Easter

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Christ the Lord is risen today, alleluia.

I love Easter. It is definitely my favorite holiday and I always look forward to it every year. I think it is my favorite because of the fresh reminder of Christ's death and resurrection and his payment for our sin. It is such a sorrowful, but joyful holiday with so much meaning.

I was excited for Liam's first Easter this year, but it didn't really go as I hoped. Yesterday was one long whine from him as he is working on getting his top two teeth. I can see them there, breaking through, but they haven't come all the way through yet so he is miserable. He is running a low fever which may or may not be related to his teething. This morning when he woke up I wasn't even sure we would go to church because he woke up screaming which is very unlike him. But he calmed down and we went to church and had a lovely service and church meal afterwards. If we couldn't be with our immediate families, it was good to be with our church family.

I hope wherever you were for Easter that you took time to remember and praise God for sending his son as a sacrifice for our sins. He is a merciful God to us and deserves all the glory.

A quick photo with the timer before we walked out the door to church. Kind of awkward, but at least we got a photo! And yes, as usual we match...

I couldn't help but add this photo from the week. Liam is sporting one side of a carrot fu-man-chu mustache and crazy eyes.

A Friend(ly) Favor

Hello everyone! I'm writing today to ask a favor for a friend. My friend Michal is applying for a job of sorts at an online company called HopScout. It is a cool company that finds and sells one unique, classic, but new kid's toy everyday. (Just go check them out - you'll see what I mean). Michal is applying to be one of their editors, which comes with all kinds of perks, but best of all, she can do the job from home and still keep her full-time job as a mama to her two boys.

Since the company is really into social media, they asked their applicants to submit a video and then have people vote for the best video. Michal is super creative and great and her video shows that. She would be perfect for this job.

Will you take a moment, watch her video (it's short and you don't have to sign up for anything or do something else crazy!) and then vote for her? Just click on the video itself to watch it and then after you do you can vote. I know she would appreciate it.

Thanks so much!

Liam | 6 Months

Liam turned six months on Sunday. Whew! Where does time go? I recently read an article declaring the first few months of your baby's life to be the "longest, shortest time." I really think that is so true. Some days, especially in the beginning, seem never ending, but then suddenly your baby is six months old and growing like crazy.

These are fun days for us. Liam is so curious about the world and very observant. Today we stood at the window and looked out and he watched every bird go by and was very focused on what was happening outside. Usually he doesn't sit still long enough to do that, but today it was very interesting to him.

He is also starting to move a lot more. Not crawling yet, but it is amazing how far he can get by rolling, turning in circles on his belly and scooting forward. He hasn't quite mastered pushing himself up on his hands and his knees at the same time - usually it's one or the other - but he is working on it. Today he rolled himself all the way into a corner and I found him chewing on a lamp cord...yikes. He is such a busy boy that I can only imagine what life will be like when he starts crawling!

We were at the doctor on Friday and he officially weighs 16.5 pounds (25% percentile) and is 27 inches long (75% percentile). He is so long and skinny, but the doctor said he is very healthy and that is normal for active babies like him. He also said our skinny family genes might be coming in to play by now too.

He has moved on to eating more than just rice cereal. His diet now includes breast milk, baby oatmeal and peas. He wasn't so sure about peas at first, but he seems to like them ok now. We're hoping to start introducing more foods in the next few weeks or so. He is a champion eater though that is for sure.

It is so fun to watch Liam grow up and see his personality develop. His temperment has evened out so much and he really is a happy, chatty baby most of the time. He giggles at being tickled and almost anything Rob does to him. He adores Rob and gets a huge smile whenever Rob comes around. He has also started drumming with Rob and actually copied the exact beats Rob showed him the other day. It was pretty neat. He already loves music so we try to have music on or be singing to him when we are at home. He apparently doesn't mind that I can't carry a tune in a bucket.

I'm sharing this weekend at our women's retreat about God's faithfulness to me to allow me to be a mother and as I'm writing what I plan to say I'm reminded of the journey I've been on to get to this place of loving my husband and my child. It's not easy every day, but it's worth it and it's a good life. I wouldn't trade this season for anything and I'm so thankful for it.

Here are a few recent photos:

We had to be sneaky about where the 6 month sign went because if it was anywhere near him he wanted to put it in his mouth. Obviously because everything goes into his mouth.

I'm a drool face baby.

"Ok, seriously, can you guys be done already?"

I sent my mom some photos of my tulips out front today because she helped me plant the bulbs back in October when I was days aways from giving birth. Liam had to jump in for a photo.

Sweet Sunday

Sundays are full days in our house since we go to Sunday school, church service, small group lunch and often hanging out with friends in the afternoon/evening. We are so thankful for our church family here in Bloomington and the solid teaching we receive that it often feels like Sundays are just one big hang out day with people we love.

