some firsts for zoe (and bibi)

It's been quite a while since I've updated...after my mom left, we had about a week to get ready and then head up to nairobi, kenya for a big meeting with everyone from east africa (which was awesome, and I will blog about that later). So I have a bit of catching up to do on my blogging!

While my mom was here, we took her on her very first african safari...which just so happened to be zoe's first safari too (if you don't count when I was pregnant...you know, the time when Nate got us stuck in a riverbed that I KNEW we would never get out of...the time when me and Nate were both praying out loud for God to please help us get out because we were out in the middle of a wild game park by ourselves as night was approaching...the time when I know the hand of God must have reached down and literally pushed our car from behind because there was no way we could have made it out on our own!!) It's a wonder I agreed to go back...haha, anyway we went to Mikumi game park which is about an hour drive from our house in Morogoro. It was such a fun day, we saw lots of giraffes, zebras, warthogs, monkeys...and towards the end of the day I spotted two lions behind the grass! Nate pulled up beside them and we took lots of pictures. We were clearly annoying them as they kept getting up and walking away from us. But that didn't stop us from following them. And Nate (being the person we all know and love) decided to bark at them to get them to look at us so we could take some better pictures. The female did not like that one bit and gave us a growl to let us know. Finally they walked away and layed down in some taller grass so we let them be.
We had a nice little lunch overlooking a watering hole...but there were no animals drinking except for some really ugly bird. Anyway, here are a few pictures from zoe & bibi's very first safari:

Before my mom left we took her to the beach in Dar es Salaam...which was Zoe's very first beach trip. It was kinda cloudy, but a perfect day to just relax. There was a huge sea turtle that washed up on shore (it was dead already) but it was really cool. We just layed on our beach chairs and looked at the ocean and it was sooo pretty. It was zoe's first opportunity to wear her bathing suit. Nate was a little unhappy because she was showing a little too much skin, but she was super cute :)

(This is one of my very favorite pictures because the rock pier in the background was where I first told Nathan we were gonna have a baby!!)

Showered with Blessings

It's been a while since I have written. But I have a good excuse...my mom is here! She got here about 2 weeks ago and will be here until April 14th. In the short time that she has been here, she has managed to spoil the heck out of Zoe, but she keeps saying "that's what grandparents are for!" I can't really complain though because it's been really nice to have her here, especially to help out with Zoe so that I can do other things that have been neglected lately. Before she came, I didn't know how nice it was to have someone around to help...maybe now I'm spoiled too! Here are a few pictures of my mom with Zoe:

My sweet friends here in Morogoro planned a baby shower specifically so that my mom could come (since she wasn't able to be at any showers before Zoe was born). It was so sweet...we ate, talked, and laughed a bunch! We played a game where we tried to tie our "babies" (we used 2-liter water bottles) onto our backs like Tanzanians do. I have to admit...I was not really good at it. And the decorations were beautiful...they hung a clothesline across the room and pinned up all these cute little outfits for Zoe and they even had special chairs labeled mama (swahili for mom) and bibi (swahili for grandma, which is what my mom is called). The girls had been working on a quilt, they each made a square and then put them all together...it's absolutely beautiful. I feel so blessed to have these women in my life...they definitely a gift from God! Here are a few pictures from the shower:

And that's not all! Since we've been back from Kenya, we have received so many packages from friends and family back home. It's been amazing to get things like: funfetti cake mix, candy, devotional books, adorable outfits for Zoe, girl scout cookies (thank you Cathy!!), and so much more!

Also, my birthday was this past weekend and it was really special to have my mom here with us. The day was wonderful. It started with Zoe sleeping until 9am...yay!! My mom made us fruit smoothies for breakfast, and a funfetti cake. We watched movies and watched lots of episodes of "24," which my mom brought with her and we are now addicted to. Nate went out and picked us up all sorts of good food for dinner and I opened presents. My sister sent this really fun game "fluxx" that we have been playing alot, nate's parents sent me a book and my favorite twizzlers....yum! My mom and dad gave us season 3 & 4 of "24", a UGA shirt, and more twizzlers :) And Nate gave me a few tyler perry movies that I've been wanting for a while! It was a great day. Here are just a few pictures from my birthday:

Don't hate us...

