20 Weeks & Counting....

Tom with the pack and Titus back at the car after the hike.

Titus sleeping on trail on the way back down.

Our little guy is now almost 5 months old! That is crazy. I have found him 3 times now awake in his crib on his belly this last week! One of those times just being this morning. He isn't too happy about it yet but for some reason he does it.

This last weekend the students were off of school Thursday and Friday and what our youth group does every year with that 4 day weekend is plan a 3 day/2 night "Missoula missions trip." Giving 32 of our high school students the opportunity to experience missions right here in their home town by staying at the church and serving our community in different ways for the past 9 years! They usually always get to go to the Poverello Center, a local homeless shelter, where they organize their clothes closet for the homeless people, many times wipe down the mattresses that the homeless people sleep on and serve the homeless lunch and usually get to eat lunch and visit with the homeless people themselves. They also usually go to Missoula 3:16 Rescue Mission, a local Rescue Mission that also serves the homeless by providing lunch for them and opportunities for them to overcome addictions that many of them face and they provide a place for them to study the Bible. The students normally get to organize their food pantry, rake leaves and serve lunch and get to eat lunch with the homeless there also. The students always get to go to Burlington Square Apartments too, an apartment place for the elderly in our community. Here they get to clean apartments for those who have said yes to the opportunity for the students to help them in that way. They also were able to play Wii bowling with these elderly residents who beat the students badly I might add and have dinner with them and visit. The last day of the missions trip the students load up and go to each one of the high schools that is represented in our youth group, Missoula has about 3 public High Schools and 2 private High Schools, and they split up into groups and prayer walk around the schools. Those 4 events are usually things they do every year, there are other things throughout the weekend that they do that may change every year like Random Acts of Kindness or they did spend an afternoon this year helping with the City Parks and Recs Department, working on a local park in town. So many of the students are blessed by helping their community and realizing that there are people right here that they can help and I think it hugely helps them realize how blessed they are.

Well Tom and I usually have always helped as volunteer staff, Tom has all 9 years and this year I really felt like I couldn't with Titus. So Tom helped as much as he could and he was planning to help all 3 days but I was having a difficult time with Titus on Friday, he would not nap all afternoon and was very crabby and it was making me really crabby to say the least. Tom had helped all day on Thursday and came home for a couple hours in the evening and then went back and stayed at the church and helped all day Friday and didn't get home until 11 pm and then he stayed home with us and never went back on Saturday morning as he had planned. I felt very selfish when he came home and said he was done and wasn't going back on Saturday but it was good I think. Brian, the youth pastor, did have someone there to help on Saturday, but Tom has always helped all 3 days, he takes off work every year to do this and here I was not able to handle our 4 month old by myself for 3 days! Anyway, it was ok, Tom had said the Lord had showed him that He didn't need him for that last day and he was ok with that, so I needed to be ok with that.

Saturday we decided to go for a hike with Titus and we went down the Bitterroot and went hiking almost all the way to Bear Creek Overlook but Titus was just not going to make it that long. It was about 2 1/2 to 3 miles each way and we made it almost to the top but he was crying about half of the way up and it got a little late and we didn't want to be hiking back down in the dark so we ate our little lunch and turned around. A friend of Tom's at work has given us a Kelty K.I.D.S. pack for Titus. Something for us to use while we attempt hiking with him. I think what we found is he is still a little small to enjoy it, he lasted a little while on our way up and then we needed to take him out and carry him the rest of the way.

Sunday after church we decided to take some pictures of Titus in our church's Pumpkin Patch. This is the 4th year our church has sold pumpkins in our Great Pumpkin Patch they set up on the hill just below the church. All the money goes to missions each year and this year it is going towards the Great Commission Fund of the Alliance Missionaries. Members of the church have grown and harvested pumpkins this year for the patch and your family can go pick out pumpkins to purchase and they also sell many donated baked goods too. We happen to get a delicious pumpkin pie there yesterday. This year we had a "pumpkin slasher" come through the patch one late night and the story was in the newspaper and a gentleman, who doesn't even go to our church, decided to come get all the damaged pumpkins and make pies with all of them which was about 20 hrs. worth of work and he brought the pies back to the patch for them to be sold! God is amazing! They started selling pumpkins on the 10th and will sell thru the 31st and already the report on the 17th was that they had sold $8,000! So anyway we wanted some cute pics of our punkin with the pumpkins.

Last week at BSF I helped in the children's program and I loved it. What a blessing, they have a little story time and the babies and those under 2 learned that 'God always keeps His promises' based on the prophecy in Isaiah "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel" Isaiah 7:14. They sang a little song and had a snack and then those ladies just stay busy keeping those little ones happy. But I think I will wait to put Titus in there until he can crawl, there was this little boy in there who I think might be 1 but is just starting to walk and he can be rough on the little ones around him if you are not watching him every second. I want Titus to be able to flee if Mason comes after him. Ha!

