What's New with Us

Well, I feel like I haven't given a proper update on family life around here in awhile. So here goes:

Ed: He just finished his second weekend of PhD seminars. He presented his first big paper. The topic was Exodus and he has been working away on it for the past month. Ed is adjusting to the Intensive Seminar schedule that the PhD program operates on. The classes only meet once a month for two all day seminars. He went until 10pm both Thursday and Friday - very tiring! But, the BEST news on his part is that he is DONE WITH UPS!! Ed was able to quit last Wednesday morning because he now has a job as the Circulation Supervisor up at the Seminary library. Ed had been on layoff with UPS for the past few weeks. He had to call in at 2am every day to see if he was needed for the day or not - NOT fun at all! But on Wednesday that ended as he told them he had found another job and was done! Yeah!! Ed started on Saturday at the library. He will be in charge of the Circulation Clerks (5 of them) and overseeing all the nerdy library details like checkouts and fines and all that.

Leah: I am now about 14 weeks pregnant, which means I am now in my second trimester. I am feeling much better now (no more nausea) and starting to get a little pooch in my stomach. I didn't start showing with Samuel until 17 weeks, so things are moving faster with this one. I am scheduled for an ultrasound at the end of the month to see how things are going. If you remember, we had issues with Samuel being small towards the end of my pregnancy. The nurse practitioner I see said we will monitor this little bean carefully. I tried to convince her that I just make small babies and it's no big deal, but she wasn't so easy to convince. Maybe this baby will just be a big ol' hog (ok, I don't really want that either - I mean, I still have to birth this thing!). I am also being relieved of one of my homemaking duties - washing diapers! As of tomorrow, we will be using a diaper service for our cloth diapers. I am sharing with a neighbor, so the cost is only $10 a week for us. That's still cheaper than disposables, but obviously not as cheap as washing them myself. I am just having a really awful time with the $1 washers here - they don't have any soaks, extra rinses, or anything like that and don't get the diapers very clean (definitely not a good thing!).

Family: (don't worry, I'm getting to a Samuel update soon) We continue to search for a church family. This is really discouraging to us because we feel very alone and isolated. We have been to quite a few churches in the area - today's featured a female pastor. We are praying that God would help us to be humble in our search and find a family quickly. The most promising so far is an Independent, Fundamental Baptist church, but it's not SBC (gasp!) so that would affect our tuition.

Samuel: He is still too stubborn to walk - we keep encouraging him. And he still has yet to cut more teeth - just the two on the bottom! His favorite word is "uh-oh", but he has also added "mmmmm" when he eats. As you remember, we decided to go for the cry-it-out a few weeks ago. It has worked out wonderfully! He lays down for naps and bedtimes and puts himself to sleep. And he wakes up so much happier. He is now sleeping from 7pm to 7 or 8am. Yeah!! Samuel has also learned how to fake laugh - he'll look at someone and try to get them going with the fake laugh. See if he can get a chuckle out of you: