Anxiously awaiting....

Well, we've been anticipating Anna's early arrival for 12 days now! Lacey's due date is still Sept 24th, but contractions started almost two weeks ago, and the dr. said that stage 2 labor is imminent for her! The last two weks have been filled with lots of overtime hours for Jon, many trips to the hospital and doctor office to check the progress of Lacey's labor, camp events and projects, and getting the house ready for another little Cummings! We are excited to introduce you all to our little girl as soon as she arrives! This labor is definitley going much differently than when Taylor was born, so we are being vigilant and hoping that when the time comes we will get to the hospital in time! The dr is thinking the birth will go fast --- we'll see!

Taylor still has no clue that his world is about to change in such a big way. We think he'll adjust just fine, though. We think. :) He keeps us laughing every day! His new phrase of the week is "Oops! Sorry. It's okay!" His verbal skills have just exploded over the past month, and we get a kick out of hearing him repeat things we didn't think he was paying attention to.

Here are some recent pictures, and links to August photo albums! We love you all!

Here is a link for some random August pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67674&l=65b49&id=515981054

And for an album of Lacey's baby shower!: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=67669&l=dad51&id=515981054

We also finally finished uploading pictures from our Minnesota trip, so if you'd like to look at the rest of those: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62624&l=e5827&id=515981054

51 dollar ticket. It's worth the read. Trust me. This has been Jon

Some of you have been asking about my bus trip and the craziness thereof.

Well, it all started with a long week of work. Got home at 3:30 on thursday, packed up and left Amazing Grace by 4. We had to find where the bus was picking us up. Eventually found it and were picked up at 5:30. Got to Kansas City by about 6:20. We had about a two hour wait for the bus to Minneapolis. I was traveling with Sunil Mohinani. I think that's how you spell his name. He's indian. Which made for a good trip.

Now, if you're a normal person . . . like I am. You look at the ticket that the unnamed travel company has given you. You see the cities listed on your ticked, and you think, "Self, that must be the cities that I'm going to go to on my bus to Minneapolis. Thusly, these are the cities I'll listen for when they are announcing the buses."

So, there Sunil and I are, sitting in the bus station, waiting for our bus, watching a small, eastern-asian man talk on his phone while crouching on a half wall looking like he was going to jump off and pounce on something and karate chop the ramen noodles out of it. You know. Normal stuff like that.

Now, I should also mention that this was both Sunil's and my first time riding a bus. You would think that because . . . never mind.

So, about 7:40 or so, some gentleman that probably mumbles if he didn't talk over a staticy loud speaker. So, he starts rattling off these cities for about three different buses. Sunil and I heard St.Paul and Winnepeg (which, for those of you geographically challenged people, is in the Yucatan peninsula or something; Antarctica maybe; i.e. not where we were going). So, me and Sunil both look at each other and give the nod of disapproval that this is not the bus we should get on. So, the whole blessed bus station empties out at about 8. So, Sunil and I go to the door we're supposed to go to and wait for them to call the Minneapolis bus. Well, 8:13 comes around, and a bus pulls out of the station and leaves. I look at Sunil and say, "Sunil, I'm not going to lie. That worries me alittle bit." He says, "Yeah. I'll go ask somebody about it."

I watched him walk to the ticketing table. Let's just say the lady that was working behind the counter acted like she had a porcupine wedged in amongst her armpits. Not a pleasant person. I could tell by Sunil's reaction to porcupine woman that the information he was getting was not positive.

Yeah, that was our bus. The winnepeg bus was our bus. There was no final call if you're going north! If you're going any where in between here and the northpole, you should be on this bus. No, there was none of that.

So, we had our choice of seats now in bus station. We went and found some and started trying to call people to see if they wanted to drive us to Minnesota, or Des Moines or somewhere on our ticket so we could catch up with our bus and hop on. I grew up in KC, but I just couldn't think of anybody that I was close enough to to ask them to drive us North. It was kind of a bummer.

So, we had to wait until 1:30 am for the next bus to Minneapolis. We were in the middle of calling our families and telling them of the conspiracy against us when a young lady got our attention. She asked if we were waiting for the 8:10 bus to Minneapolis also. We had the unfortunate duty of informing (we'll call her Bertha for sake of anonymity) Bertha the she too had missed the bus. She naturally was not pleased with that news. We told her we were trying to find somebody that could drive us north to try to beat the bus to one of the stops so we could hopefully get on. We were told this would be up to the driver's discretion if he would let us on. Bertha got on her phone and began calling someone. She said she might know somebody that would do it.

