Happy (day before) Thanksgiving!

As we are heading back to Iowa this weekend for Thanksgiving, I am wishing more than ever that our families lived closer to us.  I am so jealous of the people who have their parents and family within minutes of them... such a luxury that most don't even realize.  Granted, I'm happy to be back in the MidWest and not in California where we were 24 hours from family, but 2 hours and 5 hours is still too long.

I am thankful for so many things this Thanksgiving... here's a few of them.

- An incredible, supportive, amazing husband whom I love more than words can describe.
- Our growing healthy baby boy who I can't wait to meet!!
- Family... I could go on for days about how great they are.
- Our warm, beautiful house that we love!
- Our stable jobs... even though most days I hate it, it is very stable and I'm beyond thankful for that.
- Reliable & safe vehicles
- Financial security
- New friendships
- My relationship with God... without Him, I am nothing.

What about you?  What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Baby shower pictures.

Both of our baby showers that we were given this weekend were beyond incredible.  We were spoiled rotten by friends and family and have an incredible start on all of the things we need for the baby. 

Here's some pictures from the first shower!


Ashley putting my corsage on


The yummy cake! 


Me and my SIL Kaela, me at 27 weeks, Kaela at 25 weeks

 
Opening gifts


The diaper cake :)


Some highschool friends


With the Keith ladies


With the beautiful ladies who threw the shower! ;) Kaela, my Mom, and my sister.

And here's some pics from the second shower!

 
The awesome decorations... diaper cake and an airplane made out of diapers!!


Tyler and I in front of the cake/food

 
Playing games... (gotta love the game that everyone guesses how huge you are! lol)

As you can see I didn't get as many pics at the second shower as we did at the first... somehow Ty's family snuck out of getting group pictures taken because I completely forgot about it!  Ugh! 

Thanks to all of our friends and family who were able to come to either of the showers... we felt very blessed and appreciated everything.  :)

Today is a good day.

For the following reasons...

• It was 16 degrees on my way to work.  For a pregnant person, this is pure paradise.  Although I finally caved and let my husband turn the  heat on last night.  Poor guy has been dressed in multiple layers while I walk around the house in capri's and a short-sleeved shirt.


• I discovered a new little coffee shop just around the corner from my house this morning.  Even though it's not much cheaper than Starbucks, it sure beats driving 4 miles out of my way and waiting in line for 15 minutes for the same drink.  I'm getting sad at the thought of this drink being gone in about 20 minutes.  It's delish.


• I had an email in my work inbox this morning from a manager at a different branch who saw me at a meeting on Wednesday telling me how cute of a pregnant person I am, and how I'm "all belly" (not true, but I'll let her believe whatever she wants!) 


• This afternoon we leave at 4:00 sharp for Iowa for our 2 baby showers.  One is being hosted by my Mom and one is being hosted the following day by Tylers Mom.  I am so excited - I love weekends that we are able to spend time with both sides of the family and see everyone.  Plus, who doesn't love baby showers?!


• We officially decided on a baby name last night... to be announced at a later time. :)


• Today I'm "officially" in the 3rd trimester... eeck!  Time is flying by!


• It's Friday... enough said! ;)

Have a great weekend!  I will return with lots of pictures from the showers!  See you next week!

I am addicted...

to registry stalking.  I can't help it.  It is way too easy to go to target.com or babiesrus.com and check to see what friends and family have got for our baby boy.  We have 2 baby showers coming up this weekend in Iowa that I can't wait for. 

I haven't been sleeping very good, and last night I was up from about 11:15 to 1:30 AM, and thought to myself... "maybe someone went and got something from the time I checked it at 8:00 until now."  So there I was, at 11:30 last night checking both registries.

I'm ridiculous.  Someone stop me.

My view looking down...

Can't see my feet!

Nursery progress.

Our little man is now 25 weeks along, and because I'm only 2 weeks away from being in my 3rd AND FINAL trimester of this pregnancy, Tyler and I have started digging deep into our plans for the nursery and we've finally started making some progress.

