A Baby Flood

I thought I'd be lucky to get one baby shower, but God has truly blessed us by giving us a grand total of 4!  I think I can officially say that all these showers created a flood.  Here are snippets from all 3 of my Savannah showers:

Anne can't wait for Baby McD to come!

My church family at Grace Church of the Islands threw me a huge one.  It was so encouraging to see how so many ladies in our church took care of our expanding family by giving us so many baby items that we will need to welcome our baby girl into this world.

This shower was a brunch and this was some of the spread.  I loved the diaper bouquet as the centerpiece!

I had several younger girls assisting me with the opening of gifts.  They were a big help!

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Next up, I had a shower at my work, Mathnasium.  My co-worker, Rachel, was the one who did most of the work for it.  Look at her yummy baby carriage cake!  It was made of funfetti cake, one of my favorites.

My boss says that our baby will be the first "Mathnasium Baby."  As you can see, they decorated it accordingly.  I'm wearing a little sash that says "Mommy-to-be."  It was a smaller shower, but I had so much fun!  They focused on giving me very practical gifts, which I definitely will need once she makes her appearance.

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Lastly, I had a Paris-themed shower for friends that I've gotten to know in Savannah that aren't a part of my church family or work.  The invitations were super cute and said "Ooh La La," and Laura did a great job of including that into her decorations.  Look at this spread!  It was beautiful!

Once again, I had some helpers - these twin girls helped me determine which gifts to open.  :)

I got a pretty good bump shot at this shower - they gave me a boa to go along with the parisian theme.  I was about 34.5 weeks pregnant in this.

All my showers were so much fun!  I have just been blown away by all of the love and support that I've received from all these sweet ladies that have touched my life over the past 3.5 years in Savannah.  I've now begun the task (with a lot of help from my mom) of putting the nursery together.  It is coming along and I think I am in the middle of nesting! 

Ministry Update: Curtis' Additional Duties

I've done a really poor job of updating on Curtis' ministry at Grace Church of the Islands lately.  As I have previously mentioned on our blog, Curtis has been ministering in Savannah as an Associate Pastor since he graduated from seminary for the past three and a half years.  Most of his ministry has been focused on middle school and high school students, but he has enjoyed many other responsibilities that a small church can bring.  This includes developing and implementing a small group ministry, preaching and teaching, as well as other pastoral duties.  These duties have increased over the last year and a half due to our Senior Pastor's deployment for 4 months as a chaplain (2011) and more recently, because he has stepped down from his position at our church as of August 2012.  Curtis is now the only ordained pastor on staff at our church.  As we await a new Senior Pastor at Grace, Curtis has been gaining valuable experience preaching 75% of the time, overseeing the small group ministry and the youth ministry.  (Thankfully, our church hired an intern to help with the youth ministry since Curtis' responsibilities have changed.)  It has been quite the transition for Curtis to handle all this as we prepare to have a baby in February.  

Reminiscing in North Carolina

My great-grandfather ("Pop-Pop") built a house on a mountain in a little town called Etowah, North Carolina.  When he passed away, my grandparents inherited it.  I remember visiting this place probably once a year for almost every year of my childhood.  In 2004, my grandparents were no longer able to maintain the house as they aged so they had to sell it.  I didn't meet Curtis until 2005 so he never had the opportunity to experience it.  Here's some of the pictures that I snagged as I shared my childhood memories with my husband:

This is on Folly Road - right before you get to the mountain.  The colors were gorgeous!

I used my panoramic camera to take some of these pictures.

My grandparents lived on a private road where there were only 1-2 other families living on that stretch of the mountain.  I walked this road so many times picking blueberries!  My brothers and cousins always loved to ride (or drive) the 4-wheeler whenever we'd visit!

My grandfather would take care of this water wheel.  There used to be a fake duck with little ducklings walking towards the stream.  I was happy to see that the neighbors were still keeping the water running!  

Here's a panoramic view of the area around the water wheel.

This is the house that my great-grandfather built.  I was warmly greeted by the new owners of the house, which was very kind since we showed up unexpectedly.  They gave us a tour of the house.  The new owner is an interior designer and she re-did the entire house.  She did a great job and the house looked great, but a lot of the memories that I would have felt inside the house weren't there.

This is the view from the deck of the house!  It is just breath-taking!

So glad for the panoramic ones - I think I'm going to have to try to develop some of these!

This one was pretty cool - it shows me taking a picture and gives you a little bit more of the deck than my pictures do.

Curtis really enjoyed the view!

Some additional angles of the back of the house (which the neighbors now consider their front of the house)

It was so beautiful.

