Baby Cox

This has been an incredible day! Ryan and I went in for our ultrasound and are thrilled to announce that we are going to have a healthy baby! Praise the LORD!! Here are a few fun shots for you to enjoy/decipher.
To be completely honest, lots of times the ultrasound technician would say things like, "oh, there's an arm" and I would cock my head to the right and really try to see that arm...but I had no idea what I was looking at. Check out the little praying arms in this pic! Ryan is such a professional. He was asking questions like "How do the kidney's look?" "Is that the left ventricle?" and "How's the level of amniotic fluid?" I, on the other hand, was asking questions like "Ooh, ooh, can we see the foot?" After the ultrasound I met with my doctor to hear her input on how the baby is doing. She said, "The baby is already 1 pound 2 ounces...which is the 90th percentile!" I said, "Is that good?" and she said "Yes, just big and we might consider moving your due date up a week!"
So there you go! Talk about healthy! Whew! Ryan and I are both pretty gigantic basketball playing-type people, so I'm not surprised that our baby is growing like a weed already!

on volume...

Those of you who know me probably know that my hair is not lacking in volume. It is, as one of my college roommates once noted, "far away from my head"

Ryan enjoys the crazy lion hair that I spend time taming each morning. Some days he just looks at it and smiles. Some mornings he reaches toward it and pats it nicely...as if it actually IS a lion.

Either way, its big...so when I saw this commercial it made me laugh a lot!

Enjoy!

Leadership isn't easy

The last few days have been difficult for a number of my friends at GCC. The last few months have been difficult for my dad and the leadership of Granger Community Church. I've watched my dad navigate a growing GCC through difficult waters throughout the last 23 years of my life, but the latest financial crisis and the process of 8 full time staff losing their jobs and another 15 people's hours being cut has taken a toll.
Dad worded it better than I ever could have, so I encourage you to take a look at this post from his blog to get some insight on the process from his perspective. www.markbeeson.com

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot...
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain...
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. "
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2, 5, 7, 10-14

our little cantaloupe

Week 21

Baby's Length: 6.5-7.0 in.

Baby's Weight: 10-13 oz.

Baby's Size: Cantaloupe

It is highly likely that 132 days from today Ryan and I will be welcoming our precious little cantaloupe into this crazy world. I can hardly believe it!

Less Clutter, Less Noise

My friend Kem wrote a book! I was one of the lucky few who got a first look at the chapters as she was writing them.

One of the things I love about Kem is her ability to maintain an outsider's perspective even though she is full time on staff at Granger Community Church. Kem is an inspiration to me. This book will be an inspiration to you. I highly recommend it!
You can pre-order your copy, and copies for 9 or 10 of your friends HERE.

Simply Sheila

I'm so proud of my mom! This video was made for the "Help Wanted, Surviving Tough Times" series at Granger. To watch it in context, check out last weekend's services HERE.

Advice

I thought this was a really nice letter from the Bush Girls to the Obama Girls:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Half-Way There!

I'm 20 weeks along and finally feeling really great again! Hooray!! It took about 17 weeks for me to get over the nauseousness...and I slept through most of Christmas Vacation...but other than that I've been feeling awesome!

Here I am...looking more preggo than ever.
The point...(thank you Angela)We have our ultrasound next Friday and we are not going to find out the sex of the baby...because we'll probably have a boy or a girl and we have the rest of our lives to know the sex. right? Who's with me?

On another note, onions and garlic are not my friend these days. I can smell them from 6 miles away...and if you've eaten either lately, I can smell your breath from here! Ahhhh!

My Dad the Blogger

This is a very proud moment in my life...because according to this study from Church Relevance my very own dad is officially one of the Top 60 most read Church Blogs in the world!

check out #52! MARK BEESON!!

The best thing about it is the fact that he was under the impression that no one but me ever read his blog! Haha!

Nice work dad! I'm really proud of you and your blogging!

Mom replies to teacher about homework

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told Sarah how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had. Then I found one more in the back room, and several people were fighting over who would get it. Sarah's picture does NOT show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely, Mrs. Smith

The $400 Rubber Mallet

Ryan was on call last night, and since he didn't need his car, I decided to borrow it. Of course, it broke while in my possession. Classic.

Pretty much I went out to the car on my lunch break, put the key in the ignition and quickly discovered that the key would not turn. I have had some experience with old cars, so I did the ol' "crank the steering wheel to the left and right really hard" maneuver a couple of times and tried to turn the key again.

No luck.