Most of you know that my husband is an Avionics Technician, so he works on planes for a living.  We decided that our theme would be Vintage Airplanes... how fitting, right? ;)  Not those cutesy little cartoon airplanes you see, but vintage.  Meaning more realistic.  I found bedding that I fell in love with on Pottery Barn Kids' website, and for a mere $212.00, I could have had the complete bedding set.  But seriously - $212 was way out of our budget, and so I started stalking Craigslist.  Just as I was leaving work one day, I decided I'd check Craigslist one more time for the day to make sure no one had posted any bedding from the last time I had checked.  Sure enough - a local lady was selling her sons vintage airplane bedding set from Pottery Barn for a whoppin' $60 bucks!  Not only that, but she threw in a PBK airplane lamp that retails for $199.  Score!!  So in the end, I paid $60 for a set of crib bedding from Pottery Barn Kids AND a lamp, when I would have paid $411 if I would have bought the same exact thing online.  God is good... All the time!!  :) 
Here's some pics...
   

Next up... the crib.  We received a crib from my father-in-law that used to be Tyler's little brothers crib, but it wasn't my fav.  Absolutely nothing wrong with it, and somehow even though Tyler was bound and determined that we were keeping it, I was able to convince him to let me sell it on Craigslist and in exchange, buy another one on Craigslist.  (Seems fair, right?)  I found a beautiful convertible crib for $150, and the lady selling it lived 3 minutes away from our house, so we went and picked it up one day and I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer hoping I'd be able to sell the old one.  Sure enough - I posted it on Craigslist and a lady from Olathe came and picked it up yesterday for $75.  She was buying it for her first grandbaby, and awww... you could just tell how incredibly excited she was for her grandbaby to arrive.  (Due 3 days before me!)  She was happy - and I was happier, because in the end after selling the old crib, I ended up only paying $75 for a crib that costed the original owners $408 (she gave me the original receipt!)  I am always so amazed at the many ways God is providing for us!  Here's a pic of our beautiful new crib that we're in love with! 

 

We also decided to paint one of the walls in the nursery in a "block" pattern.  We spent our Saturday afternoon/evening taping the wall off, and Sunday afternoon/evening painting - and here's the finished result.

    

That's just on one wall of the room... we are working on installing a chair rail on the other walls this week, and painting the lower half of the chair rail the red color from the blocks.  We thought if we did the other 3 walls ALL red (or any color for that matter!) that it would be too much going on.  Here's a picture of a chair rail, similar to how ours will look once it's completed. 

 

Last but not least... here's some random things that I'd love to get for the room: (click on thumbnail for larger view)

- Prints from Ebay seller "This Little Piggy Prints" (it matches the crib bedding perfectly!!)
 

- Large vintage airplanes to hang from the ceiling:
  

- An airplane mobile, of course! ;)


- I'll be ordering a few things from my SIL who sells Uppercase Living... they have some cute airplane wall transfers, and I plan on making a custom piece for above his crib.

- And of course, a few other ideas I have that I want to be a surprise.  :)

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So that's it, my friends!  Just a few random thoughts and ideas I have for our little guy's nursery.  :)  Hope you enjoy it!

A reminder to myself.

God was God yesterday.
God is God today.
God will be God tomorrow.
He's all I need.

Obama can’t and won't change the world. But regardless, he will still receive my respect and prayers, whether I agree with his position on issues or not.

It's here... finally. Election day.

So today's the day... the one we've all been waiting for.  The day that I can't wait to be over because I think I'll scream if I hear one more commercial tearing the candidates apart.  I can't stand it and I'm excited for it all to be over with... (however, I am excited to watch the election coverage tonight!)  I try to avoid touchy subjects on my blog because I don't want to make people mad, but at the same time I'm reminding myself today that this is MY blog and I'm free to write about what I want.  So here we go... who I'm voting for and why.

Out of all the issues that we look at while deciding who to vote for when it comes to the next president, the biggest issue that I look at is abortion.  Call me a single-issue voter, but so be it.  I know there are so many other issues that the candidates are fighting for that WILL affect me and our child in the long run, but this particular one always tugs at my heart a little harder.  No, McCain will not be a perfect president - in fact, there are many things that he supports that I don't agree with.  And many times throughout this campaign I have been tempted to not vote at all because frankly, I think they both suck, but then am reminded that I need to voice my opinion for the "lesser of the two evils".  I don't think I could ever conciously vote for someone that has been named "the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in history" (and not by someone off the street - if you don't believe it, read this article here).  Because frankly, we're talking about life and death here. 

