Birthday, Conference, Cousin, Baby Name

My sweet husband turned 28 yesterday. We actually celebrated (just the two of us; well, four if you count Frankie and Cletus, which we do) on Saturday night--it had been a very full day and we were both pretty tired, but we enjoyed his meal request of sweet and sour chicken and carrot cupcakes. Sunday night we hosted small group at our house, and we enjoyed sharing cupcakes with our friends in continued celebration. One of the gifts I got for Chris was a dude-worthy diaper bag. It really looks nothing like a diaper bag (which is the point, i guess) but has all the nice compartments and a changing pad for practicality. It's backpack style and made by Columbia.

Mom and Austin came in Friday afternoon for a visit. Mom and I attended the Beth Moore Living Proof Live conference Friday evening and Saturday morning. We went with my friends Sarah and Carie, and it was an amazing experience. The time of worship through singing is always amazing at these conferences--just imagine 13,000 women's voices lifted in praise to God! Beth taught on Exodus 34 where God proclaims His character to Moses. We so often fall into saying things like, "I wish God would just show me what He's like...", yet right there in scripture, He has proclaimed it for us so clearly. I wish I had pictures to show you from the conference, but I failed to take the camera with me.

While we were at the conference on Saturday, Chris took Austin (11yo) to the zoo. They went along with our friend Chris (Carie's husband) and his 2 year-old, Sutton. Austin has been looking forward to this zoo trip for months. He even took a notebook along with him prepared to write down the names of all the animals he saw; Chris says Austin shed the notebook in the first 30 minutes realizing it was more trouble to carry than anything, but I thought it was pretty cute he was taking this so seriously. As expected, Austin was most interested in the reptile house. Chris says Austin got into a discussion about some of the snakes with one of the zookeepers and that Austin really knew his stuff. I'm always telling Austin he needs to be a vet or zoologist some day. Below is a picture of Austin with the daddy gorilla, and the gorilla doing an impersonation of Chris in the morning:

Mom and I enjoyed a nice Mexican lunch and maternity clothes shopping Saturday afternoon. I think that was actually the first time anyone has been with me while shopping for maternity clothes, and it was fun to try things on and get her opinion. Several friends (Carie, Emily, and Trish) have been gracious enough to let me borrow maternity clothes over the past few months, so thankfully my need hasn't been too great. With the items purchased Saturday, I should be pretty well set now. Thanks Mom!

I just found out today that Jordan (my bro) and Meagan are having a boy! We were all so prepared for their baby to be a girl, especially after Meagan did one of those new tests that measure something in urine to determine the gender that said it was a girl. I guess "Annabelle" will no longer work, huh? Well, the good news is that the pressure is now off to supply heirs for the Starnes' AND the Littrell's. I think it will be so much fun for the babies to have a cousin that close in age (~6 weeks apart) that's the same gender.

The baby's due date is three months from today! In celebration of reaching that landmark, we're going to reveal the baby's name one letter at a time (in mixed order) on the blog over the next few days. We thought it would be fun if you try to guess the name as we reveal more and more letters. Stay tuned...