Next up...I took Curtis to the Pisgah Forest and showed him Looking Glass Falls.

We would come here often with my family and I was happy to share this with Curtis.

We also stopped by Sliding Rock, a naturally occurring 60-foot water slide.  I only got the nerve to do it one time with my grandfather when I was younger.  I have this picture with my mouth open as wide as it's ever been as I slid down!  As for this day, it was too cold to slide (or so we thought), but there were a few people that had to slide down because they lost a bet.  Notice that one of them doesn't even have legs!  I was impressed.

Our trip also consisted of visiting Charlotte to spend some time with one of Curtis' roommates.  We had a wonderful time with them.  We spent our evenings in downtown Asheville, which was really fun.  We ate at some amazing restaurants - Asheville Pizza & Brewing Company and Tupelo Honey Cafe.  We went to Greenville, South Caroline to worship at Downtown Presbyterian Church.  It was such a delight!  

We even found gas for as low as $2.97 in Greenville.  That is so low!

We also went to the Skytop Apple Orchard in Flat Rock, NC.  It was really beautiful there, but it wasn't really the season for apples so we just enjoyed the view.

It was really nice to get away for about 4 days and explore North Carolina.  This will be one of our last trips before I am unable to travel for a while now that I'm getting farther along in my pregnancy.  It was definitely worth the trip!

My fun costume

For Halloween, I dressed up as a black cat that ate a goldfish.  The kids at our church were really interested in this.  "Does that mean that you dressed your baby up as a goldfish?" "Next year, I think that the goldfish will eat you up!"

  Even Lion-O loved it!

A Quick Getaway to St. Simons

Last week, Curtis and I traveled to St. Simons Island to visit our friends, Jenna & Dan.  It was nice to get away and be refreshed, even if our trip was less than 24 hours in length!

Jenna and Dan have the beach literally in their backyard.  Here's a good shot of Curtis and I in front of the dunes.  It was really really sunny!

You can see my baby bump starting to show -- I was 19 weeks in these pictures. :)

Jenna and I have been good friends since college when we met in RUF.  She and Dan recently moved to St. Simons Island and we are happy to have friends not that far away.

They took us downtown and showed us the pier, the lighthouse, and we even saw a little bit of an antique show.  We had some fabulous sweets from a little shop downtown while we played Rummikub (a really fun game!)  Jenna was an amazing cook and she even taught me how to make some homemade guacamole.  We also got to walk around Christ Church, its cemetery and the Wesley monument.  St. Simons is a beautiful area and we look forward to visiting again in the future!

Vacation Bible School

This year was the first time that I was able to serve as a teacher in our church's Vacation Bible School.  I was one of the teachers for the K4 group. 

Recording the VBS music - each family receives a CD
at the end of the VBS program

The music was wonderful, I don't think a single person walked away without hiding scripture in their heart through the lyrics.  I think my little 4 and 5 year old kids know the following verses just from our songs:

"Though the grass will wither and the flowers fall, the word of our God will stand forever" - Isaiah 40:8 and "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." Psalm 119:11

It was so cute to see them do the little hand motions! 

We spent the week learning about the armor of God, as well as several attributes of God.  One of my responsibilities was to try to communicate to the kids different attributes about God.  A lot of my family and friends probably don't realize that God used them to teach little children about who God is.  I created this poster to help:

On Day 1, I explained that God is loving.  I depicted it by putting some pictures of our loving family.  I included a picture of me with three of my cousins (Jane, Judy, Beth).  I also included a picture of Curtis with his Nana and his aunt (Diane).

On Day 2, the children learned that God is our protector.  I tried to use a few different examples of protectors.  I put a picture of my brother, Tim, in his military uniform as he protects our country.  I put a picture of Curtis in his football attire, explaining that he protected the quarterback.  I also told them that his dad is in the picture, and he protected Curtis, just as each of the children's fathers protect them.

On Day 3, I taught them that God is faithful.  I showed this by putting up pictures of some of the faithful marriages in my family.  I put up my deceased Grandmom & Grandad, who were married for 50 years.  I also added my parents, who have been married for 28 years.  And of course, I put a picture of our wedding.

On Day 4, the children were taught that God is truth.  This one was a little tricky, but I placed pictures of Bible Studies where I have taught God's word, which is the truth.  One of them is from a RUF Freshman Bible Study that I co-taught with my good friend, Kaylen.  The other was a middle school Bible Study that I co-taught at Pinewood.  It makes me miss all those girls!

On the final day, I shared with the children that God is kind.  I explained this one by putting up pictures of some of our sweet friends that we are kind to one another.  One has two of my good college friends, Miranda & Kelly.  The other has Curtis with two of his good college friends, Sean and Joel.

