What a difference a month makes...

22 weeks/end of 5 months pregnant:
27 weeks pregnant/starting 7 months pregnant:
So, I can tell from these pictures why I'm suddenly feeling so big! I knew it would be towards the end that just a week or two would make a big difference, but it's crazy to be growing so fast! Amazingly enough, nothing that I'm wearing in these two pictures are maternity clothes. I tried to replicate the outfits for comparison sake, but the black tshirt from the first picture doesn't fit anymore. Hurray for stretchy waistbands and I think that tank top is just a size up from what I normally would wear. Pants are usually the problem. If anything is the least bit tight in the waistband, it hurts and gives me awful indigestion. I live for the stretchy gauchos (and the chewable berry Tums)! I tell everybody I feel like a high school dance teacher all the time now, because I'm almost always wearing flowy pants and a flowy shirt. It's starting to seem crazy to think that I will get even bigger than this!

We had our first checkup (26 weeks) in Greensboro on Tuesday with our new doctor, who is amazing. She's young, incredibly friendly, and graduated from University of Kentucky, so you know she had an immediate fan in Matt. We thought she was completely awesome, and though the practice is smaller than what we were going to at Rex in Raleigh, but lots friendlier and there are more doctors that do deliveries, which is great! We'll deliver with whoever is on-call whenever the baby comes, but I'm hoping it will be our doctor, since we liked her so much (and she's only one of three women in the I think 9 doctor practice).

Starting week after next I'll be doing my glucose test and going to the dr. once every 2 weeks instead of once every month. So far we are still ridiculously healthy and right on track! We can't wait to meet this little one!

Taking Photos

As most of you already know, Matt and I really enjoy photography, not only as a hobby but a creative passion. There's something so cool to me about picturing the world in a certain way in your mind, and then trying to convey that to others through a photo. Sometimes you get exactly what you were going for, and sometimes the photo itself completely surprises you! Luckily, we were able to buy some decent camera equipment a year or two after we got married, and also were given some good lenses by a family friend that added to our collection. Also luckily, we have family and friends (especially a very photogenic niece and nephew) that are willing subjects as our "guinea pigs" as we learn more and practice and have fun taking photos! We've also shot some paid gigs- a family member's wedding, a friend's wedding, and Matt did a 50th anniversary party and some portraits awhile back. Here are some favorites from the last 3 or 4 years:

Our niece, Ansley, playing in a little pool in her backyard... she was telling us the water was cold! (by M)

Our nephew, Evan, playing on the swings at the park... we have such little pottery barn baby models in the family! (by M)

Newborn baby Evan (and his momma's hand)- we took some shots for his baby announcement. (by M)

The classic hands-and-rings shot from Steve and Cindy's wedding! (by M)

A bit of newlywed fun at the Coulson-Rook wedding! (by L)

Little flower girl Ansley at Steve and Cindy's wedding. (by L)

Ansley attacking a fudgesicle on the porch at the beach... we can't help it, this kid is always doing something fun to photo! (by M)

My absolute favorite of Pontouf! She's pretty photogenic too. (by L)

Ok, so I get a bit carried away when trying to pick favorites. We just always have a blast, and they all have fun and happy memories of different trips and events and occasions. Sometimes the exact shot you want is right there and it's just a matter of 'catching' it before it's gone, but for the most part Matt and I have worked out a great system. A lot of times he takes almost all of the pictures, while I'm running around fixing a dress just so, making sure a kiddo doesn't fall off the swing, etc, or feeding him ideas, saying "try it from over here!" "The light is perfect by this window!" "Oooh, try this angle over here!" We're pretty good about trading off control enough so that we both get the shots we see.

We went to a great park in Greensboro a week or two ago, to get some pictures of our pastor's daughter Hannah, and her brother and cousin jumped in for a few too. Her grandma wanted one of those classic beautiful little-girl-white-dress shots for her 7th birthday. We had a blast, took TONS of pictures, and here's some of the best shots of the day. These are some gorgeous kiddos!

Hannah and her baby cousin Nevaeh.
Hannah and Caleb show a little brotherly/sisterly love!

Little wildman Caleb takes a rest.

There's a link to more of our photos on the sidebar to the right!

Pontouf's Rough Week

We've been really impressed with how well Pontouf has adjusted to the new house and the move. Other than being completely afraid of our garage door opening and closing, she hasn't really had any issues. She still loves to curl up and snuggle with us, but usually if we are running around doing things around the house, she will follow us around everywhere we go. If we park it in one room she'll find some other little place to curl up. She still definitely loves snug, dark places like a little cavedweller.

For example, in the closet.

