15-16 Weeks...

Here are a few pictures to try and end the day on a brighter note (see post below).  By the way, if you have never tried a recipe from The Pioneer Woman you should.  I've tried several and I am never disappointed- if you like to cook very southern, comfort-type, foods.  Today Jakub and I made her coffee cake and it's DELICIOUS!  It truly is one of the best I've ever had.  Plus, she has beautiful, step-by-step, photos to go with her recipes. 

 

 We watched the Lion King on the floor together. :)

 15-16 weeks

We're definitely in that phase of awkward, posed smiles from him. :)  It's either this, or a roaring lion. :)

Too much worry...

**Spoiler alert:  This is not going to be the most upbeat blog post. And there are no pictures.

I contemplated not even writing this down at all, but then the desire to have people pray for me, and my strong belief in the power of God through prayer, won me over.  I've been a little too worried lately about the safety and health of my pregnancy.  I don't want to worry this much and would appreciate your prayers for peace, for better faith, and for good health for me and the baby.  I recognize it's normal, when you're pregnant, to notice even more than normal all of the pregnancy and birth stories happening around you.  It seems in the past two weeks I've come across several heart-breaking stories and struggles amongst some of my friends, or their family, and I've let it really weigh me down.  A couple of the worst to me, because they hit so close to home at this stage in my pregnancy, were the two young women who had perfectly normal and healthy pregnancies and then went in for their 20 or 22 week check-ups and ultrasounds to discover their babies hearts had stopped at some point after their 16-18 week exams.  There were no other signs that something was wrong and nothing had been wrong with their pregnancies prior to these events.  Now, I know this happens in life, but to have it happen to two people I have connections to in the last two weeks has been a little hard to take.  On top of that I recently heard of a mother who passed away during child birth, and another whose baby came at 30 weeks and needed a lot of help.  I don't know why I've let it all worry me so much recently, but I have.  I've been praying about it, but I would appreciate your prayers as well.  I don't want to continue with this worry and I don't want to keep thinking through these scenarios trying to prepare myself for how I would handle it if it happened to me.  I want to live with the peace that God is in control and that, no matter what happens, He is still in control and will guide me and comfort me through whatever comes in my life.  Thanks for your prayers!!

It's been too long...

Wow.  I never thought 2 1/2 months would go by without blogging one little bit.  Now, I don't even know where to begin and for the sake of actually getting back to it I'm going to have to leave so much out.  However, I'll do my best to hit some of the highlights. First, I'm 14 weeks pregnant. :)  No, we don't know what we are having, yet, but we do know that the baby is big and healthy.  We had a genetic-screening ultrasound and check-up this week and the baby is developing without any problems.  Praise God!  We and Jakub are growing more and more excited all the time to have another child.  Jakub is beginning to talk about the baby and asks to see my belly often.  He loves to look at the ultrasound photos, which is really sweet. 

Kisses for the baby!

The baby measuring around 15 weeks.

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Other fun things we've been doing this summer- eating ice cream! :)

Visiting Svaty Kopecek 

Having a snack and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Group photo from one of our summer camps.  They were truly the best ones yet and we thank God for that gift!

Superman!!!  He loved playing with our skit props. :)

Me and Josh at camp. 

Our Olomouc Team with our summer interns at their farewell party and grill-out after church.  They helped us so much this summer!

Christie and us as Graham and Terka's wedding.  There aren't many photos from it available yet, but it was a gorgeous wedding and lovely night with perfect weather.  We had a great time and were honored to be a part of their very special day.  We're going to miss them as they move to Scotland for school and work in the next week.  Please keep our team in your prayers as we get smaller, once again.  We hope and pray that God will help us add 4 teammates next year- those 4 are currently finishing school and preparing themselves and fundraising in order to come.  Please pray God provides them with all they need to move here and work with us for 2 years each.  So, those are a few of the bigger things that have been going on here the last 2 months.  Those events, along with continuing to be really sick with the pregnancy, are reasons I have not been blogging. I hope to be better about it now that we're getting back in to a normal routine and I hope the sickness will end any day now.  Thanks for your prayers regarding the pregnancy as well.  We hope everything will continue to go as well as it has so far!  We're excited! :)

Rainforest, Cave, Waterfall!