This morning before we rushed off to our full Sunday we took a moment to take a photo before church. The sweater Liam is wearing was one of the only things I bought him before he was born and I wanted him to wear it before it got too warm. If you remember we called him 'Baby B' before we knew if he was a boy or a girl. I found the sweater at a garage sale and it was fairly gender neutral (although now I think it's more for a boy) and had a big "B" on it. The tag says it's a 12 month sweater, but it fits him now so I'm guessing it shrunk somewhere along the way! He's really not that big yet. He looked so cute with his sweater and khaki's on his way to church.

Since no one else was there to take our picture we just traded. I, of course, wanted my daffodils in the photo. :) Mom helped me plant those the days she was here before Liam's birth back in October and it was a joy to see them come up this spring. Funny to think now of being enormously pregnant out there planting tulip and daffodil bulbs! But the work is worth it now.

I hope you had a blessed Sunday like we did and are ready for a new week ahead.

An Update

Six hours, 1 entire Pilot G2 pen (the best in my opinion) and 30 sheets of notebook paper later, Rob finished his exams and we all breathed a sigh of relief. His hand may be dead and his brain fried, but he is done.

For this part at least. :)

Next comes the oral exams in a few weeks where he can be asked questions about what he wrote and have to give a defense of them in front of three professors. Nervewracking, yes, but at least he knows what topics he wrote about that he will have to defend.

Overall he thinks he did well and most likely passed all three sections. The morning part seemed a little easier than the afternoon, but he thinks he did ok. There were only a few questions he didn't feel as confident about and some he smashed out of the park. Hopefully those will count for more! He won't know how he did for a few weeks, but the hardest part is over.

Whew. This has been a tough few weeks for all of us, this past week especially. I'm glad I was gone for two of the weeks! That was good time for Rob to work. Every semester at this point is hard, but this one was especially difficult and we are both spent. There's a bit more to push through, but Lord willing we will make it. We just go one semester at a time (or at least I do! Rob thinks about the upcoming ones a lot more than me) and we always make it. I suppose nothing could really be as bad as having a baby halfway through the semester and then a major Christmas concert right after that which is what we did in the fall. Still, it's a hard time for us all. But summer is just around the corner and we're always thankful for that time.

I'm also so thankful for all your prayers today! I know Rob is too. It is wonderful to know so many people were praying for him today and I know those prayers are what got him through. We give all glory to God for his mercy and provision over Rob today.

A Praise and A Request

Happy Friday to all of you. If your week has been anything like mine perhaps you are ready for it to be Friday! Whew. It's been a full one here at the Bedinghaus house.

I would like to give a huge praise for Liam sleeping for eleven hours straight last night! 8:30 to 7:30, yes please and thank you, I will take that. I woke up at 6:30 out of a full night's sleep and couldn't believe what time it was. However, the downside of a nursing baby sleeping that long...well, lets just say I was in pain. So I dozed until 7:30 when he did wake up and then poor baby, I overfed him and he threw up everywhere. A lot. Good morning to me! But I was still thankful for the long stretch of sleep.

On a completely different note, I finished re-reading Water for Elephants last night and it was not as good the second time around. I re-read it because it's coming out as a movie and I like to do that before I see a movie based on a book. This time around it seemed much more crude and not as interesting. Maybe that was because I already knew the twist at the end? If you haven't read it, it is an interesting read, but beware of some of the more vulgar parts.

And finally, another different note, I'm asking for prayers for Rob tomorrow as he takes his master's exams. I think most of you know about these, but basically he has to take three, two hour exams on three different subjects within linguistics. He is choosing to focus on Second Language Acquisition, Phonology and Sociolinguistics. (Don't ask me to define those areas!) He was given a reading list for each section that amounted to a total of 139 scholarly journal articles. He can be tested on information from any of those articles and be asked to apply the knowledge to various questions. Oh and did I mention that even though it is 2011 he has to hand write each exam? Like with a pen.

He is pretty anxious about the exams because he really wants to pass all three sections the first time around. He would be allowed to start his PhD work in the fall if he doesn't pass a section, but that means not walking at graduation in May and obviously having to retake the section again. He wants to be done with these tests!

Please pray for:

• Retention of everything he has studied
• No headaches and hand cramps
• Focus on applying what he has studied to specific questions
• A calm approach to the questions and for his brain not to freeze up

It's been a full week for us and we're both anxious for this part of the semester to be over. While he still has to finish up the rest of his class work and teaching before the semester is actually over, it will be good to have this part behind us.

Thanks for your prayers and love for us! Happy weekend.