I mentioned previously that we got some pictures taken of Kinley in May by the very talented kristinjphotography. Kristin is a dear friend and GREAT talent. I would recommend her to anyone for her incredible work and the way she draws out each personality she photographs!
3 months and 2 days since I last updated this blog...I promised myself I wouldn't be a slave to the blog or let myself get too obsessed with updating all the time.
But so much has happened and is about to happen that I don't want to forget!
(Hopefully this won't be a novel!)
We are 4 weeks and 5 days away from August 28th (my due date for Emerson Leigh!). And we're not-so-secretly praying that the Lord would bring her early (August 19th to be specific)...this momma is tired of being pregnant in the summer!
P.S. thanks so much to my sweet and TALENTED friend Kristin Laughlin
for taking this picture back in May - more of her fabulous pictures soon!
With Emerson on her way - we've been teaching Kinley about being a "big girl" and "big sister" lots. I've tried to prepare her by pulling out all of the baby gear and talking about how Emerson is coming to our house soon and will be using everything. Plus she gives Emerson lots of hugs and kisses - I love this!!
Also, as we prepare to get things ready for Emerson, we've moved
Kinley from the nursery into her big girl room and made the switch from
crib to twin bed!! I was dreading this - thinking it would mean lots of
sleepless nights, but she has done AMAZING! She loves climbing in and out and
has developed some precious new bedtime routines as a result. Every
night we put on some soft music, give her a glass of milk and read from
The Jesus Storybook Bible (BEST children's bible ever!!). Then she
climbs in her big girl bed and asks for us to pray for her and with
her.
Melts my heart every time.
I've had a blast making her new room and can't wait to post pictures of
everything soon - just have a few last projects to complete before it's
completely done.
This is some of my inspiration for her room - gotta love pinterest!
Besides re-doing Kinley's Big Girl room, we also decided to remodel our guest bathroom. Let's just say it's been an adventure! We started with some free tile thanks to a good friend, have had 2 minor floods in the tear-down phase, we're currently debating how much/how to fix the results of the floods, and are picking out counter-top, vanity, wall color etc....
...did I mention that we're 4 1/2 weeks away from the due date?! Hey, we're keeping it exciting!
Outside of house/pregnancy stuff we've kept busy too.
Starting sometime this spring, our lives got totally crazy. Trent has been the youth pastor at our church for the past 7 years and we've LOVED every second of it. There is just nothing like walking alongside kids as the meet the Lord and realize that He's worth giving everything up for.
This spring our dear friend, Matt Blackwell, who has also been the
college pastor at our church for several years decided to take an
exciting job as a campus pastor for another local church. I really
can't express how much we love the Blackwells. We've shared life in
community group for close to 3 years and have traded babysitting nights
for dates since before we had Kinley...actually Trent was doing it with
the Blackwell's and other friends long before he knew me! As a result
of Matt leaving, our church leadership asked Trent to consider stepping
out of youth ministry to be the college pastor alongside pastor to those
in their 20's (which he's been doing for about a year now).
Kinley (wow she looks young) hanging with the Blackwell boys - we LOVE these guys!!!
Here's a more recent pic from one of our many nights of swapping babysitting and dates
God moved in our hearts so quickly to confirm this is exactly what He has for us - so as of April 1st Trent took the job! We kept doing high school ministry till early June, which meant 3 ministries, a trip to Colorado, Haiti, and a road trip all across Texas in just 3 short months. Ministry has been crazy and full of blessings during the transition, but we're loving the new direction God is taking us!
There is so much more I could say about this - but again trying to avoid writing a novel!
A few updates on our little BIG girl Kinley!
Seriously - is this my baby girl?? She is getting so big!
Kinley LOVES to talk, and all things "big girl" right now...like her big girl chair, drinking from the "biggie water" (i.e. our glass of water instead of her own), her big girl room, and basically anything she can do on her own.
She seems to be turning into quite the girly girl...
No, I didn't pose her
Yes, she picked out all her accessories on her own
We are in trouble!
At 20 months, Kinley loves to talk, play chase with her daddy, eat LOTS, and to sing! She sings parts of Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Happy Birthday, Jesus Loves Me, and a few others. It's so precious to listen to her conversations she has with herself!
She also loves watching cartoons when we let her - especially Dora, Curious George ("Monkey"), Sesame Street ("Elmo"), and newly The Cat in the Hat.
