Long time no see

Well, life is definately different now. Our little boy keeps us busy, my time seems to fly by, I can't believe he will be 4 months old soon.

Quick catch up of recent events:
We just got back from England. We were there 2 weeks, which was way too short as we didn't quite manage to fit seeing everyone that we had hoped too.

BUT, we had fish & chips with Tim & Debs, dinner/lunch/day out at the National Railway Museum with Dad & Liz, went to Castle Howard with Mum & Sue, went to oxford to visit the Toppings and the Smalls, had lots of family time when Bob, Marie-Ann and Ben were home (it was short but oh so sweet!), I had a fun night with Cags and Han, we went to the Embassy bowling night, Hannah and I went out for drinks. We also did the usual; wander down to Yarm, walk to Tesco, nip to the Pav for a swift half, go to All Saints for church, quiet drink in the Pot & Glass... all the good stuff that feels normal.

It felt good to be home. And it was nice to see friends who, even though we have long periods of time apart, are still so much a part of who I am. I love the friendships where time doesn't matter, it feels comfortable and normal whenever you see them, even if it's been years or monthes. Elizabeth, Hannah, Debs and Caroline - time doesn't matter with our friendships... THANK YOU!

Here are some pics, enjoy;

Howells/Jennings/Unger family

Nathanael with 3 of his biggest fans

At Castle Howard

Changing Nate in Tim & Debs car boot;-)

More Nathanael

Nathanael with Joy

He actually let me take a good picture of him with his eyes open.

One of the hottest looks ever, the man with his baby. Man, I love my husband!

Nathanael Gideon

This was when he was just 3 or 4 hrs old.

We have a son!

Just for anyone who hasn't heard yet, we have a little boy now. He was born last Saturday (30th June) at 4.05pm, 7lbs 14oz, 21 inches, and we called him Nathanael Gideon.

I'll try really hard to put some more stuff on here really soon....

FYI

It smells like summer today... just so you know.

Who would have thought

Friday night was a fun night, Joy came over and we watched Deja Vu, it's a good movie, and it was good to find a movie that we all liked.

While we were at the video rental place I also grabbed One Night With The King, it caught my eye as it is based on the story of Esther from the Old Testament. Now I love this story, it goes to show how God can move in miraculous ways, so I was excited to see how well the film portrayed the story. It was an OK movie, they took a couple of liberties to create some drama and also to make it easier to understand for people in our culture that don't know anything about the Persian culture. Anyways, it's not awesome, but it is a good movie to watch.

However, beyond the story itself, I was also drawn to it as on the blurb on the back it said that Luke Goss starred in it. Now for the canadians, I don't know if that name will mean anything or not, I'm not sure if Bros ever made it here, L has no clue who they are but that means NOTHING!

So I sat down to watch the film with L on Saturday night, and lo and behold, yep, it really was Mr 'When, will I, will I be faaamouuuss... I can't answer, I can't answer that'. Interesting choice for Esther's love interest... And I found it highly amusing that he still liked to walk around baring his chest. I almost expected Matt to appear somewhere baring his chest too;-)

Todd & Tanya's wedding

Todd & Tanya MacKay, isn't Tanya's dress stunning???

Me & Tanya

Me & my Boy

Me & the Boy again

Week 25

Lindsay took this picture last week, I feel huge! Now I can not only feel baby moving, but but watch it too, it's a bizarre experiance watching your belly move around;-)

Off sick

I've been off on sick leave since the beginning of March. I haven't really wanted to talk about it that much thus far. But I know that slowly people have been finding out and not really known whats going on so have been concerned about the baby. The baby is fine, and seems to be most awake as Mum is trying to get to sleep. Baby finally said hi to Dad the other day. He's only felt the baby move twice, and he says that it's still faint, but I'm pretty glad that now we can share this together.

The Dr has put me on sick leave due to depression/stress. I've felt bad talking about this as I don't want people to think that I'm not excited about the baby or I don't love my job, or the people I work with, because I am excited about the baby, I do love my job and the staff. I don't quite understand whats going on myself, which is a scarey thing for me to acknowledge. I'm not sleeping great, I seem super sensitive about everything, I am REALLY forgetful, and I cry a lot. At one point I just seemed to cry non-stop, which is when the Dr decided I needed a break.

And I'm sorry to my friends if I've seemed weirder than normal, but to be brutally honest I have been feeling very insecure and overwhelmed around most of you right now. Not that I want you to back off or anything, in some ways I need you closer to me, I'm just not very good in groups.

I also wanted to say 'I love you' to Allison & Joy. Thank you for being so supportive, I am so grateful that you're my family.

Down by the river

So I took this picture a couple of weeks ago, when it was warm enough to go out for a walk. As you can see, it's still winter here, but it is starting to thaw.

