Update on Kim and Baby Cruz!

Hey everyone, I just read this facebook note that Caleb (Kim's husband) wrote. Praise the Lord... all good news, but please keep her recovery in your prayers!

I am getting ready to call it a day, but now without again thanking the powerful prayer support we have had today. It started about 4:00 AM this morning as of 30 min ago when I said good night to Kim has been a sustaining force to get us through. When there is more time we look forward to giving more details of the God stories, but I suffice to say we could not have done it with out all of you present (in Spirit & the flesh...) Cruz & I are getting ready to sleep up here in the NICU, Kimmie is still resting in recovery waiting to spend the night in the ICU. 18 units of blood is a lot to be transferred, the doctors had there work cut out for them, but they definitely had a extra sense of strength and wisdom when facing some pretty difficult circumstances.

The key points for now, is rest and recovery for Kimmie, with the extensive surgery it will be a while before her body can tolerate food and even water, yet her body craves (literally) water. It's so hard because you are so thirsty yet on fluids... The doctors are monitoring her continually and all encouraged by her progress.

For Cruz it is his breathing, he has made great strides today, he is off all breathing tools for the night, but to stay that way he needs to keep his breathing rate in the 60's not the 80-90's... He is all cleaned up and looking cute. I got to spend some timing holding him tonight and cherishing this new gift God has entrusted to us. He was born 9:05 AM, 5 lb 4 oz, 18" his name Cruz Judah Beller... Cruz meaning cross (Grace "Charis" hope and justice are all connected with) Judah for the lion of the tribe... We liked the chapter in Rev 5 where it speeks of the everyone being told to stop weeping because the lion of the tribe of judah, also the lamb that was slain... Was worthy,

We are so grateful to the UCI Irvine team. They battled today for kimmie many being instrumental in getting this far. Our primary Dr. Major has truly been a gift, we pray Gods continued blessing and strength as much was invested today (7:30 am - 2:30 pm) we have had so many people and doctors attending to us and Cruz, it couldn't have been better. I am going to try to get a few hours of rest before another day tomorrow, but as a dad & husband I can only tell you how privileged I am to have you all on my families team.

Pray for my friend Kim :)

Hey everyone, I just wanted to ask you all to pray for my friend Kim... she is pregnant and has Placenta Accreta which complicates many things. Please pray for her c-section and subsequent surgery to go well, that everything would go perfectly, and that the baby would be healthy and his lungs would be fully developed as he is going to be born at 34 weeks. I would really appreciate it. The birth will be on August 29th if everything goes as planned.

And for more information on how to pray for Kim and her family, please check out her blog:
Dirt and Twirls

Kim with her four children (including the little baby boy in her belly)

Back in action...

image via {weheartit.com}

Well, we are back in Greece and our house is finally back to normal. We unpacked and put away everything, and Travis even cleaned out our storage space. While we were gone the hot water heater pressure valve burst and water leaked all over our storage space and the bathroom below. There was someone staying here during that time, and some friends of ours came over and helped them clean up and called a plumber. That was exciting... lol. At the time I have to admit I couldn't laugh about it. I started crying when our friends sent us an email that we need to Skype and there was a leak. There was too much going on and I couldn't take one more thing, but now I can laugh, and so I can blog about it.

I also already exercised for today, and so far have eaten healthy. I didn't realize I gained so much weight at Vajta, but what can you do? So now my weight loss goal is definitely on the 20 lb side instead of 15 lbs.

And just so you can get to know a totally different aspect of my personality, here is the video I made my husband for his 28th birthday. Yes... all of the music is written and performed by yours truly. Happy Tuesday and God bless!

Free Grunge & Retro Banner

Was messing around making a banner for someone's blog and this was the first attempt... since she didn't use it I thought I would put it up on here for whoever wants to use it. There is a sample, and a blank. The font I used on here is called Matilde and you can find it for free here. The background outside of the stamps is transparent. Click on the banner to see the full size. The last one is two hundred pixels smaller in width. Enjoy!

