home progress

It might be hard to get a feel for the room from this picture, but this is what our future nursery will look like. It has been a good month of home repairs as this room has undergone a radical transformation. You might notice how it no longer looks scary and forboding. I've heard that scary and forboding rooms have a detrimental effect on children. Baby A is continuing to grow and develop. I felt him or her move for the first time last week and that was pretty exciting. Hillary was just about asleep so it wasn't the best time for celebration, but it has happened a few times since. It is really neat, but also bizarre to think that there is this person growing inside your wife. Feeling him or her kick and move adds a whole new dimension to coolness/wierdness of it all.

pregnant pictures, snow Sundays, and -1 temps

So here is Hillary in all her pregnantness. In the background you'll see the nice yellow walls of our nursery. We've done a little shopping at Baby's R Us (I'm not sure who came up with that store title), and have almost completed our registry. We had our second ultra-sound last Wednesday and the baby is growing at appropriate rates. The only anomoly is the baby's head, which is a few weeks larger than normal. I was excited because I related this to our coming child's above average intelligence. Hillary was dismayed because she's going to have to give birth to the large sized head.
On another note, this was our third or fourth snowy Sunday in the past month. We, (actually I) don't like to wake up and shovel before church, but it keeps happening. It is pretty to look outside after church and see all the freshly fallen snow and I like the excitement of driving on minimally plowed roads, but it makes it hard for people to get there. I think everyone needs to get snow tires - they are amazing.
Last but not least, I got to go snowboarding in VT last week. It was super fun. The mountain was pretty deserted since we went on Thursday and the high for the day was 9 degrees. When we arrived it was -1 outside and we had a chilly chair ride to the top of the mountain. Once we got warmed up, it was a lot of fun. That's about it for me!

back in action

After two weeks sort-of off work and nomral life Hillary and I are getting back into the swing of things. We had a great Christmas as we spent six days up at Hillary's dad's in NY, and then had my parents up for a few days the following week. In NY I was able to go cross-country skiing and take the snowmobile for a short run up and down the driveway. We spent lots of time with Hillary's family and were able to see childhood friends of hers as well. When we got back into town we hit the ground running as we started to strip the wall paper from our future nursery. It has been an arduous process as we had to steam the wall paper off, spackle many holes, and repaint the trim and a built in book shelf. The project is almost done, except for a final coat of paint which I might put on tonight. With seeing family, trying to paint our future nursery, and me preaching two Sundays of the past three life has felt somewhat out of control. I'm excited for 2009, but I feel like I need to collect myself after a few scattered weeks.

Here are some of the things I'm looking forward to: (in no particular order) -having a child, building a min-rock climbing wall in our garage, spending time with family, seeing our church grow in Christ, taking teenagers on a spring retreat, going snow boarding, reading and learning, our new couch, knowing God better, being married to Hillary, and getting our house in order.