Daniel & Steven

YFC update

I have to admit to being lazy, I've just copied and pasted the prayer e-mail my boss sends out to our prayer list to update you all on what's going on;

Greetings, and welcome to the YFC Praise and Prayer report! It has been quite a week here for us!

Thank you for your prayer for our YFC banquet last Monday. God answered our prayers in wonderful ways - we had our largest crowd yet, 426 people (that is more than the 50 tables x 8 people we were hoping for). Interestingly, we had raised from corporate sponsors that exact amount to purchase the ticket price of the meal! We had many comments from people that the program was perhaps the best yet, and the offering given that night was the biggest yet. All in all we are very thankful!!

Now our full attention turns to our California Tour which leaves in a month. We have 149 youth signed up and have room for 11 more. We are trying to confirm with our last few volunteer staff needed for the trip. Please pray for James and the team as they prepare.

Please pray for Chris, one of our admin staff, who is on medical leave right now for a few months. Pray that she will regain her health and also for us that we can find the help needed to fill her role.

Please pray for the youth that went on the Project Serve trips. It can be difficult for them as they come back into Canada from such a moving experience. Some of them made very important life decisions, so pray that God will continue to work in their hearts and that they would be effective ministers here.

Thanks so much for your prayers on our behalf, Gil Klassen, For the SYFC team

Sleepless nights... is my body preparing early or what???

I have never really been bothered by heartburn before, but that's all changed, Rolaids are a close friend. Heartburn likes to keep me company between 11pm and midnight, isn't that nice of it. And I'm not really doing good on the sleep right now either, sods law right?

Baby seems quite happy though, I can feel it more now. I love that feeling!

YFC Banquet

URGENT! The annual Saskatoon Youth For Christ Banquet is next Monday 5th March. If any of you reading this are in the area, PLEASE consider coming to this event. We really could do with as many people coming out as possible. If you are interested then please contact me at the YFC office or leave me a comment and I'll get back to you.

New due date

So, the baby is now due on the 14th July. My mum is gonna have to do some fast talking to see if she can change her flights, cos if I'm over due she'll barely see the baby.

Oh well.

Here's our baby

So, just in case it's not obvious, cos sometimes it's not, the baby is facing down, and you can see it's spine, and it has it's legs bent under it, and the slight shadow between the knee and the chin is it's hand. It was moving around A LOT during the whole ultrasound.

I love my baby!

Not my favourite way to spend the evening

The long running saga of my sinus'.

What can I say?

You've heard me moan about this enough already.

But this time, I'm pregnant, so no sinus medicine.

And before I go crawling to the Dr for antibiotics, I am trying out a whole load of things that my Dr recommended should this issue arise... like the sinus rinse.

Sounds simple enough hey? And it is, it's just GROSS! I basically squirt a lot of water up one nostril and it comes either out of the other nostril or my mouth. I am glad to say, but also grossed out to say, that it does bring with it a lot of the nasty stuff from up there, but I'm glad that L didn't watch me as I was doing this. And this is something I can do daily to improve my situation... yay???

It does help, I have to admit that, but when my gag reflex is still sensitive it's something I have to tread carefully with.

I smell like chlorine again

Aquacise was really good last night, I got a good workout, and it's really fun. I usually know 4 or 5 other ladies, and I have to admit that we chat a lot... before, during and after. But that's all part of it. And our instructer really is good, and FUNNY! One MAJOR bonus is that I get to hang out with Allison more, and she's one of my favourite people, I love her, I love that we're cousins.

This morning felt SO cold, it's -22, which isn't too bad, but it just FELT bad today. I wonder how much baby feels this stuff?

And Tanya brightened my day already with an e-mail, I get to see her tomorrow, she's another of my favourite people;-)

Read this

OK people, Allison has posted the funniest story on her blog. Just click on Allison L in my Links on the right hand side. She posted it yesterday. It's very funny!

18 week pics

So, my buddy Ryan took these pics for me this morning.

My mum keeps telling me not to wish for the baby belly too quickly, as it's gonna be a while still before the baby gets here, and I understand her point. However, I am excited by the bump, especially after the Dr being so concerned about my weight loss, I'm pleased to tell you that I am gaining weight now (never thought I'd be so happy about putting on weight!). Plus this, and the fact the baby is moving, are the nice parts of being pregnant, these far outweigh the bad stuff, it reminds me that this is all well worth it. Baby is most definately worth it. I love you baby!

18 weeks

Fun weekend

My morning sickness is almost a thing of the past. I'm still taking dyclectin at night but I can actually make meals in our house again. And in a great twist of fate, after having to re-schedule 2 times, we went over to William & Lisa's on Saturday night for a really nice Roast Beef dinner. It was great, lots of yorkshire puddings, mashed potato, veggies and gravy! YUMMY! And then we sat and played 'Nusht', fun dice game.

