To The Ladies of Twentyfour:seven

Thank you so much for the gift I received from you tonight! I was blown away! I can hardly wait for the massage, pedicure & afternoon out! Looks like she really is going to have to wait a few more weeks. Just in opening the book tonight when Erin handed it to me brought tears to my eyes... so I waited till I got home and found a nice quiet place to read it alone and cry :-) Thank You so much for the words of encouragement. I am deeply humbled by them. What Godly young women you all are and it is my greatest privilege to be apart of serving twentyfour:seven. Thank you for your example to ME as you life out your single life with passion, wholly devoted to the Lord, seeking to glorify him!

~To God Be The Glory~

See you in a week!

I'm Going Back To Cali...

That's right this 37 week pregnant girl is packing up her stuff & her family and headed to Carlsbad CA tomorrow morning! Going to Carlsbad has been tradition in my family for many, many years. Honestly I'm not sure how many... I think it's at least 25 years for me. But the tradition began back when my mom was a kid. At first we were planning on not going this year, in light of money & being so far along in the pregnancy. A decision I knew was right but struggled with missing a year being as it is "tradition". Then a month ago some kind friends offered up a free condo for us to stay in, one that is right by my parents, and the offer was just to good to pass up on. Although, it is not our plan or desire to have this baby in California there will be a hospital five minutes away covered by insurance should she decide to come early. But I have no history of preterm labor nor have any of my other kids come more than two days early... so I think we're safe. Sounds like I'm justifying myself huh? :-)

I am just so excited to be with my husband (who could really use a few days off), take the kids to the beach, hang out with my parents and to sit outside all day & relax! If we have access I'll post some pictures!

See ya next week, hopefully still pregnant :-)

Burned Belly

Today I did something I have managed to do with all my pregnancies. With only a few weeks left I was starting to get proud, thinking, "not this time I have learned my lesson". Nope. Today I was baking oatmeal raisin cookies and as I was scooping them onto a plate my protruding belly got in the way and was burned on the cookie sheet. Ouch! Now I have a nice red mark across my belly, goes great with the stretch marks really. So long bikini days ;-)

The cookies however, turned out wonderfully... worth the burn mark for sure!!

Some Random Pics...

Today I had over 200 photos to download from our camera! I could hardly believe it. Here are a few recent pictures.

All I could hear was "mama" over and over. Trevor had gotten into the laundry room and managed to close the door. Thankfully, at this point he is unable to open doors. When I came to the rescue this is what I found! He had managed to tip the basket over and crawl inside... somewhere along the line he also found a plastic spoon :-)


Last week Chris made a memory with the kids by building a family fort. The kids had so much fun climbing in and out! Taylor is still talking about family fort night!


On that same family fort night I caught this cute picture of Trevor & Chris... that's milk on his Trevor's chin by the way


Taylor is obsessed with my belly. She is constantly touching and rubbing my belly. She'll ask "what's the baby doing now? Is she sleeping, eating?" Then when she moves or kicks Taylor laughs hysterically.

HOT!

To say it's hot is an understatement. Looks like we'll be staying inside today!

tempeture reaches 118 degrees in AZ yesterday- Hottest in a decade!.

Introducing My Friend Melinda

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Melinda. She is an amazing women who attends Sovereign Grace Gilbert. Chris has been friends with her & her husband Sam for almost 10 yrs (right Melinda?). They graciously added me into their friendship when we got married! She is a mother of five ( two who she recently adopted from Russia), breast cancer survivor and is now fighting Chronic Mylogenous Leukemia. What you'll find at her blog is that she is full of faith, loves the Lord and well,is hilarous! Chris & I love the Macranes and have the upmost respect for them. And as you'll see on her profile they love us as well.... or at least our music :-)

You can meet her here.

A Tribute To Jimmy, Jerry & Gord

JJ & G came to us on Christmas. They were a gift to Taylor. Her ignorant parents thought that they'd make a wonderful, easy first pet. Actually, they only wanted one but a family was very quick to give them all three of their betas. One male & two female, with a handy divider that went between the tank, just in case the male got hungry. Yes, we now know why they were quick to give us ALL their fish. Jimmy was found in the bottom of the tank this morning. I'm not quite sure what the cause of death was. It could've been his tank hasn't been cleaned since May. Or the fact that I haven't personally feed him since February... and I recently hid the food from Taylor, so she hasn't been feeding them either. It's possible that his friend got hungry and took a bite out of him... the divider was taken out a month ago. However, I wasn't about to look that closely in the tank this morning to confirm my suspicions. Either way Jimmy is gone and it's time that Jerry & Gord join him and the other fishey's that live in the world of toilet water. Thanks for the memories guys. And thanks for teaching the Daukas' that they should never, ever own a pet.


** I'm deeply sorry if this post has offended you in any way... we are not fish haters. Just couldn't stand the smell any longer.

Pizza & Underwear

Last night we grilled homemade pizza's for our care group. It was perhaps the best pizza I've had ever! Grilling the dough was something Chris and I tried for the first time last week and made the crust bubbly & crispy!



