Random events and photos...

First - pregnancy update :)
We have an appointment on May 10 to have the big ultrasound (YAY! I LOVE seeing the baby!), measure the baby's growth, and find out the gender. Yes, we are finding out. I don't feel strongly one way or the other, but I'm happy to find out. No, I don't think this is a tragic decision that will take away the wonder and mystery of the birth process. I have been shocked by the responses I've had from friends, family, and coworkers, ranging from, and including many responses in between, "of course you'll find out!" to "oh.... you can't wait, huh?" to "WHAT?!?!?! I CAN'T believe you would DO that!" followed by a 10 minute spiel on the tragedy of not having a surprise at birth. Seriously, people, chill out. If you're freaking out about this, how are you going to handle other parenting decisions James and I make? I'm just excited to see the baby again! I think ultrasounds are one of the COOLEST things about pregnancy :)

Yes, we've talked about names. We've talked about names for the past 5 years :) The current plan is to have one or two names picked out and then not actually decide until the baby is born. I know this is sad for those of you who like to monogram everything, but that's the plan. We're avoiding the unnecessary input from everyone else on the baby's name, while at the same time leaving our options open until we actually meet him/her.

So, after the May 10 appointment I'll post the ultrasound photos (now that I think I've figured out how to scan them in so they actually look like something) and a "belly shot" (fully clothed) for your viewing pleasure :)

In other news, I turned 28 yesterday. My Mom was 28 when I was born. I always thought that was late to start having kids and I wanted to be a younger mom than my Mom was. Hmmm. Disclaimer - I never thought my Mom was OLD... certainly not. I just wanted to be youngER. God certainly has a sense of humor :)

Mom and Grace and Poppy all bought me some maternity clothes in March in honor of my birthday, and Mom and Grace both sent me another package this week! You guys take such good care of me! Grace decorated an Old Navy tank top - photo below.



Mom Barnes sent me mugs and dessert plates that match my kitchen! They're so pretty! I've been using them for breakfast every day this week! See photo below :)



More pregnancy news - the last appointment was a little tense because I switched from my OB (who has a 40% C-section rate!) to a group of midwives. These midwives deliver at St.Luke's hospital down town (whose maternity ward is actually owned by Texas Childrens). It's a fantastic set up and I'm really excited! But they're concerned that my blood pressure is too high for this early in pregnancy and that since I'm overweight I may have diabetes. If my BP is too high and I get diabetes they might have to switch me back to an OB :( Well, the conclusion after this appointment is that my BP is normal (we switched to a longer cuff and that seems to have fixed the measurements!) and I don't have sugar problems at this point (they did an early test). However, my stress load is too high so I have to take some time off from school and start prenatal yoga classes. All in all, a conclusion that I can live with!

My friend Kathy, who has delivered twice with the Womens Specialists of Houston, is due two weeks after I am :) So we've started taking prenatal yoga classes together, which is great, and on my days off I sometimes go hang out with her. Last week we made strawberry jam! SOOOOOO delicious! I went and bought buttermilk so I could make buttermilk biscuits to go with it. (yesterday's "birthday biscuits" are pictured on the green plate Mom Barnes gave me in the above picture) YUM!

In other news, my concert was this Thursday - it was great! The kids did a fantastic job! We even called Al (percussion guy - see Katy's blog link on the right) at the end so the kids could all say HI to him.

Today, I'm playing in a wedding of a couple who was divorced and has reconciled and is getting re-married. They are new to our church so I don't know them very well yet, but I hope I get the chance to sit with Gabriela and tell her how encouraging and exciting her re-wedding is for me! God is SO GOOD. BTW, please continue to pray for my parents' marriage.

After the wedding James is taking me to the Symphony to hear Berlioz's Symphanie Fantastique. One of my favorite pieces :) James is so sweet to me to take me to the Symphony for my birthday!













My mini-garden is doing well. We ate broccoli and another tomato last week, and the mint and parsley are exploding! The basil smells WONDERFUL and the tomato plants have flowers all over them. The bell pepper plant has one flower :) I think the orange tree and broccoli pots aren't draining enough so I need to ask James to drill more holes at the bottom.


Praise God for ALL of the blessings he gives us - especially those that surprise us and those of which we are unaware!

Pizza, Balloons, and Rock Band

Occasionally James has a couple of guys from church over to play Rock Band. They order pizza, drink soda, and rock out on fake instruments. I offered to buy him a real guitar but he likes the video game better :-P Anyway, I'm glad to open up our living room to these guys every several weeks because it's always a great time of fellowship and I can't ask for a better group of guys to hang out with my husband!

Anyway, while the boys are re-inventing classics like "Livin' On a Prayer" I escape the testosterone (and decible levels higher than the band room at triple fortissimo) and invite myself over to one of the other wives' houses.

