Sorry No Posts

My apologies for the lack of posts. We've been preoccupied with our new little guy. So...to please all of those who are looking for more pics, I've setup a regular little album with Picasa that you can always check for the latest pics of Isaac. Rather than innundate this blog with constant posts of baby pics, you can check the album on the sidebar. It will be *exclusively* for Isaac pics and pics of people with him.

Let's see...what else is new. We had some wonderful visits with friends and family over the past month. Mom and Dad Pazdur came out for a visit, we had our friend Jamie stay with us for awhile, and then we just said goodbye (on Friday) to Isaac's Aunt Rebecca and his cousin Katherine. We've been blessed and encouraged by all of our friends who have come to visit, have sent letters, and have told us that they are praying for us. God has been good!

In other news, some of you know that I'm supposed to be finishing a degree right now. A Master of Theology degree, to be precise. I'm in the final stages and have stalled. The last year has been a challenge for me, with additional responsibilities at church (full time), a new wife, and now, a new son. Plus, I finished our basement in time for the baby to come. Needless to say, my academic work has suffered. I applied for an extension on my independent research project, and praise God, I received an additional 3 months! So...the absolute final deadline for my paper is November 30. Please pray that the Lord helps me to finish! Only one more paper to go after this...and then I need to prepare my oral defense. But that is for another day!

Jen is doing well, adjusting to nursing and some sleepless nights. But she is a wonderful mom. And we are both loving Isaac. I'm trying to talk her into getting on this blog sometime and actually posting, but that probably won't happen before Jesus returns.

Finally, we are in the midst of having our garage built! Yay! We have wanted a garage for awhile, and should have it by mid-September. They start pouring the concrete this week!

I'll try to post more in the coming days and weeks. Hopefully, my hiatus from blogging is over.

Answers to Comments

Wow.

Thanks for all the comments.

Rather than try and answer them all on the comments section, I'm just going to hit them all off at once.

A&J Jager: Isaac thanks you for your welcome! But you are wrong. He definitely looks like me.

Lammert: Isaac hopes that he will have a chance to visit you someday in Switzerland, since that is one of his parents favorite places in the whole world!

Jen Francis: Thanks for the kind words! We think he is pretty cute too.

Marcy V: I like the idea of a photoshopped goatee, but I don't have access to Photoshop. However, I can do an approximation with Microsoft Paint.

Clearly, he looks like me.

Lemkes: I hope you get to meet him soon! We need to get together sometime!

Smiths (C&J): Thanks! The facial hair does make a difference.

Lynette: All right...he does have a little bit of Jen in him. Mainly when he cries :).

We picked the name Isaac because we wanted a Biblical name and we like the story of Isaac, as the child of God's promise to Abraham. I think it is really interesting that God chose that name for the child he would give to Abraham (see Genesis 17:19). It means "he laughs." One of the reasons that we like it is because it reveals the heart of the God we serve....he laughs. Sometimes his promises to us seems so absurd and unbelievable, that I think he just laughs. And we have to laugh too (in faith, not like Sarah, who laughed in disbelief).

For Jen and I, the past year has been one big laugh of faith. At the age of 32, getting married and having a baby--all in one year. Just 18 months ago...none of this would have seemed likely or even possible. But God laughs at our expectations and plans. The past year and a half have taught me that when God wants to do something, it happens. We might think that something is impossible, or can only change after a long time and great effort...but with the Lord, it's not about might or power, but reliance upon His Spirit.

So anyway, we like the name too because in a small way we can relate to Abraham and Sarah, who were blessed with a child of God's promise in their "older" years. Not that 32 is old :), but among many of our friends we are the last ones having kids and we're the oldest in our generation of friends to marry and have children. So, in many ways, Isaac is the fruit of trusting in God's promises over the past 10 years!

