Wedding Anniversary

     Jeremy and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this January - we've been married for 5 years!  This is quite a cold time of year to have a wedding in Minnesota, but the day we were married was so sunny, bright and beautiful, after fresh snowfalls in the days before, and I was so happy and excited to marry the love of my life and start a new adventure with him, that I don't even remember feeling the cold in my thin, lace wedding dress and 2 1/2 inch heeled sandals.  I remember feeling warmth, excitement, confidence, love, and peace.

     We celebrated our anniversary this year by going to the Redwood Room again, where we had our unexpected first date 5 1/2 years ago.  The restaurant re-opened this year after having been closed, and they have live musicians playing and singing again.  There is always something special about looking across the table from each other with warm candlelight lighting up our eyes.

      Of course, I also had "morning sickness" nausea to deal with while on our date, but having a yummy spinach salad, french bread and a warm bowl of soup helped with that.  This isn't our first anniversary celebration with pregnancy nausea.

     I am married to a good, godly man.  We had a very fast dating relationship and engagement before we were married, but we knew each other as friends for at least a year before our first date...We met at a kids camp outside of town while cleaning up and picking up sticks with a "singles group" called the Harvesters.  It really wasn't anything at all like a singles group most singles have experienced and was not at all about finding someone.  Much more than just "hanging out" together, it was about serving others, growing in our faith together over serious topics, real friendships, and having adventures.  This was such a refreshing time.  Through all of that Jeremy and I somehow ended up liking each other alot and got married.  Friends are so valuable to have and aside from our spouse and children they are our most treasured earthly possession.  So if you are single, don't discount any opposite sex friend in your life as not possibly being "the one" you can fall in love and spend the rest of your life with.

     We're still figuring out the bigger mission for our life together as a married couple with kids in the picture.  We are learning that having children does not need to limit our call or mission from God, and if we do feel limited it is because of our lack of faith and vision and not because He is doing that to us.  I just finished the marriage book Love & War by the Eldridges and I think it's one of the best marriage books we've ever read - the most honest, real book about the ups and downs in marriage, even in couples who love God and love each other... Not just a bunch of sayings and principles we all hear or like to hear.  
   

   
   

   

   

Exciting News Announcement

     In November our family had a very rough week.  Jeremy was in Minneapolis to be part of a conference on Big Data Development with Cloudera and it was our first time being apart for such a long time.  We drove up and stayed the first night with him and left to go home the next day.  That week we all had the flu with multi symptoms and fevers.  Jeremy had a bad cough, but had a great experience nevertheless at his conference.  He ended up getting new certifications in information technology that he has yet to even use in his job.  That week, Hudson had a couple spikes in fevers and would not cooperate taking any fever-reducing medicines.  As a result, he had two febrile seizures.  We were in the emergency room (myself and the kids) in the middle of the night.  It is the scariest experience to have to go into the ER in the middle of the night as fast as you can.  It took about 2 hours of watching and waiting until he recovered fully to his normal, happy and perky self.  We went home at 4:00 am and the next day went into our family practice for an after care check-up, and that was when he had his 2nd seizure.  This was one of a number of times where I have been very impressed  from the genuine human care and compassion I have seen demonstrated from medical nurses and doctors (at our family clinic).  We have had many decisions to make over vaccines and other natural care issues, and our family medicine practitioners have all been very respectful of our decisions, as well as resourceful so that we make intelligent decisions according to facts and research, sending us home with professional research articles on paper, etc..  Hudson woke up,  recovered and was breathing normally after 15 minutes of his seizure so we did not need to go back to the emergency room.  I was sent home, however, with injections to give him if he had any seizure lasting longer than 5 minutes, which we prayed we would never have to use and have not had to.  That day Grandma was there to help and pray.  Since this has happened I have been super vigilant to check on any fevers he possibly has and figure out some way to make sure he takes Tylenol when he has one.  We gave Annalise a doctor's kit for Christmas and she taught Hudson to take medicine by pretending, and since then he allowed me to give him his dose of Tylenol in a cup, which he will drink himself.  I have not found any other way to bring a fever down effectively enough other than medicine.  I will have to read more about how to treat fevers in children naturally, but for Hudson it is imperative to bring it down and prevent the sudden spiking of a temperature.  [Hudson and all of us had the flu again over the New Year].  Times like this make me realize that being a parent is no small matter.  Decisions that I make as a parent can have good or bad, even life or death, consequences for my child.  I hold so much responsibility over what happens to them for good or bad.  Seeing my toddler have a seizure and then watching the minutes tick by waiting for his recovery has been one of the scariest experiences in motherhood.  I was thankful to know that we were not alone the second time it happened in our doctor's office.  I have also been thankful for the power of prayer and of God's presence being with us, knowing that I'm never alone and never without His loving direction in my life when I am yielded to Him.

     So on the happy note, I [Lisa] will announce I am pregnant with a due date of July 27th.  I found out during the rough week in November and was able to share the happy news with Jeremy over skype when we were all recovering towards the end of that week.  This has been a rough pregnancy compared with my other two, and it's mainly from the morning sickness and flu.  This week marks the 12th week and I can finally say I am feeling better.  It has been a stretch of 3 solid days where I have not gagged or had to take a nap during the daytime.  I feared that something awful was going to happen to my baby since I was getting so sick and catching every germ that came our way, but on our 12-week visit we were surprised to have an ultrasound and everything looked beautiful.  We could see the baby, the heartbeat, and that he or she is right on track in size according to our due date, close to 4 centimeters in length.  We could see the baby lift a hand towards his/her mouth to comfort himself or herself :)  Jeremy and I will be attending an evening group prenatal care class once a month for care, instead of traditional office visits.  Prenatal care will be in a group format as well as meeting individually at various times throughout the evening session with the midwife leading the group.  It is something new called "centering pregnancy" and designed for low-risk pregnancies.

 
     What is also exciting is that my sister is pregnant as well, and our due dates are within the same week!  We did not plan for this, but how amazing and fun it will be - our babies could potentially be born within the same week of each other.  I am so excited for this and always dreamed that we would be pregnant some day at the same time, but never imagined this close together!


     Jeremy has been making more "night runs" than ever before for my cravings of french fries, pickles, lemonade, kimchi, ice cream, chicken noodle soup, jello, and many other random food items that have come up.  I don't remember having such marked cravings for different foods with my other pregnancies.  This is really different.  I have already gained 10 pounds by only 12 weeks...I probably will not be running the Med-City marathon in May at 7 months pregnant!  I'm hoping Jeremy can take my place in the race if they allow for that.  My sis and I will just have to go back to crossfit after the babies are born to get our rears back into shape.  I probably won't be a "crossfit mom" as I had hoped, doing kettlebell swings and pull-ups with a belly, at least until after my baby's born.  For now I've decided to simply focus on being healthy and moving around every day.  Now that my first 3 months of morning sickness is up, I don't have as many excuses for unhealthy food choices.  Instead of ice cream, I should be eating plain yogurt with berries, for example.  I am going to focus more of my time on getting more involved in church and loving my family and children.  We had an amazing time travelling down with family to attend the "One Thing" conference in Kansas City ihop over the New Year.  Even though we were all sick at various times and missed half the conference, it was amazing when I was there.  I loved every moment of worship and yielding of hearts to God.