We are Famous

So Hadleigh and I made it onto a commercial. We attended a Volunteer Appreciation dinner a few weeks ago, and the got a couple second shot of Hadleigh and I. You-all have been saying you want to see me as a mom...well here you go. It is a little dark, but you can it is us. Follow the link above.

The gal that they show right before us, in the red, is one of my good friends, Sara.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day means something when you know and live with the people who are serving our country. It means even more when you know someone who has died in service. Read the article in the Boston Globe

What the article doesn't mention is that Doug was a believer and he and his wife and son attended our Chapel. The Memorial Service is tomorrow.

We Got It

For those of you waiting on pins and needles to hear how our trip to Dusseldorf went, we got it!

Shortly after Hadleigh was born we made arrangements to apply for her birth documents and passport. Upon arriving at the military passport office we were informed that it would take 16 weeks to receive her passport. I almost had a heart attack right then. 16 weeks? For the love of Pete that is 4 months? Are you really going to hold us captive in Germany for 4 months, I asked? Do you know that in the states I can rush it and get it in 2 weeks, I strongly argued, as if somehow that would change the lady's mind and she would say, "Oh honey, in that case..." The woman also assured us that the consulate would not help us, and would take just as long.

Imagine my surprise when I called the Frankfurt Consulate the next morning to hear on the recording that passports are generally received in 5-10 days. Hmm...4 months...2 weeks. I sent Dave back by the passport office to pick up our stuff the following day.

Since I failed to ever talk to a normal human being at the Frankfurt and the folks at the Dusseldorf consulate were more than helpful, we decided to trek up to Ddorf to see if they would give us the goods.

We drove up Wednesday evening so that we could be the first in the line Thursday morning at 0900. I checked online about 50 times to make sure yesterday wasn't a German or American holiday. I called and talked to 3 different people that gave me the list of all the documents we needed to produce. And I prayed and prayed.

Folks kept telling me that we would be rejected and sent back to Baumholder since we are affiliated with a military post. I tried to imagine my life this summer as we were held hostage in Germany, unable to leave because some lady in some office wanted to take her sweet time sending our stuff in.

Thankfully it all worked out. Hadleigh should now be official with a passport in the next 5-10 business days. Everyone at the Ddorf Consulate is awesome and we love them all. Thank you for letting us leave Germany and the EU.

Stats

A friend informed me today that I didn't have enough info about Hadleigh that other Mom's are interested in. So here are some interesting factoids.

Hadleigh Claire was born Tuesday, March 7 at 0352, she was 54cm and 3300g (21 inches and 7lb. 3oz.)

My contractions started at 0500 March 6. We went to the hospital at 1100, I was less than 1 cm dialated. After having contractions 6-7 minutes apart all day I was still oless than 1 cm dialated. We left the hospital at 1800. We went back to the hospital at 2100. I finally dialated up to 2 cm at 2330 and we were admited to the labor room. I sat on the fun excercise ball and we sang along to an oldies CD. I was 3 cm at 0200. At 0330 they called the doc and I pushed her out at 0352.

I lost a lot of blood during the birth and so because of my blood iron level they wanted me to stay at the hospital until Saturday (after she was born on Tues morning). But I managed to convince them by dinner time on Friday that I was ready to go home. The German hospital was awesome and I have already told Dave if the Lord gives us another baby I will fly back here to deliver. The Germans know how to do babies.

I am nursing and will continue until 6 months or she gets teeth. She is a good eater, and haven't had any issues there.

We had a family bed for the first 3 weeks she was alive which was a literal nightmare. But at 3 weeks she finally made it to her own bed. Thank the Lord.

At 4 weeks she started smiling.

At 6 weeks she began sleeping through the night. She generally sleeps 8-10 hours, but every now and then will go 6 hours and then eat and then go antoher 6. She likes to be up with us, but I am pretty nazi-ish about her sleep ("Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby" by Weisbluth).

At her 2 month appt she was 24 inches and 4600g (which I think is about 10lbs. 4oz). She is in 90% for height and 50% for weight.

She likes her swing, and her bouncy seat. She LOVES bath time.

She can roll from stomach to back. She has discovered her tongue (which helps with her drooling problem) and has discovered she can use her feet to make sounds out of her bouncy seat and to splash Dave and I while she is in the tub.

