Holiday Cheer

 1st ice skating experience. I think we made it around the rink 4 times.

 cuddles with a cousin

1st of many coordinating outfits

Rory's shirt has her name on it, too.

Well, Rory rang in her 9 month mark with a cold and then double ear infection. She quickly recovered and then began crawling! Ahhhhhh! It's not genuine crawling. On our hard wood floors she puts her hands out and slides her knees across the floor rather than picking them up. And we finally set up her crib in the other bedroom, so she's not sleeping in the kitchen anymore.

Georgia loves all her toys as well as everyone else's. It is precious to hear her play with her doll house or animals and how she has them talk to each other.

Surprisingly, Christian really likes the Lego sets he got for Christmas. It is a joy to watch and listen to him play with them since he has a history of not enjoying toys. And I really like to build with them, too.

We've been here 7 months now, and Andrew continues to look for work. When we moved, neither of us imagined that we would be in this situation now. But some amazing things have happened. We had prepared to have no income during the summer months and live off savings, but the only time we used our savings account was for car repairs. Andrew got paychecks through June. I got an extra check from work in July, and I got a refund check from my midwives' office because they had overcharged me (by a lot) for my prenatal care. Andrew worked as a private contractor traveling around the country in September and October. Then that company quit calling him. But then the office manager from our old apartment sent us an email about our security deposit check. Apparently, she'd been trying to contact us since we moved. Andrew began selling my dad's watch collection on eBay, something we'd wanted to do anyway but hadn't really had time for. Andrew got one more assignment from the contracting company in November. That recap to say, seven months with no consistent work and we still have not used our savings account for living expenses. 

Yet even in the midst of seeing the Lord provide for us month after month in unexpected ways, I find myself worrying about the next month. I remind myself of the Israelites in the desert who had seen so much of God's faithfulness yet griped and worried constantly. 

Right after college my friend Jennie went through a period when money was scarce. I remember her telling me of the surprising ways God took care of her needs. Another friend at seminary, Leah, determined to leave work to stay at home full-time with her daughter. There were several months that her husband did not make enough money to support them, and she talked to me about unexpected gifts that God sent their way to get them through. I listened to these ladies then and was slightly jealous. I had never had financial woes before. I could see that the Lord was doing something very precious with their faith then. I wanted to experience God like that. Be careful what you wish for, right?

Perhaps we'll have to use our savings to pay this month's bills. Maybe next month's, too. That's OK. What does the future hold? I have no idea. Will I have to look for a job myself after I wean Rory? Maybe. I hope that like my friends Jennie and Leah, who are much more secure financially now, I will eventually be able to look back on this time and praise God for allowing us to go through it.