Levi James Stroh - November 16th

I witnessed a miracle on Monday when my newest nephew, Levi, joined us in the world. There really is no other word to describe him other than precious. Sure, that might be a cliche thing to say cause all babies are "precious."But take one look at his little round head, tiny cheeks, squinty dark eyes, buns like peaches, and fuzzy hair and you too won't be able to resist calling him...precious.











But more so than the miracle of life and the miracle that Casey achieved in pushing out that 9 lb baby drug free, was the distinct experience of seeing pain and joy mixed in such harmony. I personally did not experience the pain, perhaps those who were gripping Casey's hands as she pushed did, but it was written all over her face. I, on the other hand, got to experience the joy and pride part as I watched my sister do something incredibly brave, and as I saw Levi take his first breaths. But there was a moment, in the last seconds before Levi was fully out, that I saw it, that moment where the physical pain of having Levi almost there was intermixed with the extreme joy as Casey realized: He is here! It's an amazing and awe inspiring thing to witness as normally pain and joy don't often commune together so nicely. Made me stop and think, if only all things painful could be like that, hinging on the cusp of experiencing something joyful. Maybe they do we just don't always recognize it or have something so visible before us.


Big Brother Jude




First Brotherly kisses






Anyway, it was an honor to be a part of Levi's beginning. I loved being able to capture those first sweet moments of his life on camera and hope they are a gift to the Stroh family for years to come. It felt a little surreal standing in that room thinking, the next time we are here, it will most likely be us. The next time we hold an hour old baby, it will probably be ours. The next time someone is being coached in breathing through contractions, it will likely be me. Now, watching Levi be born could have done one of two things to me: 1)make me want to run in terror or 2) inspire me to achieve the same feat. For me it was the latter, if anything I think it replaced the nerves with determination because I know, at the end of all that pain, there will be extreme joy....can't wait!



Meeting Uncle Josh and Tia

Through Smoke

I have a friend. A dear friend, who has experienced a deep and cutting loss in her life. She is a strong friend who is learning what it means to heal in the face of incredible loss. We recently had a conversation about the point of prayer. Why do we pray if, when we think we need it most, it appears to go unanswered? Why do some prayers have answers and others don't? If you believe God's will is Sovereign do our prayers even have any affect? These are the questions we wrestled with and to which neither of us had many answers.

Then I heard the song below....

Through Smoke - NeedtoBreath

Before the truth will come to fill our eyes
The wool comes down in the form of fire
And when the answers and the truth have cut their ties
Will you still find me
Will you still see me through smoke, through smoke

I was born in a house in a town just like your own
I was raised to believe in the power of the unknown
'Cause when the answers and the truth take different sides

Will you still find me
Will you still see me through smoke
Through smoke (x3)

When their whispers have painted pictures that
Make you doubt what you once believed in
Paper stories that hide the glory
To keep us searching
Through smoke

Who do you believe when you can't get through (through smoke)
When everything you know seems so untrue (through smoke)
When I'm lost in a place that I thought I knew (through smoke)
Give me some way that I might find you (through smoke)

Who do you believe (through smoke)
Everything you know
When I'm lost in a place (through smoke)
Give me some way


It made me think...sometimes those hard and devastating situations are the smoke and what God asks of us is that we still search for Him...even if we have no answers. Prayer is often the medium for those times in which we search blindly, feeling with hands outstretched before us as our eyes are choked by tears from the stinging smoke. And once we find Him behind the smoke, we will have the hope and endurance needed when the skies get hazy, the air gets heavy, and we can't see yet again.

Nicaragua and the Baby Bump

Last night, amidst the freezing cold and blustering rain, we celebrated Nicaragua with over 100 people. Over five years ago, Northshore Baptist embarked on a partnership with Los Cedros, Nicaragua that would change the hearts of many people, both here in the US and there in Nicaragua. Last night was a celebration of that adventure, reflection on the amazing things God has done, and an opportunity to look forward to what is to come. Besides providing an opportunity for people to learn more about what is going on in Los Cedros, Nicaragua it was also a benefit dinner as we (the Unidos board) are trying to raise the last $10,000 needed to complete a computer lab at the school Josh and I worked at last year. Right now there are five barely functioning computers the kids are trying to learn basic computer skills on. I say barely functioning because you can imagine what wind, dust, humidity and dirty little hands will do to 10 year old computers. The dream, a sealed building with AC and 24 brand spanking new computers. One of the awesome opportunities that the school has once this computer lab opens, besides training the students and teachers, is a partnership with INATEC (a Nicaraguan adult skills training organization). INATEC is hoping to lease this lab back from the school in order to provide the adults in the community computer classes. But beyond the fundraising side of the night, we also got to see the website Josh has helped design for the overall Nicaragua project (hence the picture above). I am slightly biased, but I think he and the other guy working on it did a pretty sweet job...go check it out at www.unidosnicaragua.org.