She likes to read with me. Baby books as well as theology books.

She loves other people. She has always been very alert, loves looking around. She likes being held by anyone (she is very cuddly) and usually rewards folks with her beautiful smile.

We love our little Hadleigh.

Baby Contest

Very out of character for us, but we did enter Hadleigh in a Baby Contest last week. It is hard for a 9 week old to compete with little girls in pigtails who can smile and laugh on command (that is my sorry excuse for why she didn't win). That will certainly be the last contest we enter her in, I felt like I was corrupting her by even entering her to begin with. But as Dave says now we have gotten that over with and don't have to do it again.

As everyone continues to tell us what a beautiful baby we have, we both continue to thank the Lord for giving us Hadleigh. It has also motivated me to begin praying that the Lord would make her beautiful on the inside. I have been praying the Lord would give her strong character and a love for all kinds of people.

As well, we pray that the Lord would call her to Himself. It is amazing to think that little Hadleigh was born into sin. But she has this new cry which I call the sinful cry. It is not a hungry, or tired cry, it is just a scream that she didn't get something she wanted. Yes, my 10 week old is sinful, but we continue to pray that the Lord will change her heart of stone into a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36).

Hadleigh Claire Prepares to See the Sun

We are going to Italy soon, and as the sun doesn't shine much in Baumholder we thought we should get Hadleigh some cool shades and a hat to protect her little skin. The shades almost fit, she just needs a bigger nose.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Hadleigh is rolling over! I started putting her on her stomach a week or so ago. I had read that it was important for her to have stomach time so that she could learn how to lift her head, etc. She is great at lifting her head and can get it up to 90 degrees, but last week she would get so frustrated because she wanted to roll over but couldn't. She would try and try, and then cry. We kept encouraging her to roll over, Dave saying things like "McNays never give up!" I had warned him not to tell me that when I was in labor.
Anyway, she has finally mastered it and can roll from stomach to back pretty easily.
I tried to get pictures of the process. You can see she was pretty upset with me. Well, as soon as she saw the camera she stopped crying. Hmmm. Can we say ham? Is it possible to be a ham at 2 months? Note the drool from her mouth. She can't stop!

Well, she saw the camera, stopped crying, rolled over and started smiling. It looks like she is a little performer already.

He's Big, I'm Little

So, I have mentioned before that ever since Hadleigh was born I have been reading a ton. It is kind of amazing because everyone said once she came I wouldn’t have time to read anymore. Well, at least at this point, they are wrong. Since I spend the majority of my day feeding her, I have found that time is a great time for us to read together. We continue to be up to our elbows in Horton’s book that I mentioned before. I also have time to work on the study that I am in PWOC, we are working through I and II Timothy, as well I usually have time to work on the study that Dave is leading in our Community Group. We are currently doing a study called Gospel and Heart which is written by a pastor named Tim Keller. Keller is the pastor of a large church in NYC called Redeemer. The former pastor of Intown (our church in Atlanta) used to work with Keller and thus the connection.

We are on week 9 of the study and have looked at things like “Why Did Jesus Have to Die?” and “What is Wrong with Us” (looking at sin), etc. Our study yesterday was called “How Do We Know about Jesus?” I was pretty skeptical and read the study…yea, yea, I thought I know all this already. The Bible is historical; it is true, etc, etc. I even told Dave, this will be a quick one, huh? I am sure he wanted to smack me for not completely getting it. The study ended up taking a turn that I never expected. One of the questions (that I Just sort of breezed over) was

“Think of the Biblical account of David and Goliath. a) If you look at the story in itself, apart from the rest of the Bible--then what is its main message or teaching to the reader? b) If you look at the story as part of the Bible's overall story--about how God saves us by grace through Christ--then what is its main message or teaching?”

I answered a) with the generic…little guy beats big guy, and someone started singing the Veggie Tales “He’s big…I’m little”. And then the also generic David trusted God and God delivered Goliath into David’s hand. You get the idea. I basically skimmed over question b) because I just didn’t really understand it, but it was this question that brought the biggest discussion and revelation for me. I don’t think that I can attempt to explain it as well as it was explained last night, but here were a couple of thoughts that came out.

