A West Side Baby

The last 3 1/2 years can be summed up like this:

We're most definitely done having children.
Well maybe not definitely.
Let's just pray about it for awhile.
Let's go ahead and give it to the Lord and see if we get pregnant.
Not pregnant, not pregnant, not pregnant...
Let's stop trying for awhile. We have peace we tried and his answer was no.
We're done. Yep done.
uh, babe, we're pregnant.

It was quite the surprise for the both of us. Maybe more so for Chris. I had five days to wonder but I didn't bring him in on my wondering. It's taken 4 pregnancies to learn that my husband prefers to be brought in on the wondering. Rather then my, "Surprise".

The week itself was crazy. It started off with a bad case of the stomach flu. I was in bed Monday & Tuesday. And yes it really was the stomach flu and not the pregnancy. We went to a block party and a little kid there had it the night before and consequently almost everyone on the block got some form of it. Wednesday, I get a call from my mom who left her scheduled heart dr. appointment. She called with some less then great news. Her Doctor was talking seriously about open heart surgery. Something that has kind of loomed in her future for quite some time now. But this time in addition to her three vales needing replaced, her aorta was enlarged too. More tests needed to be done to confirm. So I prayed, cried, begged with God for his will for her life to be done. And that at the end of the day that his will would be for her to be healed and live. Then, what served as a beautiful distraction from it all, I was throwing a large bridal shower for my friend Luz. In the back of my mind I knew I was late. Each passing day had me wondering. But I'd been late before and I knew that there was no reason why I would be pregnant. We weren't trying. On a whim I bought a test. I took it in the afternoon, walked away and fully expected to come back and confirm that I was indeed not pregnant. I was wrong. There were two lines, clear as day. Looking back I think I would've been better served to have waited till after the weekend was over. After I had a chance to recover a little more from the flu and catch up on life. After I knew that the next test would reveal my mom's aorta isn't in as bad shape as they originally thought and they would wait another year before discussing surgery again. There probably would've been less tears.

All of that being said, we are truly excited to have another child! What the pregnancy has revealed more then anything these past couple of weeks is my selfishness. Upon the confirmed test I was quickly aware of how life would change and how easy life had become having children who sleep through the night, dress themselves and wipe themselves :) I use the word easy loosely. There's nothing easy about staying home with three kids AND homeschooling. But having done it before I also know how fast babies grow. I am purposing myself to treasure each and every moment. Every kick, hiccup, the delivery, first smile, laugh and all the things that are gone before you know it. In a blink of an eye this child will join the older three in doing big kid things! Of course this nausea and tiredness could go away just a tad bit faster...

It's strange to think that this child might grow up only knowing this house and this side of Phoenix. Of course we will quickly introduce him or her to all of our friends and special places we love on the east side but this child will forever be our west side baby.

San Francisco

Last month Chris and I had the privilege of visiting our friends The Kurth's & their recently planted church, Christ Church. Toby asked Chris to come preach for him as Rebekah was nearing her due date. I was grateful for our friends and family who took our kids for a couple of days so I could travel with Chris.

We arrived Friday afternoon and from there got a non-stop weekend tour of San Francisco from Toby. And Toby if this church planting thing doesn't work out for you, you could easily have a job as a tour guide :) We toured the city Friday and had some amazing food. Actually lots of amazing food. I believed I gained a few pounds that weekend :) On Saturday we drove to Napa Valley and had breakfast at the most amazing place! I'm still craving that omelet! Then we headed out to Beringer Winery, where we got a personal tour from Toby's dad. Apparently tour guiding runs in the family. We felt so blessed to have such a tour and learned more in that day then in our entire life about wine. It was also this tour that pushed us over the edge to favor red wine more then white.

Sunday was a great time of worship with Christ Church. It was encouraging to see all the ways God has blessed them. They have recently been given a building to use in the city & partnered with the church that was meeting there to spread the Gospel!


Toby is also preaching through John like Chris is at Grace Church. So Chris was able to step in and prepare a message in John that he will be able to preach in a month at our church. He preached his message on the Glorious Future that Awaits us. Heaven. I am eager for our church to get to this part of John as my heart was greatly encouraged.