Transition number... I lost count

First, praise report! Visa issues all dealt with except some photo thing with Kati, but we will be able to return to Greece as scheduled! We are so excited to be going home, although sad to leave all of our wonderful friends in Hungary. But we can still email, skype, and facebook. Praise the Lord for technology.

pic courtesy of "we heart it"

As we're getting ready to leave Vajta, there are a lot of thoughts swirling around my head. When we get back I will be transitioning into full on kindergarten homeschooling for Ksena, writing songs in Greek (by God's grace...), serious language study, among various other things.

The life we knew in Greece before we came here will be gone, and everything is going to change. That is ok, I'm not too stressed about it. More than anything I am waiting to see what our schedule will look like.

I am also hoping our diet will change drastically so I can start losing weight... praying for the $ to be able to buy produce. Along with that I think I'm going to start doing an aerobics dvd at night after the girls go to sleep on nights we don't have ministry stuff. I have to find something knee friendly.

God is so good, the way He provides, spiritually and emotionally. Lately my spiritual walk has felt a lot like a roller coaster, but I know that God stays the same. He is faithful, even when we are faithless.

Stress and Baking

I feel really frazzled today, so please pray for me (for more detail on why I'm frazzled, tada). Travis and I spent last night romantically finishing a missionary questionnaire, polishing our ideal monthly budget, and trying to figure out how much money we have in our Saving Grace account so we can pay for our rent here in Hungary, and our rent in Athens once we get back. Ok, so it wasn't so romantic. But what can you do? lol.

Let me apologize in advance for what I'm about to do your caloric intake, but I can't keep this to myself, I have to share!! This is my new favorite place to get recipes because I made cupcakes from this site twice, and they were equally awesome both times!! All of the recipes on here look AMAZING, and they even have a recipe for Chocolate Pie that looks fit for my birthday! I haven't had a proper birthday pie since Baker's Square closed down and I moved to Europe. So yeah, exciting.

Without further ado, please check out this site: Joy of Baking

For Trav's birthday I made the Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcakes. Yum! I have never tasted cup cakes like these! They are super moist and have the perfect amount of chocolate. Travis even agreed to change his cup cake request to have these babies instead.

How do these two things relate? Well... when I get stressed, I like to sew, bake, write... basically be creative, and lately I have been baking. If you try any of the recipes from that website, please let me know how things turned out!!

Am I really ready?

It's not a secret that Travis and I have always wanted to have a third child. We agreed that if Katienne was born via c-section, that was it, no more kids. I wasn't interested in the bowel or bladder injuries that can occur during a third c-section. But when Katienne was born the old fashioned way, the first words out of Travis' mouth were, "Now we can have another baby!!" The nurses looked at him like, "Didn't you just see what she went through... probably not the best time to bring that up." But I felt the exact same way as Travis. And since that day we have known that eventually, we wanted to try for a third.

Today, as I was browsing through pictures for Travis' birthday video I found this:

Here is a picture of me, 40 weeks 2 days pregnant with Katienne, after hiking up a cliff in Palos Verdes, California trying to induce labor. When I looked at this picture, the only thing I could think was, "Am I really ready to do that again?!" My last pregnancy was pretty awful. I was sick every day, and my blood pressure was high the whole way through. I had to drink coconut water every morning in an effort not to go on blood pressure meds.

And as I was sitting on the bed watching Prince Philip fight off the dragon with Kati leaning against my side, and Ksena sitting on one of my legs, I thought... I totally have room for one more. Not just on my lap, but in my life.

I don't know when we will start trying, but I do have a few goals I want to accomplish before I get pregnant again. Mainly, I want to lose 15 to 20 lbs, because that's how much I gain with each pregnancy. I also have to get over the fact I won't be able to eat dairy for a year, while living in Greece, the home of the awesomest yogurt and cheese on the face of the planet (sorry Wisconsin, I know that one hurt). Both of my kids so far have been lactose intolerant for a year after birth. I also want to have the names chosen. For a girl, we are looking for a K name, and for a boy, a T name. Of course, the name has to be Greek, since we now live in Greece. And last, but not least, I'm going to do as much research as possible about getting pregnant with a boy. Travis doesn't care either way, but I want a boy. Even if all those "ways of having a boy" don't work... that's ok. It's worth a try. And if I have another girl, I won't have to buy any clothes. Either way, everyone's a winner.

