Time marches on

Simple pleasures of the week (in no particular order): a clean house, $20 in gas filling my car to 3/4 of a tank, knowing I am loved and have many to love, health & strength/renewed energy, just to name a few.

God has reminded me through several different avenues to embrace blessings in my life daily. One of those avenues, unfortunately, comes through the death of a colleague at TCS. Her battle with cancer began less than 2 months ago (at least from a diagnosis standpoint) and ended around 12:30a.m. Tuesday morning. She was an absolutely amazing teacher, mother, friend, and above all, follower of God. Her role at Timothy was as our Discovery Center teacher, offering support to struggling students and those with varying difficulties in learning, and the love that she daily poured into her kids, as well as her willingness to constantly be their advocate, was a blessing to witness. I had 2 of her children while a teacher so got to know her as a mom too. She leaves behind 4 incredible kids and a husband, as well as countless extended family and friends, who have been touched by her life lived in faith and will no doubt carry that on. Tomorrow is her funeral as well as a memorial service. It will be a terribly hard thing but I also look forward to the celebration it will be of her life and her arrival to her heavenly home.

To remark on the simple goings-on of our life in the past few weeks seems almost wrong in light of this news, but I was reminded by a wise woman in my life (you know who you are, Robyn Lynn) :-) to embrace these simple blessings, recognizing that we are on borrowed time here anyway, and all that I have for today is God's gift to be enjoyed. With that said, here's what's up. James continues to study for his CFP exam which will take place next week Friday and Saturday, so if and when he pops in to your mind in the next week, please say a prayer for him. He's not feeling too confident at this point, even though I feel very confident that he will do well. He's been studying like crazy and is a very good test-taker, not to mention he's had 10-plus years of experience with a lot of this stuff, so I would say the odds are in his favor. However, that all doesn't diminish the fact that he's feeling pretty nervous about the whole deal.

On Monday baby and I had another check-up at the doc. Everything looks A-OK, and next month I have my ultrasound. I am VERY torn about discovering this baby's gender. With Ben and JJ we found out, but with this baby most likely being our last, I would kind of like the experience of being surprised at the very end. Plus, if I'm being brutally honest, I would REALLY like to add a girl to our mix, and I really think if we find out next month that we'll be having boy #3, I'll be tempted over the last 5 months to kind of wallow in my sadness of not having any girls. If I do have another boy, and I find this out as he's placed in my arms, I don't see there being a problem (ok, maybe a FLEETING moment of sadness). James really would like to find out with this baby, so we're going to have to see if we can meet in the middle somehow. I am feeling great these days. No more nausea, and my energy is pretty much back at its normal level (running after 2 busy boys, notwithstanding).

Below are a few Halloween pics from our Michigan weekend. We had a great time trick or treating with our friends Kristen, Emma, and Kaylie, who were all really good sports about the fact that we could only go out at 4:00, and apparently in michigan this is unheard of. In Illinois kids are barely off the school bus before the fun begins. Poor Kristen got razzed by almost every neighbor. She was great about it. Jeran had a FABULOUS time and has already been asking to go again. How to explain "next year" to a three-and-a-half year old....

After our trick-or-treating excursion, with far more treating than tricks, we stopped by my grandpa and grandma Berghoef's. It was fun to show them off to the boys and allow them some rare time with the great-grandsons.

We ended the evening at my brother and sister-in-law's where we feasted on KFC and watched Jeran go through his loot. A great time had by all!