The good the bad and the ugly

October was a very busy month, and I had no time to sit down and write an entry. From working at the farmer's market one last time, to having an incredibly sick family - I'm just glad it's November.
This trimester of pregnancy has been so nice, I've had so much more energy and have been able to get a lot accomplished around here. I decided to do one more farmer's market before the end of the season. So, I packed up all my gear and headed down there on a very cold Saturday morning - just to freeze my toes off mostly. I only had one sale (which has been my luck the last few times I've attended). In the end, it was a good season, I definitely can't complain about my sales and I had a lot of fun doing something out of the house. Now, I'm working on knitting hats and scarves and getting a few other items ready for a Holiday Market at the Flying M Coffeegarage on November 30 (4-10pm). It should be a lot of fun, especially cause some of my good friends are also having "booths" there, and we'll all be selling our wares together for the first time. It's supposed to all be "functional art" - and that basically means, "cool stuff you can't find anywhere else, made my local artisans". So, I hope to see you there.
We found out this month that we're having another girl. When we went in for the ultrasound, neither David or I had any real expectations of what sex the baby was, and weren't really leaning any direction on what we wanted it to be, but when we saw her on the big screen for the first time, it was love at first sight. How could we be disappointed with another beautiful baby girl?
We celebrated David's birthday on October 22nd (a couple days late). We had an Oktoberfest birthday party, complete with Jagerschnitzel, Krautkapfen, Rotkraut, and Currywurst. It was a blast, we ate for hours with our friends and ended the evening with everyone's favorite german dessert... German Chocolate Cake?
Gracie was very very disappointed that she missed out on daddy's party, because she helped make the cake, and had been practicing "Alley Birthday Daddy" for a week. So, we made him another cake later that week, just so he could blow out candles after we sang "Alley Birthday Daddy".
Gracie got strep throat that same week, and kept complaining that her "mouth hurt" - so, we started her on amoxicillin, and she'd been on it a few days, and then she woke up one morning completely covered with red spots. I was in mild panic mode, because I don't really remember what chicken pox looks like, and my Gracie was looking really frightful. I called the Dr. and for once, she saw Gracie right away. She instantly calmed my fears of chicken pox and said it was most likely a viral rash, caused by a strange reaction between childhood mononucleosis and amoxicillin. oy! - So, we just had to wait out the rash , it got so much worse before it got better, but the good part was that Gracie never even noticed it. No itching, no complaining, no nothing... it was just the visual shock of seeing her little body covered in spots.
During these 2 weeks of strep/mono Peter got a case of croupe, due to a bad cold. He had a hard time sleeping, ran fevers, coughed til he choked and mostly just wanted to be held all the time. I caught his cold and was absolutely miserable for a few days as well. In the middle of that he decided to pop 4 teeth out of his gums. 2 molars and 2 front teeth (no wonder he was so crabby).
By the end of those weeks, we were all better and Peter and Grace have recovered nicely. Thanks for your prayers, thoughts, encouragement and food.
For my birthday we went to the Boise Zoo (now called ZOOBOISE... which I find too ridiculous to speak) - Gracie has been there one other time, but she really enjoyed it this time. The monkeys were very vocal and swinging all over the place, the birds were out singing, the cats were pacing and the tortoise was grunting. We had such a great time, and the kids were happy to be out of the house and seeing a bunch of animals they've only seen in books or on tv.
By the end of the month Gracie was really worried that no one had been singing Happy Birthday Gracie yet, and we have been assuring her that her birthday will come in a while... after Peter's and the new baby is born - she doesn't really get it, so we've just been singing the song with her in the car all the time.
Now on to really important things:
On the day before my birthday I was participating in prayer time at church, and God really hit be hard with an abundance of joy. I think I laughed for about a half hour. It was really good and really painful - when God wants you to be full of joy, he doesn't just make you laugh, he FILLS you with joy... I am usually a person that resists that sort of thing, so it was more like God forcing joy into me.... which was so good. After laughing for a long time, completely uncontrollably, and feeling like my sides were going to burst - he just blew over me with peace. As I laid on the floor (for who knows how long), without moving a muscle and just basking in his presence, he started to pour visions into me. I'll share one with you, that I found to be especially encouraging.
I saw myself being water baptised, and as I was dunked under the water, the arms (that usually bring you out of the water after a second or two) held me under the water until I drowned. As I lay under the water, dead another arm reached in and helped me out of the water, alive again, and I held in my hand a really big bell. I just took off running through Nampa with this big bell and I was ringing it above my head, running all around town.
There is way too much in this picture to get into here, but I have found a great amount of excitement and strength in it.
The next day, we got an email from our friends at PAZ (Brazilian missionaries) and they are in the states for a while and wondered if they could call us and talk sometime. This brought up a lot of questions for David and I - a lot of confusion. What do we say? What do we do? What are our plans? What are God's plans? How do we know what God has for us?
In the end - we came back to the conclusion that there is a lot of ministry that needs to be done here in Nampa, and if we aren't actively participating in that here and now - what makes us think we could participate in that in Brazil?
God is so good, and so loving. He's given us far above anything we could ask or think - and we are actively anticipating whatever it is we get to do here in Nampa for the building up of His Kingdom.