I have noticed, though, that his name can be easily mis-spelled. I even had it spelled wrong when I made my first post--I was really tired. Anyway, it's ISAAC. Just think of him like a little battery-- a double A (AA). That's my little nickname for him right now...double A. I don't think Jen likes it.

Laura Smith: If Julie has any more prophetic words about our son, please let us know! It sounds like she had a sense that something was happening!

Cindy: Thanks for the welcome from Colorado. We hope to get out there sometime and see everyone again! Jen sends her hello and thanks everyone for their prayers!

Great-Aunt Joanie: Wow...a great-aunt. I've always wanted to make someone one of those. And now I've done it. Thanks for the tip about resting. We're putting it to good use.

R&T Jager: Yes...we thought it was fun to have two of the patriarchs among our clan of friends.

Diane: Thanks for all of your prayers.... you should be getting a call soon! We love you all and I will pass along your comment to Jen when she wakes up!

And to anyone else who I may have missed...it's not intentional. I'm just tired :). Also, if you thought about commenting and didn't because you don't know how to use the Internet, that's okay. It still counts and we thank you.

What Day Is It?

Well, I think it's Thursday, but I'm not really sure. It's been a great and wonderful and challenging week all wrapped into one.

Great, because I have a beautiful wife and a gem of a little boy.

Wonderful, because God has really blessed us in so many incredible ways. We have amazing friends and family, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a healthy baby who...so far...has not cried a ton and is eating well and sleeping pretty well.

Challenging, because while he sleeps well, it's on a completely different schedule than we're used to. A typical night is like this:

9:45 - Jen tells me she is going to bed.
10:30 - She wakes up to feed Isaac and I change his diaper.
11:15 - I debate whether or not I should go to bed now or wait until his next feeding at around 1:00am.
11:20 - I go to bed.
1:00am - We wake up, get peed on. I go to bed, Jen feeds the little tyke.
1:45am - Jen goes to bed. I am, of course, completely asleep at this point.
4:00am - We wake up, get peed on again. I debate if it's worth going back to bed or staying up, but then I think how crazy it would be to NOT sleep.
4:45am - Jen goes back to bed.
7:00am - We get up. Same story. I think about how next week, when I go back to work, I'll have to stay up from this point on. I get slightly depressed, but then I fall asleep after changing his diaper. Jen doesn't have that option.
7:45am - Jen goes back to bed.
9:00am - I wake up. For some reason, I just can't sleep too long when the sun is up, even if I'm tired.

And for the rest of the day, Jen tries to catch up on sleep while I do all the fun housekeeping stuff. Man...I have a new appreciation for how much work my wife does! I think I'm doing a load of laundry a day, watering all the plants, I vacumned all the floors today...crazy.

Since I'm used to staying up to odd hours (late nights and early mornings), it's not so bad for me. Plus, I get a bit more sleep than Jen, as you can see. Still, the strange 3 hour cycle of food and diapers is a hard adjustment. I wonder if we'd have been any more prepared if Isaac had been born two weeks later... probably not.

Anyway, that's been our life for the past few days. I should add that if you have called and left a message...we have not forgotten you! We have a list of people to call back on our fridge, and whenever we have time and the juice to talk we try to get a name or two off the list :). Thank you all for your calls. It's been such a blessing to know that you are all praying for us!

In the midst of all this, Jen an I have been focusing on one key idea. We read from Psalm 27 today and I was just reminded again that everything we are doing is not about us, but about God and his glory. In the joys and the challenges, our goal is not to seek some cultural standard of happiness or to avoid pain...our goal is to seek the Lord--to give Him honor. We want to parent our son in a way that honors God. And this week has been teaching me, again, that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

So, on a personal note, I guess that's where I've been at...trying--in the diapers and sleepless nights and chores and visits from family and friends--to find my satisfaction in God, in his goodness, his faithfulness, and his Word to me.

Because of the physical demands, it's been a bit harder for Jen, so please pray that she too would find the joy of the Lord in all of this right now.