I Love It! I Love It!

We arrived home on Sat. around 4pm. This little guy is amazing. If you don't know, he has already peed on me. He set me up with a poopy diaper and as I cleaned his bottom, he locked-on to his target and shot away. Direct Hit. But never the less, his skills are improving. He got his Nana (Crysty's Mom) the next day. He then waited for his next victim which happened to be his Aunt Cyndy. She came over yesterday as she held him in a blanket with his diaper on, He let go of the control valve and made it through the blanket through the diaper on her belly. "Score!" was what he was thinking. This morning as I got up, His Nana pointed to the couch were there was a spot. Yep He peed on the couch. Now with the last two, I am thinking there was a operator error on the diaper exchange. But he is marking his territory faster than expected. Elijah is amazing. We love him and he so beautiful (handsome). Thank you for your prayers and love.

This is Amazing

Wow, it's been three nights in the hospital and now we are headed home! I can't wait. Not so much for Eli to be home, but for me to be back in MY bed. This hospital cot thing is not working for the back. Eli on the other hand has like 100 places to sleep here at the hospital. His crib, his mommy, his daddy (chest,arms,lap), his Paw Paw, his Nanna, his Grandpa, his Grandad, and his Abuelita. His last two days have been amazingly great. He is sleeping,and eating wonderfully. He is a big shutter bug (His cousin is the ladybug). He constantly shutters in his sleep. It could be triggered by noises, movements from us, or even just something he may be dreaming about. I told Crysty he is fighting crime in his sleep. There he goes again. Right now he has been sleeping since 9:30. Awesome. It's Noon. We are loving it. Thanks for all the prayers. God is great. The picture is of his Uncle Chris and Aunt Cyndy.

More of Elijah

Elijah

Elijah, Daddy, Grandad

Other Pics

Elijah Keaton

Here is Elijah. We had a great first night. He is feeding great and sounding great. I am doing great healing and enjoying time with him. All the grandparents were here and we were so blessed to have them here waiting and anticipating his arrival. My sister and her husband were also here waiting for him.

40 weeks!

It has come; I am officially 40 weeks pregnant on Tuesday, May 11! However Elijah has not even dropped yet so I have a feeling that we will be arriving for our appointment on Wednesday ready to meet our baby boy. Wednesday, May 12 at 5:30pm I will be having a c-section. My doctor believes Elijah is so big she is passing up the epidural and going straight to a c-section. So please keep John and I in your prayers as we prepare for this amazing life changing step. It will probably be a while before I update our blog again- but wanted to let you know where I will be.

Wishing & Hoping...

Today I am 39 weeks pregnant! The hope of my family, myself, and my doctor is that I will naturally go into labor any minute now. I had a sonogram last week that estimates Eli is already over 8.5 pounds, I know there is room for error but our doctor, as she gazed wide eyed at my round belly says she doubts the error is on the small side. It's amazing to think that at any moment God may decide ok, this is the time that Eli should be welcomed into our world- and bam, our lives are forever changed.

Tomorrow I go for my weekly check up and that will be the day that we make some choices on Eli's arrival, I think. I hope to go into labor naturally, the only reason being I have always wanted to have those moments of excitement when I get to go tell John, "It's TIME!" And then see him freak out, and go into a frinzy getting ready. Oh that would be so fun! But I am ok with however we need to get Eli out, I have peace about the whole thing, just anxiously awaiting.

Do you have any great stories, or heard any great stories on couples going into labor, husbands freaking out, or anything of the sorts?

Here are some shower pictures...some are from my church shower, and a few from my family shower.

Elijah's Room!

I am finally finished with Eli's room! I am pretty happy with it, there are several more things I would have liked to do, like painted or picked out a little different furniture - but I am super excited about how well we budgeted the room and kept all costs to a minimum. So I have posted the pictures on facebook if you want a better look at them. The blog is being difficult and only posting the pictures as text.