Well, it turned out that they couldn't do it, but they offered to bring us food and keep us company for a while. I think they actually were just bringing Bertha food and coming to keep her company, but we were there sitting right beside her, so they had no choice. So, Bertha, Sunil, and I watched a movie for a while until she got up and found her friends and brought them over. We ate their pizza, talked about college, talked about theology for a little bit. Most of them knew each other from the Catholic college they went to. Bertha ended up deciding that she was going to drive home and use her ticket some other time.

So, Sunil and I were left alone to our movie. Sunil was bummed that he didn't get her number. She probably wasn't.

To rap this baby up, 1:30 rolled around. Large amounts of cranky smelly people had crowded into the station. We of course were among the first in line at the door we figured out we were supposed to be at. Listened to a dumb, blonde lady insult a uniformed soldier. She had a death wish. 1:50, we finally were let out the door to get on our bus. Dumb blonde lady was shoving people out of her way to get the back seat. Sunil and I settled in for a long ride, relieved to be on the bus. 2:15, the bus still wasn't moving. Sounded like it was trying to, but it wouldn't. They unloaded us all and all of our stuff and got another bus. Dumb blonde lady ran to another bus that had pulled up. She quickly realized that it wasn't the bus she was getting on since it was FULL!!! She came running back over to where the rest of us were, but she wasn't the first in line this time. :) New bus came. I was on 8th or 9th. Got to the back row before she did. She was not pleased that I was going to take the back row. She didn't react in a Christ like manner. I didn't really care about the seat. I just wanted to make her mad. So, my purpose fulfilled, I gave her the back row, and found a row with much more leg room than any other bus row I'd ever sat in. Which, at this point, has been several. 2:40, we finally pull out of Kansas City. Random kid behind me grabs the back of my seat and begins shaking violently yelling, "TURBULENCE!!!!" I turn around and said, "Hi, I'm Jon. What's your name." He paused as if he wasn't sure of the answer. Finally said Justin. I said, "Justin, nice to meet you. If we have any more turbulence, you and I are going to have some issues. I probably won't do anything about it, but I just want to be honest with you. Alright?" "Ok." "Sweet."

Didn't have anymore turbulence. Made it to Minneapolis at noon. That's what you get for a 51 dollar ticket.

Thanks for reading my epistle.

Jon

Album updates!

We just got back from Minnesota on Sunday! We had an awesome visit with Jon's side of the family, including a family reunion, picnic, double baby shower, a friend's wedding, and lots of activity!

Lacey drove up to Minnesota with a friend from the summer camp staff last Tuesday, and the trip went extremely well. Anita was a huge help in keeping Taylor entertained and happy, and passing the time on the long drive. Jon took the bus with a friend up to MN later in the week, and what a fiasco that turned out to be! He'll write his own blog post about that later...

Here are some pictures from our past two weeks:

Taylor busied himself on the trip up to MN by driving cars all over Anita's teddy bear :)

We got to spend a little time with Jon's aunt and uncle and cousin! Taylor just loved their dog!!! We like this shot b/c we're all laughing ;)

The three of us getting ready for our friend's wedding!

I finished updating our July picture album, so check out the new pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=59374&l=f97f1&id=515981054

And here is the link to our August album, full of pictures from our trip to MN and lots of fun stuff: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62624&l=e5827&id=515981054

Jon had to "hit the ground running" when we got back from our trip this week. He started off his Monday by waking up at 3:30am and has been working much overtime this week - they are requiring 57 hours from him this week! Lacey is 33 weeks along in the pregnancy and Anna seems to be doing great! We are scrambling to get the house ready for another little one in time - we don't want to be caught off guard again like we were with Taylor's early arrival! :)

cool winnings

I'd just like to give a shout-out to Parenting magazine for two awesome things that we got this month. First, they picked us to be one of the privileged few to test out a new 2008 toy for their yearly toy review that they publish in the magazine. A few weeks ago we got this toy in the mail and got to keep it in exchange for evaluating it and writing a detailed review. Easy! That was really fun.

And secondly, I entered one of their daily giveaways through their website last month and won an amazing (and expensive) geography/wildlife book! Thanks, Parenting, for the great giveaways and opportunities!

ps-- Taylor did NOT like the toy :) haha! oh well

Pictures!

I finally found time to escape to the internet cafe and upload some pictures!

You can check out our June pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=59373&l=4663c&id=515981054

And our july pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=59374&l=f97f1&id=515981054

(we'll add to the July album as the month goes on)

Taylor had a great birthday last week. We had a small party at the camp with the summer staff to celebrate.