Jakub occasionally watches an episode of Dora the Explorer, which we have on a Nick Jr. DVD.  He loves Dora and he loves the big adventure she goes on in this episode, with boots and Diego, through a rainforest, past a cave, and to a large waterfall to save a baby jaguar.  He loves helping her decide on the map where to go and acting out the parts along with the characters.  Well, this weekend we took him on a big adventure of our own, with some of our friends and our interns, which was similar to the episode in his mind.  I hadn't thought of this before Jake mentioned it to me, but on Saturday morning I told him we would be doing some new things together during the day and that we were going on a big adventure.  I told him we would first go to a castle, and then a cave.  He immediately repeated the words castle and cave and then said "and waterfall!"  I immediately knew what he was thinking of thought it very clever of him.  I told him I was sorry, though, that there wouldn't be any waterfall.  Well, at the area around the cave entrance was an outdoor park of sorts with a nice fountain area.  Jake immediately screamed waterfall while running towards it.  I guess he did get everything he wanted in the end. :)  It was an awesome day together and very special to explore these things with him for the first time.  He did so well walking and hiking alongside us all day- we were gone from 9am-4pm.  He didn't slow down until the very end of the walk back to the car.  Of course he took a short nap on the 30 min drive home.  What a trooper!  I can't wait to do something like this with him again soon. 


I don't have any of my own pictures from this day, but I've got some from their websites and soon I'll have some from a friend who went with us.  For now, here are the few I could find of these locations we visited.  They are blurry from copying and enlarging, but at least you get a general idea for now.  Enjoy!


Jakub climbed to the top of this tower with us and loved the lookout over the cities below.

















View of the entire castle area we explored.



 
 Inside the cave area.  They had well-made and well-lit paths for walking through.  It was beautiful inside and quite large in some areas.  When they turned all of the lights out we were able to experience true darkness- I wish I could sleep there at night. :)


  First discovered in 1580, but not thoroughly explored until the early 1900's. 

 

Cars!

Thank you to Grandma, Papa, Nana, Pop, Aunt Hopey, and Neil for the gifts and cards you have recently sent us.  We appreciate the kind thoughts, encouragement, and special gifts.  Jakub especially loves the theme of "Cars" that have come with his gifts.  He LOVES Lightening McQueen and Mater even though he had never really seen the movie about them, yet.  A couple of weeks ago Hope and Neil sent him some gifts, which included new, big-boy underwear with Lightening McQueen on them.  Then, my parents sent him a new book via our summer interns who just arrived last week.  It's a story about the characters from Cars and it's read aloud by my Dad (Pop).  Today we opened a gift box from Josh's parents, Grandma and Papa, and amongst the gifts were some more underwear with Lightening McQueen on some and the movie Cars.  Jakub immediately wanted to watch it and was so excited.  I wish we had had room on our video camera to capture the singing and dancing by Jakub every time he saw L. McQ. race across the screen (He says "lie-teen ma-teen). :)   He was very happy to finally see this movie!  Papa, he loves it when Mater tips the "cows."  You would be proud!   Thank you to all of you for your gifts and for providing some special moments for us with our precious little boy.  Dad, it's good to hear your voice at bedtime. :)  Here are some pictures from today... unfortunately, I had not remembered to get my camera out lately to capture more of these moments.

  

 Waiving hello and saying thank you to Grandma and Papa!!

 

Dancing around to the music on the movie... in his Lightening McQueen underwear. :)

 

Look!!  Lie-teen Ma-teen!  Lie-teen Ma-teen!  Lie-teen Ma-teen!

 

 

 

Thanks for the new p.j.s!  

 

I love you my family!

Oh so fun... and random!

 

 Here's our precious friend Mikuláš.  Jakub and he play very well together, usually, and despite the typical fighting that does occur, they have both learned that Friday is their special day to play together and they look forward to it each week.  They both ask during the week if it's Friday yet, and on Friday Jakub wakes from his nap yelling for Miki and his Mom to come play. :)  It's really sweet and I'm glad they are both so fond of one another.  They give the best hugs and kisses to each other and to us.  They have both also started asking when they will get to start "školka" together.  Last week we took them to play on the playground at their soon-to-be-school (end of this year) and they were thrilled!  Jakub couldn't stop talking about how they were going to be there together one day.  I am happy that they are so excited and I'm sad that they look forward to school so much.

