Slideshow update

We decided to put up pics every 2 weeks in the final stretch here, instead of 4. Seeing as the baby grows about 1/2 lbs every week, and Mom even more than that. Our little peanut isn't so little anymore - about 5 lbs these days.

Visitors and plans

We've had 2 sets of visitors this week, and we didn't let either of them rest. Coming to the Vetter home is more like short term mission work than vacation, apparently. My parents were down last weekend, and we kept Dad hopping with all sorts of Mr. Fix-it projects. The biggest was putting up lattice/fencing all around the back deck so animals stop hanging out there and driving the dog (and hence us) crazy. He also fixed things around the house, and hung fabulous new art in the nursery. Check it out in the pictures, all Papa Pete originals! Mom and I did all the baby's laundry and organized clothes into sizes and accessibility. Quite productive!


This week Brandon's Dad came down. He has not stopped working on the bushes and flowers and general landscaping all around the house. He's seriously been out there for 6-7 hours every day. They've torn out all the old weeds and overgrown shrubs and planted pretty new things. Now he's got the edging rubber stuff in, and is starting to lay down a bunch of red mulch. You can see how much I understand all this, I'm probably not using the right words. But, it looks great!

So that's been our house guests and house projects. We're hoping Beth might make it down sometime too. And of course all the parents will be back when baby comes! The rest of our week has been full of plans for the beginning of school at DWU, and beginning of edu programming at my church. I'm eager to start confirmation and Bible Study and Sunday School and finally get to know all the students. Brandon's glad kids are trickling back to campus with sports teams this week, and everyone next week. This place will be hoping again!

Our next big plans are to go to Bismarck for a baby shower my Aunt Kristie and good family friend Lisa are hosting for us! I'm a little nervous about this, since it's during my 37th week of pregnancy. I keep hearing stories of all these women having their babies 2 or more weeks early, and that freaks me out. But, I know, and Brandon tells me daily, that the majority of people go to that 40th week or over - so it SHOULD be fine. The shower will be great, I'm excited for that. It was super fun to register and pick out all the adorable baby things in the nursery dept. We're going with a safari theme of baby African animals - so cute. Our registry is at http://www.target.com/ if you want to see. If you're in the Bismarck area, come to the shower on Saturday, Sept 13th at 2 p.m. at First Lutheran Church across from Bismarck High School!

After that I guess our plans involve having a baby and learning what to do with her. That should be enough to keep us busy for awhile! I hope YOUR plans are to come visit said baby!

Brandon's home with chicken nuggets, so I say goodbye. :-) Vicky

Baby Update

I'm so sorry, I haven't actually given any baby news in a long while. As if you people are reading this blog to find out what B and I are doing - yeah right - get to the kid! Here's all the baby/pregnancy news fit to print.

We did a very 'unofficial' ultrasound with a nurse at our home clinic. We played around for about 1/2 hour - it was awesome! We saw some images of the baby's face, and for just a moment a perfect little foot with 5 tiny toes. What fun! The kid was squirming and moving hands and legs constantly; which I guess I already knew because I can feel it all the time now. Just recently we actually reached a stage where you can see the movements by just looking at my belly. That's kind of creepy. Anyway, the point of the story - having seen no 'man parts' we believe this baby is a girl! So I'll finally stop saying 'it' and call her she, which is so much better! We've been calling her a girl for a couple weeks now, and even buying a few girly things, so we're getting pretty excited about baby-girl world.

I'm still feeling really good - this whole pregnancy has gone just beautifully. I'm bigger now, as you can see from the 28 week picture, and growing regularly. So, I do have some discomfort with her pushing against my ribs, and just in general getting heavy to carry around. My feet and hands swell up every now and then, but not to unbearable amounts. I guess I'm a little nervous to see how the next 9 weeks go, knowing that she'll gain 1/2 pound every week from here on out. I guess that means I'll about double in belly size. She's roughly 3 lbs right now. People say I don't look 30 weeks pregnant yet, I'm too small. I feel big, though! It may be that I'm carrying her really high - in my ribs. In the next few weeks she's supposed to move down lower and 'get into position'. We'll see.

I had a blood glucose test about 3 weeks ago, and failed. So I had to do the 3 hour version of the test last week. Which meant I went to the clinic at 9 in the morning, not allowed to eat breakfast. They drew my blood, waited an hour for the results, had me drink the sugary soda thing then drew my blood every hour for 3 hours. So, all told, I couldn't eat or drink anything until 1:00 that afternoon. That's like torture for a pregnant woman! In the end they said my body is NOT processing sugar appropriately. So, I've been put on a minimum sugar and low-carb diet until the end of the pregnancy. They said my levels aren't quite at 'gestational diabetes' classification, but it's a similiar idea to that. So that kind of stinks for us. I really like bread in all it's forms, and sweets a lot! But, it's been going ok this week to back off them all.