Elijah's Batman Nursery!

Elijah's nursery is finished! We have kept it simple, and not overdone the Batman part, I am pretty excited to be done with it. Here are the pictures.

A Little Practice as the Day Draws Near...

This week John and I are taking care of three kids (9, 11, & 14), you could say we are getting a little taste of what it may be like to have a big family. The kids are great, other than wanting to eat everything their parents told us not to let them eat they listen to everything we ask of them- pretty amazing. The schedule is crazy, and I completely understand why parents feel like chauffers. Each kid is involved in two sports and one is part of a school play as well, its a lot of practices to juggle.

A wonderful part of taking care of the kids is seeing John with them. I am sure it will come to a huge surprise to you that John is the "fun" guy between the two of us but also he takes care of so much, and enforces the rules when needed. Since I am 8 months prego John has been especially willing to take care of more than his share of duties with the kids, grocery shopping and the little bit of cooking we have done. I love seeing John with the kids, it makes me so excited to have Elijah here and begin our family.

We agree though the toughest part of this week is sleeping in someone else's bed, it is a horribly hard bed and neither of us has gotten much sleep at all, which makes us both so tired and me incredibly sore.

A Sneak Peak

Since the day I discovered I was pregnant I knew that if we had a boy I wanted to decorate his room with Batman. John has been a Batman fan (and picky collector of Batman memorabilia), his groom’s cake was even decorated with Batman. So I have been brainstorming how to make this little boy’s first room a collection of something his father already takes pleasure in. I knew I did not want the “scary” Batman stuff, it is a baby’s room and I knew I didn’t want it to just be a tacky overwhelming collection of everything Batman. So below are a few pictures of aspects that will come together to make Elijah Keaton’s first room. Be nice though, everything looks better in person and will come together really well I think. John was excited when he saw what I had worked on this week with the bottom two things.

Poster- I hope to have this image printed out and framed as the center piece in Eli’s room. It is the 1939 introduction of Batman from Detective Comics.

Bedding- After much thought of making the bedding after doing the cost calculations I chose to go with this bedding from Pottery Barn Kids, I don’t have it yet but have registered for it.

“ELI”- Taking some old Batman comics I painted the edges of the letter and then deco-podged clips of the comics on the letters.













Paintings- I copied a few silhouettes from some Batman greeting cards John had on to these canvas to add bright color and keep a kid feel. I hope to add a couple more canvas as well.

Our Winter Wonderland

This past weekend Dallas had the most snow it has ever seen. The snow began to fall early Thursday morning and continued throughout the day, John & I were both substituting in the HP schools. Stuck inside with all the kids going crazy thinking- we should be outside playing in this snow! This is not normal for Dallas! The high school, where John was at even went 3 hours without electricity; those students were really going crazy.

Thursday afternoon I picked John up from the high school and we both agreed this is amazing and we need to do something in all this snow! John really wanted a snowball fight, every time we drove past kids attacking each other you could see the sad longing to lob a snowball at some kid, and his pregnant wife would not play that game. So John finally came up with the solution that I could be part of, we would build a snowman, and not just a normal snowman of until we got tired of being outside but a huge snowman. So Friday afternoon we layered on our ski clothes and created an 8ft snowman, however Friday night John decided that was not big enough so on Saturday he added 2 more inches.

We had so much fun building this snowman together and looking forward to the many snowmen in the future that would be built with our kids. And the joy of creating this snowman increased each time we looked out the window and saw a family taking pictures with him or just stopping to admire his size. This will absolutely be something I always treasure and remember about our record snowfall in Dallas!

Thank You...

