Baby Boy or Baby Girl?

Find out...May 28th!

Pictures and Houses

Hello all!

Here we are again. All of the Maschke clan is happy and healthy, and we wanted to say hello.

Ali is now 19 months old and is learning new words all the time. She now says "See ya" as well as "bye bye" when we leave. Ali also loves pointing to Mommy's belly and giving baby kisses. She also likes going down slides ("Wheeeeeee!") and climbing, which we fear may lead to further extremes in childproofing.

Baby, a.k.a. Peanut, is doing well. Thursday will mark 16 weeks, which means one more month until we find out if Peanut is as he or a she.

Anna is NOT going to Catalina with her students this year; the trip is just too hard on her pregnant body. Instead I get to stay with the 12 middle school students NOT going on their class trips and watch them work on their assignments.

Jed is finishing up at Faith; his last day there is June 1. His first day at First will be July 1 (that is a lot of firsts).

We are still looking for a house. So far we have submitted offers in on three. Numbers 1 and 3 are still options, but our offer for number 2 was declined. We welcome any prayers offered up for housing, although we are partial to #3. God willing, we will soon have a picture of us in front of our new home!!!

Here are some new pictures of Ali. They were taken at a MOPS fundraiser by the same person who took our Christmas pics. The setting is the Heritage Hill Historical Park, a tranquil batch of historical buildings from the 1800s which marked the initial settlement at El Toro. Ali is standing outside of St. George's Episcopal Mission in the picture below. Enjoy!

Coming Soon to Concord, California!

It's official: We're moving! I (Jed) have officially accepted the call to be pastor of First Lutheran Church in Concord, California. We went up there for a house-hunting expedition this weekend since Anna had off for Easter Break and I needed a break after Easter, and spent some time looking at houses with Lisa, our Realtor.

In our price range (which is not terribly high, but at least enough to look at houses) we had a whole range of options, some of which were foreclosures that smelled funny and had unidentifiable sticky stuff on the walls, carpets, and mirrors. One home was quite scary and had locks on the outside of the bedroom doors and what looked like the spray-painted outline of a coffin in the back yard. Gideon had apparently been there too, and had left King James Bibles in several rooms and the garage. Other houses we looked at were completely new, with great rooms that weren't so great because they were pretty small. There were houses that I liked and Anna didn't, most notably the townhouse downtown that she said no to just because there looked like a homeless person was sleeping on the front porch. I tried to convince her that the 40 oz. Natural Light beer and grungy blankets were simply a housewarming gift from the neighbors, but she said we don't need neighbors like that.

Ultimately, we picked two that we thought we could live in, and though one was snatched up right after we looked at it, we have made an offer on the other one which is in Pittsburg, over the hill from Concord. If you go straight back about 4 miles from Anna's head in the picture below, you're basically there. Much thanks to Diane and Bridget for watching Ali while we were checking things out. Also, Diane gave Ali a stuffed Elmo and an Elmo hoodie. Ali can even point out Elmo's nose if you ask her.

On Saturday we went to Pixieland, which is a little mini theme park in Concord for little kids. Ali loved it, especially the teacups ride and the car she got to drive. She kept saying, "Weeeeee!!!" and encouraged us to spin the teacup, before figuring out how to do it herself.

The voters meeting at First Lutheran went off without a snag and the final details were hammered out on my call documents, so I signed them that afternoon before we left and made it official! We're planning on moving up there in June and I'll start work in July.

Thanks for all your prayers! We are thankful that God has been with us and has directed us to this church, and we continue to covet your prayers for us during this time of transition.

For those interested...

Here is the picture we got on Friday of Baby #2. He or she measured 10 weeks and 1 day, so my due date is October 9th now (if it really matters at all). Even though we tell Ali it is a baby, she is not convinced.

Call news is still coming. We promise to let everyone know once the big decision has been made.

More news to come...

Some News

Here are some pictures of Ali and Nana, from Nana's visit this weekend. Ali greatly enjoyed the visit, and had lots of fun learning and performing the actions to "If You're Happy and You Know It" and being read lots of books. Nana even read Ali two books before bedtime! What a treat! We all had fun as Arlene visited my church (Faith in Huntington Beach) and took us out to dinner to celebrate receiving a call.

About that...I have received a call to be pastor at First Lutheran Church in Concord, California. I'll be heading up there the first weekend in March for an official visit. Please keep us in your prayers as we consider this opportunity to serve God in the East Bay area.

Anna's staying healthy with the pregnancy, although she seems to have more morning sickness than usual. Nana swears it's going to be a boy because she never got morning sickness with her girls.

Things we need to post

1. New pictures of Ali, who is still as cute as ever, and is growing like a weed.
2. Information about Jed's current job situation.
3. Great family time with Ben and Jen.
4. Baby number two, due in October.

All will be updated in the next week or so; stay tuned.

2007 Ends! 2008 Begins!

Happy 2008 everybody! Mommy and Daddy let me write another blog thingy. They said it's a new year, 2008. So far not much has happened this year, but I thought I'd let you know what happened in 2007.

I had lots of fun this year at Christmas. This year I'm 16, which is much older than last year when I was 4 at Christmas. I was too little to open the presents last year, but I'm basically a pro at it now. Let me share the steps with you.

Step 1: Tear off a piece of wrapping paper
Step 2: Give it to Mommy.
Step 3: Tear off another piece of wrapping paper.
Step 4: Give it to Daddy.
Step 5: Repeat until Mommy and Daddy give me another present.

Another thing to do that's a lot of fun is when I see Mommy and Daddy eating "Christmas Candy" or "Cookies" I walk up to them with my mouth wide open and sign "Please." They know what "please" means since I've taught them well.

So as you can tell, Christmas was wonderful. We spent time together as a family, just the three of us. We went to church and sat together (Daddy didn't have a service Christmas morning) and ate and enjoyed presents.

On Saturday we spend the day in a place called San Diego. It was a fun day trip. We went to the Science Center and I ran around a lot because there was way cool stuff, and stairs that Daddy let me climb. Then I fell asleep and woke up at a place Mommy called Konos. She let me eat some of her egg burrito and then we took a walk. I walked almost all the way down to the beach and this old lady said some bad words to some people and then she said she was sorry to me and said I was darling. Mommy agreed with her about the last part. We had dinner with a friend of Daddy's from high school (Tim Jette). He and his wife have three year old twins named Adam and Patrick, which seem to be pretty popular names since I now have two friends with each of those names. I had a blast.

I also wanted to point out to you some of my artwork. It was supposed to be a private showing so I locked the door so Daddy couldn't come in, but he walked in through the doors to our porch. Mommy was a little angry that the restaurant didn't give us washable crayons, but I thought it would look good no matter what. She used a lot of elbow grease and a Magic Eraser to get the job done.

Anyway, thank you for all your presents. I especially like my books and toys and clothes. And hugs. If you come and visit me I can reward you with a slobbery kiss. I'm good at those, Daddy says.

Bye for now!