By far the best part of the trip was seeing our friends and catching up with them. We are grateful for their hospitality and I am eager to see more of San Francisco one day!

It rained almost the entire time we were there but I was able to snap a few pictures in between downpours!


I was happy to see a trolley as that was the extent of my knowledge of San Fran


Some amazing views that are just a short walk from their house!




Before breakfast:


The wine country


barrels of aging wine





Thank you Toby & Rebekah for your hospitality & showing us a wonderful time! It's been such a blessing to be on this church planting adventure with you all.

Starbucks Trip

I love my kids. One morning I surprised them with a trip to starbucks for chocolate milk. I sat there watching them interact with each other, laughing together, sipping their milk with their beautiful lips and thought "these are my children?!" What a blessed woman I am! Thank you God.

5yr old Trevor

Well I feel very behind on my blog! I'm hoping to do some catching up this week.



First off is that we now have a 5yr old boy! February 16th Trevor turned five. Where has the time gone? He has highly anticipated this birthday. Since turning 5 he has informed us that he know can do five year old things. Like something magical happens on the day of your birthday. He woke up that morning and we started school and I was informed that now he was 5 he was ready for harder things in school.

Speaking of school... Trevor has grown leaps & bounds this fall in academics. He is beyond excelling in things that Taylor did in kindergarten. He can read, he doesn't love to read, but he does it and we have moved onto blends and long vowel combination's. What he does love is Math and all things numbers. He didn't get that from me I promise. He is rocking with the math facts! We are working on numbers with sums up to 20 and I'm constantly amazed at how he just seems to know the answer. He counts up in his head and so far isn't dependent on his fingers like his mom :) He is even beginning to show interest in writing. Something that he hasn't been thrilled about. Yesterday he wrote out "Happy Birthday Ellie" all on his own. Of course he loves Ellie Payne :)

Trevor's heart has softened this year to things of God. He asks the most amazing questions. Like why did God create Adam & Eve? Cause if God knows all things, he would know they would sin? Most of the time I'm like great question... let's ask dad :) He has joined the older kids Sunday School class and is learning and retaining much of the bible story lessons! It's so encouraging to see him grow in these ways.



Trevor is all things passionate. He can passionately disobey or passionately obey. And when he wants to be, he's the sweetest boy ever. Telling me I'm the best Mom ever, loving and serving his sisters and yes He still wants to be a Pastor one day like his dad :)

We love you Trevor!

Valentine's Day Ideas

This week we have a Valentine's Day party with a homeschool group we are apart of and I will be hosting our neighborhood's playgroup. I've been searching for some crafts/cards/baking ideas to do with the kids. There are so many creative, fun ideas out there. I'm not sure what all we'll have time to do this week, as I'm having a bridal shower here friday night for a dear friend, but I did want to share some of what I found.

I love these cello topper bags from The Celebration Shoppe Blog! I'm hoping to use these as Valentines! Seems easy enough :)


Melt Your Valentine's Heart Necklace:
I really need to do something like this one day... I've been saving up all our broken crayons and they're just sitting there :)

Martha Stewart, as always, has some great ideas! I'm thinking of doing the Flower/Lollipop creation with Taylor.



Secret-agent-josephine has a really cute free valentine download for kids to pass out. I'm thinking of gluing them onto cardstock and having Trevor sign his name on the back!




My friend Megan has all sorts of links and idea's that she's been posting in her "I Heart" series. Love the heart garland she made with her kids last week and her most recent one "I Heart Baking" has got me craving all sorts of goodies!




And my favorite that we do every year is Rice Krispy Treats (colored pink) and cut out into heart shapes. Doesn't get much easier then that :)

Hope everyone enjoys their valentine week!

Trevor & Jacob the Cheater

Today, as we do often on Saturdays, we went to the Rio Vista Park to hand out free lemonade, hot chocolate & paint faces. It continues to be an awesome way to meet people in the community & on more the one occasion it has lead to people visiting Grace Church & hearing the Gospel.

The kids love it. We park right in front of the playgrounds with sand toys, drinks, face paint and they play & play. Trevor made friends, as is normal for that kid, with some boys. Walking over I hear a kid say " my name is Jacob" to which Trevor replies "Jacob means cheater". To which I quickly jump in with, "In the bible buddy" and try to change the subject. There's a Sunday School fail if I ever saw one :) Hey Trevor let's not walk around the playground calling all Jacob's cheaters! Which I believe Jacob's name means deceiver, not cheater. That's not really any better though so I didn't see the need to correct him right there.