So...we have been blessed with pretty much the best baby ever. Seriously, it makes me nervous to ever have another one because Zoe is sooooo easy. Don't get me wrong, we have had our rough days...but all in all, she's pretty amazing. The first week or two was pretty hard, she had some serious stomach issues/gas pains and was crying a lot of the time, but the doctor suggested some medicine that seemed to help pretty quickly. So by 2 weeks, she was sleeping through the night. Yes, you read that correctly. Our 2-week old baby was sleeping through the night. The first night it happened, it scared me to death. When I woke up and realized, I ran in to her room to make sure she was ok. The next few nights it happened, I thought it was a fluke. Now we are at 6 weeks and I don't think there has been a night that she hasn't slept all the way through. And YES, I know how lucky we are!

Once we got back to Morogoro, I thought we might be in for some hard days since there would be so many changes for her (and have I mentioned how miserably hot it is here?) It didn't affect her sleeping at night and she actually started taking longer naps during the day (probably because of the heat). She DOES NOT like to take naps and will not fall asleep unless she is swaddled (which stinks, because she hates being swaddled). She often falls asleep while she is nursing, and I was letting her sleep afterwards....but when we got back to Tanzania, we decided we really needed to get her on a schedule. So I got in this bad habit of rocking/bouncing/swinging her to sleep in my arms and then laying her down for her naps. If she woke up, she would cry and I would pick her up and this went on for a while. So, finally we decided we needed to just lay her down in her crib as she was getting sleepy and let her learn how to go to sleep on her own.
*On a sidenote...this is EXTREMELY stressful anytime a Tanzanian is around because they think you are absolutely torturing your baby if you don't pick them up the moment they start crying. If we have the lady who cleans our house inside, she will immediately notify me that Zoe is crying and if I don't go pick her up right away, she notifies me again and again until I go get her. One time I told her (in Swahili) that if I let Zoe just cry for a minute, she will fall back asleep. She gave me this look like I had no idea what I was talking about.*

Anyway, so the first time we attempted to put her in her crib while she was still awake, I was fully prepared for some crying and multiple attempts and many days before success. So we wrapped her up, layed her down, and walked out. She screamed and I wanted to cry and go pick her up. Literally, not even 5 minutes later the crying had stopped and she was asleep. Seriously?! Could it be that easy? Apparently, for Zoe...it is. She usually cries for just a few minutes and she is off to sleep. Although I frequently get angry at Nate for his sleeping habits, I must say that Zoe has definitely taken after her father in her sleeping and I could not be happier! She sleeps for about an hour or more every 3 hours and more often than not, I wake her up to feed her (and to stick to the schedule...I'm a planner!). She is still sleeping atleast 7-8 hours at night and we are pretty much the most blessed parents in the world!

Yes, I know we are extremely lucky and most babies aren't like this. Yes, I know that if (and when) we have another, he or she probably won't be as easy...but in the mean time we are enjoying our sweet little girl (and our sleep!)

Here is a picture of her in her crib:

1 month already!

I cannot believe my little girl is already a month old! We are finally back in Morogoro after over 2 months in Nairobi. I personally miss it already, I loved being able to jump in our car (an automatic) and hop over to nakumatt (sorta like a walmart) and get things like pop-tarts and sour cream. I was even lucky enough to find Philadelphia honey nut cream cheese at the butchery right buy where we were staying. Ahh...those things will have to wait until we head back up in April for our big meeting. They were nice while they lasted and since we are driving up in April, we will be able to bring all sorts of good stuff back with us.

The trip back was not at all pleasant...oh, the plane ride was great and Zoe slept through most of security and customs...but as we were leaving Dar to drive back to Morogoro we noticed both our ipods had been taken from our car and not an hour later the clutch died on our Patrol and we had to wait on the side of the road for someone to bring us another car so we could head back to Morogoro (don't get me wrong...I'm SO thankful that we actually have someone who is nice enough to drive in Dar traffic to bring us another car...I don't know what we would have done otherwise!) We came back to a house that was SO unbelievably hot and no electricity. I think I forgot how hot Tanzania was while we were enjoying the cool weather of Nairobi. Anyway, we are home and it's nice.

Zoe is growing like crazy (more length than weight)...she has her Daddy's height. Ok, well she has her Daddy's everything (check out the picture below...DEFINITELY a nate face!) I think the only thing she got from me was the little wrinkles on her forehead. We are falling more and more in love with her every day. She is smiling at us (and when I say "us" I mean mostly Nate...I get an accidental smile now and then). Our dog, Chester, couldn't care less about her. We were kinda worried how he would react to her since he is such a huge dog. But really, he sniffs her now and then but mostly just leaves her alone. I think he is still trying to figure her out.

