God is like Super Grover

     So God is like Super Grover. Over the past few months, Wes and I have had the opportunity to enjoy many a mornings snuggled up under a blanket, with our juice, watching Sesame Street. There are many educational, funny, wonderful parts of this tv show that I grew up loving and it hasn't changed too much. There are still sweet moments, lessons brought to you by the letter "C" and plenty of examples of the #14 to get the point across. One of the most recent skits on our favorite show is about the adventures of Super Grover 2.0. It's all about a super hero that does the best he can to help people and he actually does, but his selling point is that he shows up. Literally the one thing I remember about the beginning of every skit is "Super Grover 2.0: He shows up". 

     God is like that. He shows up. In fact, He's been sighted several times over the last few months at the Hassmer house. 

     David was told originally that VCHS would give $435 to cover the cost of his 9 credits at VCU this semester because he is currently an employee there. He was also told that because this is his first semester as a VCU student working towards his grad degree he owed $835 in fees. Let me say that although we are quite blessed to both have jobs during this time, we are by no means living "high on the hog". $835 is almost our entire mortgage. And GOD showed up. When David checked his student account so that we could make a payment schedule the computer screen read: Account Balance: $0. He showed up. No explanation, no change in the balance since last week. Just like Super Grover.

     This week we received a letter. Hand written from our loved ones. Wrapped in the letter were two Visa gift cards. $125. We can now pay for groceries this coming week and for David some new shoes so that he will be set for the semester of being a chaplaincy intern at MCV. And there we go. He showed up. again.

     No doubt GOD is probably not sporting a cape and a mask. And HE's probably not blue and fuzzy. But they do have one obvious thing in common. They're both there. Right when you need them. 

     

Oh Irene....

As many of you know, Hurricane Irene came in like a lion last Saturday and brought with her heavy rains and high winds. She took our power and left a BIG mess in her way. We have been incredibly blessed in the wake of this storm and still have our house, our health and will be continuing the clean up today with a chain saw. We lost all of our food in the fridge due to being without power for 4+ days but have been able to replace it little by little.  GOD has been so good to us and we are so thankful for the help of our parents during this time. David, Wesley and I stayed with my parents for our 4+ days without power and only had to take a few cold showers:) Here are a few pictures of our backyard post Irene. A large piece of a tree glazed the top of our roof, took out our floodlights and cable line (that wasn't hooked up anyway) and then landed on our shed. Thankfully the shed is still in one piece with tiny damages. I'm sure we'll get it fixed little by little. In the mean time, just thankful that we're all safe. 

 This is what we found when we came back after the storm on Sunday afternoon. Oh the cleanup. Much of it was done by my wonderful husband:)

 The front yard faired pretty well. Just a lot of branches and limbs to clean up.

Our poor shed. 

 My very sweet muscle man:) So blessed by him! He did a great job clearing all the debris!

The very best thing about Hurricane Irene was getting to spend precious moments with my parents. My Dad got to snuggle his grandson with blankies and milk and cartoons. 

And just for some added cuteness... Here is our hurricane dance:)

And.... we're back!

So this two weeks ago we went on our yearly adventure to Ocean City NJ to enjoy the sun and sand and spend time with our wonderful family. My sweet boy LOVES the boardwalk:) That's a good thing because his Daddy does too. For some reason this year we were quite sad when our NJ journey was over and so I decided to surprise David with a 2nd trip to the beach this past weekend! 

This is the picture I drew and put on the fridge. I didn't leave it there. Just took a video of it and then after dinner out at Fridays, let him watch the video. The car was packed, the reservations were made, and he was thrilled!

Daddy and Wesley got right to playing in the waves as soon as we got there. They thoroughly enjoyed the ocean and the sand! I think we both got our work out chasing Wesley around. Our days of sun bathing while sitting still are completely over:) Now, we sun bathe on the go!

 My precious boy learning about the ocean and listening to the waves. Probably my most favorite of all the pictures we took that day.

Wesley enjoyed playing in the sand with his awesome Walgreens sand toys:) I love watching him learn!

Basically, my summer has been spent enjoying, loving, snuggling, reading, traveling, kissing, tickling and holding my precious baby. I wouldn't have spent it any other way. We are so blessed!

Christmas at the Hassmers

Welcome to the quick overview of Christmas at the Hassmer's complete with silly pictures, reminders of our faith and the expectancy of our little one. We hope that GOD richly blesses you and your family this holiday season and that through the giving of your mind, physical self and soul you experience the Joy that comes in knowing why Jesus gave himself for us.

This is David and I's first Advent wreath. I didn't grow up having one and upon meeting David and my amazing new family (the in laws) I loved the idea of the tradition and everything it stood for. ours is a bit make shift and the candles aren't exactly the right color but the idea is the same. We're lighting our candles week by week and waiting for baby Jesus to come!

Not only are we waiting on baby Jesus, we're waiting on Baby Wesley as well. After a false alarm this past week and an unexpected trip to the hospital, we decided to pack our suitcase for the real thing. It's not completely packed as we have to wait on the clothes and contact lens cases and things of that nature, but the list and the suitcase are a constant reminder of how close we are to holding our baby boy.

There's nothing quite like having the Christmas candy dishes filled with Christmas candy. Not so good for my growing tummy or for my sugar intake, but what's Christmas without some good chocolate?