An Ounce of Heart Knowledge ... Zondervan

An Ounce of Heart Knowledge ... Zondervan

Another Day!

I love that my child is already practicing modesty here! That's my boy! Ha! Titus had his well check this last Friday and he just keeps growing! He was 15 lbs. 4 1/2 oz., in the 60% and 26 1/2 in. long, in the 90%! He is doing well in his development, I noticed when I filled out his development questionnaire they didn't ask if he is rolling over yet?! He is now rolling both ways, front to back and back to front! He is our big boy! He continues to love his baths but right now he does not care much for his stroller. The last few times mommy has tried to take him for a stroll he just scream cries and I can't handle that too long so we turn around and go back home :( The people in the apartment complex probably think I am pinching my child! Ha! 

Mommy just finished as of today getting all of her fillings filled! Yeah, what a relief. I had to go in four times, I had so many for so long and never had any insurance until Tom and I married so I got them all fixed. Thanks to some sweet graduate girls from youth group that would come sit with Titus in the waiting room, I was able to get them done. Thanks Steph and Janna! And now I can just keep up with my routine cleanings. He did pretty well except the last two times here, he was crying about the last 10 minutes I was in the chair :( I felt bad for Janna.

Titus doesn't have any teeth yet but he loves to gnaw on his fingers! He is drooling and gnawing a lot these days and mommy keeps checking for teeth buds but I can't feel any.

I just noticed recently for myself that I am in this awkward stage in my church and I have to admit that it is kind of lonely for me even though our church is huge. Usually when we are at church is during a nap time for Titus and so for the Sunday School hour I don't want to go to the youth room because it is pretty crazy in there and that was where I was connected before. And I don't want to put Titus in the nursery that is available just because I don't feel right about it and there is a better chance of him catching something in there and then we would have to deal with that. They have these connection groups for people where you read a book and discuss it with other people reading the book but I would want to do it with Tom and I am not sure you can take your baby with you. Tom is involved in the high school sunday school helping. So I have isolated myself and I think I can just work on my BSF homework but Titus usually isn't napping because he doesn't nap that long away from home. So anyway if you think of it you can pray for me, I was pretty upset and emotional about this last Sunday night to Tom because it hit me that I am just in this new stage of life and I have yet to adjust to it and feel like I really have some good friends that are also moms besides a couple that I have always been close to. I also feel like I have been in youth ministry so long that it is hard for me to connect to other adults whom I don't already know.

Anyway I should go, my child is growing impatient with me.

Redhead Genetics

So my sweet little man, Titus, has red hair and I have found that he is not only a magnet for attention due to this blessing of color but everyone always asks, "Where does it come from?" My hair is what I would call a strawberry blonde and Tom has a small reddish tint to his beard. But other than that Tom's brother is a redhead and Titus does have a cousin, Gracie, that is a redhead! So I went searching today and wanted to find for myself some understanding and this is what I found from the website listed below the article.
It's All in the GenesThe answers came to scientists in the late 1990's. The focus of their studies was chromosome 16 and in particular one of its genes, MC1R. Now the job of MC1R is to make a protein called MC1R receptor (melanocortin 1). This protein plays a key role in the conversion of phaeomelanin to eumelanin. When there are two mutated versions of the MC1R gene, the conversions are not as frequent and so there is a build up of phaeomelanin in the pigment cells. Consequently a person will have red hair and fair skin, they are also prone to freckles.
To understand why this happens we need to cover some basic genetics. You inherit two copies of every gene from your parents, one from your mother and one from your father. So you have two copies of the MC1R gene. If both are mutated in the same way, the respective individual is likely to have red hair.
Inheriting Traits
Of course many people wonder how a child with red hair can be born to parents who are brunette or blonde. That too can be explained by simple genetics, and a pattern of inheritance known as autosomal recessive.
The parents will both have a functioning and a mutant version of the MC1R gene. They are said to be carriers and there is a 1 in 4 chance of them having a child who is a redhead. That's the probability that the mutant versions from both parents will come together in the next generation. It doesn't of course mean that if a couple have four kids, one of them will have a child with ginger hair. Odds and probabilities do not work like that. They are not reliant on what went before. It means that each child has a 25% chance of having red hair.
Medical Implications
There is much more to this subject than its curiosity factor. There appear to be medical implications for people with red hair. Although here, like many areas of science, the research is contradictory. In 2002 researchers from Louisville University showed that redheads are more sensitive to pain, and need more anaesthetic during surgery than people with blonde or dark hair. However, in 2005 scientists from the University of Edinburgh found that a MC1R mutation gives redheads a higher tolerance for pain. Research into these aspects of red hair genetics continues.
Redheads should though be more careful about their exposure to sunlight as they are at an increased risk of contracting skin cancer. One theory suggests that melanin, the pigment responsible for tanning (it darkens as a protective mechanism) may be chemically different from the melanin of people with dark hair. Researchers have found that UV rays interact with phaeomelanin, creating molecules that cause damage to DNA, which can lead to cancer.
If you are a redhead, the advice is not to stay out of the sun, but to be careful about how much exposure you get, and to cover yourself with a high factor sunscreen.Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/science/genetics/articles/4704.aspx#ixzz11mvhK9HH