It was really fun to go through old pictures and decide how I would use them for this task.  If you were one of the ones mentioned above, thanks for letting God use you in the lives of little ones.

Relief in Trenton

Last week, I had the privilege to be a part of a disaster relief mission team that traveled to northern Georgia (Trenton).  It was a difficult trip for me because I had started feeling sick about 4 days before we left and battled my sickness the whole time!  I went to the doctor afterwards to find out that I have Acute Bronchitis.  Even so, the trip was well worth it.  I definitely recommend going on a mission trip to anyone who has the opportunity - even if it isn't out of your own state.  

 

We had a really fun group of people!  Pictured above is our entire team plus Jim (on the left).  Jim Boyd is the founder of Rebuilding Hope, a non-profit ministry.  To learn more about this ministry, you can visit this link.  We worked with him last October when took a group to Dalton.

 The next few pictures show some of the devastation that took place when the tornadoes hit.

It's hard to believe it was almost a year ago - April 27, 2011.

One of the local churches, Trenton United Methodist, graciously offered to host our team while we were working there.  We could see that they had a real heart for tornado victims.  Look at this sign that was in their kitchen - they served meals to 13,763 people within 2 weeks of the tornadoes last year!

On the first day, Zack, Becca & I split up from the rest of the group to work on installing hardwood laminate flooring in a woman's Master Bedroom.

 Zack was very skilled in this area and he did most of the work.  Becca and I just tried to assist him in whatever way we could!

Becca and I got to know Charlene, the homeowner, while we were working.  She told us that she had lost several shady trees plus five rooms of her house.  She was underinsured so she was unable to afford fixing her house until she heard about Rebuilding Hope.  We were so glad we had the opportunity to help her!  She shared with us how it was nice to see young people serving the Lord. 

 When our task was complete, we traveled over to the job site where the rest of our team was working.  I helped clean up tornado debris in someone's backyard.  I even held a little frog in my hand!

Not only were frogs found, but also a snake!  Chris was fearless enough to pick it up!

A local news crew came by and interviewed two of our team members.

 The rest of the team worked on finishing the deck.  Here's a before shot! 

Here's the after!  Wow!  What a great job they did!

The next day, we spent our time leveling out the crawl space of a house that hadn't been built yet.  There were lots of rocks and debris and it took a long time to finish this task!  

Then, we had 3 small teams that nailed pieces of wood together.  One of the teams was Lisa (right) and Jean (middle).  Pictured above is one of the patterns that I worked on with Joan (on the left) and Robbin (not pictured).  We helped make 28 of these C-shaped pieces!

Every day, we would take showers after working 9-10 hour days.  This particular evening, April 13, was Becca's birthday!  We made sure to celebrate with her throughout the day.  Here we are having a drink at Pizza Hut!

Last day of work - Bobby (left) and Chris (right) continued making specific shapes with the wood for the door frames.  You can see the progress of the house behind them.  The floor joints were being completed.  

Here's a better picture.  We are creating the floor of the new house!

I was making marks so the boys knew where to align the next floor joints.

Lisa got to use the power tools as ply wood was laid on top of the floor joints. 

 Joan and I tried to make the ground more leveled so that there wouldn't be any accidents as people carried wood towards the house.  Joan really knows how to use a Pick Ax!

All of our wooden shapes are now coming together to make the outside wall of the house.  

 It was a team effort to lift it up! 

 Nice poses!  If you were wondering where I was though... 

I was actually below them in the crawl space with Robbin.

Here's a picture of me, but it's kinda blurry.  I thought I was slightly claustrophobic, but I guess it wasn't that bad considering how far away I was from the opening of the crawl space!

This is how far we got before we left.  Those long pieces of wood are the ceiling! 

We finished the evening with observing the beauty of God's nature.  We went to Cloudland Canyon - it is the western rim of Lookout Mountain.  It was gorgeous!

I wish we could have spent more time here!

Later in the evening, we went to downtown Chattanooga for a nice dinner at a restaurant called Public House.  It was really good!  Before we traveled back to Savannah, we worshiped at the United Methodist Church.  I really enjoyed their service!

We traveled back in 2 cars.  The car that I didn't travel in stopped in Dalton to see Mr. Arthur's finished house.  Mr. Arthur was the man that we helped on our last mission trip - you can read more about it in this previous post that I wrote.

I just love that Mr. Arthur put this sign on his house.  He gave all the glory to God!  What a great feeling it is to be the hands and feet of Jesus and serve those that are in need!