Jude Singing and Playing the drums

IT'S A......

Hey Everyone! If you haven't already heard on Facebook, or through an email, we wanted to share our exciting news that it's a GIRL! Our little one looks healthy and wonderful. We are very thankful, and Jude is excited to have a little sister. So far, I am enjoying pregnancy with a girl...she's much gentler inside than Jude was! We are so thankful for God's kindness in making her. Getting to see her on the ultrasound was a great reminder that God has done the work of knitting her together, and it's really a miracle. All four chambers of her heart, every little rib and even her little nose (which is a lot like Stevi's and doesn't turn up like the noses in the Schuknecht family....as far as we can tell), are all His beautiful creativity. It's nothing I've done, and certainly a display of His amazing grace. We are excited and hope you'll pray for us. We have no idea what to do with a girl, and she's coming in September whether we're ready or not!

Stevi

Jude's new toy...

Spring Break and Easter....

Hi everyone! Here are some recent pictures. We went to Houston with some friends over spring break (in March)....

Jude and his (best) friend Olivia at the Children's Museum.

This is a t-rex behind us at the Museum of Natural Sciences...

At the Houston Zoo...

Jude and Olivia at the zoo...

This was at the Space Center....there were some Star Wars characters. Jude still talks about how we went in a rocket. This is Jude, me, Olivia and my friend Allison.


Jude at the Aquarium (I know...they had a tiger, weird). But, it was his favorite thing!



Olivia and Jude near the tiger exhibit.


Houston....


Dyeing Easter eggs with Josiah and Kate (Jude's cousins).



Jude and Josiah on Easter with Jude's new swords!


In other news, we just got a flip video camera...so hopefully we'll be adding videos to our blog soon!

Bedtime Prayer

Tonight I was praying with Jude before bed, and he was telling me the things he was thankful for. He insists on praying for himself these days, which can be quite humorous, but also sweet. Tonight it went like this:

Jude: Dear God and Dear Jude, (we aren't sure why he starts it that way...) Thank you for toys....Mommy, God don't say "You're Welcome."

Me: Oh Honey, God does say it, but we can't hear Him because He lives in heaven, but He can hear us and see us.

Jude: Oh. Heaven in the sky.

Me: Yes, Heaven's way up in the sky. (I know it's not really accurate, but he's two...how else do you explain it?) God and Jesus live there, but they can see us and hear us.

Jude: And the birdies up in heaven too...

Me: Well, the birdies live in the sky, but heaven is far far away where we can't see.

Jude: I wanna go to heaven too.

Me: (Seriously, how do I begin to explain this???) You can go to heaven when you die, but right now God put you here to live with mommy and daddy.

Jude: I wanna go to heaven with God and Jesus and Daddy and Mommy.....there's a fan up there (referring to his ceiling fan, purely a mid-conversation observation).

Me: Someday we'll all go to heaven together, but right now we live here on earth (as if any of this makes sense to him....)

Jude: Where Daddy? Daddy in heaven right now?

Me: No, Daddy's in his car on the way home from Veritas.

Jude: Oh.

Well....I did my best to explain it. But, it's a tough concept.

Baby time!

Hey everyone! We are thrilled to announce that we're expecting our second baby in September! I'm 12 weeks along tomorrow, and we completely thankful for this baby. We've been waiting for him/her for a while now! Jude is very excited to be a big brother, and today he asked me if he could "hold the baby now?" It's so hard to explain to a 2-year-old why the baby can't come out! My official due date is Sept 18th, so it's gonna be a warm Texas summer for me =).

Praise the Lord!

Iron Chef, water, and other exciting events...

Well, yes, we're still around. We took a big break from blogging, again. Sorry.

Anyway, here's a quick update (if anyone even still reads this blog) of what we've been up to in the past month or so...

My sister came and stayed with us for most of January. It felt right to have all three of us in Austin! A.J. is loving his job, and doing well at it...and looking quite happy as you can see. We had a great time with Leah. She learned how to speak "Jude" and was awesome to have around.

Jude turned 2!!! His birthday was January 21st, but his party was the 24th. Here they are eating pizza (at Jude's request)... His cousins and his two best friends in Austin were at the party!

This is a picture of him getting ready for bed on his actual birthday.

Troy grew, and shaved some facial hair. He shaved the beard before the...ick...mustache. Can you say creepy? I think I only let him keep it for two days or so....


Last weekend we had an iron chef party with our best Austin friends, the Franklins. This was the winning dish...made by three teenage boys. Chicken and chorizo paella. WOW! It was awesome. I recommend playing iron chef with your friends anytime you want to have a good dinner!



Friday night, Troy went to a ping pong club (don't ask) in Austin, so Jude and I had a picnic and watched part of Cars. We had a good time. Later, Jude mentioned that our friend's motorcycle (parked at our house) wasn't talking....maybe too much Cars?

Last night, we went hiking in the greenbelt (every certain percentage of land in Austin must remain undeveloped..this one happens to have Barton Creek running through it). We had a great time, and were amazed at the amount of water there. Last summer, there was absolutely NO water in the same spot! Can you believe it? It seems that our drought is over. Praise God.

Also in the Greenbelt.

Oh yeah! And for all you pinnochle players out there...here's the highlight of my (Stevi's) Christmas break (aside from celebrating our Savior coming to the world):
Yes...it's true 1000 ACES!!!! I don't think it gets better than that. I've never seen or heard of it done. I've had 1500 pinnochle twice, but I never thought this would ever happen...ever.