Or under the computer desk:

Also, recently she's been getting into a few places that she's not usually allowed, such as curling up on the couch,
and most days when I get out of the shower, I find her curled up on our pillows.

You can tell from that little face that she knows she's getting away with something. Such a spoiled girl! (ps- that brown thing is the other comforter. I just realized how strange it looks in this picture).

I guess I've been a little more lenient than usual to try and help her adjust. Matt and I felt really bad for her last week because it seemed like bad things kept happening to her, and I'm sure she didn't understand it. We used to take her to PetSmart to get her nails trimmed, but we don't have one close by anymore and they had already told us that we weren't getting it done often enough, so we bought our own clippers to start doing it ourselves. It turns out 8 bucks a trip is worth it once you've acidentally cut the cuticle on one of your dog's nails... it bleeds like crazy, she yelps because it hurts, and you feel like a horrible pet parent! It might be silly, but she spent the rest of the day with a bandaid on her toe (mostly for the sake of our carpet).

A day or two later, she and I were outside for a little while when she got stuck in a branch of a prickly bush that we didn't even know was there. The branch was stuck horizontally from one ear across the top of her head to the other cheek. She was shaking her head in pitiful little shakes trying to get it off, and it just got stuck even more. I grabbed it, thinking I could ease it off her, but the prickles on it were not straight but little hooks that were hooking her skin, and also into me where I was holding it, trying to get it off. When it stuck into her face, almost in her eye, I starting yelling for Matt to come help me and between the two of us, we got it off of her without too much damage other than a few little scabs in her ear from the hooks. They were painful enough stuck into my fingers, I felt so bad for her having them stick in her face and ears!

Needless to say she is a tough little cookie, and we have been giving her extra love to make up for a rough week!

Would you know my name, if I saw you in Heaven?

"The day you fear as the last is the birthday of eternity"

-Seneca, Roman philosopher

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." -John 16:33

Last night I went on a hospital visitation with Matt for a member of our church's sister. For some reason, I heard "on a ventilator and they're about to remove it" and didn't think at all about any comparisons to what we experienced with my Mom back in January. Oh, how wrong that was of me. I started feeling uneasy as we pulled into the parking deck which looked remarkably like the visitor deck when Mom was in the hospital in Orlando. As we went past the waiting room, it had that same smell, that same inexplicable heaviness of all hospital waiting rooms. We came into the ICU area, and it was just like the others I've been in... different, yet completely the same. Just before we walked into Julie's room, I had to stop and turn around as I burst into sobs. She looked just like Mom, but thinner, blonder, and I had the disadvantage of never having seen what she "really" looked like. I remembered us putting a picture of Mom and Dad on the wall in Mom's hospital room, ironically from a trip to Singapore from just a few months before she we knew anything was wrong at all, and the nurses saying how pretty she was. You'd never know what anyone looked like when you see them in this condition. A ventilator is truly a horrible thing.

I felt terrible when I walked into the actual room, that I had come to help comfort this family, some I have known for just a few weeks, and some I had never met at all, with tears streaming down my face. I felt selfish because I was crying for my own pain as well as theirs. I can only hope that they could tell how much I cared because I know that kind of pain, and because I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, much less a friend, no matter how short of a time I have known them.

So of course, when it comes to the hard and inescapable fact of death, it is our human nature to wonder about Heaven, to wonder what it's like, as we try to take comfort in the fact that our beloved Mom and Sharon's beloved sister Julie, have gone there without us, and we can't yet follow them. It is also our human nature that asks why the God we praise as our ever-loving and all-powerful Heavenly Father could allow us such pain? The conclusion I have come to from over 8 months after the end of Mom's earthly life is that yes, God does allow death in the sense that He has the power to change anything and everything about this life and this physical realm we experience the moment He should choose to. The fact that He doesn't, when he could, shows the expanse of His love for us.

If that doesn't make any sense to you at all, stay with me... God doesn't allow death in the way that we think. Death, sickness, pain, suffering, cancer, heartache, loneliness, bruises, cuts, even simple things like cavities and blisters, are all a result of sin. They are the inevitable result of this sinful world we live in and the sinful nature of our human selves. When a newborn baby dies, we don't understand. We don't understand why the seemingly most innocent of all could die without even the chance to live. The answer is not because he deserved it. The answer is: because we all deserve it. God sent His son to die for us, instead of us, so that we could have eternal life in Heaven with Him, even though our sinful human natures say we should die. The fact that He allows us to choose whether or not we want Him to die for us personally is because of His love for us. If he forced us to choose Him, we'd be nothing but robots blindly serving the will of a dictator. God loves us enough to give us the choice, even knowing that some of us will chose wrongly and miss out on His salvation.

