Foul

Well, I have a creepy story. My friend Christy has a blog that you can check out by the link on the left, and she gave the daily progress of a spine (of a deteriorating opossum) that had taken up residence in her neighborhood. Foul. Shortly after the spine was disposed of for good I was having playgroup at my house. Before the group converged here I had a knock on my door, and found two nice Jehovah's Witnesses. The other thing I found when I opened the door was that there was a dead bird on my front porch. Foul. After the men left I swept the bird behind a bush. Creepy.

Then my other bud Brea, almost stepped on a snake while taking a walk in her neighborhood, you can read about that incident on her blog.

The other day Dave and I drove into our driveway and found a HUGE bird in our driveway. At first glance I yelled "Quail," but on closer examination Dave noticed it was a hawk. OK, nothing too bizarre yet...but wait. The hawk had a bird in its mouth. The bird was alive and bleeding. Creepy. The hawk took off after spotting us, but left a pile of feathers near the walkway to our front door. I really need to have Dave sweep those up. If not I suppose we won't be any better than Christy's creepy neighbors that kept the spine in their front driveway. Foul.

For I Know One...

Little Hadleigh's fever is gone today, but she is still coughing and has a bit of a runny nose. Originally I did think that she might have a little hay fever...but since she has been running a decent fever, I don't think it is allergies, and I think it was a bit more serious than a cold as well. The good news it is on the way OUT.

The past couple of days I have had some time to reflect more on the retreat. Barbara Barker was the speaker, and I thought was very timely. Barbara's husband is Frank, and he was the founding pastor of Briarwood Pres in Birmingham. He spoke at a single's retreat I went to several years ago, so it was neat to hear Barbara. She is a pretty random lady, so a lot of the time she was just telling stories from her life, but the majority of them were cool.

She told us about this one time they were having a group of 60 folks over to the house (which apparently was almost a daily experience) for dinner. She got everything ready and then left for work. When she returned she realized that she had left the roast on 500 degrees instead of turning it down, so she had burned dinner and the house smelled like smoke. Their guests were to arrive in an hour, and she wanted to freak out. At that moment she had this image of all the saints in heaven on one side of her and all the demons on the otherside ( I can't remember if she said demons, but this is my version of the story). The demons were like...you have failed! Give up, yell at everyone, blame everyone else, etc. The saints were like...we were beheaded for the faith, you can fix this, have faith. So, she ran out to the store, grabbed some ham, ran back and continued as if nothing was wrong.

What I realized through this story and many of her others, is that life is full of all these little battles. How will I respond when things don't go my way? What will I do when I burn the roast, or when some crazy forgets to change our bank info and overdrafts our account, or when Hadleigh won't take her nap. Will I see this as a battle? Will I respond in faith, or in the flesh?

And all of these things translate into larger things as well. What will I do when I am just lonely for a friend? What will I do when I just want Dave to have a normal/stable job? What will I do when I feel overwhelmed with taking care of Hadleigh and feeling sick from the new baby? What will I do when the transition back to Atlanta just seems too hard? I feel like on all of these accounts I have just failed miserably. But, I now have an opportunity to respond in the correct way, in faith trusting the Lord. He can give me the strength to overcome these things and to live by faith.

On the way home I was remembering a quote from the movie Luther. If you haven't seen it, you must for it is just a small picture of the great faith of Martin Luther (you can borrow our copy if you want). I know this isn't a direct quote of Luther's, but if you read any of his works, you can see that this thought is very prevalent, not to mention scripture supports this idea, just check out Romans 8.1 for starters.

So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!"

On a lighter note, here are some fun picks of Hadleigh. She gets to help her Dada do all sorts of fun things, like fix the car. I also caught her with her new crawl...pretty funny!

120 to 6

Today Dave's commute will be cut down from 120 miles to a mere 6. I am so thrilled, and so is Dave. For the last 6 weeks Dave has been working a temp job 2 hours away. It has been very difficult on our family, so I am glad that it is over for now.