Ok, so I am at Winterfest, thirsty. I have two options: coke machine or stand in line at the concession. I am closer to the concession so I choose to stand in line.
I get behind a girl from another youth group. I ask how she likes it to which she tells me this is her third year to attend and she loves it.
“Great,” I say.
She responds with a question, “Do you have a dollar I can have?”
“Well, I only have a twenty. How about you order and I will just pay for yours
and mine at the cash register.”
“Thank you,” she says (I think).
We wait in line for about two more minutes not really talking before we reach the lady who asks what we would like. “Two pretzels,” she says. My eyebrows raise, my thoughts flashback to her only asking for ONE dollar.
I order orange juice. She receives her two pretzels. I get my OJ and my wallet to pay. Then lean over and say, “So, you really decided to take advantage or me offering to pay for your snack.”
“Well, one is for me and the other one is for my friend,” she says. But for some reason I don’t quite believe her. She takes her two pretzels and heads down the hall. I wait for Crysty at the exit of the concession. While I wait, I am just baffled that this girl would take such liberty in ordering more than she first requested. What was it that made her think she could now order two pretzels? Why didn’t she ask me if it would be OK? I know, I could have told her and stopped her order and said that I was only go to loan her a dollar. But I didn’t even make her spend her dollar. So she got the pretzel she wanted, an extra pretzel, and kept her dollar. I felt scammed by an eighth grader who is now going to enjoy two pretzels on me.
I looked around the hall as I waited on Crysty, and I see the girl. She just stopped walking to stand next to another girl and begins to had one pretzel over to her. Her friend is surprised. I can see the joy and confusion on her face. It seems she knew that her friend only had one dollar to begin with. She is happy to get her own pretzel, but wonders how her friend was able to get one for each of them. I cannot hear them, but I can see that she asks her friend how that happened. Then the girl in line points down the hall in my direction and says something. And her looks my way and says, “Thank you.”

As a minister, a youth minister that is (who apparently is in his office too much) I get the chance (or the shortest straw) to meet several people who come to the church looking for some kind of help. We call this the Back Door Ministry. The needs range from bus tickets for local transportation to sometimes the Greyhound. Food, prescriptions, clothes, boots, money, a night at the hotel, gas for their car, utility bills are all needs that have been presented to me. Most of them are easy, but we never give out cash and never fill prescriptions so, those people leave mad. Others become more complicated as their list of needs grow as they tell their story. We also get repeats; people who come twice a month, sometime more.

We had a guy call down curses on our worship minister. Crazy thing was that this guy could pray. He had a deep voice, strong and energetic, which just fed these amazing prayers. We saw Nathaniel for like 3 years here and there. He came in Dec. 2007 saying that he was moving to Denver and will not be back to ask for help in 2008. He failed to keep his promise.

Our campus minister has this on going pen pal from prison. Problem is that he serves his time and then makes personal visits. I have had a couple of visits with Raymond. We do what we can while he is out. But then we receive another letter from prison. He is one of five of our non-official prison ministry members.

In the summer of 2009 I was helping a young man named Isaac who served some time. He worked part time at La Madeleine. So he had a little income but not much. He stayed with his sister sometimes, until she felt like he was not doing his part around the house or to find a new job and she would kick him out for a few days. I tried hiring Isaac a few time around the church. He was an awful worker, slow, non-efficient, and never on time. I had lunch with him several times. We would talk about job hunting, prison, and his family. Crysty and I were prepared to help him with a monthly bus pass so he could be where he needed to be. We did for two months. Then he stopped showing up. I hope he found a full time job, but I just don’t know.
I have been conned a few times. One guy I met around 8:00 pm sometime in 2005. My wife and I were at Target, and I get this call from our office administrator who is at the church for a prayer meeting saying there is guy at the door who will not leave until he talks to someone and he is being a little aggressive. Crysty and I rush home. I listen to his story and decide to help. I helped with a hotel room, bought him boots for his job, played some ping-pong with him, and bought him some food from Wal-Mart. I helped him for about a week. Then nothing. I didn’t hear from him. About a year later, he shows back up at the church, but this time he is using a different name. Bummer. I bring up the past help and his other name, to which he replies, “I was on the run last year.” Bummer. I gave him a bus pass and sent him on his way.