I think we all wonder too how people in Heaven can know what's going on with us, because how can they see the pain on earth and still be in Heaven since the Bible says there's no pain in Heaven? I think it's because when you get there, you immediately have God's perspective on the world... on life and death and the beginning and end... the big picture, if you will. You see the suffering and know it's not fun, but you see the outcome, the eventual way God makes it all right, the way all things come together for good for those who love God. (Romans 8:28). Basically, all the things we could never understand here on earth suddenly and instantly all will make sense.

I know there are people I have failed by not telling them about this salvation when I had the chance, when I had the experience of Mom's death as an immediate open door to talk to them. I really hope that if you've already accepted God's seems-too-good-to-be-true offer, you'll tell someone. Anyone. Surely there's someone you want to have come to Heaven with you. Don't wait until they are laying in a hospital bed on a ventilator, so deeply sedated that you have no idea what they hear and what they don't when you speak to them. And if you don't know about this salvation and want to know more, please leave a comment here so I can email you. Heaven is waiting for you too... my Mom is there, and my friend Julie that I never got the chance to meet is too.

ps- I'm reading a fantastic book called Heaven by Randy Alcorn and it is phenomenal. If you want a real, down to earth, realistic, and scripture-based description of what Heaven will be like (especially if you have a hard time picturing it as a real place and not a place in the clouds or an idea) definitely check it out.

My Pastor, Jon

When Lindsey and I were searching for a church to serve at in response to God's call on our lives, we began to pray. We prayed for good people to serve with, a Godly church to serve at, for God to humble our hearts to be better used for Him, and so much more. I, quite selfishly, prayed for 2 things in a senior pastor that are sometimes mutually exclusive (unfortunately): a pastor who can teach and lead me in my role as a pastor and yet someone who can laugh and be a friend with me. When I first met with Jon when we came down for our interview at Forest Park in June, he told me he thought that we could sharpen each other (Proverbs 27:17). Having worked with Jon for nearly 3 weeks and known him for only 3 months, I can understand already what Humphrey Bogart meant when he told Captain Renault that it was "the beginning of a beautiful friendship." He's the kind of man who is passionate about God, his family, the lost, and our church. He and his family have welcomed us in with open arms and we feel so blessed to have them as friends. I can't wait to see what things we agree on and what things God allows us to sharpen each other over, but I feel confidant that God will allow us to love each other through serving side by side. Hopefully we can settle everything with words and prayer, but if not we can always rent the boxing ring again. Here's some snapshots of our "fight" at the VBS carnival.
I left out the rather embarrassing shot of Jon and I hunched over gasping for breath. When we were both exhausted, yet refusing to quit, we determined that the best way to end the fight was to go the old "Rocky 1" simultaneous knock out route. Thank God for my new friend Jon. I'm glad to serve under and alongside this very Godly (fun loving!!!!) man!

The fights and fun of a VBS carnival

Lindsey posted earlier in the week about some of the games and teaching and I wanted to share a few pictures from the carnival. All week long we had been going through 2 Timothy 2:1-5 and on Saturday we celebrated the youth and children doing such an awesome job all week with a fantastic carnival. There were hot dogs for us all too eat...

Fantastic moon bounces and obstacle courses that the kids loved:
A very cool velcro wall:
and my personal favorite....boxing:

Babies all around!

One of the most fun things about being pregnant right now is being pregnant at the same time as Matt's sister, Leanne. We're also pregnant at the same time as some good friends of ours, Asheton and Tracey Amerson (who are also having a girl!). It's so funny because I remember being upset when I found out they were both pregnant because it felt like I was never going to get to be! At the time, we weren't even trying yet because we were having frustrations about our health insurance coverage (which took us 3 years to get solid coverage straight, otherwise we probably would have had kids sooner) and of course, my mom had passed away during the same time, so it was a pretty upsetting time anyway to say the least.

Leanne is exactly 12 weeks ahead of us- in fact, at first it was to the day... her due date is September 8th and mine was December 8th before we had our first ultrasound and we found out we are actually more like 11 weeks apart. She and Sandy decided not to find out if it is a boy or a girl this time, and we are all so wrapped up in the suspense! We can't wait to find out if it will be all girls on the Brogli side or if Ansley and Baby K will have a little boy cousin!

We took some pictures together since this will probably be the one and only time we are ever pregnant at the same time:

Me at 24 weeks and Leanne at 36 weeks.

She says she feels ready to pop! (although I still claim she is tiny for a pregnant lady). The baby has been down-turned for several weeks now, so we hope we will get to meet our new niece or nephew soon!

Ansley is convinced she is having a baby too. We keep telling her that at Christmas she will have two real life babies to play with!