But for now, I need to make cupcakes for Trav's birthday tomorrow. We're going to the zoo in Budapest with friends to celebrate. It's going to be so much fun!!

I promise to keep you, the reader, up to date with my weight loss efforts and also the name search. P.S. Do you know any Greek names you want to suggest? We would love the help! God bless!! -Kristin

Most Used Word

As I am learning more and more about being a blogger, or tentblogger :) I am trying to learn how to make my blogs more search friendly. Today as I was checking whether or not my meta tags were working on this blog (btw, they are not working yet... bleh) I noticed that the most used word on my blog's front page is cake. Yikes! So in honor of that revelation. Enjoy a piece of cake this weekend (I didn't say it had to be a fatty cake... you could also have a vegan, gluten free piece of cake) and think of me :)

Tiny chocolate bomb.

Goals... or something like that

Time for some serious self evaluation.
(picture from weheartit.com)

I recently joined the facebook group for my 10 year high school reunion. I knew this day was coming, eventually, and I also had these grand ideas about how successful I would be by the time this event came up. But lately I've been having a hard time defining success. I tried talking to Travis about it, but I really wasn't able to articulate any of my thoughts, and I probably just sounded like a crazy person. My husband is so patient and understanding.

By now I wanted to be a midwife, a published author, or a professional blogger. But I'm not any of those things. I am a mother, wife, missionary, labor doula, graphic artists wannabe, amateur blogger, worship leader, and other things... and I have no problem finding value in other people being those things. The tricky part is finding value in myself. Not that I should love myself or any of those other weird mantras that I personally disagree with. I just have a hard time justifying who I am to other people, and even more, to myself. That is something I have always struggled with. I know God made me with a purpose in mind, but so far I haven't really figured out what that purpose is.

This morning during my devo time I was praying, feeling frustrated with myself, and I asked God that whatever goals I have... that they would melt away and reveal His goals for my life.

For the most part, I feel like the older I get, the more I like myself. But sometimes I still feel like that same scared 18 year old, waiting for life to throw me an inside fast ball.

Of course, it doesn't help that Travis has been working almost every night and I have gotten used to having him around. So I've been trying to keep myself busy with SER, language study, and other things. So you know... we'll see how I feel in a few weeks, lol. At least God gave me a good sense of humor so I realize how silly I'm being. A good dose of laughter is the best medicine for any gloomy day.

Butter Gooey Cake - From Scratch

I wanted to recreate this midwestern classic that my Grandma Dale has been making since I can remember. Yes, there are many benefits involved in having family from Missouri :). The only problem was that I live in Greece, where you cannot find yellow cake mix, the main ingredient in this rich, sweeter than sweet dessert. So, I used my favorite yellow cake recipe, modified it to fit this cake, and figured out how much sugar I could leave out of the filling without compromising the gooey yet crunchy texture. If you don't like sweet things, you are NOT going to like this, but for me, it brings back fond memories of family get togethers in the summer. I've seen other scratch recipes with yeast, but you really don't need to go through that extra trouble to have mouth watering gooey goodness. Enjoy!

Butter Gooey Cake (from scratch)

Cake

-2 cups flour

-2 tsp baking powder

-1 tsp salt

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-2 whole eggs plus 1 egg yolk

-5 tbsp melted butter

-1 cup sugar

Smash cake into bottom of pan with some edges sticking up on the outside to form crust.

Filling

-3 cups confectioners sugar

-3 tbsp melted butter

-2 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-3 oz cream cheese (optional)

Pour filling into crust and bake at 350 F (175 C) for 45 minutes. Let cool.

Freebie for the Day

You guys already know that I dabble in graphic design. I was working on SER and I made this today. Feel free to use it, especially if you have a travel themed blog!!