In Due Time

Today is my due date...As you can see from this picture we took today, I am so full of baby that people get genuinely concerned for me when they see me out in public. Ryan and I went to the movies last night - people sitting around us were concerned. Today we had a nice afternoon out on the pontoon with Ryan's mom and dad...then we went to the grocery - people were concerned.

I think people think the baby might fall out any second.

I hope they're right!

We've been doing everything we can think of to help move things along. We took a long walk the other night - and by "long" I mean it took a long time, not that we went very far. Ryan is doing awesome and I'm feeling great - so I guess it's okay to wait a few more days if we have to.

We sure are excited to meet our baby!

Happy 33rd Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.
- Ephesians 5:25The same goes for you wives: Be good wives to your husbands, responsive to their needs...What matters is not your outer appearance - the styling of your hair, the jewelry you wear, the cut of your clothes - but your inner disposition. Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kinds that God delights in. The holy women of old were beautiful before God that way, and were good, loyal wives to their husbands.
- 1 Peter 3:1-4
Mom and Dad, I am so thankful for the love that you have for each other. Your marriage is a shining example to us all.

Dad, I love the way you have always cherished and delighted in mom - always wanting to have her around and always showing and saying out loud how much you love her. Thank you for your faithfulness to her and the way you have honored and protected her.

Mom, I love the way you have stood beside and supported dad so he could become the man God created him to be. I love how much fun you have together, your laughter and your constant encouragement. If I can be even half the wife to Ryan that you have been to daddy I will be doing really well.

Here's to another 33 years!

Farewell Designvox

Tomorrow is officially my last day working at Designvox and today my friends at work surprised me with a party! Here's the picture they gave me to remember them by. You can see that they will be hard to forget!

This has been my full-time job since Ryan and I moved to Grand Rapids. I've learned so much about all sorts of things. I've met great people and had the opportunities to work with awesome clients like SpringHill Camps and Turnstone Furniture. I think being a project manager at Vox has given me lots of skills that will help me in mommyhood/household management/Cox Corporation/Stay-At-Home-Mom (SAHM) and I think that I've contributed to the team in every way I knew how.

This job has been an adventure over the last couple of years, I am so thankful for my time here, for the experience gained and the lessons learned...and I'm so excited that Ryan has the job that he has so one of us can be home with our baby.

I am blessed.
Thanks Voxers!! I will miss you!

Guest Blogger / Rules

I can't take the baby hunting until the baby is born. This is Amber's
rule. Birth 1st. Hunting 2nd.

On being a crazy person...

I may or may not have become a bit of a crazy person in the last 6 days or so...

• I might have spent a good amount of time this weekend scrubbing the bath tub better than its ever been scrubbed before


• There is a chance that I have planned out our calendar (and the calendars of many of our friends) through next September


• Ryan might have asked me to stop organizing the grocery cart while we were shopping at Meijer the other day


• My newly serviced vacuum may already need the bag changed again


• I've had about 4 pedicures in my entire life - one of which I got tonight hoping that it might induce labor - So far it hasn't worked for me.


• What's next? How about a nice bottle of Mom Spit!

I'm kinda excited to get past this "preggo/crazy person" phase and into the "new mom/still sorta crazy" phase.

Never look a gorilla in the eye

The Rotterdam Zoo is giving away cardboard glasses that make it appear that you're looking off to one side; these are gorilla-viewing glasses, meant to avoid incidents in which gorillas attack visitors for making eye contact with them. The glasses' introduction follows an attack on a woman by an escaped gorilla; the specs are sponsored by a local health-insurance company.

Not Yet....

No, the baby isn't born. In fact, I don't think Amber is even in labor (which is good because I need to preach this weekend). I do want to report (as Amber's Guest Blogger) that I have purchased a new high-capacity-memory-card that will enable me to take pictures (at the rate of ten-pictures-a-second) of every moment of the baby's life - from birth through 3rd Grade.
So when the baby arrives, I'll be ready.

- Amber's Dad

Mom Friends

Let me introduce you to a couple of my girlfriends from GR. Breanne and Alisa are champion moms. Basically, I've taken every bit of advice they have given me so far - except for using cloth diapers (sorry Alisa).

We had lunch on Thursday and took this picture:
Bree (left) has two little boys - Cash is 2 years and Parker is 6 weeks old.

Alisa (center) has a cutie little girl - Sadie, who is a year and a half old.

I met Bree at a wedding a couple of years ago and I met Alisa about a year ago when her hubby started working at Vox. I can't wait to be a mom with them, go on walks with our strollers, attend playgroups together and generally have a really sweet network of regularly scheduled adult interaction.

I am so thankful for these friends and for all the mom friends that I have in my life today.

Just as perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.

- Proverbs 27:9

My Dad the Guest Blogger

How fun is it that my dad is going to be guest blogging for me while I'm at the hospital! I love it!

Hey Uncle Matt, just so you know, this blog will remain "G" rated and no birthing images or details will be featured - so you don't have to be afraid.

Pre Baby Trial Post

This is Amber's dad....practicing to be the "guest blogger" when she
has the baby - who will be genetically predisposed to love the great
outdoors.