Last night I went over to Bethany's house for some "make your own pizza" and play time with the toddlers. Not only was the pizza fantastic (apparently the secret is 2/3 bread flour, 1/3 whole wheat, and letting it rise over night) and the conversation well worth the mad dash in rush our up from Bellaire, but the kids were SUPER cute. We decorated our own pizzas, had a huge pillow fight, chased each other around the house, and chased balloons as they deflated. I highly suggest the balloon game for anyone with little kids - they got so excited chasing the flying balloons around the living room - an inexpensive and highly entertaining game! It was a fun night all around!








This was the beginning of the game... only 1 balloon. It evolved into 4 balloons going at the same time. Fun times!

Yum!

Tonight's dinner was:
40 Cloves of Garlic and a Chicken
Green Bean Casserole
Roast Broccoli
Tomato/Basil/Mozzarella Salad

Did anybody notice there's no starch? Other than the 3 crackers crumbled on top of the green bean casserole, there's no starch. Seriously? I'm the starch queen and I didn't even plan this! Now... if I can only keep it up...

(actually, we had a piece of bread with dinner... so there was starch :( But it was only to spread the roasted garlic... James loves it!)


First harvest from my garden! Fresh thyme and basil :)






Chicken with 40 cloves... recipe suggested by Kathy Littlefield, found on Food Network online by Alton Brown. I modified it by using boneless, skinless chicken thighs, which worked pretty well but didn't brown in the pan as nicely as they should have (took a lot less time in the oven, though! Only 40 min!). I also only used 20 cloves since it wasn't as much chicken :) and drizzled the olive oil instead of using 1/4 cup like the recipe says. Fresh thyme from my garden, though!






Roast Broccoli from Kim's Concoctions (I just used Parmesan cheese). I've done roast broccoli before and I love it every time... the 10 min at 400 degrees works better than what I've tried before, so that's a happy revelation! and Green Bean Casserole suggested by Laura Corombos. For this recipe I cut everything in 1/3 to only use one can of beans (well, I eyeballed the measurements, actually), and I used whole wheat flour instead of white, a little less butter, rinsed the beans several times, and omitted the salt (I'm trying to lower our sodium intake). I only used 3 unsalted "saltine" crackers for the top with about 1/2 Tbsp butter... It was great! As Laura said, definitely better than the canned soup variety! She put french fried onions on top of hers... which sounds great but I didn't have any tonight. It still turned out fantastic! Can't wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!







Dinner all put together... yum!


This would have been a fantastic dinner if Baby Barnes weren't making me dislike garlic right now... what a surprise after putting that much garlic in with the chicken! I couldn't get enough garlic 2 weeks ago at Amy Weatherly's baby "sprinkling" at the Italian restaurant... what happened?!? Fortunately I LOVED the green beans, broccoli, and salad... I'll definitely be making more of those recipes!

God's plan

Sorry this is so long... I have the day off and woke up really early... so here are my meditations on childbearing and Easter..

I am being reminded lately that God's plan is usually different than what I would have planned, had I been given the authority to plan anything. This is not a bad thing. Usually it points to my own ignorance, sinfulness, or just plain lack of creativity :) Praise God for his plan(s)!

For example - if you had to design a method of procreation, would you have come up with conception/gestation/labor/delivery/recovery? Would you have made a newborn baby so fragile and in complete dependence of his parents while at the same time hearty enough to make it through the birthing process and sturdy enough to survive new parents trying to figure out how to physically care for him? How about a woman's body during this whole process - my Mom keeps reminding me how amazing God's creation of our bodies is in all of the different functions that it does and all of the changes it goes through during pregnancy and birth. Praise God for his creative and amazing creation! I feel like we stand in awe looking at beautiful landscapes, seascapes, and starry skies but I forget to really consider how awe-inspiring the human body is - we worship and serve an awesome God!

But what is even more amazing and what should fill us with more awe and wonder is God's plan of redemption for us. Do any of us fully understand the Trinity? Is that even possible? I can't understand why God would choose to create us in the first place - He, one being in three persons, eternally perfect and lacking nothing/no-one, chose to create. It was good - for a while. And when that creation sinned, He didn't destroy it and start over or just go back to being perfect without creation. Instead he chose to be glorified through creation.

So here we are several thousand years later - still steeped in sin, living in a fallen creation, surrounded by natural disasters, death, sickness (frequently tragic), lawlessness, greed/corruption, etc... the list goes on. Even when the disasters, sickness, and death aren't direct results of someone's individual sin they are symptoms of the fallen creation - without sin none of these would exist! And yet God, who is perfectly holy and just and perfect (and requires perfection) doesn't destroy us. Even the earth we work is fallen. Everything around us cries out for redemption - for something or someone to come and fix it or to at least alleviate the suffering. I can barely watch the news for fear of hearing of the disgusting, abominable things people do to each other.