The Essence of Worldliness

My devotional this morning was very straight forward and I just wanted to share part of it with you, my prayer is that I myself can act upon the wisdom given here.
"Those present-day teachers who place the Sermon on the Mount in some other dispensation than this and so release the Church from its teachings little realize the evil they do. For the Sermon on the Mount gives in brief the characteristics of the kingdom of renewed men. The blessed poor who mourn for their sins and thirst after righteousness are true sons of the kingdom. In meekness they show mercy to their enemies; with guileless candor they gaze upon God; surrounded by persecutors they bless and curse not. In modesty they hide their good deeds. They go out of their way to agree with their adversaries and forgive those who sin against them. They serve God in secret in the depth of their hearts and wait with patience for His open reward. They freely surrender their earthly goods rather than use violence to protect them. They lay up treasures in heaven. They avoid praise and wait for the day of final reckoning to learn who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."- A.W. Tozer The Pursuit of Man

The God Who Cried and Roared ... Zondervan

The God Who Cried and Roared ... Zondervan

A Personal Question: Where Is God? ... Zondervan

A Personal Question: Where Is God? ... Zondervan

Another Beautiful Weekend

We had a good weekend, we started by hiking the "L" on Friday night right after Tom got off work. I was excited to go until I got there and the beginning part is a little steep, then I wanted to whine about it. But we did it and Titus loved it. Then on Saturday we went to the market and got some fresh veggies and fruit and hung out with Daisy and the kids there. Then Daddy wanted to get mommy a bike so we stopped at the Bicycle store on the way home. We want to go for rides next summer with Titus after we get a bicycle trailer for him and we got my bike 30% off because it is this last years model! And Sunday we enjoyed church and then we went to lunch with some friends of ours, the Tuinstra's, at IHOP, thanks to my aunt Mary for the gift card for my birthday back in June.
Titus is starting to figure out how to roll from his back to his tummy these days, he just can't figure out how to get that arm out of the way so he gets all the way over. He is also starting to enjoy his Exer Saucer that his friend Mr. Drake gave him. Thankfully it is a farm themed one cuz that is part of his heritage, he just doesn't know it yet. He hasn't quit figured out how to spin his seat in different directions to look/play with other things, mommy and daddy have to help him with that. He has his four month check up this Friday and I am so excited to see how much he has grown.

Mommies new bike, a Globe Carmel 5 made by Specialized. The color is called a bourgogne red and I have a little dinger bell too, reminds me of an ice cream truck coming through the neighborhood when I ding it! And it also has a suspension system which is cool, I can stand on my bike and bounce up and down with my suspension! And it has a nice Comfort Plus seat and the frame is Aluminum so it is a lot lighter than your typical bike you would find at Walmart!

" The Prepared Daddy," ready for any spit up, has a water bottle in one pocket of his shorts and a blanket in the other in case it gets cooler on our bike/walk. Titus does have a onesie on!

Our destination picture at the top of the "L" hike on Friday night. Only a mile and half round trip with a 500 ft. elevation gain.

Who Is Your Looking-Glass Self? ... Zondervan

Who Is Your Looking-Glass Self? ... Zondervan

Spirit-Controlled Emotions

This an excerpt from my devotional this morning, The Pursuit of Man by A.W. Tozer that I thought was really good and reminded me that I not only need to examine where I seek my own pleasure from but I need to be faithful to pray for those in my life who do get their pleasure from 'false and degrading thrills':
"One of the very greatest calamities which sin has brought upon us is the debasement of our normal emotions. We laugh at things which are not funny; we find pleasure in acts which are beneath our human dignity; and we rejoice in objects which should have no place in our affections. The objection to 'sinful pleasures,' which has always been characteristic of the true saint, is at bottom simply a protest against the degradation of our human emotions. That gambling, for instance, should be allowed to engross the interests of men made in the image of God has seemed like a horrid perversion of noble powers; that alcohol should be necessary to stimulate the feeling of pleasure has seemed like a kind of prostitution; that men should turn to the man-made theater for enjoyment has seemed an affront to the God who placed us in the midst of a universe charged with high dramatic action. The world's artificial pleasures are all but evidence that the human race has to a large extent lost its power to enjoy the true pleasures of life and is forced to substitute for them false and degrading thrills."