Yesterday also marked the debut of the baby bump! I am one day away from officially being in my second trimester. For those of you who don't know baby lingo, that's 14 weeks or three months and one week which also means the baby is now about the size of a lemon. I think I've finally passed the "Are you pregnant or just fat?" stage, praise the Lord! Although, since there is a possibility that I will be heading off on a short trip to Nicaragua to help with a project at the school for the Sponsor-A-Student program. If that happens, I am fully prepared for the "Profesora, you look fat!" comments I will most undoubtedly receive....aah cultural differences you make me laugh.

Well that's it for now!

Halloween

Last year we spent Halloween in Nicaragua, with a bunch of new found friends, and very little resources for costumes. We went as tourists, which felt at times not far from the truth. This year, we went as nerds and probably some of the ugliest nerds you'll ever see.

Just wait....it gets better once I put my teeth in:



I have never received so many interesting responses to my looks before. There was one man, whom we did not know, who followed us around for about five minutes at Northshore's Harvest Carnival. He took pictures and continually expressed how next year he and his wife would do something like this.."I could totally do this" he kept saying. Then there was Brendan, my husbands best friend and one of my favorite people. When he first saw me he gave me a hug, till I backed up and he viewed the full grandeur of my costume. He quickly started backing away from me saying..."Woah, woah, Mary Frances...you look...REALLY ugly!" I don't think he quite knew what to do with me, eventually he came around. Then there were two more random guys who responded in a similar way. One said "Wow! I need a picture of that!" I don't think I have ever had my picture taken by so many people I don't know before.

But besides the horrifying experience of seeing me, there were the sweet costumes of some of my favorite little people....

Natalie the duck, complete with a cute little waddle that made her padded butt go back and forth.

Droopy cheeks Jackson, who must have just been boiling in his little puppy costume...

and studly Jude, all decked out in his Seahawks costume complete with some shoulder pads.

Jude had a blast at the Harvest Carnival...he got to do all his favorite things, play with kids, with balls, with more balls, with trucks and cars, plus there was even a piece of candy for that carb loving tooth of his! The only part we're not so sure he liked is when Micah took him down the giant inflatable slide. He was very intrigued by it initially, till Micah got him to the top and he realized he had to go down the slippery yellow precipe....belly down seemed to do the trick!

After a great evening with the fam, we moved on to Brendan's Halloween Party. Steven Pyke had my favorite costume of the night...He was the shower from the Karate Kid. The only thing we all decided that would have made it better would have been if he'd had a bathrobe on instead of being fully dressed.

The Three Stooges (Josh, Steven and Brendan)

I think one of the funniest moments of the night was when the award for best costume was being handed out (which by the way we were in the top four). In the final rounds, the winner was being determined by clapping and cheering till it got to the final two: Barbie vs The Shower. I yelled out "Dance off, Dance off" till people joined in....I knew my team (aka Steven Pyke) would have the upper hand since I happen to know he has some pretty sweet dance moves for a red headed white boy. The crowd caught on, and soon the music was bumping and Steven was dancing circles around Barbie. Once she saw his moves, she gave up..plus, lets be honest, there really is nothing funnier than seeing a shower bobbing around the middle of the dance floor.

Sometimes I wish we could dress up more often...people just seem to be a bit more light hearted when pretending to be something they are not.


Barbie...the competition and Steven working his dancing magic.

Steven with his trophy...Brendan braving my glasses!

My Soul Sings

My Soul sings...the chorus to one of my favorite songs (written by Delirious) and so often the description of my heart. My soul has begun a new song, one of thanksgiving and gratitude for what was taken away has been given back and what we thought could be impossible became possible. My only response is for my soul to sing to God for His faithfulness to heal and provide.
But let me tell you one of the reasons for why my soul sings.

About the time we got back from Nicaragua we decided it was time to take the plunge and go off birth control. Yikes! Scary step but one we felt ready for. We thought everything would go smoothly but apparently that was not to be the case. I had one cycle on my own and then normalcy stopped all together. At first we thought I was pregnant but several negative pregnancy tests determined I was not. Armed with optimism, I went to the doctor hoping that it was just because I had been on birth control for too long and my body needed more time to normalize on its own. Thus began my journey of staring one of my biggest fears in the face: infertility. After several trips to the doctor it was determined that I have Poly cystic Ovaries essentially classifying me as unable to get pregnant without the help of fertility medication.

Needless to say this news floored me. I have heard of people who have trouble getting pregnant or have infertility issues but never in a million years did I imagine that would be me. However, as I wrestled I experienced one of the most amazing journeys of my life.

To back up a little, the first month we went off of birth control I had a dream. One of those dreams that after you wake up you think to yourself was that really just a dream? The dream in itself was nothing particularly dramatic but the words that were spoken were clear as a bell. In this dream I was at a prayer meeting. (In my dream, and in real life, I had not told anyone we were going off birth control.) As we were praying every single person in the room spoke up saying to me "Mary Frances, God wants me to tell you that you don't need to be afraid, He will open your womb and you will get pregnant." When I woke up my first thought was it was just a dream, something my subconscious came up with since I was a little worried about the "what ifs" as we went off birth control. So, I let it go. But as time progressed and I started having problems the Lord reminded me of this dream, whispering to my heart that this was more than a dream, it was truth, a promise to hold on to.