That might be all the baby news I have right now. My dad is making some picture for the nursery, which I'm really excited about. He's got all the skills of an artist! I think Beth is going to do some art work too, which will be awesome! She's in Peru right now, so keep her in your prayers. Also, on a side note, please lift up my good friend Amber and her boyfriend Eric in your prayers. Eric was recently diagnosed with leukemia and has been in the hospital all week with problems.

The Rock - ROCKS again!

We're back from a wonderful week of camp out in the hills. 56 middle school campers, and nearly 0 disciplinary problems. Can you believe it? It was such an amazing group of kids, I was extremely impressed. It also probably helped that we had a world-class staff of great counselors to keep them entertained, happy, and growing all week long. I swear I laugh more during one week of camp than most other months altogether!

Some of the highlights from our week:
*The outfits counselors wore to play Rock Band.
*The new variation of 'electricity' that includes tossing a cup of water at your competitor.
*The really well-behaved, involved, enthusiastic campers!
*The fact that very few, if any, kids said the sessions were too long and boring.
*The communion service on Thursday night with lots of genuine commitments and repentance.
*Teaching a whole group of campers how to play Samari / 'Waa'.
*Scaring the pants off the group in the cave. I didn't go, but I saw the footage and heard the stories.
*Playing with the three little boys that came with counselor parents.
*The best moment: when the counselors attacked the entire camp with garbage pails of water and the hose, while all the campers had their heads down and eyes closed, innocently playing a game! Both Ju-cos were with the campers, getting soaked, even though they had foreknowledge of the plan - that's dedication!

Now we're home, doing laundry and sleeping. I napped twice already today - long naps too. I feel fully pregnant and huge now, and get worn out fairly quickly. We've got a week to recover and prepare, then it's back out to the same place for high school camp. I hope that one goes just as well!

Africa Pictures and random update

Here are some of the picture from Brandon's trip to Tanzania. We're still working on putting some video together. Follow this link http://picasaweb.google.com/vbvetter it's the first album, called Tanzania 08.

I started my job this month at Trinity. It's been going pretty well. Like with any new job I've got a lot of people, and programs, and computer files to keep straight. There's lots of information gathering at this time. But, overall, it's been going really well. I like my co-workers and am getting along with them. I've met a few people from the church, and everyone's been so welcoming and nice. I really like this congregation, actually. I haven't hung out with many youth yet, but have at least met a few. I'm eager to get started with that. We actually have meetings this coming week with both high school and confirmation groups - so things are starting up!

Brandon has nicely recovered from his jet leg, and a weekend of Annual Conference. So, the house is happy and normal once again! This weekend we're actually out in the Black Hills with my family, just to hang out and take in the trees.

Vicky

Brandon back in America!

Sorry, I didn't get on earilier to say that Brandon and the entire team did indeed arrive safely home earlier this week. I've only gotten some stories as they come trickling out; but lots of good pictures. Everyone is doing well, and it sounds like the trip overall was a big success. B's gone again now, for Annual Conference. But, he's in the country and only out of a couple of days - so I can handle it. Eventually we'll post the Africe pictures and I'll share that link with y'all.

I started my new job this week! It went really well. There's a huge learning curve, of course - it'll take a while for me to know what's going on and learn who's who. But, this week I figured out a few organizational things in the office, started getting a feel for the programs in place and what's been tried before. Best of all, we had VBS all week - so I got to hang out with lots of great moms and volunteers and about 30 sweet kids every evening. It was really fun, and quite a successful event. I was with the 4 yr. olds mostly. I'm so impressed when they answer questions about the Bible or theology correctly. It's amazing how much they can understand and remember so young! Overall I'm really excited to be in the church and glad to finally get going on the job.

Garage Sale Queen!

Do you know a Garage Sale Queen? I'm sure glad I do! She goes by many names, but I call her 'Mom'. And this past week she dominated the Bis-Man Garage Sale kingdom. In the process the Vetter family nursury went from 0% stocked, to 80-85% done! Check out the pictures, we made a major haul! It filled my SUV, and we had to leave the big piece, a changing table, back with Grandpa for some reinforcements.

We got big things, like crib, swing, blanket sets, bouncy chair and we got teeny-tiny things like newborn onesies and socks that barely fit two adult fingers. Overall we had 70+ items of clothing in a range of sizes to grow into and out of. Here's the amazing part...are you ready? We wrote down everything we saw laid out in the living room and estimated the cost of each item when bought new (with some internet search help). A conservative estimate puts us as $1300 of supplies, we spent LESS than 20% of that!

It was amazing to set everything up in the room that will be our nursury soon. It finally started looking like one today! I just keep thinking about all these great things and how right now they're clothes on the shelf or a cute toy on the floor - but before long they'll wrap around our baby and be drooled on and played with and washed a hundred times. These are my baby's things! How amazing is that!

Thanks for everything, Mom and Dad! I had a great week at home, and am very grateful to be this much more prepared for the little one's arrival!