I've heard it said by some people that abortion has not been a critical voting issue for them because they "really don't know when life begins".  If that is true, can we all at least agree that there is now documented medical evidence of an average base-line age in which early-term babies can survive outside the womb with little or no invasive medical help?  If so, can we all then agree that any candidate, who supports abortion beyond that baseline, is actually supporting the murdering of human beings?  (Isn’t the moral character of that candidate a HUGE issue?)

Here's a good "line in the sand" to test yourself as to whether the unborn baby is a life that deserves the full protection of the law:  Let's say that you (as a woman; or the husband of a wife) are pregnant and nearing the end of your second trimester of pregnancy.  You're driving along and someone runs a red light; impacting your vehicle in the drivers side; and as a result, your unborn baby is hurt inside the womb and dies as a result of it's trauma.  Let's also say that this baby was old enough to have survived outside the womb, had an early-term delivery been necessary.  Should you be entitled to legal damages for the wrongful death of your baby or not? 

If your answer to that question is "Yes", than you cannot say that abortion should be the legal right (choice) of the woman carrying any other baby that age, just because her baby is an unwanted pregnancy and you wanted your baby!  They are the SAME!  Both children are deserving of the full protection of the law; not just the WANTED baby!  And unfortunately, the Pro-Abortion / Choice advocates are advocating the right of women to extinguish the life of any baby fitting this description and this is the platform of the Democratic Party.

I also wanted to share with you this article entitled "Why I cannot vote for Obama" by Brett McCracken. 

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“Why I Cannot Vote for Obama” by Brett McCracken

I really want to vote for Obama. There are a myriad of reasons why it would thrill me to cast my vote for him on November 4. He is such an attractive and inspiring figure, and I’m not just saying that because it’s the standard line about Obama. It’s true.

It would be so nice to have a president who is smart, articulate, even-keeled, poised, intellectual, and (it seems) genuinely passionate about helping downtrodden people.

I’ve been impressed with the way he’s handled himself on the campaign trail (certainly moreso than I have been with McCain), and I’ve more than once considered the possibility of voting for him.

At the end of the day, though, we have to look past all the promises and rhetoric of a presidential candidate and look at their record. In Obama’s case, it’s not all that extensive or especially committal (it’s clear that Obama was planning for the presidency from his very first days in the Illinois legislature). But there are things about his record that really frighten me, and chief among them is his far-left stances on abortion.

Based on his record, Obama is the most pro-abortion presidential candidate in history. If you don’t believe that, read this article.

In it, Robert George, Princeton professor and renowned ethicist, summarizes Obama’s abortion record, and it is ugly. He begins by stating:

“Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress…”

The full article is truly eye-opening and disturbing, and I urge all of you to read it. If there is any part of you that is convicted about abortion and would like to see it lessened in America, you must consider Obama’s record carefully before you consider voting him into office.

I know, I know, people will retort that George W. Bush—possibly the most pro-life president in history—didn’t really do much to advance the pro-life cause. So why should I expect any different from McCain?

Well, it’s not about what McCain will or will not achieve on abortion. It’s about what an Obama administration would do to scale back abortion restriction laws and undo years of pro-life advances. If the democrats win a super majority in congress and Obama is elected president, we could be in for the biggest step back for the pro-life movement in history.

This may make me a “single-issue” voter, but so be it. I agree that “pro-life” goes beyond abortion—encompassing issues of poverty, the death penalty, even the environment… But abortion is a huge and important part of what it means to affirm the sanctity of life, and Obama’s cavalier legislative approach to it truly disturbs me.

I will not be crushed if Obama becomes the president; in some ways I’ll be very happy. But I’ll be praying that his tenure as president does not even go near abortion issues. It is that fear—that Obama will in his presidency be the pro-abortion extremist he has been as an Illinois legislator and U.S. Senator—that prevents me from voting for him.

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Just like others, you can peg me as an ultra-conservative Christian if you want.  Call me uneducated, and naive.  However, after having this baby inside me - feeling him kick, move, squirm, and punch has affirmed my decision in more ways than one.  Before I was pregnant, I still would never have voted for someone who is actively FOR abortion - but the thought of someone willingly giving up this life... this baby... is so beyond me.  There are so many other safe alternatives for the baby that would give it a chance to live and breathe... a chance for life. 

So after all that being said... (and I could go on much longer but wont!) - you obviously know that my vote goes to McCain/Palin. 

Who are you voting for - and why?