Then in the spring I came upon a name that caught my interest. I am the kind of person who wants to name our child something unique but meaningful. I had never heard this particular name before and I tucked it away for that "some day" in the future. One day during a quite time in which I was wrestling with understanding what God was doing with my health, the name came back to me. I decided to look up what the name meant and as I did so another whisper to my heart..."This will be the name of your child". Once again, I hesitated thinking I might be making it up, that I was just being a silly girl who wants to have a baby. But then I read the meaning of the name: "The Lord has answered our prayers." I was hesitant to tell Josh about this at first, because I was afraid to hope, timid to call what I had discovered "from the Lord". But the more we talked about it, the more we came to realize that this name signified more than just the healing of my body, but also the perfect timing of God.

And so the journey continued. In May the official word came...I had PCOS and my worse nightmare had come true. Even though I had these two promises, I cannot pretend like I did not wrestle that there were not tear filled days as I looked at the potential loss of dreams. Yes people get pregnant all the time on fertility medication but I never imagined that that would be me, that there would be something physically wrong with me that would hinder me from having children. But as I cried I still felt sustained to believe that God would heal my body and we wouldn't have to use medication. So as we talked through options with my doctor, we decided that we would hold off on medication till the end of summer. If things had not changed we would revisit the conversation and start considering medicinal options.

We never got that far. Two months ago I experienced my first miracle as two pink lines showed up on the test. The Lord was once again true to His word, He has touched my body and enabled me to get pregnant!

Today I am a little over 8 weeks along, with a due date of May 10th. We got to see our little seahorse via ultrasound today in which we saw it's heart beating and its tiny little limb buds move. This last week I had been wrestling with fear, fear that this little baby was too good to be true, not wanting to get too attached to it in case it wasn't for real. But as I watched the screen portray this little gift, my soul sang once again.

Praise the Lord for His goodness to us.

Forming of a Fisherman

If any of you reading this blog know my husband, one thing you will know about him is that he loves all things outdoors...particularly hunting and fishing. He gleaned this love from his Father who may love all things outdoors even more than Josh does. Therefore, to both these wonderful men it is necessary that this love be passed down to younger generations. There is no age requirement to begin cultivating this love of nature, dirt, sweat, gear, and wildlife. If you are of the male gender it is only natural that it begin when you are old enough to hold a pole in your hand. The only requirements are the following: 1) You understand a pole belongs in the hand and not in the water. 2) You can recognize that the magical hook on the end of the pole will eventually produce a fish. Apparently Jude has met these requirements for this weekend marked his introduction to fishing.

For about 20 minutes Jude sat in Pop's lap enraptured by the process which entailed throwing a yellow bobber with a wriggling worm on the end into the water, waiting for several minutes (in which Jude said Fiiishy! numerous times) till a flopping fish is pulled up to the dock. The first few times this occurred, Jude approached the fish with caution, until about the 5th time where he boldy grabbed the fish with his chubby little hand. At one point, Pop let Jude take the reigns. Understanding the concept that one must throw the line into the water in order to catch a fish, he proceeded to mimic that process Jude style, which entailed slapping the tip of the pole violently in the water all the while saying Fiiishy. Naturally this did not produce any wriggling fish on the end of his pole, but that it was it Jude was hooked.


Every good fisherman needs a takle box.


Waiting patiently for the fish to come.



We got one!


ffiiishy!


Jude and his 1st fish.


Chubby cheeks


Micah immitating Jude's life jacket chub.


Masked Fascination


Help! Help!

Blast to the Past

After gallivanting in Winthrop for a better part of the weekend, we spent the last day of our glorious three day weekend up at Josh's parents cabin on Lake Roesiger in the much more local Monroe, WA. Although it was raining almost all day we had a blast enjoying the company of some of our favorite people: the Izzards and the Schweens.


Natalie Izzard



Tyson Schween (someone is teething if you can't tell by the hand in the mouth)





Jackson Izzard

We decided to be a little unconventional in some of our choices for conventional fun, i.e. board games and movies. Instead of playing something new and exciting like Settlers of Catan, Apples to Apples or Cranium, we played Scattergories. About two rounds into this delightful game we all realized how much brain power this game requires but how incredibly fun it is. We also decided to revisit our childhood and watch Free Willy (the original) on VHS. I don't even remember the last time I watched a VHS. We experienced things like having to wait for the tape to rewind, the pause button only pausing for so long till the machine gives up and lets the movie go on, and the amazing computer graphics of the 90s. All in all it was an awesome day soaking up good friendship, entirely too much food, and laughing at what used to be.







Ben and Josh braved the cool waters of the lake during the one sun break of the day.


Me and Squeakers (Tyson Schween)