Ellenor is such a happier baby, now that we determined that she (and I) can’t have dairy. So as long as I drink almond milk and avoid cheese and yogurt, she’s alright! And even though I deeply miss cheesy pizza and ice-cream, it’s really not so bad. Plus, we found out that Ben&Jerry’s makes “Chunky Monkey Dairy-Free” (Praise Him!!).

Ellenor weighs 12lbs, 13 oz at her 4 month check up. She is in the 20% for her weight to height, but she grew 3 inches. She is our “skinny Minnie”. People in public seriously can’t get enough of her black hair and blue eyes (thanks, Carter family genes). She is getting red highlights from being out in the sun. She can roll over from her tummy to back and vice-versa. She likes the car-seat and the stroller and the baby carrier more and more because she knows we are going somewhere. She LOVES Miriam. She cracks smiles and coos and Miriam loves to play with her on the floor. M loves to help her with changing her diaper, picking out her clothes and when E cries, she will say “It’s ok, Oh-nor. I’m right here” (heart melts).

Ellenor loves to sleep on her right side, so much that her head is a little flat. Every time we try to make her lie on her left side, she rolls right back over. She also is a drooler. We wipe her face constantly, but it is probably because she loves her paci. She also uses her fingers to suck on if the paci falls out (although she is getting better about pulling it in and out of her mouth). Her favorite sounds are “ahhhh” and “kkkkkkhhhh” and “llllllleh”. We love you so much Oh-nor and can’t imagine this life without you, sunshine!

Ellenor is a little more than 2 months old now. She has better control over her head and likes to look around (but also prefers to be snuggled). She tolerates her swing every now and then and isn’t too fond of the vibrating chair. She loves to be held or carried! When she gets angry we joke that she “puts on her angry eyes” (Toy Story, anyone?) because all the blood rushes to her eyebrows when she screams. She has a very loud cry for such a tiny person. She laughs and smiles and coos every time her diaper is changed. Miriam has given her the nickname “Oh-nor”, but she also goes by “Little Mama Oh-nor” and “Lil’ Sis” (because Miriam is “Bub Rub”…). Ellenor also likes to cuddle in bed with Mommy and Daddy and even if she’s sweating, she will still curl up as close to you as possible. She weighs 11.5 lbs now and is 23 inches long. She looks thinner because she is on the taller side. She loves her paci to go to sleep and also likes rubbing the side of her head for comfort (besides snuggling).

Nina and Papa came to visit us when Ellenor was a few days old. My Mimi passed away when she was 10 days old so she went to her funeral. She has been to cookouts at the Tetrevs. She has been to the James Island County Park to watch her sister play at the playground and splash pad. She has been to a pool and likes being worn when Mommy goes walking. She has been to Rock Hill to meet her grandma and aunts. She has been to the beach this past weekend when her aunt, uncle and cousins came down for a few days (sidenote: when you can avoid it, avoid taking an infant to the beach…just don’t do it.) She will tolerate riding in the “spaceship” so long as Mommy makes an appearance in the backseat and didn’t “fully disappear.” She is such a growing girl and we all love her so much!

WE ARE HAVING A GIRL!! WE WILL BE WELCOMING BABY ELLENOR ON MAY 3, 2016!

We had a small gender-reveal party to announce if we were having a boy or girl (cupcakes or stud-muffins/hair-bows or mustaches?) and we celebrated with family and friends the same day we found out who Ellenor was. It was the hardest secret to keep for David and I!

Hooray! Miriam has a “forever friend” and her favorite new book to read at night is “I’m a Big Sister.”

Standing up by myself: I can bend down and pick up blocks too 🙂

Miri loves her bike seat!

at Cousin Noah’s birthday party

 She ripped up the original “what I love” paper. It read “I love to wave. I like to play “pattycake” and to clap. I love playing with my cousins (and can’t wait to meet Aminah Rezzai). I like being outside. I like to drop food on the floor and watch others pick it up. I love being 11 months!”

Miriam is so close to eating birthday cake! Not too much longer….Mommy has been planning her birthday party for like 3 months now. Geez. The little girl is so active and wants to do right in the middle of everything. She’s moved to two naps during the day. She sleeps better at night (Mommy is going to credit that to the Lord, and to Miri’s new comforter from Ikea). Before she goes to sleep, she decides to be really sweet and laugh and engage in conversation, as if to say “there’s so much to do! I can’t go to sleep….” She will roll back and forth on the bed and think she’s hilarious. In Daddy’s words, “she’s the sweetest bear of all.”