That's about it for now...except Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law, Liz, and my sweet God-daughter, Campbell!

zoe's arrival

Sooo...Z baby decided that she did not want to make her arrival on her own accord, and after our 41-week ultrasound and the technician measuring her around a whopping 9 pounds, my doctor decided it was time to induce. She was 9 days late and I must say I was quite ready.

On the way to the hospital, I started to think that this wasn't half bad. We had seen my doctor at 9 am on January 25 and that is when she told us we needed to get this baby out. She told us that she wanted us to come back to the hospital later that night and we would start the induction. She also told me after they gave me the little insert, I would most likely fall asleep for the night and labor would get going sometime in the morning. So, it was sounding pretty good. We spent the day playing putt-putt with our good friends Erin and Cody (I won...although part of me thinks they let me since I was about to pop out the baby). Then we all met Suzan and Orvell at Java House and ate a wonderful meal together. We went home, I took a shower, we got all our stuff together and headed for the hospital. So yeah, on the way there I was thinking maybe induction is the way to go. On your terms, planned out, no surprises. Not bad.

We got to the hospital a little after 9 pm and two of our sweet bosses (love them!) met us there. They helped Nate fill out all the paperwork (thank goodness, Nate was a little scatter-brained) and then they prayed with us that Zoe would come quickly and she would be healthy. Amen to James 5:16
"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective"

When they left, they gave me the little insert and Nate turned on the discovery channel (the only channel we could get in the room). We watched a show about women cops and then I started noticing I was not feeling so hot. Contractions were coming strong and hard and it had only been maybe an hour since I got the insert. The nurses would bring in a machine every so often to measure my contractions and I kept my eye on the machine and noticed just how strong and fast they were coming. I knew something was up when my doctor showed up (obviously awoken from a deep sleep) around 2 am. I turned to Nate (maybe a little grouchy by this point) and said "Why is she here?" She told me that my uterus was "over-reacting" to this insert thing and she was going to give me something to "help my uterus rest." Also, she warned me that this medicine had the glorious side-effect of nausea. Super. The resting part didn't happen, the nausea did. Go figure.

At this point, I was in quite a bit of pain and asked for something to help. However, I was only 2 cm dilated and they told me they couldn't give me anything until I was 3. Ok...just a little bit longer, right? For the next few hours, I was in some pretty intense pain and poor Nate didn't know what to do. He kept asking me to eat a rice krispie treat to keep my strength up and after about the third time, I firmly insisted that I did NOT want a rice krispy treat. (Before you think badly of us...it's a little different here, they don't mind you eating and actually encourage it so that you will have strength for labor)

Then came the vomiting...some serious vomiting. Now I am used to vomiting because I get motion sickness quite a bit and I'm able to handle it pretty well now. However, vomiting mixed with super painful contractions...not fun. Finally, Nate tracked down a nurse and asked her to please come examine me so that hopefully I could get some medication. When she came in, I informed her that I needed an epidural and I needed it badly. So, she examined me and I was now 7 cm dilated. 7!! And do you know what happens when you are that dilated? Apparently, it's too late for an epidural. She told me she could order the medicine but it probably wouldn't get here in time and I was about to hit the worst of it. Wonderful.

I was progressing so quickly that she took me right into the delivery room. After a few minutes (although it seemed like forever) she examined me again and I was 9 cm dilated. I told her I needed to push and she told me no. No?! Excuse me?! Luckily, the doctor came in a few minutes later, broke my water immediately and told me to push away!! So I did and little Zoe was out just a few minutes later. They threw her on my chest and there was the most beautiful baby you have ever seen. Nate cut her umbilical cord and then went with her to have all her tests done. He said she was wide-eyed and alert the whole time. Maybe she was realizing it wasn't as bad out here as she thought it might be. Oh, and she was 3.8 kilos (not the 9-pounder we expected, just a little over 8!)

We are so in love with her and we could not be more thankful for this precious gift from God.

song for zoe

Last night Nate was up because he couldn't sleep. When I woke up this morning, I turned on the computer and he had written a song for Zoe. It's so sweet I had to share it:

I’LL BE THERE

I’ve been so patient

Though your date is past due

Don’t think I’m upset

I just wanna meet you

You’ll find a new world

With everything new

Though fear and shock may try

Nothing’s gonna touch you.

