Wow, it's been over a month since the last post.  I guess I have been busy nesting and resting and not thinking about writing. 

The biggest thing that we've experienced is Jonathan starting to walk.  This would be a great place to insert a video but I don't have one (what a bad mommy!).  I do have a picture of him mid-stride, though.



Hands up and out to the sides and laughing as he walks.

Obviously, we were so excited when he started taking his own steps.  He still crawls when he needs to get somewhere quickly (like down the hall to his room), but almost half the time he prefers to walk.

He has also learned to identify things using words.  A few of the words in his arsenal: pup-pah (puppy), meh (meow, which he says when he sees our cat), cah (car), baou (ball), tuh-DOU (touchdown...don't ask why he knows this).  Then he has code words that only we know the meaning of:  ha HA ha means he wants to watch a Three Little Pigs cartoon he is currently obsessed with; bah bah BAH bah is Brown Bear Brown Bear; ba ba BA is Yo Gabba Gabba.  It might sound far-fetched but I am telling the truth: we have decoded some if his jibber jabber.  There are still some things that he says that I have no idea what he means, but the important thing is that he is communicating!

I am now in my third trimester (33 weeks to be exact).  It isn't as bad as the first, but it is pretty uncomfortable.  We have made it almost 10 weeks further than we did with Jonathan which is so amazing to us!  We never thought I'd be pregnant for so long and it is such a blessing to be able to experience this and have the peace of mind that this baby will (hopefully) have a much less eventful beginning to his life than his brother Jonathan did.  I am scheduled to have the cerclage removed on Feb. 15, my last day of being 36 weeks pregnant (that's 1 day shy of being full-term).  BUT so far baby James is breech.  If he doesn't flip by then, they will not remove the stitch and schedule me for a C-section, then remove the stitch at the same time.  I know C-sections happen all the time, but I am really looking forward to labor (weird, I know) and will be disappointed if I can never experience that (our local hospital does not do VBAC). 

BUUUUUT God is sovereign and He knows what way is best for me and James, and whatever God ordains is right. 

Jeff is still in school at RTS in Orlando.  He is gearing up to start his Spring semester and has already begun yet another online class.  I can tell when he is starting new classes because a steady stream of books starts to arrive in the mail.  We bought a huge bookshelf about a year ago, and we have a good collection of books then, but now it's overflowing like crazy.  Almost all the books on there are theology-related, and about 1/3-1/4 are books that have been purchased just since Jeff started seminary.  I have never seen a person go through so many books in such a short amount of time!  But, I have never lived with someone pursuing a Master's degree, either, which is in a whole other league compared to a Bachelor's, not to mention that RTS is a prestigious school so they are going to make you work to be able to call yourself an alumnus.  How he does it all while still performing his duty at church and being an AWESOME dad and husband I will never know!  But thank God he is able.

So that's the Skipper household in a nutshell.  I wanted to write about an awesome series I have been reading on the meaning of marriage based on Paul's teaching in Ephesians 5, but that will have to wait.  So much good stuff in there, though!  If you want to read it yourself, here are the first 2 parts:

Part 1: A Picture Perfect Marriage

Part 2: The Wife's Role

Goodbye, sweet Summer!

Things have been really busy around here lately.  Summer is pretty much coming to an end for us, and even though we don't have school-age kids, things are still getting into "school mode".  Jeff is in seminary at RTS in Orlando getting his Master's in Biblical Studies.  He is about 1/3 of the way through the program, taking some courses online and driving to the campus for others.  This semester he will be spending all day one day a week in Orlando. 

With school also comes cold and flu season.  Last year at this time, Jonathan was still in the hospital so it wasn't too much of a concern for him (unless we caught it and brought it to him).  But this year, he is a big boy and spends a lot of time around other kids.  There is a particularly dangerous (and very common) virus this time of year called RSV, and babies with damaged lungs like Jonathan has are very susceptible to it.  There is a shot he can get every month to protect him from it, but we are waiting to see if our insurance will cover it again.  If they deny it, we can appeal, but I pray we don't have to go down that road.

This upcoming season I will be starting my second trimester of pregnancy.  We are hoping for a girl but still have a long time until we can find out.  Things are remarkably better with this pregnancy than they were last time.  At 11 weeks pregnant with Jonathan, I was suffering from a subchorionic bleed and was on complete bed rest.  It was no fun, to say the least.  This time, everything is going normally, and morning sickness gets the better of me every 3 days or so.  Hopefully that will be ending soon though.  I am scheduled to see a maternal/fetal specialist because of the way things went with the last pregnancy - more to come on that.

Praying things are well with you all.  Much love from the Skipper Family!

New Things

"He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” - Revelation 21:5

This blog used to be called "Jonathan's Journey" because that was the biggest thing in our lives for a long time. And in a way, Jonathan definitely is still the biggest thing. But God is doing so much within our family that it seemed like a new blog was appropriate. So here is Skipperific.

God has literally made everything new in our lives.  Jonathan is totally healthy and no longer on any medication or oxygen.  I am pregnant again and having a completely healthy pregnancy so far.  Jeff has completed his first year of Seminary with a 3.8 GPA, while working full-time at the church and being an amazing husband and father.  God has provided everything we need, and we are so humbled to see the place of abundance that He has brought us to within the last year.  What a journey!

The suffix -fic means "making or creating".  This blog will hopefully illustrate how the Author and Perfecter or our faith and lives is making and creating the Skipper family into His image, while keeping long distance family and friend updated about our lives.  My hope is that you will see God's sovereignty in our lives, and begin to realize that He is sovereign over yours, too.