Had a heat wave :D I believe it even got into the 30's the last few days.  Tomorrow, Abe and I will be playing at Straight Up which is the guys weekly youth group.  Abe has Saturday and Sunday off this weekend so I think we may go see that movie Australia at the cheap seats.  super cheap, I think the tickets are like $2.50.  

On mondays and thursdays a bunch of the guy staff get together and play basketball in the school gym during their lunch break. (You can tell by the intensity of the game that their work is a little stressful)  I would play but that involves using your joints, which at this point are undergoing enzymatic digestion and get sore easily.  Oh yes and also...I would have to be crazy.  I worked in the school office again today, entering books into the library catalog and preventing cabin fever. I even got invited to go snow-shoeing next week during lunch.  We also signed up for the childbirth class but that's not until March.  On Tuesday the whole ranch is leaving for SilverBirch which is their yearly, winter retreat to get the guys out skiing and having a little fun and also present some heavy spiritual encouragement.  Abe and I will be doing the worship for three days!  Little nervous, but we get to room together instead of him having to room with the guys.  Should be fun.  Abe's boss bought me snow chains for my shoes?  Weird Wisconsin :D

  

I do have to say that I expected -29 degrees to feel much colder.  I guess I am getting used to this or maybe its that eventually most degrees below zero just feel the same (really cold).  

Today I got to start helping in the library at the school.  Just doing simple things like moving books and entering new donations into the computer.  Apparently the Dewey Decimal System is still alive electronically (I thought it went extinct with those note card drawers).  I felt really good about it.  Apparently feeling useful is really important to a healthy state of mind.  

The baby has been really moving around lately and is doing something totally bizarre right now I don't even know what it is.  It feels like a small dough roller is rolling across my stomach!

"You know if you keep going down the road you're on, making the same choices, eventually, you're going to walk yourself right into prison, or being a dad who doesn't know how to be a dad, or not being able to experience any joy in life because your body has learned to only feel good when you're using drugs, and just a human that has so much less good in life than it could have."  That's what I would like to say to the guys here.  Not sure it would register.  Where do we find the motivation to rid ourselves of our familiar sins?  The ones we are comfortable living with?

This is the mattress to our forthcoming crib my mom-in-law has decided is what she would like to contribute.  We put it in the doorway to the office and it has served as a sobering reminder of the reality of some future events.  Nothing says "A baby's comin!" like a tiny mattress =)

New Years Eve behind the house.  I took this picture for Savannah to send her in a letter.  This is the most snow they have had in Wisconsin in the last 100 years...figures.  But very rarely do I actually have to go outside and actually this day was no too bad temperature-wise.  

Some random gifts from friends and family above and below.  If you don't think that this is the cutest things you've ever seen somethings wrong.  There's little cows on the feet for crying out loud!

Over the course of my absorbing any and all information I can about things babies need I have learned that there are certain types of plastics used to make bottles and pacifiers that contain toxic chemicals that may leach into the milk or spit.  I have also learned that America doesn't remember a time when you simply just had a baby and whatever you happened to knit yourself or a nice neighbor made for you, and that adequate human beings did actually develop without the list of baby necessities, contraptions, accessories, and essential educational watchamagadgets that Baby's 'R' Us feels a need to send you out with a list of.