Our church’s Moms’ Group as a quarterly junk swap where we can offload our unwanted stuff to other moms or send it on to the goodwill bins. The “junk” ranges from kids clothing of all sizes, books, toys, and appliances.

This past Wednesday was the latest junk swap. I don’t usually go to the piles with a specific item of need in mind, I just glance over the stuff wondering if I can fit anything else into my house. When I was sitting on the floor wondering, I had an brainstorm that yes, there was something I needed and it might be in the piles. So I just said, “Anyone have any boy’s pants size 5T, XS, or Small?” And low and behold the mom of six boys had just the thing.

Last week, when the weather was being consistently chilly, we dug out Fuller’s pants and he had two pairs that still fit. One pair was a bit on the short side. And then on Tuesday the knee actually came through another pair. I hadn’t had a chance to get to the thrift store, but knew shorts season was coming to an end.

Adding three pairs of pants that fit Fuller (for free) was golden to me. The mom even said she had more at home and gave me orders to not buy any. Thank goodness for junk!

Technorati Tags: junk swap, kid’s clothes, pants

I want to thank Damon for putting into words just how special this pregnancy is to us. When he stood up in church to make our announcement he said something along the lines of how the blessings of Jesus are more important than football. I’m paraphrasing, and maybe I’m just writing what I wanted to hear, but really I am feeling so blessed by Jesus in this pregnancy. (And I say that while pushing down my heightened anxiety, a pregnancy symptom harder for me to ignore than morning sickness.)

Last week, during one of Fuller’s quiet times, I was resting on the couch watching Scrubs. It was an episode I had seen several times, but still special because it was the episode where Turk and Carla finally get pregnant. There are hi jinks involved in Carla finding out, but in the end there is a big scene where all their friends are gathered to hear the announcement and congratulate them.

And in the many, many times I have seen this episode, I never really paid attention to the song playing during the scene. It heard the words “I lift up my hands and I worship” and my ears perked up. Then the lyrics I heard were “It’s not that I’m worthy I thank you Jesus” and I guess my eyes got big because my favorite TV show was using a Christian rock band to support this wonderful scene celebrating new life.

We aren’t worthy for anything God gives us in our lives. It is just the reality of sin. But by the grace of God, here we are blessed with ten weeks of pregnancy and looking forward to a lifetime of love and care for a new little one. I thank you Jesus.

How do I speak of the indescribable to You
I will try to explain these feelings that are true
So looking to the sky I will sing and from my heart to You I bring

All of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship
I worship You

In your presence I forever choose to live
I will praise You for it’s all I have to give
So looking to the sky I will sing and from my heart to You I bring

All of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship

By Your grace You let me come talk to You
It’s not that I’m worthy I thank you Jesus
For the love that You have shown

All of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship

With all of the words in all of my life that could never explain and never describe
All of my love, which is nothing to hide so I lift up my hands and I worship
I worship You

Technorati Tags: Scrubs, Kutless, pregnancy, grace

Secrets aren’t hard for me to keep. Unless it is something about me, myself, and I. I want to tell everyone every little detail. Maybe that is why blogging is such fun for me, because I just want to spill it all.

And then again, when I look over the archives of my blogs I see big spaces where details of our lives haven’t been splashed over the internet. Believe it or not, our family blog isn’t a true tell all because we simply don’t tell all.

Then when something happens we want to blog about but have to wait.. well, it makes it harder to write about because it seems like it happened so long ago. In fact we are six weeks passed when we found out and yet I have no real way of poetically announcing I am nine weeks pregnant.

Oh wait. I think I just did it.

It has been difficult to keep the secret, especially since we were surrounded by so much family on our vacation. But we prefer not to raise too many hopes and wait until we hear the heartbeat. And Tuesday morning we went to the doctor to check out the little one I carry.

It turned into a scary ultrasound because the doctor could not find the baby. He finally found it to the side and we all started thinking it was ectopic. We went to a hi-res ultrasound (thank you modern medicine) and learned I have tilting uterus and the baby (with very strong heartbeat) was in utero. Exactly where he/she should be!

I had to wait share the news here because really we prefer friends and family find out from us and not the blog. And today Damon shared the news with our church family (complete with football analogy and loud “Yahoo!”), so really how could I not blog about it now?

I have the journal entries from when I was pregnant with Fuller and I have been looking over them to remind myself of what I was thinking then…

We got our first glimpse of you on Monday afternoon and as your Daddy said, “It was historic.”

You are so cute with your little round shape that resembles the blob of Jello that fell on the counter top this morning. And your heartbeat was very… loud, I guess. It was 128 beats per minute. It has to get up to about 140, so start doing jumping jacks or something. That will get your heart rate up in no time.

Since we had a hi-res ultrasound, Baby Two looks more like a baby than a blob of jello. And it was nice to hear his/her heartbeat was perfect instead of making us jumpy like Fuller did. However, taking up shop on the side of my uterus and hiding wasn’t a great way to start the parent-child relationship, so I guess we have room to improve.

The countdown is on… February isn’t that far away.

My alarm clock this morning was the phone ringing at 7 am. It was my mom letting me know my new niece, Genevieve Elizabeth arrived at 4:40 this morning. She was 7 pounds, 5 ounces, 19 inches long.

Sarah-Ginny was induced yesterday morning but Genevieve arrived via c-section due to some difficult positioning.

We fly to Florida on the 14th to meet her. When my mom called, Little Evie was howling in the background. Maybe she will be more content with her lot in life when we get there.

(Update: got the picture above on my phone. Someone, maybe Nat, took it with my mom’s phone. She looks quiet here! Then I was successfully able to email it to myself AND flickr, so I am feeling quite technologically awesome now.)

My sister beat me to it, but today is a day to send congratulations on to my dad. His promotion ceremony is today.

It really is the work of God that Daddy pins on Lt. Colonel today. I know that my dad loves his job and getting to continue on is a wonderful thing. I really wish I could be there today…

Spending my teen years as a military brat were very interesting and in retrospect, educational. I am happy for all the good memories I have of travel and meeting so many other people. I only hope that I get to show my children the world in a similar manner.

Anyway. Congratulations to my daddy, Lt. Colonel Fred McFarland. I’m really proud of you.

Here is an interesting article about some of the work Daddy did in Afghanistan. Daddy’s picture is at the bottom of the article.

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Originally uploaded by osbo1954.

Well, there she is… little Marin Rose Lancaster. I mentioned praying for her family earlier this week, when they were still waiting for something to happen. Bo wrote something up to announce her arrival. She is just so cute!

And for my second request, well… just check out this video Jeanette did of Ellis’ cochlear implant activation. It made me a bit weepy. Fuller enjoyed watching it too.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

This post sponsored by Seattle Luxe, where they sell mail boxes. You could mail Marin a card!