My 24 week appointment went really well on Monday, other than sitting in the waiting room for over an hour and then only seeing the OB for about 5 minutes, literally. She measured me with a measuring tape for the first time, and everything is normal and healthy with Baby K! She had to really chase her down to be able to hear the heartbeat, which she said means she is swimming around happily in her little bubble.

We are so blessed and excited to have been so healthy all along with this pregnancy. It's easy to forget how many things can go wrong when you've always been really healthy in general your whole life, but I've really started to see life and death as a cycle now that I'm going through both in one year... it seems like a strange set of bookends to lose my mom at the beginning of the year and have a daughter, my first child, at the end of it. We are thanking God for the big blessings that help soothe the huge losses and that even though there are tears, the joy still comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5).

Baby Chappell

We're asking for prayer today for Dan and Casey Chappell, one of the former youth pastors at FPBC in the death of their newborn, Asher Daniel. They had gone through their whole pregnancy being advised by doctors to abort because their baby was expected to have severe chromosomal and other health abnormalities including an omphalocele, but they instead refused and prayed for this little life and that God would use him to His glory.

You can read the full story on baby Asher, but beforewarned, you will need tissues! The faith of this couple in the face of incredibly difficult circumstances is amazing. We don't even know them that well, but have been following his updates through FPBC. It's never easy to understand why God chooses to bring home a loved one when we feel it's too early, whether the person has lived for years or just moments, but we trust in His sovereignty and the fullness of His love for us! As an expecting mom, I truly can't even imagine the pain that comes from losing a baby just moments after birth after carrying him for nine months. My heart hurts for this mother's intense loss, and there are no earthly words that can ease it. I just kept listening to this song over and over on the way to church this morning:

" I am not skilled to understand
What God has willed, what God has planned
I only know at His right hand
Stands one who is my Savior

Yes, living, dying, let me bring
My strength, my solace from this spring;
That He who lives to be my King
Once died to be my Savior

My Savior loves, My Savior lives
My Savior's always there for me
My God He was, my God He is
My God is always gonna be."

-My Savior My God

VBS Games

Matt has come up with some really wild and crazy games for the youth during VBS. Typically, we have an opening assembly with all the classes together, then they all split off for their activities. The youth usually does music, then a game, then listens to a message (with a coke and a snack), then we meet up with the rest of the kids for a quick closing assembly. The games have been a ton of fun and a great way to get to see these kids' personalities shine!

The Marshmallow Toss:
We split into teams and the goal of this one was to throw as many chocolate-sauce covered marshmallows as you can to your partner... they had to catch them in their mouths, and whoever had the most 'cleaned off' marshmallows at the end won!

The marshmallowy goodness!

Beginning to chuck 'em!
Casey lost his head protection.
Micheal goes for the gold! How's that for an action shot!

Izzy destroys some marshmallow evidence.

Chase shows the messy aftermath!

Bobbing for Doughnuts:

The goal of this one was for your blindfolded partner to try to eat a doughnut hanging by a string without using their hands, and you could only help them with verbal directions. Whoever could eat their doughnut the fastest, without it falling on the floor, won!

Dillon went to extra efforts to prevent cheating with his hands!
Drew's doughnut was swinging in circles!

Nathan just couldn't quite get it!

Chase puts up the good fight!

Even though we've obviously had a blast with these really creative games, each night Matt has also given a really energetic lesson, teaching the kids to read deeper into some of the Bible verses they've probably seen all their lives and just glazed over the true meanings of. It's amazing to me to see how much more the verse says when you know some of the Greek words that were used for the translations of the Bible that we have today. Because Matt has studied the Greek in seminary, he's able to really illuminate the deeper meanings of the verses! We've already seen one of our youth commit his life to Christ, and we can't wait to see what God does with the rest of the week!

Ending the Summer Strong- VBS

We kicked off our week of Vacation Bible School (VBS) last night with a great turnout of kids! I helped out with registration, and I think the tally was 41 kids... I had to laugh because about 24 of them were 1st through 12th grade, and 17 were pre-K! That's a lot of little ones running around! It will be fun to see how our church keeps growing as all these families grow with the births and development of all these little ones.

The registration table with Pastor Jon (green shirt) and Joy (pink shirt) our AWANA and VBS director (and me making a weird face).

Kids gathering in the fellowship hall on the way to the opening assembly.

Jan, Jennifer, and Jackie making up some mini pizzas that smelled so good.

Matt did a great job with his first time leading a youth VBS, with lots of fun games, dancing along to the music/choreography they learned, and a great message about the strength we have from within as believers in Christ. The kids have been so excited about having a new pastor, and a couple of them said they would be bringing friends to our session tonight. I think this will hopefully be a great week for these kids and a great end to the summer!