'm pretty tired from it:) However, it was truly a blessing and we were so excited to spend time with those who came. We began with our weekly Frisbee event in the park in the early afternoon (where we had about 15 students attend) and then we transitioned to an evening program in our facility. We began with some ice-breaker games, then some time reviewing our camps and watching a video we made from our camps, then we talked about why we are here and what our hopes are for our facility, and then we had a time of sharing from the Bible and an encouragine message for everyone to help them start off the school year and this time of transition for them. It went really well. We had about 13 people come and we were very thankful. We hope they will tell their friends and encourage others to join them next week. We then spent the last of our time together playing some board games, having snacks, and enjoying visiting with each other. Please pray with us that we will grow in number, in friendship, and in deepness with one another over the coming school year.

Please also be praying for me and Sarah Keen as we begin planning for another Moms-and-Kids class to begin in our new facility. We hope to begin it as soon as possible (in the next 2 weeks) so we can establish a routine with the mothers we know (and their friends who have shown interest) before the baby comes and we must take a break for a bit. We are excited that several of our friends have asked us in the last 2 weeks if we will begin again soon. That's wonderful!

Ok, just wanted to give a little update of what is going on here. Good night:)

The Third Trimester- Yeah! :)

We've entered into the third trimester and we are thankful for how well the pregnancy is continuing to go! We also made our first 2 purchases for the baby:) Above you can see a couple of toy/blanket bins I found on our trip to IKEA last Saturday. The dark brown and blue match the baby bedding we finally settled on. The blue blanket is a gift from my Mom, which she made herself. It smells like her, too, which I love! The outside of the bins match a baby crib color that we are considering. We know we want to do the room in blues and browns, so these were an exciting find for me.
We also purchased a baby stroller set! Here we call it a kocarek (ko-char-ek). I don't know how to adequately describe what these things really are here, but they are something like small cars:) They have awesome shock systems underneath with the wheels, the wheels alone are strong and more like tires, and all of the gear that comes with them for winter weather is intimidating. Our baby will be born during the winter, so I've had fun playing with it all and figuring out how everything works and zips and folds... The far left piece is the car seat which also pops on to the stroller and can be used when the baby is first born. The middle piece is usually for babies older than one month here and used mostly in winter and spring. It's heavily lined inside for warmth and comfort and zips up almost completely with the outer lining. It's also used on the stroller. The third piece is for babies after they've learned to sit up safely and are older. It folds down into a flat bed or sits up straight. I love the underneath storage as well, because you use it here as your shopping cart when you walk to the grocery store with your kid and then have to walk home with all of the groceries stored somewhere. Wow, that's a lot of detail about a stroller:) I guess you can tell I'm excited about it.
Here is a belly shot for the beginning of the 28th week. This shirt always makes me look a little lower and smaller than I think I really look. I changed shirts further below and you can see what a difference that makes.


We had our doctor's appointment today. Everything went really well. I found out that I passed all of the blood glucose testing. No pregnancy-induced diabetes, yeah! I'm very thankful for that blessing. My exam went well, no problems there. The ultrasound was awesome, but did not make for a good picture so, we didn't get one this time. This kid really wants to keep us guessing as to what he'll really look like when he comes out:) I guess he knows his parents really like surprises and don't mind waiting. He's measuring well and weighing in at 2 lbs 6 oz. His heartrate was good/normal. He was playing with his eyes and nose the whole time so we never saw a clear profile shot of him. We saw lots of hand movement and fingers opening and closing on the nose and eye area. His head was down, which is great, and his feet were definitely kicking up in the rib area:) It was awesome to see him playing in there. His movements are really visible on the outside now, as well. They have been for some time in the form of sharp, sudden pokes and kicks here and there, but now they look alien-like as you watch him move across the belly. I love watching it!

Many of my pregnant friends here tease me that he already keeps my schedule. Usually he kicks a lot during the day and moves around as I work. Usually, when I lay down to sleep, he stops (or has already stopped by then) and appears to be asleep during the night with me. I know I'm lucky in this way. I don't usually feel him move again until I wake up in the morning and then he wakes up and begins moving a lot with me. Well, last night was a different story for the first time. I woke up around 5 to use the restroom and I guess he thought that meant it was time to get up. I could hardly sleep after that for all the moving and kicking he was doing:) I hope that's not going to be a new pattern- yet. I know it's coming when he's born, but I like being able to sleep well right now!:)

We go for our next appointment at the end of September. I'll be 31-32 weeks then. I'll begin, at the next visit, to have routine external monitoring of the baby's heartbeat and movement over a 20-30 minute period. I also hope to tour our local hospital in the next couple of weeks to see exactly where we will go and what their rules/procedures are like here. I look forward to that as well!

Thanks for all of your prayers! We're very thankful to God for another great check-up!