And here's the Anna-bump! This was taken at 28 weeks. I'm about 30 weeks now, and in just that short amount of time the bump has popped out quite a bit more. Or maybe it's all the donuts I've eaten. :)

Talking up a storm

Sadly, we don't have any new pictures to share this week. I am working on getting some preggo pictures of myself, but both Taylor and I are in dire need of haircuts so I'm holding off until we get a chance to do that. And, I'm sure we will have many pictures next week after Taylor's birthday party! He's turning two on Sunday the 6th.

I do have a different update today, though. Taylor is finally talking more, and just like his doctor and many others told me it would happen, the vocabulary came in a flood! You can just tell that his little mind has been storing up all sorts of things, and one day about two weeks ago he decided he wanted to spill it all out. He's picking up at least one new word every day, and although there are several words and phrases of his that we can't understand, we are communicating much better now. Words like "more," "please," "thank-you" and "no thank-you" are especially helpful at meal times, which used to be the most frustrating times of the day for me (and him). Aside from "momma" and "daddy" he hasn't picked up any more names, but we'll work on that. :)
In addition to a flood of words, he also started to name off body parts (nose, hands, feet), sing along with every Sesame Street song, spell from memory, master the whole alphabet (B and V are still confusing, though), and count up to 13. He also took some steps socially and now will give a high-five or "knuckles" even to strangers.

Although these milestones are normal for a 2-year-old, I think I am so excited about it because he literally changed right before my eyes. In one day he went from being quiet and observant (as he has been since he was born) to saying all sorts of thing I didn't know he knew how to say! Guess we have to start being more careful with what we say around the house now. :)

Jon's been very busy the past two weeks. For a good while, his work had him doing mandatory overtime, but just last week they had to lay off a whole bunch of people. There is another round of lay-offs coming next week, and we would really appreciate your prayers that Jon would not lose this job. The lay-offs are due to the real-estate market crashing and the rising economy. In the evenings Jon has been helping around the camp with whatever they need.

I am almost 7 months along in my pregnancy and have been busy with a toddler, increasing doctor visits, increasing food store visits (hey, I'm hungry!), and going to occasional camp activities in addition to normal daily life.

Pictures coming next week!

Happy Father's Day!

A little belated, I know :) But we do hope that all the special fathers in our lives had a wonderful weekend. We celebrated by eating mongolian bbq together!

Here are some pictures of Taylor and Jon taken Sunday morning:

Matching spikey hair for father's day :)

Ah, the after-breakfast-stretch....

....interrupted when daddy attacks with a tickle :)

New Jersey Trip

Taylor and I (Lacey) took a trip to New Jersey together to visit some of my family at the end of May. Since Blogger is slow at uploading pictures, I'll just put a few on here and give you a link to the full photo album below. There should be more pictures coming as a few other people send them to me from their cameras.

We had a good time, and Taylor did really great on the plane rides. I was especially proud of him during our trip home - what a mess that was. Our flight got cancelled, which led to a LOT of waiting in lines, hopping on buses to get to other terminals, running, waiting, waiting, and more waiting! Taylor even had to get patted down and searched when we went through security.

Enjoy these pictures below, and please visit our album to see them all!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=53924&l=d0bcd&id=515981054

Blessings and an introduction

I'm so glad that I can access my blog again! We've been having internet trouble for a week, and although I've still been able to log into blogger, for some reason I wasn't able to post anything. We have some blessings to share that I've been wanting to tell all of you about!

*The blessing of divine appointments

Just over a week ago, I went to Walmart on a Saturday (against my better judgement) because I had procrastinated too long so we had nothing to eat left in the house. I h-a-t-e grocery shopping, or any kind of shopping, on Saturdays. Especially at our Walmart, since it is the only attraction in our small country town. With a cranky toddler in tow, I went to the store, spent two hours doing a 45-minute chore, fought intense backpain and sciatica the entire time, and was close to limping when I made my way to the check-out. There was some sort of womens' health fair going on in front of the checkouts, which cause even thicker crowds and annoyed me more, but this one table was offering free samples of applesauce - just the thing to appease Taylor as he was pretty hungry by that time. As I was trying to leave the applesauce table, I spied a free sample of Bio-Freeze at the next table. Since I was in a lot of discomfort I asked if I could have one, and found out that the display belonged to a chiropractor just one block away. So I mentioned that I was in need of chiropractic care since we had moved away from my former chiropractor in the fall, but hadn't started care with a new one because of the huge initial exam fee (usually $200 or more, not covered by insurance). The chiropractor told me that he would give me my exam and follow up-visit for $20 ($20!!!), offer me affordable adjustments and physical therapy, and accept the Care Credit program (for which I was already approved)! Amazing. I have visited their office three times already, had my exam, consultation, two major chiro adjustments, and therapy, and haven't paid a penny more than $20. What a great blessing the Lord had in store for us when He sent me to Walmart that Saturday. That is what I call a Divine Appointment. We don't believe in coincidence.

