scandalous love.

Our church services are always awesome,

but yesterday-

it was exceptionally awesome.

I love when something so simple,

something so obvious,

just clicks.

When I sit there and think,

why did I not think of that before?

I love moments like that,

and I had one of those yesterday.

Almost everyone knows that yesterday was Palm Sunday,

and that next Sunday is Easter.

And the majority of people know what those days are about.
Jesus willingly laying down his life for us.

This Sunday our Pastor showed a video about Barabbas.
(the video below)

Remember him?

Remember when Pilate went before the Jews
and told them to chose who they wanted to be released
and who they wanted to be crucified?

Between Jesus, and Barabbas- the murderer.

Everyone knew Barabbas was a murderer.

That he was dangerous.

But they chose to have him released,

and they chose to crucify Jesus.

Every time I read that passage,

or heard that passage,

or thought about it,

I was so angry at those people.

How could they be so ignorant?

To crucify Jesus instead of Barabbas....

when Barabbas DESERVED IT.
He DESERVED to die.

What had Jesus done wrong?

NOTHING.

 What I didn't think about

was that God chose to release Barabbas.

The people didn't choose him.

God chose to have him released.

God had to treat Jesus like Barabbas...

so He could treat Barabbas like Jesus.

(that just blows my mind.)

 God loved Barabbas.

Even in his sin.

He released him so he could have the choice to accept the ultimate gift, too.

We are all Barabbas.

We are just as guilty and undeserving as he was.

But God is so crazy in love with us,

that He chose to have Jesus die in our place...

so we could be free. 

My mind will never be able to understand how He could love us THAT much.
But He does.

I am so thankful for His scandalous love.

moldy bagels

YOUR HORMONES GO CRAZY WHEN YOU'RE PREGNANT!

I've heard this line more times than I can count.

Every time it was said,

I gave a complimentary laugh and thought they were exaggerating.

Until the moldy bagels.

Tyler and I were standing in the kitchen,

having a pleasant conversation,

 when they caught my eye.

Moldy bagels.

Suddenly,

the conversation changed.

 me: Seriously, TYLER!?

Tyler: what???

I grabbed the bag and held it up.

me: THE BAGELS! 

Confusion filled his face.

me: The bagels are MOLDY.

Tyler: ....

me: Why can't you eat them BEFORE they mold?!

Tyler: ....

My eyes filled with tears.

me: OK, fine. Just stand there. Don't say anything. Just keep letting them get moldy.

Tyler: ....

At the time,

I felt that I had a very legitimate reason for my anger.

I mean,

the bagels were moldy.

Definitely legitimate.

How dare Tyler not eat them before they molded.

How dare he just LET them mold.

Legitimate.

 ...

Moral of the story?

Your hormones do go crazy.

Just ask Tyler about his moldy bagels.

He'll tell you all about it.

 

    

just some stuff

I'm officially in my second trimester!

Here are some things that have happened over the past 12 weeks and 3 days:

- I have had no morning sickness! I was kind of sick during week 5, and threw up once- but I don't think that counts.
- I am hungry EVERY hour. As in stomach growling and all.  My purse is now the holder of many, many snacks.
- I finally broke down and bought maternity pants.  I made the decision when Tyler and I were eating at Buffalo Wild Wings a couple of weeks ago.  As I was stuffing my face with fried pickles and a cheesy steak wrap, I had to unbutton my jeans............decision made.  I now believe that maternity pants are stitched together by the hands of angels.  No more feeling like a busted can of biscuits!
- My hormones have been CRAZY.  Poor Tyler.  Sometimes he looks at me with such a puzzled face.
- My "girls" are SO sore....but they aren't getting any bigger. BUMMER. I have been an A (if I'm lucky) all of my life....so when they did start getting sore, I was super excited because I thought that meant they were going to magically become voluptuous. But nope. Just sore. I still have 6 more months to hope.
- I have been taking the prenatal GUMMY vitamins. They are delicious! Tyler must think so too, because I've caught him eating them a few times.
- I finally have a tiny bump! A little bigger than my "hey I'm super constipated" bump. Yes!
- Tyler and I are constantly making googly eyes at babies and baby clothes. We stood in front of a wall of baby shoes yesterday, staring and saying "awwwwwwwww look how little" repetitively.
- I have decided that I want the baby to have Tyler's earlobes and blue eyes; and Tyler has decided that he wants the baby to look like me with the exception of my second toes.................and even though I would like to be offended by that, I have jacked up second toes.....so I hope it doesn't have them either.
- I still can't believe we will have a baby in our arms in roughly 6 months! mind blown.

 I hope everyone is having a fabulous week!

baby necks

Have you ever had a dream that you're holding your sweet baby..

somehow forget to hold it's fragile neck/head....

and it's neck breaks off?

OR

that you are standing up, holding your baby...

and all of a sudden your arms go limp and you drop your baby and break it?

yeah,

me either.

But you know who has been having those recurrent dreams nightmares?

Hubs.

He has literally been waking up, in the middle of the night, in a pool of sweat.

And because he is so terrified,

he wakes me up.

The first time he woke me up,

he tapped my shoulder repeatitively saying

 Autumn, hey, Autumn....I need to talk to you about something serious.

Mind you, it was about 3am and hearing the word "serious" at that hour kind of makes you worry.

So I forced myself to wake up enough to be partially aware of what was going on,

and responded

What's wrong???

He proceeded to tell me about the dreams he had,

how worried he was,

and how  

but what if my dreams are trying to warn me...what if I'm really going to break our baby's neck off.

Remember...

it was 3am.

And I was only half alive...

so instead of reassurring my husband,

and telling him that he was not going to break our baby,

I laughed. Hard. So hard I had to get up and pee.

I had no idea he was so serious.

But let me tell you.

He was (and still is) serious.

He has never been around infants before...

and apparently he is terrified of breaking their necks off.

Being the encouraging wife that I am,

seeing my husband so worried about our fragile baby to be,

I proceeded to freak him out even more

by telling him about "soft spots" and umbilical cords.

(he had no idea about either one)

And I might have googled (terrible) pictures of infected umbilical cords to show him.

His face was priceless.

Yes, I'm horrible.

I blame it on my warped nurse's sense of humor.

But don't worry.

When he wakes me up now,

I automatically say

Baby, I promise you're not going to break our baby....

 he says 

promise?

I say

promise.

and he goes back to sleep.

(bless his 27 year old heart)

I have a feeling our house is going to be pretty entertaining in about 6 months.