It's A Boy!!!

Steven James Carr, Jr. was born March 24th, at 3:35 in the morning. He weighs 7lbs 5 oz and is 20" long. He was born in our home. Crystal and the baby are both doing very well. We praise God for His lovingkindness and for giving us this arrow for our quiver.

Update

Our midwife again voiced her opinion last Monday that we should expect to deliver one week late. I finally decided to believe her :) And so, we've enjoyed Steve's spring break - the weather's been beautiful! We've taken some walks outside, visited friends, read, relaxed.

My mom is planning to arrive late on Monday and stay with us for about a month. Steve's parents are heading out the following week (3/23) and staying for that week with Reverend Lanning and his wife. I can hardly wait for them all to arrive!

It's been wonderful to be able to walk more outside, instead of always inside on the treadmill (although I'm very grateful to have that option!). The fresh air is great! I hope I can keep walking outside up until the baby's born.

Steve's back to school on Monday. He's put out some applications for work this week and will follow-up with them on Monday, as well. We're so grateful to the Lord for supplying our every need.

Getting Closer...

We're getting closer to the arrival of our new little bundle of joy! Steve's spring break is next week, so we hope to deliver sometime before he starts classes again. Of course, God's timing is perfect and we will be thankful and rejoice whenever our baby is born! (It's not wrong to hope, though, and I'm hoping for his Saturday.)

Steve's been working hard this week with tests, papers and schoolwork. One more day and he'll get his earned break!

General Updates

Thankfully our cold/flu episodes are over! That deep cough was tough, being pregnant and all.

Steve's working hard at school, with papers and tests and all. He's doing great!! He's started a men's group on Thursday mornings and has enjoyed the fellowship from that.

I've been keeping busy with making bread and baking some other goodies (and trying not to eat them!). I've been doing A LOT of reading and loving it! (Mostly about baby stuff for now.) I've enjoyed crocheting with other gals here and hope to learn how to make quilts after the baby's born.

We've both been seeing a husband/wife chiropractic team that our previous chiropractor and good friend Dr. Lezlie was able to refer us to. We're so very much appreciating them, their service and sharing of knowledge with us!

We've both been blessed and enriched by our church family, worshipping with them Sunday mornings and evenings, enjoying bible study and prayer meetings on Wednesday evenings and fellowshipping with various friends throughout the week.

8 Months!

I'm now 8 months along (36 weeks). Looking forward to the end of it, although it's still highly enjoyable, knowing there's a little one inside. We're getting pretty excited for our new arrival. I've been feeling Braxton Hicks contractions quite frequently, some are stronger than others - all a part of the body getting ready! If our baby is early (like we hope), then it could be here in 2 short weeks!! If it comes on our due date, then 4 short weeks, and if it comes when our midwife says it most likely will - 5 short weeks. Whatever time it arrives, we'll be glad - and it'll be here soon - time is already going by so very quickly!

Work

The bookkeeping work that I had lined up fell through. It turns out that the man I was working for wasn't upfront and had a difficult time communicating properly. He had unreasonable expectations and was high-strung. Unfortunately this made for a difficult and stressful situation, of which I determined, with Steve's full support, to walk away from. I am not even sure if I will receive payment for the work I have done, but we are leaving that in the Lord's hands. Also, the man is not a believer, and so we are praying for his salvation and the Lord's will be done as to why our paths even crossed.

Steve is still searching for work.

We have been unsuccessful thus far in our efforts to place our candy machines.

Steve and I have both come down with some type of cold/flu-bug, which has slowed us down. Thankfully, Steve normally recovers from these things much quicker than I and is feeling better after a day of not. I, on the other hand, have been fighting a cough for about a week and then it turned into this nasty thing that it is (that's when Steve joined me in the suffering). I am still feeling under the weather, but Lord willing will mend quickly. And so, I'm taking things easy and trying to rest.

Bookkeeping Work

I started doing some bookkeeping work for a construction company last week. I'm thankful for the job opportunity - I highly enjoy sorting out accounting messes! The schedule is flexible, for which I'm equally grateful for. I'm working Mon-Thurs from 11-5pm to coordinate with Steve's class schedule.

Juggling our schedules with one vehicle hasn't been too much of a challenge, although our little Ford Focus gives us enough challenges with all the snow. I think this vehicle was made for summer. Steve sure handles the driving in this crazy snowy weather very nicely. I'm enjoying letting him drive often!

I'm officially 7 months (32 weeks) pregnant as of Sunday, January 27th. The little one has moved and so has it's movements - it's kicking more of my organs lately, it seems. That's alright, it's still enjoyable being pregnant, although I'm getting anxious to meet this little one. We're hoping to have the baby 2 weeks early so we have Steve's spring break to enjoy all the new changes together. Of course we realize we have no control over when baby will come, and so we trust the good Lord that when baby is "done cooking", it'll come - God's timing is always so perfect.

I'm enjoying keeping up on exercising. I praise the Lord often for our treadmill. I walk 15 minutes/day on it. It feels great. I'm trying to eat healthy and doing fairly well, although having bags of candy lying around (no longer useable for our candy business) isn't always conducive to healthy eating :).