A few tacky santa claus salt and pepper shakers provide just the right feel for month of December:)

Let the fake Christmas Tree building begin! Our little tree reminds me only slightly of Charlie Brown's tree. It's not very sturdy and it doesn't look or smell real. But we like it:)

See, I told you we like it!

Sometimes I worry that we might like it a little too much...

The finished product, complete with all the ornaments from our childhood plus a few special recent additions is just enough to make the perfect little tree for our home!

Speaking of recent additions, this ornament and the one below I painted at All Fired up in Carytown. This one says "The Hassmers, Christmas 2009".

This is the one I painted for Wesley. It says "Merry Christmas Wesley, 2009"

This is my favorite ornament of the year. It was a sweet gift from our friends, Raymond and Julia. Such a thoughtful present:)

And we obviously couldn't go without purchasing some much needed toys for Wesley before his big arrival. This Swing came to us courtesy of all the wonderful gift cards we've received at our numerous baby showers. I'm sure it will be one of his favorite places to sleep...or so I hope...

Mimi and Grandaddy and Nana and Grandpop surprised us this past week with the Travel System that was on our registry. We were so excited to finally get the car seat so that we know we will be able to actually bring him home from the hospital! Now if we could just figure out how to get it in the car...

Putting a tag on Wesley that was sent to us from God seemed just incredibly appropriate and although we know that he's more than just a present under the tree it seemed a perfect place to take a picture.

Thank you for praying for us and keeping us in your thoughts as we enter the last stage of pregnancy and really the last portion of our married life as just David and Kim. We anxiously await the birth of our LORD, as well our son and a new chapter in our lives and we can't wait to share it all with you. Maybe GOD's hand be in everything you do over the coming weeks and surround you as you journey to Bethlehem to meet the precious SON of GOD.

Love,

Kim, David and Wesley Hassmer

Happy Halloween, Love Wesley

October 31st has come. Wesley and I decided that just because we are HUGE we didn't want to miss out on the festivities. SO I joined the entire city of Richmond at Party City today and bought some face paint. Now here we are. Decked out in Halloween fun. Enjoy the beautiful artistry that Daddy created for us by hand. We'll just call him Picasso:) Trick or Treat, yal!

What a perfect size pumpkin!

The full view! Ain't he cute!

Look out NFL...Here comes Wesley!

We ARE 7 months now! Finally! And today I had my 28 week check up. We started the morning on a great note. I got weighed...the un-fun part for most women, but the exciting part for me. Up until today I was still 3 lbs shy of my pre-pregnancy weight. I have officially gained back everything I lost in the first 16 weeks and have broke even. Everything from now on is going to be a positive gain for me and the baby. My blood pressure was perfect. This month was also the glucose testing so I had to have blood drawn and though I won't have the results til the end of the week, the Dr. said that she was not worried about Gestational Diabetes where Wes and I are concerned. THEN my Dr. came in and answered my two pages of questions, and proceeded to my favorite part of the whole meeting. We got to hear Wes's beautiful heartbeat. He came in right around 145 BPM and though it took her a while to find it, as he was moving like a crazy person, it was the prettiest sound I've ever heard. She saved the funniest part for last. She pulled out her special little tummy measuring tape. I'm supposed to measure in centimeters what I actually am in weeks. SO one would suppose that I should measure 28.3 or something along those lines. Wes came in right around 30 centimeters. He's actually about 2 weeks bigger than normal but my wonderful doc said that the only thing that means is that we might do the next ultrasound a little earlier than 36 weeks so that they can check his weight and height. She also said that at this point he is head down, which could change at any time.

I attached 2 pictures that David took this evening so you can see the progress Wes is making. Please continue to pray for us as Wes and I continue stretch and grow, lose a little sleep here and there and deal with the aches and pains of late pregnancy. We'll take all the praying we can get. David and I hope and pray that you are blessed this coming holiday season and we look forward to sharing our sweet bundle of joy with you after the first of the year:) Thank you for being the people that we love that love us.

My tummy actually looks bigger in person...believe it or not..

Drawstring pants probably won't last for too long..

My belly kind of blends in with the closet but if you look really close you can tell it's huge. I love it:)

A picture speaks 1,000 words

I figure that there's not a whole lot to say. I'll just let the pictures speak. Maybe a few thoughts, but more about the first baby shower later, in an upcoming post. Just for the purpose of bragging, these beautiful pictures were taken by Raymond and Julia Foster, close friends of ours, that live in Winchester, VA. They are budding photographers with an amazing eye and we love them very much for their gift of maternity photos. Enjoy!

On Mimi's front porch. It's the "Come Hither" pregnant stare...

Sweet kisses.

He was kicking. So we were watching.

This is one of my personal favorites.

Silliness. Just plain silliness.

This is an old throwback to a picture we had made during our wedding reception. Not pregnant then, pregnant now. Still a cute picture.

It's so nice that we can hug and be the perfect size for each other. I think, however, that we're beginning to be a little hard pressed to hug as closely as we did a few months ago...

couldn't resist the opportunity to do a picture like this. He's silly. We're silly.

Tummy was definitely in motion when we took this. The funny faces were just for dramatics.

This is my personal favorite. We might just frame this one and put it in Wes's room. Can't wait to meet him! Only 14 more weeks...