Israel and the Philistines are at war. They decided to pick one person to represent them in a fight. These men would fight and if the rep for Israel won all the Philistines would become slaves for the Israelites and vice versa. All the Israelites are terrified to fight Goliath…in walks David, shepherd boy who has NOTHING to do with this battle. He fights Goliath representing Israel. He fought in the place of the people he was trying to deliver. David won the battle for the Israelites. The Israelites didn’t earn the victory or do anything to achieve the victory. Hmm…could David be a representation of Christ in the Old Testament? Christ took my place in a war that he didn’t belong in. Through his death and resurrection he achieved victory over sin and gave that victory to me. It is a victory I don’t deserve and did nothing to help win. It was through God’s grace that he delivered the Israelites out of the hands of the Philistines…not because of their faith or courage, but because of God’s goodness. In the same way, it is by God’s grace that he saved me, not because of my faith or courage, but because of God’s mercy and goodness. This was a fresh revelation of the gospel for me. I hope to continue to see the Old Testament stories as pointing to Christ and his grace, mercy and goodness, and I hope that I am able to teach Hadleigh these truths so that she will grow up knowing them.

Miss Hadleigh Claire Goes to the Netherlands

This past weekend we ventured out again, for a weekend trip beyond the German borders. It was a wonderful weekend filled with some adventures and fun. Friday we drove up to Haarlem so that Hadleigh could go into Hiding. We visited the Corrie ten Boom house, where Corrie and her family hid Jewish people during the war. I read Corrie’s book “The Hiding Place” when I was in elementary and it tells the story of Corrie and her family, and how God was with her. Eventually the family was found out and she and her sister were taken to a concentration camp. After the war Corrie had a worldwide ministry speaking on things like "There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still".

Here is Hadleigh hiding in the little room where 4 Jews and 2 Dutch resistance workers hid and eventually escaped after the ten Boom family was betrayed.

After the tour we were able to meet up with Shawna Snow and 3 of her kids, Mia, Ari and Shea. Shawna is living in Amsterdam, church planting with Christian Associates. We hadn’t seen each other in several years, but since we were in the area we were able to hook up. Her youngest, Shea is a real character. I told her the last time I had seen her she was in her mommy’s tummy. She thought that was pretty cool and responded “but here I am, I am here now!” Shawna discipled me when I was in high school and college.

Saturday we hit Amsterdam and boy did we ever hit it! It happened to be Queen’s Day, which apparently is like Mardi Gras or Oktober Fest on steroids. None of the trams were working, so we walked from the Centraal Station to the Van Gogh (which I didn’t know is pronounced Van Hock) Museum which was 3 miles away. The crazy thing is that I haven’t seen that many people in my entire life. There were people EVERYWHERE. We kept thinking that the Sea of people would let up, but it was steady down the 3 mile stretch and back a different 3 mile stretch. Unbelievable. There is no way I can describe it. Apparently the Dutch have a thing for orange. If you watched the Winter Olympics you might have noticed that the Dutch wore a lot of orange. We never did find out the reason (since their flag is red, white and blue), but the whole thing kind of reminded us of a TN Vol football game. Not only were the streets filled with people, but the canals were filled with boats that were filled with people.

We managed to get back to the train station and back to Delft (the cute little town we stayed in) by dinner time. We had great Mexican food and margaritas for an early birthday celebration for Kristen. The Dutch definitely outdo the Germans in their Mexican food.

Sunday we left Delft and went to the Keukenhof to see the bulbs. It was amazing. Dave and I went last year, but neither Kristen or Melissa had been. It is kind of like Disneyland without the rides, it is just a happy place. The bulbs were awesome, but not as good as last year. This “spring” (if you can call it that) has been really unpredictable, so we think that had an effect on the bulbs. But, cannot complain, the Dutch know how to put on a flower show. On Sunday instead of seeing a sea of people, we saw a sea of bulbs.

The weekend was great. We had wonderful weather, which was partly cloudy (but we did see the sun) and in the 50’s. Hadleigh was a perfect angel, sleeping in the car virtually the whole 6 hour drive up and back, and allowing us to do a whole lot during all 3 days. Of course, a snow storm welcomed us back to Germany. We crossed the border and the rain turned to snow and it dropped to 32 degrees. I was bitter…but by the time we got home the snow had stopped and it was up to 40. Maybe the sun will come up today.