Lately we've been doing some re-thinking in regards to diapers. I really wanted to give cloth diapers a try (reason: to save money), but I'm losing some resolve. We live in an apartment where we have to pay for laundering facilities, so that's a major drawback. We also have free garbage disposal, so that's no additional cost for using disposables. But alas, we will see. I've been blessed with some gifts of cloth diapers from friends and so we have enough to give it a try. Who knows, maybe I'll really enjoy it, and perhaps the laundering cost won't be too much comparatively speaking. We are, however, planning on taking my cousin's advice - to use disposable diapers during the first month or so.

My mom's planning on coming out to visit us from March 15th through April 15th to help with all the baby stuff. Thanks mom! I'm looking forward to her visit.

Steve's parents are coming for a visit during the week of March 23rd (my due date). Hopefully we'll have a baby for them to hold before they have to head home, but again, the baby will come when good and ready. We're looking forward to seeing Dad & Mom Carr. Hopefully the weather cooperates for our parents' travels.

Unpacked!

Here's some pictures of our apartment, all unpacked and cozy:

Our livingroom, to the right after you enter.









Steve's corner.












Steve's desk, back to back with my desk, with the dining area in the back.








My desk.












Dining area.









Our kitchen - left side.












Our kitchen - right side.











Our little pantry shelf.












Antlers.

Some Moving Pictures

Here's some pictures of our Grand Rapids apartment, before we unpacked:

This is our dining area, before we unpacked. It looked almost impossible to fit everything in our little home!

To the left of the dining area is our kitchen. There was just a narrow walkway to the kitchen through all the towering boxes.

Here's Steve taking a little break in our livingroom, crowded with boxes and furniture.

Here's a glimce into the baby's room.

6 Months

I'm 29 weeks along now. It's still fun being pregnant, although I do look forward to no longer having this large tummy on me! And we're getting excited to meet this little one. There's much to do yet before they arrive, though, so it's good we have a few more months yet.

Getting Settled

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with our families. Wednesday, December 26th, we were blessed with helpful hands loading the moving truck and our car, as well as helping pack the remaining items (which were not a few). Also, we were blessed with a delicious lunch provided by our friend Michelle from upstairs. Thank you to all! What a blessing!

The guys had the "fun" challenge of trying to strategically fit everything into our moving truck. When all was said and done basically everything fit (my mom will have to bring one of our laundry baskets and a baby bouncy seat with her when she visits in the spring).

Steve drove the moving truck while I napped a good portion of the time on Thursday, December 27th. My parents followed behind in their car (we towed our car behind the moving truck). We made pretty good time, inspite of driving slower with the truck. We reached GR a little after 9pm. A group of friends were there, ready to unload us. We weren't planning on unloading until the next day, but what a blessing to get it out of the way! We were all unloaded within 3 hours. Thank you!!

Our apartment is all-around smaller than our home in MN was. (Except we have another bedroom here). After unloading, we had a narrow walkway amidst towering stacks of boxes through the livingroom and kitchen (the bedrooms were pretty clear, as well as the bathroom - so that we could unpack into them.) Yesterday, Steve and I spent our time unpacking and made quite a dent. It's been enjoyable so far and we look forward to continuing settling in.

Moving - 4 Weeks and Counting...

For anyone who's available and would like to help us with our move:

Wednesday, December 26th we plan on loading the vehicles
Thursday, December 27th we leave for GR, Michigan
Friday, December 28th we plan on unloading at our apartment in GR

If you're available to help us pack here in MN, please let me know and we can arrange a time.
If you'd like to help us load on the 26th, please let me know and show up at our place.
If you'd like to help us unload on the 28th, please show up at our new place anytime, we'll be there all day.

Email or call me for details of how to get to our place(s). Thank you!

Trip to Grand Rapids, MI

Steve and I are very grateful to the Lord's goodness and faithfulness during our trip to Grand Rapids, MI. We headed out a couple days after Thanksgiving on Saturday, November 24th and came back home on Friday, November 30th.

Steve took this picture just after we passed Mackinaw Bridge. It was a bit windy. We hit some weather on the way to GR, so it took a little longer to get there than anticipated. (Our little Focus just isn't that same as Steve's Jimmy was!) But we made it!



We found and secured a place to live! We were able to get a deal on the apartment because the seminary where Steve will be attending has an agreement with the apartments. We're very grateful!




We visited the college that Steve has about 1 year left at (after that he'll attend seminary). We also visited the Seminary, attended worship and checked out the bookstore.




We had a nice time visiting with some friends, connecting with our church family and getting to know the area a little bit more. We applied for work, opened a bank account, saw our midwife, etc., etc. It was a very encouraging time for both Steve and I, as the "puzzle pieces" came together quite nicely. We're so grateful to the Lord.

And now... we've a busy 4 weeks ahead of us, filled with packing, work, Christmas parties, baby showers, etc., etc. But all is well and we look forward to it!

5 Months Along

I'm five months along now. Things have flipped. Up until about a month ago, Steve was more sick than I this pregnancy. But, this past month has been the most trying for me as far as health is concerned (overlooking the weekend of the incarcerated uterus). I've been fighting some type of cold or virus for pretty much the whole time. Yesterday I couldn't keep food down. Looking forward to feeling well again! :) I'm thankful that Steve is doing well, though!