One of the most precious things she does right now is sort things. Usually that just means making messes, but she's fascinated with taking things out of containers and putting them back in. Here's a little video of her sorting her diapers.
I just love this girl!
Kinley also loves to read - or really she loves for us to read to her while sitting in our lap...which is a problem since I don't have much of a lap these days :/ We get creative.
Some of the funny things she says right now are "Let's do this thing" (from her daddy), "May I have more please" (with the cutest little inflection), "Hold you" then she corrects herself and says "Hold ME", and just yesterday I caught her saying "Stay focused" to herself in the car. I guess she was remembering me asking her to stay focused in something I'd asked her to do at the house.
She is our little parrot for sure!!!
Ok, ending the novel for now. More on Kinley's Big Girl room and more from the photo shoot with KristinJPhotography soon!!!
We have finally decided on a name for our little girl!!
Emerson Leigh Thompson!
Wow! The process of choosing a name seemed much more difficult this time than last! I've always thought as the girl that I'd have PLENTY of names stored up in my brain and naming a child would be easy...that was until I got pregnant with Kinley and suddenly the task of naming an actual human being seemed so weighty!!! Trent literally came up with every name we considered for our first baby and I would decline each one (such a sweet man!). That was until he came up with Kinley and over the course of a single lunch we were convinced that was her name. I wrote more about picking Kinley's name in my first ever blog post! You can read about HERE.
22 weeks today!
With this baby girl, I did a little better in coming up with ideas, but it seemed so much more difficult! We found out super early this one was a little girl (at 15 weeks 3 days!!!) and now at 22 weeks we've just decided on the name, so it's felt like an eternity.
We had so many stipulations...I didn't want something that started with a "K" or "C" or a name ending with the "ey" sound. I think I'll mix these little ladies up enough on my own without the help of similar sounding names! Also, we knew that this sweet child's middle name would be "Leigh" after my mother, so I didn't want anything starting with "L" or really ending with "L" either...see what I mean, LOTS of stipulations!
Emerson - Meaning = Brave. (I love this!!). We first heard this name the night before our wedding actually! My wedding coordinator is a life-long family friend and one of my parents' closest friends, anyways as we were looking over the reception location and talking last minute details, she suggested the name for our future child and it never left my mind.
Funny enough, it hasn't been one of Trent's favorite names to say the least, but a few weeks after we found out this baby was a girl, he mentioned that the name had been growing on him (I squealed inside a little!). We played around with so many other names, but nothing seemed to fit.
All the while as I'd dream of our little girl, start to feel her kick, and watch my belly grow; I'd be calling her Emerson.
Yesterday morning Trent got up with Kinley and let me sleep for a bit, when they came and woke me up, he let me know what they'd been talking about. Trent said they had decided that baby sister's name should be Emerson. So sweet! He said over the past few weeks as he's been thinking about our little girl, he keeps thinking of her as Emerson too!
Can you see her little foot?!
Leigh -As I mentioned early, this is my mother's middle name. I truly could not be more excited to name our child after this amazing, Godly, humble, selfless woman. My mom truly does everything in her life to serve others - I mean everything. I get so proud when I talk to people that know my mom, I love hearing how their lives have been blessed and impacted by the way she's cared for them. I sincerely pray that our Emerson Leigh will bestow the characteristics her "Gigi" has. I pray she is humble, selfless, a gracious host, an encourager, outgoing, welcoming, delightful, and a prayer.
We are so excited to meet our little Emerson Leigh in just 18 weeks (or so). Wow, time is flying!!
Kinley got a fun surprise a couple weeks ago....one that actually made me squeal out loud!
Her own special chair!!!
My sweet sister-in-law Linde sent Kinley a Happy Valentines Day, Happy early Easter, Happy "you're gonna be a big sister", Happy "just because I love you" gift.
Kinley's got a LOVE for books and climbs into her chair daily to have me read her some stories.
She's also started a new thing where when I try to take a picture and ask her to smile she tilts her head like this and says "HI!!!!"
Love it!!! Thanks Linde for SUCH a great gift! I love that I can finally post these pics with her Big Sis shirt too!
I found out I was
pregnant right before Christmas (the Wednesday before to be exact!).
Trent and I were exchanging gifts that Friday morning before a weekend
and week long trip around Texas to see all our family. I thought of a
fun way to surprise with the news, but it meant having to wait a
day-and-a-half to tell him...I just about died =)
So I
went and made this shirt - don't be impressed, it's just an iron-on
decal. On our Christmas morning I saved it for the very end and told
him it was something I thought he'd enjoy with Kinley (so that they
would open it together)....heehee =)
(here's Kinley with her buddy Colton sporting her "big sister' shirt.)