My back is not something I usually mention on here, but to help you all understand just how relieved I was to find this man, the pain in my back has been getting increasingly worse and worse. Sciatica occured frequently for several days at a time, and I was having 2-3 full blown migraines a week. In-between migraines there were constant headaches, muscle spasms, tightness and back pain. My condition isn't always that bad, but pregnancy hormones have compounded the back and joint problems, and being pregnant meant I couldn't take pain-killers. (Tylenol doesn't work.) I'm not complaining about my back --- God's grace has been good every day! Just emphasizing how happy I was to find a chiropractor that wanted to make things affordable for us, and what a truly BIG blessing this will be for me. Between the chiropractor and foam mattress, I am hoping that my second half of pregnancy goes much smoother than the first. I think it will!

*The blessing of a little girl!

My 5-month sonogram was this past Saturday, just in time for mother's day. We were excited to find out that our second baby is a GIRL! Her name is Anna Grace. The sonographer was great and put some pictures onto a CD for us to keep. The machine at the hospital was much newer than the machine that was used for Taylor's 5-month sonogram. We were able to see details of her ears, nose and lips, the size of her leg muscles, the smallest details of her vertebrae, and even the lenses of her eyes. I remember Taylor's session being much more grainy and blurry. We were told she has strong "dancer's legs," which I already knew because she kicks me surprisingly hard for a 12-ounce baby. :) We are looking to her arrival in September! Allow us to introduce you to our Anna:

*The blessing of our little boy

Taylor has been an active, funny, tired little boy these past two weeks. I believe he is learning the fine art of mockery/sarcasm, which he is picking up from his father, no doubt. :) His communication skills are steadily growing, but he is stubborn and selective in how he communicates with us. One of his current favorite activities is lining up 4 or 5 of our toiletries (hairspray, etc) on the ledge of the tub and counting them over and over again. As soon as he wakes up in the morning, I hear him counting to himself in his crib (uhhn, tsoo, geee, gour!) and then clapping. :) He also thinks it's hilarious to run into a room, slam the door behind him, and then knock on the door to be let out.

Walking with daddy back to our house.

Counting bottles!

Happy about counting!

*The blessing of cuddly things

Two weeks ago I heard a kitten crying late at night. This seemed odd to me, since I only heard one kitten, and it was 10pm, and it sounded very young and scared, and I hadn't heard it crying before. Jon found it under our trailer and brought it up into the house for a while. We fed it, named it, cuddled it, and took pictures before we put it back for the mom cat to find. What a cute little furball. This is "Fishy" :

Hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day!!!!!

Where did April go?

I haven't updated our blog all month! It seems like just yesterday when I posted that last entry... Time has flown this April. We have been busy with life and several camp activities. Here's an update in a nutshell:

• Taylor is 21 months old, runs as fast as a torpedo, tries to count to three (Uhhnnn, tsooo, eeeee), recognizes and names several letters (I, O, A, E), and graduated to 24-month clothes. This has been a month of much physical growth as well as communication growth. He still refuses to say anything on command, however. :) But, after hearing him say things like "Elmo" and "I luv u," I am no longer worried about his ability to communicate if he wanted to. He is just a very stubborn little boy. Wonder where he gets that from? :)
• I am doing a little better physically the past two days since we were blessed to get a Memory Foam mattress. I think it is helping me to sleep much better and it feels like my back is supported well all night. Two days and counting that I have woke up in less pain! I am also in my 19th week of pregnancy and the baby seems to be doing well.
• Jon is just as busy as ever with his full-time job at the cabinet shop and camp work. This month we had a junior retreat, fundraising banquet, and teen retreat all in a row so he was putting in many late nights around the camp. But all of the activities went well! And Jon has some sunburn to show from it. :)

Here are some pictures from the month. They are out of order, but I have been trying to post this for a whole week so I'm going to just leave them as is :)

Taylor playing in the dirt yesterday. He cleared all of the gravel out of a spot so that he had a clear patch of dirt to rub his hands in. :)
Chester, the world's greatest dog! This is the Bakers' puppy doing the "relaxation pose" with Jon.

How Taylor fell asleep this afternoon in the car - ha!

One of our hot days, we let Taylor run around in just shorts. He looked like a little buddha with his belly sticking out :)

Playing soccer outside with daddy last week.

And this is a very rare sight indeed! Taylor was definitely having growth spurts this month, and was just SO tired. He was laying on the floor in the sunshine watching Blues Clues and playing with his truck, when all of a sudden I heard him snore. Amazing! For those of you that don't know Taylor well, he is one of those kids that hates to sleep anywhere but in his crib (since he was 3 months old).