Just RK

M asked me to guest blog a recent adventure with medical procedures for the purpose of keeping further “surprise” babies from showing up.  I wish I had video of the whole experience. As his mom put it, it was “comedy gold.” If you’re interested in the “Snip/Tuck” story, click here .

I've been dragging my feet through these adjustments and (sometimes) trials these last several months, but that should never take away from the provision of God that we've seen on our behalf again and again.  I don't think I am clear enough about how obvious his hand is evident in our lives from day to day.  That's one of those things I'd like to unload more in writing when I have more time to focus. I've been wanting to write about the last couple weeks, specifically a few little things.  I keep thinking I need to make time, but it hasn't happened. But between yesterday and today, I am amazed yet again at how well we're taken care of daily.  And I think it's time I give testimony to the surprising little ways our life's puzzle pieces have fallen into place lately. (Even though the picture that's taking shape is not one I would have picked for myself if I had been in charge of such things.  More on that later.) If you're in a hurry......

It's 3:45p, we've been home about 35 minutes. My feet hurt and I'm sore in unfortunate and inconvenient places. BUT the garage sale went pretty well, as they go. Oh yeah, before I forget ... 11 years ago today, my husband (then someone I'd never met and only had talked to online for 6 days) drove over 28 hours from Montana to Missouri because he "just had" to meet me... time flies. Here's the rest of the story if you missed it last year. We ended up with a TON of stuff... big stuff, little stuff, junk, real finds, and alot of it sold. Overall, the sale brought in close to $2000 total, most of that going to the brother-in-law who had the furniture and bigger ticket items, but the parents-in-law did awful darn good with their ridiculous tons of DVDs that were a big hit. Me and M did ok, as things go. I think we came home with just shy of $100, plus a car seat for Braska to use for the next 2 years (at least) in Daddy's car as a back-up and the to...

I feel like I should write so much, but I'm just not finding the time anymore. I'm so sad that my daily blogging has turned into bi-weekly almost. So for now, pics and captions will have to suffice. In case you've missed it somehow, here's what started this chaos of the past few weeks. It culminated in a two-part move, beginning Saturday 5/17 with the load up. We had a great turnout of guys (and Susan!) so the work went fairly quickly overall. It took some time to work out the jigsaw puzzle of fitting all our big things in with few little things to go in the gaps. But the guys did a great job. Since there were so many hands available, and since we had a bit of a truck issue (it was too small!) we decided at the last minute to get a second truck and go ahead and load while there were people there to help. The first pic there shows both, the second zooms in on the right side of the first. Ridiculous...two trucks. And since there were plenty of hands, Mat...

Christina at Kwisteena's Kwaziness tagged me to do a little looking back exercise. I've chosen to make it a series, in order to cover a few angles. This first edition is mostly for us big kid members of the family. When my husband and I met online , his screen name was Muncher and mine was Wish. This is part of our story in pictures. As mentioned in my recent re-post about looking back , it's not always a pleasant thing for me to do. That's unfortunate, as I love to look at old pics and remember how fun stuff was and what was happening at each stage. SO...I'm going to have a little fun, remembering JUST the good for a few minutes(I'll try)...even if it is a little bit personally embarrassing. (What wasI thinking??) Here's one of the first pics of M and me, and that's my youngest sister, Julia. This would have been about Spring 98, I think. We'd been dating about 6 months maybe, age 24. September 2000, engagement pictures. Age 26. Here's that sto...

If you want to get caught up, all the way, then click here for the backstory . So I rested and slept and thought and waited until about 2 am. The contractions were getting more intense, and although they didn't hurt, I could tell something was different about them. I debated in my head alot about whether or not I was feeling the "right kind" of pressure that they kept asking me about. Finally, I asked to be checked again, and what do ya know...it's time! They called Dr. N right away and got me all ready to go. She got there in about 10 mins, got all gowned up, and said, "Let's have a baby." I pushed 4 times, over about 8 or 9 minutes, and there she was at 2:27 am. 7 lbs 0 oz, 19 1/2 inches. Nebraska Larae. I didn't have a bit of pain while pushing, either. Very cool. It was all very exciting for about 1 minute. One precious minute of bliss. The baby went to the warmer just across the room and my husband followed. The doctor continued to do her thing ...