"BUT GOD... "

I, like our pastor Brad, love that phrase. It's heavenly! It's like dripping soap into a greasy pan - all the grease disperses and after a little scrubbing everything is clean and shiny again. Praise God for his "grease-fighting action" against our sin! But is it the plan I would have come up with? No. Is it better than anything I could possibly have invented? Absolutely. And certainly more effective! But contrary to what I hear on the radio and see on "evangelical TV," God's redemptive plan wasn't easy. It, like my dirty pan, required work - and dirty work - to accomplish. And just like I don't know what exactly is in the soap that cleans my pan or why it works the way it does, I don't know what Christ went through to secure my redemption.

I may not be a murderer or child molester but I absolutely fall short of God's requirement of perfection. He's not like me - I let my students' bad behavior slide, I'm inconsistent, and I don't give appropriate consequences - even on my best days! No, God is consistent. And he is just. The wages of sin - ANY sin - are death. Period. End of story. It's perfection or sin: those are our two choices. And anyone who's spent 5 minutes with anybody else (or just themselves, for that matter), can testify that we all sin. Even just a little bit... but the size doesn't matter because sin is sin and no matter what the sin is, it's defiance of God's standard (putting aside the physical consequences of our sin have a wide range depending on the sin itself - I'm speaking spiritual here). So we're all in the same, sinking, boat. No, scratch that - the boat is sunk and we're dead. Dead in our transgressions. All of us. From Mother Theresa to the Pope to the Uni-bomber, to my friends' sweet children, to me. And you, whoever you are reading this. We're corpses. If we don't acknowledge our sinfulness and the spiritual consequences of that sin then we're no better off than the corpse in the morgue.

"But GOD..."

... spent hundreds of years giving us hints of how he would redeem us, finally culminating in the cross of Christ. Praise the Lord he chose to send the Holy Spirit to inspire men to write these down as scripture. And praise God the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and hearts today to respond! My plan certainly wouldn't have required a blood sacrifice. But then my plan would have compromised God's justice. Since sin requires death, somebody has to die for my sin. So Jesus was born, and lived, fulfilling EVERY prophesy given about him in the Law and the Prophets (Old Testament). And then he was betrayed, beaten, was the "suffering servant" that Isaiah spoke about, and ultimately murdered, hanging cursed on a tree, then buried. The only perfect person who ever lived, never sinning, completely fulfilling God's requirement of perfection, is our spotless lamb - sacrificed to fulfill the lawful and perfect requirement of death for sin. And amazingly enough, Jesus went willingly, completely obedient to the Father's will (with which he was perfectly aligned), fully knowing what would happen to him.

"But GOD..."

... didn't stay dead. No, after Jesus died for my (and your) sins, he conquered and overcame death by rising - alive again! And alive still! Further fulfilling scriptural promises of his bodily resurrection (and ensuring ours), and ascension into Heaven. Which we know is a real place because he, in his physically resurrected body, sits there NOW. The dirty work is finished. He is triumphant, glorified, and exalted. PRAISE GOD!

Praise God for HIS plan. For ALL of his plans. Praise God that in the last days he will redeem all of creation and everything will be made new. Praise God that there will be no more suffering, pain, or death. Sin will be NO MORE and all of the earthly consequences of sin will be wiped away and creation will again be GOOD.

Praise GOD for his mercy and loving-kindness and for his timing. His mercies are new every morning. Great is YOUR faithfulness, oh God our father!

Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow! Praise him, all creatures here below, praise him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. AMEN!

You Might Be Pregnant If... #2

My list continues, back by popular demand :)

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES! I love you so much!

Ok... now for the pregnancy humor...

You might be pregnant if:


*You start identifying with "Sam" (from Lord of the Rings) with wanting six full meals instead of just three. Currently I can't remember his clever names for them... second breakfast, etc...

*Instead of avoiding maternity sections in clothing stores for fear of someone asking when you're due, you go straight there and wait for somebody to recognize you.

*Clothing that shows off how big your tummy is becomes pretty appealing.

*For the past three months you've had constant nausea. Then in the space of 36 hours it's completely gone but replaced with random bouts of heartburn and indigestion.

*There seem to be a lot more commercials about stretch mark creams... and you pay close attention to the differences among all the products.

*Speaking of stretch marks... yesterday you didn't have any and today you wake up and find twelve.

*Inappropriate topics of conversation become commonplace, even with complete strangers ("how much weight have you gained?" "wow, what bra size is that?" "wait, HOW old are you?")

*Everybody and their mother has an opinion about what/how you should be eating/wearing/carrying/exercising/etc. Note, this is helpful information when it asked of a trusted friend or family member, but the voluntary suggestions and the chiding is getting old already! And I've heard it only gets worse when the baby gets here...