You’ll open your eyes

No doubt they’ll be blue

Though you prob’ly won’t see me

I’ll see you

Cuz I’ll be there

With a smile on my face

Or a tear in my eye

Proud as can be

‘Til the day I die

I’ll love you everywhere…

As life begins

It’ll seem so hard

When all is dark

I’ll be your star

Even before you’re here, I’ll be there

You'll say your first words

Then I'll hug you tight

You'll walk your first steps

But always in sight

Holding your first crayon

In your left hand or right

Seeming just as scribble

Poetry you'll write

We'll play make-believe

I will be your knight

My princess in trouble

The dragon I'll fight

Yes, I’ll be there

With a smile on my face

Or a tear in my eye

Proud as can be

‘Til the day I die

I’ll love you everywhere…

There’ll be new things to learn

And I’ll show you how

We’ll conquer together

That’s my solemn vow

Even before you’re here, I’ll be there

Runnin' to the bus

It's your first day of school

Boys are still gross

But you're Dad's little jewel

Then all of the sudden

Wearing what to the pool?

You want brand new clothes

Cuz you gotta look cool

Though boys break your heart

And girls act cruel

I’ll be there

With a smile on my face

Or a tear in my eye

Proud as can be

‘Til the day I die

I’ll love you everywhere…

As life gets harder

And puts you to the test

No matter the cost

I’ll do my best

Even before you’re here, I’ll be there

Find love like your Momma

We'll see your face glow

Time to walk down the aisle

But I won’t wanna go

I'll say "stay young with me"

You'll say "I can’t, you know..."

We'll walk hand-in-hand

The tears fightin' to flow

I'll play the tough father

But you'll know it's a show

Then one day you'll have kids

And get to see them grow

I'll be there

With a smile on my face

Or a tear in my eye

Proud as can be

‘Til the day I die

I’ll love you everywhere…

You’ll say “parenting’s hard,

And the kids run free”

I’ll just laugh

And say, “Give ‘em to me”

Even before you’re here, I’ll be there

When that doctor walks away

You're at my bedside

You'll say Daddy stay here

Be my young, strong, knight

You'll cry with pain

But I'll cry with pride

My beautiful girl

Is gorgeous inside

Although I’m now gone

God is still your guide

Remember all I taught you

You’re not alone tonight

I’ll be there

With a smile on my face

Or a tear in my eye

Proud as can be

'Til the day I die

I'll love you everywhere…

When we're in Heaven

Far away from harm

I will be waiting

To hold you in my arms, again

Even before you're here, I'll be there

I’ll be there

I’ll be there

Yea, I’ll be there

God loves me more than the birds!

"Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:25-26

It's amazing what a little "home culture" can do for you once in a while. We have been enjoying Nairobi for a month now and all the western culture that comes along with it, but today we had an extra dose of American culture. We attended a church this morning which can only be described as 0% African. It was full of ex-pats, in the theatre of an international school. Praise was led by a group of the students and we sang songs straight from America (in English!) and there was a praise band too! As we sang one of me and Nate's favorite "Hillsong" songs, I looked around the auditorium, full of people with their hands raised in praise to God, I realized I had not worshipped the Lord in "my way" in over a year. Don't get me wrong--there is something extremely special about worshipping with Africans, feeling free to dance around the room and singing praise to God in another language. But, today was special for us.

We watched a video sermon from Andy Stanley on worry...which for me, was VERY much needed. I'm that person who worries so much that when Nate doesn't worry, I worry because he needs to be worrying about something and I worry that he isn't worried! But he talked a lot about how the things we worry about are the things that we are most devoted to. But really when we worry about anything...putting our devotion in that, we are placing that thing above God. And why? Because we believe that God CAN take care of whatever situation we are worried about, but we don't believe he WILL take care of it. We believe we can do more ourselves through the process of worrying about it. But the Lord takes care of the birds and flowers and He made us in HIS OWN image...why do we believe He won't take care of us?!

This afternoon we had lunch with some of our favorite people and played Mario Kart on their Wii...then we went over to have dinner with some more of our favorite people. We ate waffles and pancakes (which were amazing!) and we just hung out all night with friends, talking, laughing, and playing games. It was a wonderful day and I know the Lord had it planned especially for me.

When we got home tonight, I checked my email and it was the first test of whether I had truly learned anything from the service this morning. Let's just say an email that I have been waiting on the past few days had arrived. I'm not an angry person usually, but immediately I started having feelings of anger and worry (reading aloud my email to Nate and ranting and raving). But God reminded me of the verses from this morning...he reminded me that He loves me more than the birds and HE will take care of the situation. I just have to trust.