This past weekend I was at Callaway Gardens for Intown's women's retreat. I was really on the fence as to whether I should attend or not. I wanted to go, but didn't want to be puking the whole time. Fortunately last week I felt mildly better, still pretty nauseated, but no pukage. So, I decided to take my chances and over-all I am glad that I did. I did feel a bit puny and has to sit in the back during the sessions and munch on food. I felt a bit like a squirrel. I also spent my free time taking a long and wonderful nap. I had a good time. This was my fourth Intown retreat, but I hadn't been on one since 2004. Of all the retreats I remember, this one was the friendliest. I was actually more nervous to go on this one because I knew less people on this retreat than in years past, but for some reason everyone seemed super friendly. That kind of sounds like a lame statement...but I am sure someone out there knows what I am talking about.

I arrived home yesterday to find both Dave and Hadleigh sick. Before I left I had made a decision not to call Dave and check on them. I told him if he needed me to call. It felt a little weird to leave...and part of me thought about leaving a note...and then I realized why would I leave a note? As if Dave doesn't know as much about Hadleigh as I do. Anyway, all went fine for them, though Dave said Friday night Hadleigh was looking for me. He put her down for bed and then she started fussing. He went in to comfort her, and he said she kept looking at the door waiting for me to walk in. He finally walked her around the house so she could see that I wasn't there. After that she went right to sleep.

So Hadleigh has a bad cold, and is super congested. I am hoping it will be finished by tomorrow, but we will see. We had to miss swim class last week because she had a horrible fever from her MMR shot. This week we will miss again.

The Word Is Out

Well, just in case someone reading this blog hasn't heard yet, we are expecting another baby in October. This is thrilling to all of us, especially as I had assumed that having Hadleigh was a bit of a fluke and probably couldn't happen again given past health issues. But, as my bro Dan so eloquently put it, "apparently you are fertile." Apparently.

Hadleigh and baby will be 19 months apart, so we shall be busy. When I told my friend Dianne, she reflected on how having children close together in age is nice. I commented something to the effect that they would play together well. To which she returned that when they fight, they are the same size, so it is an equal battle. I thought that was hilarious...never thought of that as a reason to have children close together in age.

I haven't been as sick as I was with Hadleigh which has been nice. However, another plus of being prego so soon is that Hadleigh still takes 2 naps a day, so that gives me more time to rest during the day. This prego opportunity also allows me to expand the number of places I have christened...which became a joke when the Niners went on a road trip up to Boston for New Years Eve. I was driving somewhere in New Jersey and felt sick enough to pull off at a gas station, run in, puke, run out, and continue driving. I figure there has to be some kind of humor in the prego sickness.

One Year Update

Miss Hadleigh Claire had her first visit to a pediatrician here in Atlanta last Friday. We are definitely thankful for her good health that has enabled us to only visit the doc for her wellness appointments. We got a good recommendation of a ped and really liked him a lot. Hadleigh weighed in at 19 pounds and was 29 inches long. I forgot to ask him about what percentage that puts her in, but I suppose she is fine because he didn't comment. She was also a very brave little girl and received her first MMR shot. She didn't even flinch or cry...she was like is that a needle? is that suppose to hurt? I was very proud of her. Though this morning she woke up in the middle of the night burning up and has been running a fever all day. Poor baby!

On other HC news she is doing well at standing, thought she won't initiate it on her own. She will stand on her own for 30 seconds or so and then either falls on her bum or grabs onto our hands. Soon I will have a walker, but I am thankful to still be in the crawling stage at this point.

She is still a good sleeper at 12-13 hours a night and 2 modest, but decent naps. I am dreding the day that the morning nap goes away, but I think we still have some time before that happens.

She has a couple other new accomplishments. She has learned how to blow kisses which is super sweet. She also consistently uses sign language to tell us she is hungry, which I think is super cool. She continues to be a big waver, and loves to wave at anyone and everyone. But she likes to do it on her own initiative and doesn't seem too pleased when I ask her to wave.

Her little personality is coming out more and more. We have been working in her nursery class at church this month which has been interesting. She tends to be pretty dominate and bossy when around the other babies, so we will see how that pans out. I have seen that in playgroup as well and it kind of drives me nuts. I think when she moves up to the next stage of nursery (walkers) that they will put her in her place and show her that she doesn't run the world.

My fav thing that happened yesterday was that while we were in nursery our buds Bif and Kris and their kids, Alex, Zack and Kate walked by. They stopped and looked in and when Hadleigh saw them she crawled right over to the door to go and see them. It was so sweet, and something I know she would have done with her grandparents or aunts and uncles. But since she doesn't have any here in this city, Bif and Kris are super substitutes.