*You seem to be in training for the loss of your personal space (preparation for the human-jungle-gym function of motherhood, I believe) while adults routinely walk um and touch your stomach and check out your chest. (I don't think I'll mind this when we can feel the baby moving, but right now you're just massaging my flab, people)

*You have to pee as frequently as a toddler who's potty training.

*Your students start each class by asking "how's the baby?" and "are you going to name him/her after ME?!?"



And for those of you who are into food cravings... I don't currently "crave" anything, but any and all carbs sound great! Particularly potatoes and corn. And I love drinking milk. Salads taste great when I eat them but I have an unusually short attention span for chopping everything up (bought a bagged salad to try to help that...)

And now I'm off to my day of errands and appointments... looking forward to Texas Caviar with James tonight but a little unsure of how that's going to work with my confused little digestive system!

This is the day that the LORD has made, let us rejoice and BE GLAD in it!

Sarah

Texas Caviar

James' birthday is this Tuesday, March 23rd (so is my sister, Grace's, and my dad's is the 24th... March is a busy month :). So like any good wife would do, I asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner/cake/etc.

While I was in Chicago, our friend Kathy gave him half of a huge cake she made. He called me in Chicago specifically to tell me how awesome it was (ps - Kathy told me it's the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa powder box, topped with whipped cream and chocolate ganache.) So since Kathy's cake was so amazing, he told me not to make him a birthday cake.

No cake. Got it. What do you want for dinner?

Um.... Texas Caviar.

Sure! What do you want to go with it? I can do tacos or burritos or enchiladas or we can grill something...

Nope, just Texas Caviar. With Lime Tostitos.

Really?

Yep.

Do you want cinnamon buns for breakfast, or I could bake something and you could take it to school with you...

Nope. Just Texas Caviar with Lime Tostitos.

Um, ok... whatever you want!



So, for those of you who have not tried the Texas Caviar that James is so ardently in love with, the recipe follows here. Please note, that the original recipe is from our friends Robin and Aaron (and Evan and Baby #2) in Austin, but I've added more corn and fresh celery at the end (which makes it a little sweeter and adds crunchy texture). I've seen other variants with red onion and cilantro but haven't tried those yet.

1 can black eyed peas
1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can Mexicorn
1 small jar pimentos, chopped
1 1/2 cup celery, chopped, divided
1/2 cup frozen sweet corn

Marinade:
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp water
1 cup sugar

Rinse and drain beans. Dump beans, Mexicorn, pimentos, and 1 cup celery into a large Tupperware-type bowl. Boil all marinade ingredients until sugar has been dissolved and you can smell the vinegar start to boil off. Pour over bean mixture. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight (or for a day and a half to two days, depending on when you have time to make it :). Drain marinade off and add remaining 1/2 cup celery and frozen corn before serving. Serve cold (frozen corn is especially great for keeping it chilled if you're serving at an outside picnic) with tortilla chips (James' favorite is Lime Tostitos but I prefer Fritos). It also works really well as a side salad and fits in the gluten-free and all-raw diets that some friends have.

Enjoy! And happy birthday, James!

What's with this weather?

Most of you already know that I picked the "coldest" winter/spring in Houston (in my short experience here) to purchase a tropical fruit tree. The winning foliage is a Mars Naval Orange tree - known for sweet, juicy fruit with low acidity. I had specific instructions to keep it inside when there is a threat of freezing temperatures (which is funny since I bought it at 11am on the coldest Saturday all year - it was only 40 degrees in the sun that day!) but by early March it should be warm enough to plant in my yard. So for two months it's been doing a do-see-do from the front yard to the garage to our living room.

I returned from Chicago on Tuesday to find low 70's, sun, and a very pleasant breeze in Humble, TX... perfect weather for planting a tropical tree :) Thanks to our friends Kevin and Kirk and my sweet husband, I went to Lowes and bought pots, dirt (who pays for dirt?!?), vegetable plants, and "moisture control beads" (for when it's super hot in July/August and ground moisture evaporates before your very eyes). A few hours outside in the beautiful weather resulted in my first garden - Roma, Beefsteak, and Grape tomatoes, red bell pepper, broccoli, thyme, mint, rosemary, and sweet basil (and the orange tree) - complete with birds chirping and sunlight filtering through the pine trees making a quaint speckled pattern on my grass. Oh the joys of spring!

Last night it got down to 36 degrees.

Right now it's raining and tonight it's supposed to be 35 degrees.

SO..... out come the beach towels and light blankets to wrap up the plants. Grace woke up to an inch of snow on the ground... apparently this weather pattern goes all the way from the Gulf up to the Great Lakes. (does anyone else feel the need to hear Al Gore's voice talking about global warming at this point?)