SURPRISE!

It's 4:15 on Friday, December 19th...yesterday was the last day with students and today was a teacher "records day." Though I like to think of it more as a catch up with the other teachers in the building kind of day. Most teachers don't risk the danger of overloading the system on the last day possible to do grades, so we are done with grades and therefore have nothing to do on "records day." Though I did pick up the front of my classroom. (I was going to clean the whole room, but realized I have students who really like to organize the instruments and untangle the scarves and ribbons...so why should I do that myself when I can be chatting with a variety of pretty cool people?)

To quote the Counting Crows, "It's been a long December..." For lots of reasons it has been an extraordinarily challenging year, obviously (from the point of this blog) it has been amazing and incredibly blessed as well, but challenging none the less. Becoming one flesh comes with many side effects-both beautiful and requiring sacrifice and hard work.

On December 23, 2007 Micah and I saw each other for the first time since 1999. On December 23, 2008 we will not only have been married for 5 months, 18 days but we will also be 10 weeks 2 days pregnant.

It's true...most of you who read this already know...but we are pregnant.

God pretty much rocks our socks.

Not because we have been praying for this to happen or because we were planning it.

Baby Bell is not an answer to prayer...in fact, we had asked people to pray the exact opposite.

Baby Bell is a blessing because God certainly hears the mumblings and desires of our hearts when we don't even realize what we truly desire. Micah and I agreed before we dated that we both desperately wanted to be parents. But we also wanted to be married for a while before that process even happened.

But now that we are pregnant, we cherish "holding" baby Bell at bedtime as well as whispering good morning to baby. Though Micah is much better at whispering to my belly than I am.

So, I'm ready for winter break...and so is baby Bell. We hope to have lots of quality time staying warm in blankets together and baby will be the best company ever while I finally get to writing all the thank you notes from the wedding. Call me modern, but last I heard we had a year to get them out...my hope is to have them in the mail before 2009.

It is a little premature, but here's hoping to a little more calm start to 2009 and just as happy as an ending!

peace.