Anyway The kid says, "Oh you have a bible?" Trevor says, "Yeah we read it a lot." To which he responds with "I have a bible too. I used to read it every night with my mom. When I lived with her. I haven't seen her for months. I live with my dad now. I'm spending the weekend with my grandma though and she brought me to the Park." I told him he has one special Grandma and that he could read the bible any time he wants!! That's what's great about God's word! But inside my heart broke.

These are the kind of people we are coming into conduct with on a weekly basis. Kids from broken homes, Mom & dad's married and then remarried, then remarried again. All in need of a Savior to make sense of their world.

I had a great talk with the kids Grandma afterwards. So did many others from the church. She just might come to church with her Grandson she said. And to think it all started with a Sunday School lesson, learned by a (almost) five year old boy.

Thievery & Airport Greetings

Last week Chris traveled to Maryland for a preaching practicum with Sovereign Grace Ministries. The kids and I spent a few days in Gilbert and a few days back at home hanging out with our friends Megan & Jedidah. Megan's husband was also out of town at the Sovereign Grace Songwriters conference. We were grateful that Sovereign Grace worked these conferences out to fall on the same week so we could be without our husbands together :)

Well as in usual Daukas fashion, what's a week with hubby gone without a little drama? No strep throat or car fires this week. Nope. This week my hubby's face made it into a police line-up for fraud. I got to see the paper line-up myself! Pretty crazy! Monday morning as Chris was leaving for the airport he came out to find our cars were rummaged through. It appeared as if nothing was stolen so he went on his way to get to the airport on time. Well apparently he had an old license or something in his car cause later that day a Christopher Daukas showed up trying to cash a check in his name with a stolen checkbook. And this Chris had ID to prove he was Chris. The stolen checkbook came from another car that was broken into that morning and when the police ran Chris' name and address he knew that Chris was either a thief or victim. Chris' brother also happens to be a Police officer in the area and was able to get a hold of Chris & I to confirm that we were indeed victims not thief's. Times like these it's helpful having a cop in your family. Jeff served us heroically that week helping me fill out fraud paperwork and directing me who to call while Chris was out of town! So far the guy hasn't been caught and he hasn't posed as Chris again. Praise God! Meanwhile we've been working HARD to get our garage organized so we can fit our cars in. As serious as this, is I still think that line-up of guys with Chris' face on there has got to be used somewhere :)



The kids were so excited to pick up daddy from the airport on friday. They each made special "daddy" signs or in Rylee's case "DAID" signs. We spent the afternoon at the kids PE co-op and headed straight to the airport. They were so adorable with their signs. They held them up from the moment we got in the car, the walk to the elevator, the walk to the security gate (where we learned we missed him) down the elevator to baggage claim. You should've heard the "ohh, ahh's, how cute!" as we walked EVERYWHERE :)


Rylee was the first to spot Daddy and abandon her sign post :)







This weekend we travel to San Fransisco to visit our friends The Kurth's. Chris will be preaching at their church plant on Sunday morning! Pray for safe travels and no drama while we're gone :)

10 Years Later

10 years ago Sunday, January 3rd, 2000, on my 21st birthday, Chris asked me to be his wife. Life has only gotten better every day since!

10 years ago...



*no someone is not trying to club us from behind. We took a Gondola ride before he proposed :)

Right after he asked and I said yes!




I remember going to bed that night, more like trying to sleep, laying on my back with my hand on my chest. I refused to roll over on top of the ring and of course I couldn't take it off. I'd waited to long to have it on :)

10 years today...

*Monday night we took a date night back to the place where he asked me to be his wife!


So Sunday also happened to be my birthday... although I celebrated my last official one last year. My children were precious this year with their homemade cards, taylor wanted to make me breakfast in bed which consisted of jelly toast she did herself. I learned that "AAQA" from Rylee means, "Mom you're the best mom ever!" Trevor drew a bunch of pictures and pasted them on the wall downstairs! The kids also made me homemade coupons. Here's one from Taylor that cracks me up:


"romancx" I honestly don't know where she comes up with this stuff!