In other picture news.. while I was making dinner, Trevor came out with Taylor's (clean) underwear on his head. We all got a great laugh out of that!

Nesting

Nesting: This is an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world.
* def from Pregnancyweekly.com

Let the nesting begin! What a fun week it's been. My days of low lying energy have disappeared, at least for a short time I assume. Today I cleaned out the refrigerator. I mean take out shelves, wash drawers, disinfect the inside, clean the refrigerator. Usually my definition of cleaning the refrigerator is throwing out food that's turned into a science experiment. As I was cleaning I thought to myself, when was the last time I did this? Oh yes, over a year ago right before I had Trevor. Over the past two weeks I have cleaned out all the closets, organized toys, shelves & the pantry. I even found time to iron my husbands shirts so, at least for this week, he'll have something clean and ironed each day. He still hasn't noticed... I debated on telling him but then thought it was really self serving to tell him and my goal was to bless him, not me. We'll see how often he reads my blog ;-) I am grateful for this energy and urge to "nest". It's God's kindness to mom's! Lord knows these kind of things aren't going to get done anytime soon once baby #3 arrives!!

Alright urge is wearing off... I think it's time for a nap!

Taylor's Words...

Taylor has been really into being a mommy & wife one day. Which I appreciate, we are seeking to build biblical femininty into our daughter at a young age. Well tonight driving home from getting frozen yogurt, it was for the kids really ;-) She says to Chris & I out of nowhere, you know one day when I get older I'm going to pack up all my stuff and say bye mommy, bye daddy and move into my own house with my husband. Well I'm not sure if it was the moment she chose or my nine month pregnant hormones but hearing her say that and the reality of it more than likely being true brought many tears to my eyes. Thankfully Chris held up fine and was able to continue the conversation with her :-) Oh how precious time is!

Home Sweet Home

We have returned from Together Whatever and God was, like I anticipated, faithful. It's a great thing to know as a believer that God being faithful doesn't mean there won't be trials but that he will be faithful to meet you in them. This was my expectation for the weekend. For instance, we were up from 4 am on two nights in a row with a screaming, teething child. I had a fair share of contractions on the way there and pulled a muscle in my inner thigh on Friday. This one is more comical now that we are out of the situation but Trevor locked himself in our bedroom, with keys inside, and it took maintainence 20 minutes to come unlock the door. The last 7-10 minutes were spent with Trevor crying in the distance. Once the door opened we found our suitcase unpacked (not neatly) and he was stuck under the bed. Taylor had quite a few uncommon accidents. One during the first night session and another right in the middle of trying to have "fellowship" with another couple during lunch. Thankfully we were sitting outside. The rooms had no air conditioning, which really you don't need in San Diego, unless you are eight months pregnant. Also we had this weird shower head where you had to hold it above your head in order to get wet. This one I can't pawn off as being hard because I'm pregnant. I'm just spoiled and would prefer to not manually hold the shower above me. Chris said this was a great area to die to self, he was right.


But like I said God was faithful, he gave me strength through the difficulties. He allowed me to see when I was being tested so I could turn to his word for help. And when I didn't see it and feel into sin, he was there, quick to forgive. I heard the most outstanding/convicting message on Unbelief. That alone was worth the trip! Unbelief defined as "living life as though God will not keep his promises." Mark Mullery spoke of the warnings in Hebrews 3 of not finishing the race. This message I highly recommend you download from the together website and take a listen to. We made friends with some new families that we haven't ever had a chance to spend time with. Taylor loved being there with all her friends. She made the neatest crafts & learned songs that she's still singing today around the house. She didn't seem to care that her brother kept her up all night. And finally Chris & I's 6th anniversary fell over the trip. What an amazing 6 years it has been love! So the trip, although eventful, was wonderful! However, I'll confess, crawling into my own comfy bed Sunday night with the fan on high, I muttered aloud "Home Sweet Home" :-)

Off To Cali...

Well, we are, almost, all packed for our trip tomorrow to California. My goodness, I forgot how much work goes into packing four people :-) The Daukas' are headed out to San Diego to attend Together 06'. Four Sovereign Grace churches in the west are gathering for a weekend long conference, much like old celebration days (for those who know what that is). I'm looking forward to the conference and the change in weather!! Pray for us... Our long trip with the kids (last year Trevor cried for three hours striaght, no joke!) an extra measure of Grace for me as I tot along two little ones pregnant while Chris works at the conference & most importantly that God would meet us in new fresh ways. We will be hearing from Mark Mullery who will speak on the book of Hebrews & why Christ is better. I will give a report when we return!

You Asked... 33 weeks!

Here is a pictures of me at 33 weeks for all my friends & family who don't get to see me in AZ. The pregnancy continues to go well! She is a very active little girl! You'll often find me saying "oh" in the middle of a conversation and watch as I try to push her feet back inside. She likes to kick me in the side right below my ribs. It really is amazing to watch your whole stomach shift from one side to another! Chris comments on my "alien" looking belly at night.



And this is how I usually look, one sitting on top of the belly and the other following to either the side or behind :-) Here Trevor is giving me one of his wet kisses!



Countdown continues!