We once had a lady who came every Tuesday for help. Her name was Elizabeth. We continued to push her toward Central Dallas Ministries, but she said her needs were not that great. She had small requests (except one time our campus minister bought her a diabetic blood test thing that cost him $65). Every once in while she would test the waters and ask for cash, “I need ten dollars in quarters for laundry.” We (I) denied her request. She would get mad and leave. But not without a bus pass, and she would be back next week. She tried going back to school (or at least that is what she told us). We probably saw her for about half a year then one Tuesday she didn’t show up. That Christmas I got a letter in the mail at the church. It was Elizabeth. She sent Crysty and I a Christmas card saying thank you for the help and that she moved to Kentucky. It made me smile.

I wished more of these stories ended this way. With just a letter that says thank you. A letter that contains a little closure. I don’t feel bad, when I can’t help someone out, I do feel great when I do help someone out, but I wonder when I send them on their way if their story is going to change because of the help I have given them.

Jesus one time saw this man who was born blind. He then spit in the mud placed it on his eyes and told the blind man to wash in a pool. So the blind man went and washed and came home seeing. The rest of John 9 is this man telling a new story, a grand story, a story of redemption. As a blind man he was a beggar, an outcast, a person with no story. Even Jesus’ disciples weren’t looking to redeem this man; they wanted reasons for his blindness. Jesus shows us purpose. “That the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Am I looking for purpose in outcast situations? Was I looking for the work of God to be displayed in Isaac’s life, Nathaniel’s life, or Elizabeth’s? I don’t really know.

Today, I helped a couple get to Austin, TX. They have been in Dallas for three days. They said they have visited at least 40 churches asking for the same thing. I could see the hunger in their faces and the tiredness in their posture when they showed up. I bought them bus tickets and some lunch at Whataburger (it’s the go to fast food place for moments like these). I took them to the bus station, purchased the tickets, and handed them over. Last night they stayed in the ER room of a hospital. Tonight they will stay with family.

I may not ever hear from John and Donna King again. I might not ever know why they were stuck in Dallas and not somewhere else, but I do know that the work of God was displayed in their life. And I know that they have a new story to share with their family.

Preparing for a baby with John...

I am sure John will have a post later this week about our Winterfest Retreat with the youth group but I wanted to share a little paragraph with you that expressed so well what it is like preparing for our little boy with John.

Below I is a paragraph John wrote to his brother and sister updating them on how we're doing and what's going on. Please read with a sarcastic tone of voice.

"Crysty and I are hard at work trying to get a name for our child. It’s one of my new years resolutions. She is hard pressed to name him before May 11th and I tell her she is pushing the schedule up 7 months in advance (I have until Dec. 31). I threw out the name Diego, because I do think it’s cool, a little Hispanic sounding, and that was my name while I waited tables at Olive Garden, because the ladies loved it. My hope of naming our first Bruce and our second Wayne has been laid down to rest. We also have to find furniture for our kid, which already sounds like a pain. I mean we just visited the furniture stores for a TV console and end tables. Now I have to go back in these stores to find something for my child already. I was trying to get Crysty to go with, “If the child doesn’t ask for it we don’t need to get it” agreement saying it would save us some money, but she refused. So, now I have to go crib shopping, then look at changing tables, and maybe a dresser. The other thing to add to all this is the fact that we want at least 3 more kids. “We really need to get some thing nice and durable,” she says. So I had to throw away all my drawings of how to stack or move the furniture we already own. Let me tell you, seeing eight hours of drawings that include your couch facing the wall, or a pallet of blankets on your dinning room chairs all pushed together with their backs making a crib didn’t really settle well. I hope this is worth it. I am sure in hour ten I was going to revolutionize the baby furniture market. Babies are so demanding, and this kid has four more months in the womb. I have to take a class on just his arrival! "