Taylor overheard me talking to Chris about wanting to get a pedicure for my birthday and she offered to take her Christmas money for her & I to go together! So sweet!



I am one blessed woman!

Snow

On Sunday, after three days of straight Christmas festivities and another wonderful Sunday at Grace Church, Chris decided it was time to take a few days off as a family. There was no convincing me :) We decided to make a drive to Show Low where the forecast was snow, snow & more snow! The kids were so excited they could hardly stand it. We couldn't even make it to our condo before pulling over and letting them try out their new sleds! I took a few quick pictures, but honestly it's been snowing so much since we've been here I haven't had the chance to take the camera out all that much. It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow, so I'm hopeful to get a few before we head back home to ring in the new year with our dear friends!

Trevor & Rylee have never seen snow before! They were so cute playing, falling & of course sledding.







At first the kids had to go down with one of us. We are new to this whole sledding thing. But leave it to Trevor to hike a sled up a hill, get on, and slide down by himself. We were working on our snowman and I looked up to see my son sliding down the hill alone! He did great and proved himself worthy to go down again and again. Which he did. Of all the kids I think Trevor could live in the snow. It was FREEZING this afternoon. Snowing hard. Wind was brutal. Taylor hiding in my coat it's so cold and there's Trevor totally unfazed by the precarious conditions! Eventually I took Rylee & Taylor to the car and the boys finished up.





Chris took the camera so I could be in a shot but I accidentally left it in manual and it resulted in a severely underexposed shot :) Nothing a little creativity can't fix!


Our snowman George, mostly built by Taylor!




This was such a sweet way to end 2009. What a year it has been too. Honestly not one I'd want to re-live. I am thankful to be on this side of 2009 and recount all the ways the Lord has proved himself faithful!

Happy New Year!

For Taylor

There was once a girl who could write
So much that she'd stay up at night
Her mom started a blog
To help keep a log
And now you can see Taylor write.

Merry Christmas Taylor :)
Love, Dad & Mom.... and all your fans!

Grace Church Feast

This past weekend we threw the party of all parties. The Grace Church Christmas Feast! Man, oh man, was it a feast. Some members of our church love to cook, they are REALLY good at it and offered to cook for everyone. I offered my kitchen and house :) The night before we had a crew come and chop, slice, dice ect! Here's the menu just to give you an idea of what a feast it was:


Homemade egg rolls (that fried in their turkey fryer)
Grilled & Breaded Shrimp
Braised Ribs
Grilled Fish (with the head still on! I guess guys think that's cool)
Cashew Chicken
Korean Pork
Basil Fried Rice (my personal favorite)
Stir Fried Veggies

Then a whole slew of desserts! The group went caroling beforehand. Sorry no pictures. I stayed behind to get the house & dinner ready. But I've heard stories, it sounded like fun! Ok so back to the food.... the feast!
Here's the mastermind! Well part of the mastermind. Her other half is missing from the picture.




Afterwards the kids went upstairs and worked on a craft. A present for Dad & Mom!


They also prepared a little re-enactment of the Christmas Story. So cute!







Trevor was a wiseman, more like a wiseguy :)




The church surprised us by honoring Chris for the way he has lead the church plant/church over the past couple of months. Sarah took my camera and snapped some pictures. I'm such a proud wife :)



After that it was dessert and coffee. People hung out and fellowshiped into the night. Chris had put lights out on the trampoline and that kept the kids busy for quite some time!









Jim, with the Santa Hat, is the other half of the mastermind behind the Feast!



Jeff, our friend & Grace Church member, built two snow machines from scratch. The kids loved all the fake snow. It's not quite the same as the real thing.







The after Christmas party consisted of Dale, our worship leader, playing songs he wrote! He's so gifted!




The after, after party consisted of Chris & I playing some songs.



Then it got late. And we laughed, and laughed.





And Jeff got it all on video... which is scary :)



Then I realized it was 12:30 and ALL of our kids were still up!



We kicked everyone out and slept for days :) No, actually we went to bed and celebrated Christ birth again at Grace Church the next day! Ah, it's good to be apart of Grace Church!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!