Jana was in Saskatoon this weekend too, so I got to see her at church lunch, which was nice. Then we hung out at Ryan & Allisons Sunday night, Joy joined us after she had been to church. It was fun, Jared is moving around A LOT! He has this cute half sitting crawl that he does, and he will walk if Mummy is helping him. He's just adorable. Not that I'm biased or anything;-)

What do you think?

A straight forward question for all you ladies that have already had babies, do you buy the maternity panties or not? Are they worth it or can you manage prefectly well with the underwear you already have in your drawer?

Week 16 pics

I'm not showing very much, but it is there! So here are the pics:

I have great friends

Homesickness is awful, and very frustrating. Thankfully my homesickness has diminished over time as Saskatoon has slowly become home too. I'm some weird mutant now, that to some degree doesn't feel totally at home anywhere now, because where ever we are I will miss the other 'home'.

Why am I telling you all this? Well I was just glancing over some of my old posts, and one thing that I have noticed is that when I post stuff on here while I am away, I always get such great comments from my friends in Saskatoon. They always encourage me, and let me know that they are missing me and that they are waiting for me to come home to Saskatoon. Isn't that great, seriously, I really am blessed with the friendships I have.

Thinking of great friends, I am pretty gutted that Tanya's moving to Ottawa, Todd has gotten himself a pretty nice job out there. I know this is a great opportunity for them, and I think Tanya is excited now at the thought of experiancing a different part of the country for a while. But Saskatchewan is gonna be missing 2 great people for a while. I'm gonna miss ya T.

Finally... exercise I enjoy!

I have been really enjoying my aquacise class, and I'm hoping this continues. I'm well known for getting enthusiastic about something then getting really sick of it, so hopefully I've actually found something that will interest me enough to get me off my butt more often.

And it feels like the baby is getting exercise too, as I've started feeling a couple of little thumps. Lindsay thinks I'm imagining things, but these have been random little thumps, usually when I'm either trying to get to sleep or when I've been sat still for a while, and feel slightly different from my other sensations in that area.

I went shopping with Dawn R at the weekend for maternity clothes, it was very exciting and I managed to get some good deals, every single thing I bought was on sale. This is a good thing as maternity clothing is not that cheap to buy.

Oh, and how bad do I feel... I went out weeks ago to buy my nephews birthday present, his birthday was this past Sunday... and his gift is still sat, unwrapped on my living room floor! I am an AWFUL auntie. I totally forgot to send it. I SUCK! I really do feel terrible, not only does he never see me, but he is just so ADORABLE:
Yep, I love this little boy, he's such a great mix of his parents, he looks so much like Bob, but has Marie-Ann's beautiful smile. Anyway, I should stop boasting about my nephew and get on and post his present.

Tastebud confusion

Well, another thing that has been confusing me is the fact that so many things taste different to me right now. Last night L had to try my burger because I thought it tasted weird, apparently not, he said it was good. And then today I got a sandwich from one of my regular haunts, and it totally tasted weird... huh. Not only do I never seem to know what I can actually manage but now I also don't even know if it will taste good when I get it. How helpful!

I have aquasize tonight, which I am actually looking forward to. Last week was good, but my butt hurt afterwards, but that means it's actually doing something which is good.

We had a big blizzard here last wednesday, so I didn't make it in to work that day, or Thursday for that matter as my car was snowed in and wouldn't start. So 2 snow days. It was a tad frustrating as I knew I had a lot of work to do. And our camera had no batteries in so I didn't even manage to get any good pictures of the blizzard.

Dreams

OK, am I weird or do pregnant ladies have even more surreal dreams than normal?

I have been having a lot of food orientated dreams recently, weird hey, I can't eat much during the day and at night I am taunted with feasts, and fish & chips.

Normal stuff... my shoulder is killing me this morning, I think I pulled the muscle last night. I guess I'll be doing lots of stretching today, see if that helps.

A New Year

Has anyone made any resolutions this year?

I used to always try to make at least one, cos that is what you do at New Years right? Well no more! I never keep them and then always beat myself up over it. I guess I do have one resolution but that is a on going issue of wanting to pray more and know the Word of God better.

Well, I'm still not really showing yet, but have plenty of morning sickness and tiredness. Thankfully we heard the baby's heart beat the week before Christmas, I felt very emotional and cried (no surprise there;-) I feel so blessed with this baby, and have started reading to it, it has already heard all of Acts and will be hearing something from the OT next. Plus I have alrady started to educate it about good music; Snow Patrol, Bare Naked Ladies, U2 and Plumb have been firm favourites so it's getting a well rounded education.

Christmas was a busy affair with gatherings with the Unger family, Wiebe family, our close family, breafast with Kendra, brunch for Joys birthday, New Years eve with good friends and some shopping scattered in there for good measure. Oh and I slept a lot... A LOT!