Just ordered Caroline, Heritage, Latham and Prelude raspberry bushes; Choctaw, Navaho and Prime Jim blackberry bushes; and an Elliot blueberry bush.
Now all I need is a wheelbarrow and dumptruck full of compost.
If all goes well this summer, we should have a few pounds of blueberries from last year’s plantings, and an odd raspberry or blackberry. By next year we should get 10-40 pounds of berries. And by 2012 we should have so many we’ll need a chest freezer.
Gooooood times.
Okay, so they’re not photographs, but they are pictures. Sonograms, that is. These are Jamie’s 20 week glamor shots, in which we got to see her (yes, HER) kick me and also employ the headbutt. The latter we didn’t get on film, but we sure saw it on the video screen and I was definitely able to feel it, which solved the mystery for me as to what, exactly, she was doing in addition to kicking and punching. We’re excited that we’re having a girl. The future grandmothers are as well, and have been unable to stop themselves from buying their granddaughter positively adorable clothes. She’ll look good for the 3 boys we know who have been born this month–Joshua William, to my cousin; Gabriel Alexander, to some beloved friends in our Bible Study; and Joshua Gordon early this morning, to some dear college-and-beyond friends. Congratulations to those families!
Today marks 22 weeks for me, which means just 2 more weeks before viability, which is when babies start to have decent odds of surviving outside of the womb. But stay in there, Jamie! Those lungs need to develop, along with everything else! Besides, your nursery isn’t ready yet…
Oodles of photos from the past week of festivities:
23rd: Dinner with John’s Aunt Pat and cousins
24th: Christmas Eve with John’s paternal extended family
25th: Christmas Day with Lucy’s paternal extended family
26th: Brunch with Lucy’s family and friends
27th: Christmas with John’s maternal extended family
28th: Dinner with John’s Aunt Michelle, Uncle Bob, and cousins
John and I had just finished Christmas Eve celebrations with the Jameson/Arrison clan and arrived at my parents’ house, crawling into bed around midnight. As we were praying before sleep, I felt the baby kick. For the first time, I was sure this was the baby and not my digestive system. I told John and put his hand on my belly. A few seconds later, I felt another kick and heard John’s sharp intake of breath as his mouth fell open. Several minutes after midnight on Christmas, we both got to feel stirrings of new life. A Christmas blessing indeed. And probably the last time I’ll ever be happy that I got kicked on Christmas.
I felt so very loved on my birthday this year. And by “on my birthday” I mean Thursday through Thursday (my birthday was Tuesday). What made me feel most loved was simply people remembering and saying happy birthday (which I need to remember, since I’m not that great at remembering birthdays outside my immediate family). E-mails, phone calls, Facebook messages, and just saying hello and happy birthday did that. Many people this year went way beyond that.
I felt very spoiled and appreciated by mailed packages and/or cards from Megan, Max, Anna, Gram, and Granzi and Granpop. Eileen hosted a birthday party for me at her place that included John, Sergio and Marcia, my dad (and my mom via phone who was prohibited by her doctor from coming because she was too contagious to be around her pregnant daughter), my GREAT Uncle Frank, and Margaret (a friend from church). My mom still made my favorite cake and sent it along with my dad, which was a hit.
On my actual birthday, I woke up to a card and a gift from Sergio and Marcia, with my breakfast all set up. At school, I was sung to several times, and during one class a whole group of seniors whom I had taught last year or the previous year burst into my room with a beautiful cake, singing. I won’t post the photo of all of them since posting pictures of my students can cause legal issues, but I will post the photo that Sarah took of the absolutely delicious cake that Kent made for me! One of the silly things that I do to attempt to make physics more engaging, memorable, and amusing is toss a small plush panda in the air and talk about various aspects of his motion as he’s in the air. He’s the Freefall Panda, and he amuses my students. So thanks to Kent, Spencer, Chris M, Chris G, Dan, Allison, Mike, Sophie, Anne, Greg, Angela, Sarah, Dave, Christina, Annie, and the guy I didn’t know who came during their lunch when they could have left campus just to wish me a happy birthday. Kate, my 9th period class secretary (a person elected by the class at the beginning of the year whose main job is to keep communication open between my students and me, but who also celebrates everyone’s birthdays) made me brownies. Shauna stopped by to see me and drop off a hilarious card and a bracelet about being sisters.
John took me out to dinner at Penang, a nearby Thai and Malaysian restaurant that we go to the most often. John bought me my favorite kind of chocolate (and, I would be very remiss to neglect–a positively gorgeous and fun bike that was delivered in June and is even blue to boot. It was delivered in June 
Sergio and Marcia came to dinner with us at my request to help celebrate. It turns out that the hostess is in their English class and her dad is the chef, so we got personalized recommendations, especially good service and conversation, and dessert with a candle and the entire Penang staff singing to me.
All of this special treatment bears a stark contrast to the birth of our savior so long ago. Every life, including my own, is a miracle. But it pales in comparison to God in flesh, living a life without ever doing anything wrong, being betrayed by one of his closest friends, willingly submitting himself to separation from God and taking the punishment that I deserve, going to Hell, and rising from the dead to release the hold of death upon us. Whereas I was born in a well-equipped hospital to married parents and treated to every comfort, the king of all creation’s humble beginnings included being born to an unwed teenage mother. In a stable. In a foreign land. Shortly before having to flee because people were trying to kill him. C.S. Lewis compares the absolute humility of God becoming man to you willingly becoming a crab or a slug. That sacrifice — his first of many — is what we celebrate this Christmas. Merry Christmas.
I’d missed having a real camera.
Len & Ruby (some of our new neighbors) joined us and the Nascimientos for dinner, and brought along a lovely photobook of life in China:
And Len made my week by pulling out a showtune from a generation past:
Sergio and Marcia, missionaries on furlough from Brazil, have been staying with us since Thanksgiving. They are a delight to talk to, and do more housework than they create, so they are welcome to stay for as long as they like. Today, it snowed. It was the first time they have seen snow, so John introduced them to snowballs, they made a snowman, and Marcia and John had a snowball fight (which barely came out on my camera–I can’t wait for our new camera!). Pictures are here.
We are proud to announce the upcoming addition of a duckling to our duckpond! We’re expecting his or her arrival at the end of May or the beginning of June, 2010. Overall, I’ve had a blessedly easy pregnancy thus far, and everything is pointing to a healthy baby. We’ve heard the baby’s heartbeat, and have seen the baby dancing and waving, weightless, in an ultrasound. I have to say that watching the baby move around and respond to baby’s environment at a mere 12 weeks old (which is only 10 weeks from being a single cell) is one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. Although I can tell you that seeing the ultrasound video was ten times as amazing as the sonogram, we’ll have to settle for a still photo, found below. God has created a new life inside of me. Please pray for us as we prepare to become parents.
Jamie's profile. Sometimes we call our baby Jamie, as it is gender neutral and, given our last name, not in the running for the baby's name.