One year ago today... It doesn't seem possible. It's been a year. I've been putting off writing this because I wasn't sure what all it would give way to in my brain. So we'll see... if you are up to reading the story, you might want to grab a hot cocoa or something and get comfy. November 20 has always been my parents' anniversary. That's what the date meant to me. Until it was decided about my 37th week that it would be a good day to induce me. My doctor was going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, and I didn't care to roll the dice on who else in the group I might get stuck with if I waited it out. Plus, I'm a planner, so I loved knowing when it would all take place. I'll spare you the icky details, but I was already "progressing" a week before, so the doctor felt like I would go quickly through the process. I figured we'd show up in the morning, have a baby by dinner, nice and easy. We arrived early that morning, checked in, got...

Previously on "The story..." Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3 if you'd like to catch up or refresh your memory... The continuing saga... I didn't know a whole lot about the testing that is "normally" done during pregnancy. They gave me a folder full of all kinds of brochures at my first appointment. I read everything, but it didn't really mean alot to me. My husband and I talked extremely briefly about it and determined that we'd do the blood work stuff and, of course, ultrasounds, but nothing more invasive than that. I'm a chicken when it comes to needles and such, so the blood work was more than invasive enough for me. Due largely to unrelated emotional stress during pregnancy, I lost quite a bit of weight in the first trimester. These issues combined to cause the dr to want to keep a close watch on the baby's size, so I had several ultrasounds early on. I also wasn't really eating--even though I didn't have morning sickness like many,...

I've thought alot about how to tell my story of the pregnancy, birth, and following. The truth of the matter is that most of the pregnancy involves things, not pregnancy related, that I don't want to remember or write about here; it was not a pleasant time, as I wish that it could have been. BUT, there are a few parts that I have pictures to help tell the story, and that makes it easier. So I'll do this in pieces, and I hope you'll simply allow me the gaps. On March 31, 2006, I woke up early and took a pregnancy test. I had planned to do this the night before. I had been experiencing some symptoms and was headed to the dr, but I didn't want to look ridiculous and uninformed, so I thought this was a way for me to rule it out, to tell them that I'd already checked and this wasn't the problem. So you can imagine my surprise... Yep, I took a second one to be sure. It was about 6 am, and I woke my husband to tell him. He looked at the tests and said, "Hmmm. ...

10 years ago today I met my husband for the first time in person. Ok, so he wasn't my husband at the time, but you get the point. Right about this time of the morning we were sitting at Denny's in Rolla, Missouri. He had grilled cheese, but I don't remember what I had. Let me back up a little... you might want to grab a drink and something to snack on. 6 weeks earlier I was housesitting for some friends who were out of town, and they had the internet. In their house! That was a rare thing back in late 1997 in small town Missouri...hard to believe, isn't it? Anyway, I had never really been online, even all the way through college as we didn't have it on campus. They showed me how to turn on the modem, connect with the right phone number, and I thought the crazy noise it made as it was connecting was just funny. Zhhhhhhhhh, bedong, bedong. So I connected one night, clicked on something that said Search, and just started throwing words in there to see what would happen...

Seven years ago today, my husband asked me to marry him. He spent quite a while working on a cross-stitch that he designed with pieces of several scriptures, ending in Will You Marry Me? He had the ring sewn into the cross-stitched ring on the canvas. He asked me to come and see what he'd been working on while I was visiting him one weekend. After having to convince me to look at it, since it wasn't done and I thought I should see it all completed, I unrolled it from the top and was shocked to see the ring hanging from the bottom section. Totally shocked. I just kept saying, "Are you sure?!?! Are you sure?!? Are you sure?!? Are you sure?!?!" He just kept laughing at me, saying, "I've never been so sure of anything, I promise! Really, I'm sure!" After a few minutes of my just staring at it and him, he said, "Do you have an answer for me?" I, of course, told him yes. We immediately drove to the sand volleyball court where our friends were to...