Side note: Colton is the son of the middle school pastor at our church and he's 10
weeks older than Kinley. Funny enough this same couple is expecting again as
well...8 weeks before us this time!
Second Side note: Seeing as how Louisa (my pregnant friend/pastor-wife friend/just friend/mom of Colton) and I are both preggers and have double mommy-brain, the day we took this picture I sent it to her and our hubs and she posted it to Facebook...(mind you this is before we've told our 100+ high school kids at church)...I saw her post and actually approved the photo to post to my wall too all before thinking about the fact that Kinley had on this shirt! Thankfully a good friend helped us see what we couldn't see and we got it down quick!
Needless
to say, Trent was shocked...lots of "are you kidding??" "is this a
joke?" "is this for real??" I'd convinced him the day before that
there was no chance I was pregnant =).
The great part was literally within days we got to see all of our family and tell them the fun news as well.
Both
times now we've told immediate family within days of finding out the news ourselves and made them
keep the secret for a little while....they've been so sweet to oblige!
We used the shirt again and had her make grand entrances to announce the news for us!
That's
the story, we're just thrilled and blessed to have had a smooth
and healthy pregnancy so far. In just a few weeks, we'll find out if
baby Thompson #2 is another precious girl, or if we're getting some more
testosterone in the house. I'm so very curious!!!
We are overwhelmed and excited that we're expecting another baby!!!
Who we've dubbed our little peanut ;P
Baby #2 is expected to arrive August 28th -- which just happens to be the day after my 30th birthday....that's some awesome birthday present if you ask me!!
13 week
So far this pregnancy has been a bit different that when I was pregnant with Kinley. My symptoms have been different (maybe a boy??!) but I've also been a ton more fearful of loosing this precious life inside of me. I think this is partly due to the fact that the second Kinley was born a whole new sin struggle came crashing into my world -- I like to call it Mommy Fear...
I've had to cling to scripture like crazy, take my thoughts captive and seek that prayer and support of friends that the Lord would give me freedom from worrying about my precious Kinley and my sweet husband. Sometimes it's terrible and I can't get through the day without imagining some of the most awful scenarios and other days it's not an issue at all. I can definitely feel my weakness with this struggle and pray for freedom from it!
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" 2 Corinthians 10:5
14 week
Also, I think after having Kinley I've read too many blogs and heard too many sweet friends' stories of tragic loss. I fell into the trap too many times of reading of a mommy's terrible loss of a child and would end up in tears, pulling Kinley from her nap to just hold onto her as tightly as I possibly could.
Let's face it, we're not promised a rosy easy life hear on Earth, and I feel like I've seen the reality of that fact in all new ways over the past 15 months.
BUT...we are promised the Creator and Father who knows how best to carry us through every circumstance He allows in this life. So I fully recognize I'm not promised anything as it comes to Kinley, Trent or this new life inside of me. I have to continually trust Jesus with every single step in this process.
I'm grateful that this pregnancy is forcing me to be before the Lord in seeking His comfort and His peace.
15 weeks....yes I'm wearing the same shirt as last week =) Crazy how the bump appears so much earlier the second time around!
It's been a little while...I wanted to share a fun little routine of Kinley's with you...
Most mornings, Kinley wakes up around 6:30 and ideally we'd love for her to sleep till 7. So we've conviced her to sleep a little later if we bring her quietly into bed with us.
But not before she greets either one of us (usually Trent) with her favorite word...."DOG". No, we don't own a dog, and she honestly doesn't see them that often, but if she hears one bark in the neighborhood or spots one in a book, she confidently says "dog" and signs it too! So yes, this is how she wakes up most mornings.
Anyways, back to the little routine. After telling us "DOG", we'll
bring her in our bed and on a good morning she'll snuggle for a good
15-20 minutes longer. This is one of my favorite parts of the
day....snuggling with my baby and my man =)
When she's had enough snuggling, she'll sit up in our bed and sign and say "AHHH DAHHH" (interpretation = all done with hands twisting and shaking vigorously)
then promptly tell us what she wants next (and it's the same thing every day!)
"BAAA DAHHH" (interpretation = banana)
Makes me smile every day!
Hope you have a great day and go enjoy a BAH DAH =)