She likes to try out her walking shoes. She is confident to balance herself, but still wants help walking. We make a big deal in this house whenever she does something and she will look at us like “is this ok?” and then start clapping. She trembles with joy at the sight of family, but especially her cousins. They love her too. The best thing is for Mommy and Daddy to watch her eyes when she experiences something new. She soaks it all up like a sponge and there is such wonder in her eyes. Yesterday, she sat in the shade while we gardened for 2-3 hours. She held an earthworm and talked to her blocks, and the grass, and the dog next door…

Miri has always been a little ball of joy, but it’s so fun to see her continue to develop her little personality. She loves to wave at everyone and it’s awesome to see complete strangers stop in their day and wave back. If you want your baby to recieve a lot of attention, go to any BabiesRUs. She’s becoming a little girl now, and although she will always be my baby, she’s not such a little baby anymore. Le sigh. (insert Mommy warm-fuzzy feelings here). Watch out world! Miri’s got places to see and things to do! In a month, she will be a year old and may be walking 🙂

The Christmas season was very eventful for Team Carter. Earlier this month, we visited Jen’s grandfather’s family gathering in Eastover, SC. We stayed in Rock Hill and Christmas Eve-Eve we celebrated with David’s mom’s family. Christmas Eve we went to Ikea to look around just for fun and we went to church with Emily’s family.  Christmas Day included the family coming over for Christmas dinner; however it was unfortunate that Miriam was sick. Nothing serious, just the dreaded cold virus going around. Then I caught it and for four to five days felt like death and then it disappeared. Luckily, Miriam isn’t old enough to care about Santa Claus and such things, so she was happy to just be held/cuddled for a few days. We are doing much better now and David and I were able to spend a day in Asheville, NC at the Biltmore estate. (Thanks Santa for our tickets…it was great!) We really would like to go back and check out the other stuff to do there, but after the house tour, you become a bit overwhelmed by all the lavish details of the place. We ate at Tupelo Honey Cafe (thanks for the recommendation Plavnicks and Bates’) and had the best chicken and gravy biscuits ever! We also met up with Nicole and Nate Plavnick and lost ourselves in a glorious double date amidst books and obscure nooks in Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne. Probably the biggest Christmas present we could give ourselves was paying off one of our student loans!! Hooray God for allowing us to steward what we have so we can avoid a monthly payment on that!! Also, many thanks to David’s parents for allowing us to live with them for a year so that this could be possible. (We joked that if we lived with them for another 3 years, we could pay off the other loan too….to which everyone laughs because we won’t put them out for 3 more years…) Sure, we’ve made lots of sacrifices this year to not spend so that we could pay off that loan, and it feels SO GOOD to not have it on our plate anymore 🙂 Praise God. Perseverance pays off. In other news, we rang in the New Year’s Celebration at 9:30pm (funny how that works with a kid…) complete with sparkly hats and steak. Miriam liked her steak, but mostly she held it in her mouth, not swallowing it. She does the same thing with pasta. She is really developing her personality. If you leave the room and she didn’t give you permission to leave, she curls her hands up and throws a fit until you come back…then she’s perfectly fine. She was given a lot of new friends (stuffed animals) by family members for Christmas and she holds long conversations with them. She has finally decideed that it’s time to roll over and she usually will do so after reaching for an object while sitting. She loves to practice standing up and holding onto things. Yesterday, she stood alone, while holding onto my leg for about 30 seconds. She also throws herself backwards to be upside down. She also loves to flirt with herself in a mirror = making silly faces, sticking her tongue out and waving. She still has no desire to crawl (just raises her arms and legs off the floor as if Superman, and hopes that will scoot her around) so we are anticipating her to skip the whole crawling milestone and go straight to walking. She wants to be mobile SO bad 🙂 Month 9: Miriam is such a joy! She continues to improve her vocabulary: “bwee”, “ooooo”, “wow”, “woo-dee”, ect. She has her night time routine down and likes to be in bed by 9pm. Her favorite book is “Pat the Bunny”. She is beginning to understand some basic signs and knows “milk”, “more”, “all done” and “good”. She cut her 1st tooth and tooth #2 is also about to come in! (she hasn’t bitten Mommy yet and this is a very good thing). She has mastered the sippy cup. She can almost pull herself up to stand and is getting better at moving herself from a sitting position to crawling stance. She would much rather eat what we’re eating than pureed food. Thus her palette ranges from Indian, Mexican, Chinese, American, ect. Her breakfast go-to is scrambled eggs and sausage and or grits. Miriam went on her first missions trip to Elberton, GA and took part in worship (our girl loves to sing!) and showered lots of people with baby love. She also tried BBQ and loved it! On Saturdays, she likes to putter around the house with Daddy and watch movies and have wrestling matches with him. It’s the cutest!

