Spectacular Craziness

What a spectacular weekend!  Not only did it feel extra long, a rarity in the crazy American lifestyle, but a lot of awesome stuff went down.

Thursday night I took Callie in for her second set of vaccinations where we found out she's flirting closely with 25lbs.  Aside from a lot of waiting, her shots went great.  We had small group after that and came home to meet my parents who came down to visit.  They got to meet crazy face for the first time which was exciting for everyone involved.

Friday morning Brian went off to work as usual but with the hope of being able to come home a little early.  My parents came along to my regular monthly OB appointment where they got to hear gummy bear's heartbeat for the first time.  Before I continue, I'd like to say that I heard baby's heartbeat last time I went in as part of the regular checkup and was excited but not emotional.  This time was the same deal, except that Mom started crying which made me tear up which led Larry and the nurse dangerously close to tears.  I guess you should never underestimate the influence of a soon-to-be-grandma  The appointment ended up being faster than Callie's vet appointment and we got a recording of gummy bear's heartbeat!

After coming dangerously close to flooding the doctor's office, we headed to Home Depot for paint supplies to dress up our bland living room.  I could only stand having cream walls, curtains, couches, and carpet for so long.  So we (read: my step-dad) picked out two colors and off we went.  We have now dubbed the living room as the Reese's peanut butter cup room.  I have to admit the peanut butter (yes, that is actually the name of the paint color) made me skeptical at first but it really looks awesome.  My parents also rearranged the furniture and it's beyond better than it was.  Brian was sad to miss all the painting fun (ha!) but very excited about the end result.  Later that night while Brian and I made dinner, my parents and the dog all fell asleep together in the living room.  Yes, I have an awesome picture to prove it but I'll save them the embarrassment.  I did, however send the picture to my brother with the caption "party over here!"

Living room before: I forgot to take this before getting ready to paint.  Just imagine the couches pushed back against the walls.

Another before shot, yes that one wall is darker than the rest.

We put her outside some of the time while we painted, she didn't seem to enjoy it after awhile.

After!  Still some decorating I want to do, but looks so much better than before!

View of the new chocolate and peanut butter colors!

Saturday morning we had an amazing feast of homemade challah french toast, fruit, and my first attempt at hash brown egg cups.  I really wish I would have taken a picture of them because much to my pleasant surprise they looked and tasted amazing. After our food coma we spent the rest of the morning lazing around and going for a walk around the neighborhood.  We came back and relaxed at which point I felt baby kick for the first time!  I didn't expect this for at least a couple more weeks!  It felt like a sporadic muscle twitch and I couldn't believe how fast it was.  So amazing!  It wasn't strong enough for Brian to feel yet, but hopefully soon! Later on we headed out to get some Lemon Tree before seeing The Hunger Games.  I read the books over a year ago and from that I'll assess the movie as not disappointing, but I wasn't overly impressed either.  We had a tasty dinner at Flying Mango before my parents headed back to MN.

Unexpectedly, not unlike the extreme length of my blog posts, Sunday ended up being another great day.  We headed to the early service at church up in Ames and then attended a meeting right after.  The meeting was about the church they plan to plant this fall in Ankeny, i.e. our current city of residence.  In the weeks leading up to the meeting we were pretty opposed to switching our home church and being part of what might end up being a "gym" church.  It's clear that God has been working on our hearts, especially so during the meeting, because we both strongly agreed that not only was it was something we were meant to do, but also something we were very excited to do.  We also believe that this may be the reason I am not finding work right now so that I can serve to help build this church.  We have a home church right now that's going to sadden us to leave, but our pastor made an excellent point, he sad, "Go make a home for people who don't have one yet."  After the meeting we headed to Stomping Grounds, my favorite coffee shop ever to have lunch (outside!) with a couple from our connection group.  It just sweetened the whole weekend.  Literally. I ended my lunch with an ice cream cappuccino.  Heaven in a cup, no joke.

I don't think we expected our lives to get crazier this soon, but we're excited at the prospect!

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." - Ephesians 2:10

Love,
-K