So Tired

I am so glad my schedule is such that I can take naps during this first trimester! I have just been SO exhausted and every afternoon my eyes can barely stay open. Oh the sweet surrender of an afternoon nap! : ) On top of pregnancy tiredness, I woke up yesterday with some kind of cold/congestion, feeling so drained and wiped that I did NO housework at all. Andrew came home for lunch, to a toy-strewn house complete with dirty dishes and laundry. But I did manage to give him a weak smile, feeling proud that I had pushed myself so far as to make him a hot lunch. Then he sent me to bed- did I mention that he is so sweet to me?- and put the children down for naptime for me. Later that night, we of course had to clean the house all up, and after so much work, we just had to chill and play. That means we didn't get to bed until midnight. I am convinced we are die-hard partiers!!! Why else would we go against our good reason of getting some much needed sleep?!

Having said all that, I am off to take a nap : )

You Won't Relent

This is my new favorite song. A little known fact about me is that somehow I always wake up every morning with a song in my mind, being played over and over again until I finally decide to fully wake up. Most of the time, it is a worship song I know. This is this morning's serenade, and I want to share it with you.

It is a very emotional piece of music to me, because as I look back over my life and what I have been through, I have always seen God's big Handprint of faithfulness working through every event. Now, I don't believe that He ordered the hardships and injustices, but I do firmly think that He is a redeeming God and will use every situation to show Himself suffiencent for us, faithful to us, deeply loving and involved. A common theme in the Bible is the picture of God as a relentless Father or Lover who never gives up the fight for our hearts. A lot of us have had experiences that can make this mental picture hard to grasp, but it doesn't mean it is untrue. Now, I am still quite young, but the older I become, and the more challenges I go through, it seems to become clearer to me that He is indeed relentless in His love and desire for us.

You can find it on the playlist, down and to the right, #7.

Strange...

Marcail keeps pointing to the ultrasound picture and telling us that there are TWO babies in there. Andrew keeps bringing it up to tease me with, and all I can say is that I was present for the ultrasound (of course) and there was only ONE heartbeat. So this morning I asked her if there are one or two babies in mommy's belly. She said, with certainty, "Two." hmmmm.

Announcement

Hello everyone!
Andrew and I are excited to announce that we are expecting another set of little Makinson pitter-pattering feet! Our baby is 7 weeks at this time, and has a strong heartbeat, healthy yoke-sac, etc. Everything looks as good as can be expected at this time. The due date is September 2nd.
Please rejoice with us in this amazing extra blessing from the Lord! We have come through an intense growing time while waiting for God's timing of our next child. My heart feels full of joy that He has heard our prayers and has been faithful even when it doesn't make sense to us. His love is deeper than we can imagine.

with joy,
Andrew and Anneke Makinson

South Carolina Christmas on New Years' Eve

The Reason Why Our Travel Time Was So Great...

Actually, they weren't like this the ENTIRE time, but I have to hand it to them: they were pretty amazing. I didn't even feel this happy! : ) At the time these pictures were taken, we had driven 20 hours straight through back to Colorado.

Here is a video we took back home. Mostly was taken because Donovan was falling asleep in his highchair during dinner. But if you listen to the conversation in the background, it's pretty cute too : )

Happy New Year, Everyone!

I am so excited for this next year, and I pray that it will be a blessed and joyous year for you as well. We are back from our "Fast and Furious" flurry of a trip that included a 31 hour trip to Florida (straight through!) and then to South Carolina. I know God blessed us with energy for it, because there is no way we were able to party like we did, without some kind of explanation. Without a doubt, we would do it again! It was so wonderful to see family again. There was something so fulfilling about being all together again. You might even say it was too fulfilling, since I came back to Colorado asking myself why we live here instead of there! Yes, it was that great!

I will post pictures later, of our skiing/snowboarding trip with Daniel and April. I have yet to get them from Andrew's laptop to this home computer.