My dearest Miriam,

You are almost 9 months old. You are supposed to be taking a nap, but you’re not. You are in our room chatting up a storm. I know that you will not have a baby of your own for many years to come, but this is a topic of discussion that has come up numerous times this week (specifically mommies and their birth stories/experiences). Mommy can’t speak for every mother out there. I’m no expert. Her one experience with you is just one of many stories out there. So I’m directing this to you, sweet girl, because one day you will think that what I have to say is golden. (After you are through the “eye-rolling, too-cool-to-listen, mom-you-don’t-even-know” phase). This is a list of things that I hope to remind you of when it’s your turn to be a Mommy (when I’m old & grey and trying to pick out my cool grandma name and can’t remember these things )…

1. You are a miracle. Your child is a miracle. God wonderfully made you both. You both are so special. He wants your baby to come now. Not earlier or later…in the present time. You are a great mom already. God has chosen you over all the other (insert half of the world’s population here) mothers to have this baby; no one else. You make good choices. You are strong and brave.

2. You are not in control. In the same way you can’t choose your child’s personality or eye color. Yes, you have a right to have a birth plan and a right to choose where you will have your baby and how you would like to have that baby in perfect circumstances. You can have your back-up plans too. I hope and pray it goes just like you want it to. Just know that in expectation and planning, you may have to surrender your rights to control what happens. No one will know what will happen to you, until it happens to you. Know that even though you don’t know, it’s ok. God will be with you every step of the way (giving you more wisdom and peace about whatever is happening in every month, trimester, in labor and delivery and in recovery/postpartum).

3. Be careful of the advice you seek. You are pregnant. Everyone wants to talk about it, offer advice, offer their story (whether you want to hear it or not), even if they do or do not have kids. The “suddenly everyone is an expert mommy” syndrome will try to take over your life. People will come out of the woodworks to tell you horror stories. Be careful what you read/watch on the Internet (if that’s still a thing). Glean from the advice you are given, but stay true to who you are and what you believe.

4. I love you and will support you in any way that you need me. If you want me in the delivery room with you, I’d love to be. If you don’t want me present to watch you deliver your baby in zero-gravity-space-like conditions (that could be a thing, right?) then know that I’m not offended. I’ll be there to bake you a casserole or to offer you a shoulder to cry on or to babysit my adorable grandchild while you sleep. I’ll want to visit you all the time, but will respect your wishes if you need some space.

5.  Talk to someone if you need it. It doesn’t have to be me. Your feelings are important. You are not alone. Your experience matters. Speak it out to someone you trust. Cry it out in the shower. Over and over. You do not need to “have it together” in a set amount of time. Every mom is different and every child is different. You and your feelings are valued.

6. Do not feel ashamed. You are an amazing person who carried a person into this world. You sacrificed your body for another. It is easy to compare yourself to other moms (their postpartum bodies, parenting methods, choices, ect.) You can honor every mom by listening to her and respecting her decisions for her family while still doing something different for yourself and your family. You can’t change the past, but you can remind yourself of the truths about who you are. You don’t need to be defensive when you are confident that you know best for your baby.

7. If you want all the gory details, we can talk about it. Just ask.

8. Give your man a hug. (As your mother I’m going to assume your husband…) Talk to him. Include him in your decisions and discuss your feelings. He values them because he values you, the mother of his child. Even though he didn’t push a watermelon out between his legs or have his stomach muscles filleted, he has been through a lot too. He has invested himself emotionally. He has stepped up to be the father you knew he would be. You are his hero for going what you went through to have the one who looks up to him as a hero. And he is a walking zombie, just like you. Love him well.

9. The end result is joy. You will remember the good times and the bad days seem to fade over time. You will remember so many good memories. There are so many good things in store for your family. You will want more kids in the future, I promise.

10. Take some time for yourself. You deserve it and don’t feel guilty about it. Your child is not a burden. Get outside. Join some friends. Have a beer (now that you can again). Enjoy it. And enjoy coming back to your little love. Watch her eyes light up when you walk into the room! It’s the best!

To your greatest adventure! Love, Mom

Who does God say that you are? Who am  I? What are the promises spoken over your life? You see, we forgot ours.