PARTAY!

Saturday we celebrated Hadleigh Claire's birthday. Hadleigh's grandparents, cousins, and fav Aunt Angie all came down from Tennessee, and then her good buds, Jacob, Brennan and Sadie came over (and brought their parents). And we topped it off with Hadleigh's fav babysitters, Alex, Zack and Kate (who also brought their parents). Hadleigh wore a dress that my grandmother, Gladys Claire gave me, and I wore when I was one year old.

I wasn't exactly sure what to do at a one year old birthday party...since I had never planned one before, but we improvised. Dave made a beautiful butterfly cake, which someone got a picture of and I am sure will send it to me, that Hadleigh loved. She actually wasn't too crazy about the icing, but liked the actually cake.

She was actually so tired that she yawned and rubbed her eyes through the entire party (probably because she refused to take any kind of nap last week). I tried to keep most everyone engaged by quickly opening the presents. She received a lot of nice gifts, several new books, a beautiful new dress, a Nemo towel for swim class and lots of new toys.

Hadleigh with buddies Brennan and Jacob

After presents and cake, Hadleigh got a quick bath and we tossed her into bed before the party was over.

You've Come A Long Way!

Today is my baby's first birthday. I can hardly believe that just one year ago we were living in frozen Germany and wondering if today was the day that Hadleigh Claire would make her entrance to the world.

It all was quite an adventure, and remembering it is fun. On March 4, 2006, the heavens opened up and dropped 18 inches on Baumholder in about 4 hours. On the 6th they were promising another 6 inches, so I knew if HC was coming I had to give everyone plenty of time. Dave came home mid-morning and around lunch time we headed to the hospital. By dinner time, I was still not dialated even though I was having contractions 6 minutes apart. We left the hospital, but were back at 9 that evening. Finally at midnight things were starting to move...1 cm...by 1am I was 2 cm...by 2am I was 3 cm. That was the last I remember...I just remember being shocked that it was time to push at 3.30am. HC arrived at 3.52.

Waiting Some More...

Some of you Intowners might have read the recent Pastor Search Update last week. It is funny, as hard as it is to be without a pastor for going on 18 months, the update gave me great hope that the McNay family is not the only one waiting. The update actually mentioned that now in the last 9 months they have gotten all the way to the end of the process and then had two different candidates drop out. To be so close and then to be pushed back is so difficult. In many ways I felt as though our life right now seems to mirror Intown's search...maybe things will clear up for us when we get a pastor...

We have been waiting and praying for a year now about a job and the next step for our family. It was right after Hadleigh was born last year that we started looking all over the world for a job. We prayed continually and asked for wisdom and discernment. We thought we were going to be moving to MI, and Dave even flew out here while we were still in Germany to meet with the doc. That didn't go well, so since we had no other place to go, we decided the Lord was leading us back to GA. Here we are...5 months later and it seems we don't know much more than when we stepped off the plane Sept 29. There have been jobs and offers and then offers taken away and then refusal of offers. The whole thing is too bizarre to be anything else except the Lord leading, and protecting us.

Even without the permanent job there has been temporary ones. That has been stressful, but the Lord has continued to provide for our family. I actually hate this process. There is probably no one in the world who would like to swap places with us...in the sense that we don't know what we are doing or where we are going. We are waiting.

During this time that I hate, I have to trust and remind myself constantly of what is true. The Lord has graciously provided for us. Dave has a job for tomorrow. We have enough today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. We have a place to live, nice clothes, heat, food on the table, a beautiful baby, each other. There is much to be thankful for even in this crazy waiting game. For me it is a discipline to wait and trust. I hate it, but it is good for my character...and good for my relationship with God.

Yesterday the sermon was awesome for us. My life is so good sometimes that I don't need God. I have the things that I want and need and I can go a day or week without acknowledging him and my need for him. But in the place that the McNay family is currently, we need him desperately. We need to hear His voice and obey. It is just hard to wait to hear His voice.

Water Logged

A couple days ago while Dave was giving Hadleigh a bath he asked me to bring the camera and come into the bathroom. His chief concern was that we didn't have any naked pictures of Hadleigh standing up in the bath. So, I started snapping and this is what we got. She is so hilarious. She just loves bath time, loves the water and LOVES being with Dada. She especially likes it when we dump a cup full of water on her face.