Thankfulness

I apologize in advance that this post contains no new Callie pictures. There will be more of those to come for sure. Charlie is really the blogger in our family, but I have been wanting to blog a little more myself. I thought the best place to start would be a blog about how thankful I am. At church today we celebrated the sanctity of life. We watched an amazing video showing babies developing in the womb and then being born. It was so touching. The song playing in the background was "I'm holding a miracle." Charlie had Callie next to him in her carseat and she was holding his finger through the whole thing. Needless to say we were both choked up. So, I am thankful to God, because just a year ago we watched a similar video for "sanctity of life" sunday. I cried through that one because I wanted a baby and didn't have one. This year they weren't tears of longing but tears of thankfulness. And, not that my life is all bliss now that I have a child. It's not. In fact, these have been some of the hardest weeks of my life. And, I am more and more convinced that nothing in this world will satisfy us like knowing Jesus will...not a husband, or a child, or anything. Finally, last but not least, I can't talk about thankfulness and not mention how thankful I am for my husband. I have never, never loved, needed, appreciated, leaned on, Charlie as much as I have this past month. He has been such an incredible gift and God has loved me through him in so many ways. I could not do this parenting thing without him. He is an incredibly supportive husband and already a great father. I love him so much. I have been wanting to blog about this for some time, so thanks for reading.
Here is the video they showed at church

One Month Birthday

Callie is one month today. Here are some pictures comparing what she looked like in the hospital to what she looks like now.

Bath Time and Church

A little picture from our Saturday afternoon bath time. Callie seems to enjoy her baths. The next two pictures are from this morning. We were getting her ready for her first church experience. It was great. She slept through the whole service.

Callie with mama and dad

We wanted to add a few pics of Callie with us, since we dont have too many of those.

For this one I asked her "where's my girl?" and she raised her hand.


We put this one in here because she pooped right when Jennifer counted to 3 to snap the pic

The Big Picture

Taking a break from Callie and ministry for a post. I heard about this web site a few months ago and have found it very interesting. It is called the big picture: news stories in pictures. You should check it out. You can subscribe to it if you have google reader or any other RSS feedreader.
Here is a link to the most recent post:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/01/earth_observed.html
The main site is:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

Our favorite time of the day

Callie hasn't been sleeping a ton during the day and often cries through the time that she is supposed to be napping. So when we can get her to sleep during the day, we love the peace and quiet around the house. Lately we have been putting her in her carrier and that has seemed to help her get some sleep. We have been very thankful that sleeping at night has come easily to her so far. She slept for about 4 hours last night.

We have also found out that she loves us. Though she cannot speak, she has been able to do sign language to let us know how much she loves us.

Milwaukee Christmas Conference

The whole group from Northwestern that attended the conference

(left to right):James, Pat, and Travis

A group of girls (with 2 guys in the background) from Northwestern


While we were unable to go to conference this year, we heard great things about how students' lives were changed at the conference. Our theme was "free" and most of the talks centered around the freedom that comes in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the big things that came from conference this year was vulnerability. After hearing many of the talks and spending time with other staff and students, the students felt much freedom in sharing their sin and weaknesses with other with the hope of being freed from those things. Many realized that you dont have to get your life together before coming to Christ daily, but we are to come to Him in need of grace and forgiveness.
There were also many talks on discipleship and multiplying your life through ministry. A lot of students began to catch more of a vision for being involved in discipleship relationships. One student from Northwestern named Rob said, "I feel like I cannot wait any longer. I want intentional discipleship. When can I grow together with a group of men?" This is an amazing work of God that he could say this after becoming a Christian just a few months ago. If you would like to hear any of the talks from this year's conference you can go to milwauke08.com/downloads.php.

Just in case you forgot how cute she is...

Parenting has been hard for us for the first week and a half, but we are learning to enjoy it more and more. We are learning more about Callie every day. We know that she loves to be held and has trouble sleeping during the day unless she is being held. We are thankful that she has loved sleeping a lot during the night. So she has been a handful with all of her crying, but we love her.