In the craziness that was 2014 with an international move, becoming parents, living and reconnecting with family, transitioning back to life in the States and dealing with our own personal relationships with God…it was a tough year. I just listened to a wonderful podcast from Paul Manwaring (listen to the whole thing:  http://www.paulmanwaring.com/podcasts/rest-recreating-the-i-am-in-me) who was talking about rest–the recreating of ‘I Am’ in you. In it, he’s talking about rest not being a place or a destination or “doing nothing” , but coming back to seeking God to remember who He says you are. When God tells Moses “tell them ‘I Am’ the one who sent you.” Who is the ‘I Am’ in us? What are the promises that God has spoken over our life and who He says we are? Sadly, we forgot. It’s taken a lot of time, reflection, healing (an ongoing process at times) and remembering. We want to remember who God says we are, remember what we have seen Him do in our lives, and remember the promises He has for our future to move forward.

“The supernatural in the wilderness was to sustain us. The supernatural in the promised land is to advance us.” -Bill Johnson-

We believe and we are declaring that 2015 is the year we are re-creating Team Carter. The year Team Carter got their groove back. The year of seeking more of God in worship (in the little things–like how cleaning Miriam’s dirty diapers is worship), rediscovering more of the “I Am” in us–the piece of God that he put in us, restoring beauty, recreation and peace in our family to move forward. The next leg of the journey will be different. It’s a New Year and we are so looking forward to it!

Happy 2015! We hope you have an amazing year, filled with miracles and good things that come from the Father! Much love, Team Carter

Our daughter, Miriam Elizabeth Carter, was born on Thursday May 1st, at 10:17pm. She weighed 7lbs (= 4 kilos) and is 21 inches long (= 53cm). Jen and Miriam are doing great (and so is Daddy). We love everyone and thank our family and friends for all of your prayers and encouragement as we continue to fall more deeply in love with our Little Miri-Bear. 🙂

1st pic of Jen and Miriam

A photo of all of us with our matching wristbands

Bringing Baby Home

We would be lying if we told you that January has not been a difficult month for us.

After David and I came back from our border run in Bolivia, we were only granted 60 days on our visa. We have been trying to obtain our Peruvian residencies (which would eliminate the border runs and allow us to work in the country). After four times of trying to submit the paperwork (and this time we had gotten further through the process than our previous attempts), it wasn’t meant to be. After a month of waiting on God and trying to figure out what He wanted for our family in all of this, we have heard Him speak that our next adventure is to come home to the States.

While it is bittersweet to have to announce this news to our amazing friends that we have made in Cusco over the past year and a half, we are sure that this is the right choice for our family. This was the only option, given our residency situation and God kept reminding us of our original vision of coming here: “that we are to learn how to pioneer from the Allen family.” That was it. He didn’t say anything to the tune of “join an amazing church family and get plugged in there” or “you are going to Peru to have a baby” or “you will run a DTS and stick around to see it grow…” 

We believe that obedience to what God says to do is the most important thing we can do. For our family, this means that if we miss when God says to leave Cusco and we were to stay, that would be just as disobedient as ignoring his plan for us to move here in the first place. 

Selfishly, we wanted to have Miriam here in Cusco and to give her the gift of dual-citizenship. Selfishly, we wanted to stick around and lead another DTS, and to see YWAM Cusco grow into different ministries. Selfishly, we love our church family at La Uncion and we wanted to be able to do life with them as a community. Selfishly, we want a lot more.

But God has shown us how faithful and in-control he is of the situation. We were blessed immensely by the generosity of new friends when we came here. Twice, God has given us places to live that were full of furniture and we always had more than what we needed. God had allowed us to partner with our amazing family of supporters and together, we have seen Him provide many miracles in answering our prayers.  Thank you for sharing your lives with us, for your encouraging words, for giving us a safe place to vent when we needed to and for believing in us and our work in Cusco. Thank you to Amauta and Jesus, our first Peruvian friends, who have become more like a brother and sister to us.  We wouldn’t have learned as much Spanish and how to live in this culture without these angels. They will be missed more than words can say. 

We would also be lying if we said that we weren’t excited to be on this new part of our adventure. Until we go home, we will be wrapping up the DTS here in Cusco. The students will get back from outreach this weekend and they will graduate February 19th. We will be coming back to South Carolina on March 3rd and taking the month of March off to see family, friends and supporters. 

Thanks everyone for your prayers and encouragement this past month! We appreciate you more than you know! Love, David, Jen and Miriam