To make a long story short, Ryan (post-call and running on 1.5 hours of sleep) came and picked me up at work. Knowing that we needed a tow 2 miles down the road to our car place, Ryan called AAA and they told him our Illinois AAA coverage was expired, but he could get coverage for a year for only $50...plus a $15 initiation fee.

a few hours pass...

The tow truck driver finally gets here and asks Ryan what the problem is. Ryan explains the situation and the guy says, (wait...to make the story more interesting we'll give the tow-truck driver a Boston accent) so the tow truck driver says in his Boston accent, "Oh yeah, that's a Daimler/Chrysler curse." The guy proceeds to stick the key into the ignition, tap the end of the key with a rubber mallet a few times and voila! - the car starts up just fine.

"From my experience that's the first sign that your ignition is going...you've only got a limited number of taps left."

So Ryan drove 2 miles down the road to the car place where they told him they would gladly replace the ignition for a couple hundred bucks and while the car is there, it would be a good idea to get the Serpentine Belt replaced as well...approx $120 more.

And that is the story of the nearly $400 Rubber Mallet

on being a pack mule

It has been said that I am a pack mule. Ryan began noticing this about me early in our marriage when he saw me carrying all of the bags of groceries in a single trip up three flights of stairs to our apartment in Chicago.

I didn't think this was strange at all. If I CAN carry it all at one time, why wouldn't I? This trend has continued - but now I carry all the groceries from my car parked on the street into our first floor apartment in Grand Rapids.

Now that I'm pregnant I'm not supposed to be carrying anything heavy. I'm not sure HOW heavy is TOO heavy...but I have to stop myself from my pack mule tendencies.

My incredibly wonderful mom has been in town for the last couple of days to help me with some packing/pack muling stuff to the new apartment and it has become very clear that I inherited my pack mule tendencies from her.

BUNNS of steel

Ryan decided to become a coffee drinker in May 2007 on the first day of our Smokey Mountain Vacation. It didn't matter that we didn't have any coffee or filters...all that mattered was the fact that there was a tiny coffee maker in our cabin and a roll of paper towel that he could use as a filter.

When Ryan decides to do something, he sticks with it, and has had at least one cup of coffee every single day since. For his birthday at the end of December I got him the Bunn coffee maker that he had been dreaming about, but it was out of stock so we had to wait a few extra weeks.

Make your cup of java positively perfect every time with this versatile Bunn® 10-cup coffee maker. The hot water reservoir keeps water hot and ready to brew while the patented spray head design brews exceptional coffee with every pot. An internal thermostat keeps water in the stainless steel tank at the ideal brewing temperature. The unbreakable double-walled stainless steel carafe is vacuum insulated eliminating the need for a warming plate and keeping coffee hot without overheating. Other great features include close-and-brew lid, vacation switch and more.

It came in the mail on Friday and Ryan has been drinking a couple of pots a day since then.

On Working Out

It's my 18th week of pregnancy and have decided that it's more fun being pregnant when you start to actually LOOK like you're pregnant...compared to early in pregnancy when you look like a chubby bunny whose shirts are too tight.

When I first found out I was pregnant I got really inspired and purchased a couple of workout DVDs from Amazon.com to stay buff during my pregnancy. I found these videos by these Cirque De Soleil performers.

I am proud to say I have completed the strength training video three times in the last four months and have completed the yoga video zero times.

We're Moving!!

Not too far, just about 10 minutes from where we live now. Our little apartment downtown has served us well for the last year and a half...but with a baby on the way it's time to find a place that has room for a crib! Those of you who have seen our apartment will understand. Those of you who haven't will be saying "oh, babies don't take up that much space" but you haven't seen our little apartment.

We have 2.5 more years here in Grand Rapids, which was not quite enough time for us to feel comfortable buying something (Michigan's economy isn't doing too hot, in case you haven't watched the news lately) so we're staying on the renting band wagon for a few more years.

We did, however, find an ADORABLE little three bedroom house to rent in a great part of town where the laughter of children and conversations of friendly people who want to be my friend fill the air (there is a small possibility that I have built it up in my head a tiny bit.) This is a picture of the front door you will come in when you visit!

For the first time in our married life Ryan and I will have:

• a garage to park one car in
  
• a little yard to care for (currently looking for lawn mowers on Craig's List)
  
• a room with actual carpet on the floor
• windows that keep out the snow when they're closed
• a basement where we can store stuff!

It's absolutely incredible and we're so excited! Last weekend Mom and Dad brought Granny and Papaw up to see the house. Here's a picture of my mom and I standing on some carpet!

Granny, Papaw, Mom and Dad were kind enough to help clean and measure windows and walls - then last night John and Angela came up to paint!

My family is too kind. I ordered them a pizza to celebrate.