 

 Sweet boys...

  

 My parents sent these beautiful flowers as a surprise for Mother's day.  Thank you!  They were gorgeous and the daisies are still very lovely and sitting on my table. :)  My sister, Hope, also sent us a package recently and it had in it a gift for me, which you can see on the ledge in this picture.  We both said it was a God-thing that she was given the wrong box, with the wrong item inside, which she unknowingly sent to me.  She meant to send me the image of a woman holding her toddler against her shoulder (for me and Jakub).  However, I was sent this image of what could be 2 sisters hugging each other (older and younger like us).  The caption on the bottom says "always close," and it talks about being close at heart and with love even when you are so far apart physically.  It couldn't have been a better message and image for us and it meant so much to me.  I didn't know about the mistake until after I raved to her about how awesome it was and how much I needed just that image. :)  We were both so happy about this "mistake."  Thank you, Hope! I love you!  :)

 

 

We recently put up some sun, moon, and star glow-in-the-dark stickers above where Jakub sleeps so he can look at them at night while laying in bed.   Yes, my shirt is inside out.  Yes, I went out in public like that.  Yes, it was one of those days... :)

Pop, we've been practicing!!  

 

 

He loves golf!

 As part of Josh's recent birthday we did all the fun things we wanted all day long.  It started with making blueberry pecan pancakes and having a dance party in the living room.  Jakub doesn't look too thrilled here, but he was having a blast.  He was teaching us how to twist and hop at the same time. :)

Here he goes...

What a fun day together!  We've had lots of fun moments together lately.  Jakub is full of energy and ideas and can go non-stop all day if you let him.  I try not to let him.  I can't keep up. :) 

One last thing I want to post about because it just began in the last week and I don't want to forget it- Jakub is finally singing all of the words, on his own, to several songs he knows.   It's amazing that he's just decided he'll sing them out loud for us now and that he knows so many.  He even knows songs I wouldn't have imagined he memorized yet.  With very little flaw he is now singing:

1. Twinkle, Twinkle
2. Jingle Bells
3. What colors do you see
4. ABC's
5. Numbers song (1 to 10 and back again)
6. Old McDonald
7. Head and Shoulders
8. Teapot
9. Itsy Bitsy Spider
10. Yankee Doodle
11. I Love You song (Barney)
12. He-man (our version) :)

Bed Time!

Just look at me.  Can you believe Mama and Daddy make me sleep in here still?  It's like a prison with all of these bars and I am WAY too big for this.  You would think they would get it by now.... I keep trying to prove to them what a big boy I am.  I even dress and undress myself now.  Just look, closely, and you'll see I even put my pajama pants on myself before going to bed- too bad I got both legs through only one hole...

Come on!  Don't YOU think I deserve a big boy bed?

 

 See, I can brush my teeth alone.  

 

 

 I also can go to the bathroom alone and then wash my hands by myself.  What more does my Mama want?

 I'm a good boy, really, I am!  I smile every time she points that camera at me and tells me to. Come on, please don't put me back in that tiny, little, baby bed!

  

Yeah!  They listened!  This morning Mama and I cleaned and rearranged my room and she made me a Big Boy Bed!  I was so excited!!!  Much to my Mama's surprise I even went to sleep on it like a good boy for nap time.  She only had to come back 3 times to ask me to stay in bed. :)  I did so well and I could tell she and Daddy were very proud of me.  They took me on a long walk this afternoon in the beautiful sunshine and then we stopped for ice cream at an ice-cream parlor.  I even got to kick the ball around and swing on their play-set before walking back home.  Yeah!!!!

 Now it's night time and I'm ready to try it again.  Here I am in my p.j.'s and all ready for bed.  Wish me luck!  Hopefully I'll stay here all night long and not need to see my toys in the dark or try to scare Mama by watching her sleep in the night....  I don't know if I'll be able to resist.... It seems like she always wants me near- surely she'd love it even in the middle of the night...

Good night!  I love you all! :)