Baby Corner with Renée: I am now 11 weeks into the pregnancy! Our fig-sized baby is now fully formed, measuring 1.5 inches long and weighing in at a quarter of an ounce. His skin is still transparent, allowing many of his blood vessels to show through. Some of his bones are beginning to harden, and tiny toothbuds are starting to appear under his gums. His fingers and toes have separated, and he may soon be able to open and close his fists. He’s already busy kicking and stretching, and his tiny movements are so fluid they look like water ballet. (Note: “his” is a generic pronoun, not an indication of the gender of the kiddo!) Another baby picture

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It has been quite the pleasant weekend, and I have been ever-so-grateful since last week was like walking through the pit of despair! Work was totally crazy with the perfectly-placed complete server crash that kept me at work until 1am Thursday morning and teased me with the prospect of having to work on a) my birthday (March 26) and b) Easter (March 27)! But thankfully, God is gracious and allowed me the time (and the sleep) I needed to get things fixed by 5:00pm exactly on Friday afternoon.

Thus, “relaxation” could ensue.

So, to start my birthday off right, I went to the air force base with Scott and Dad and got a nice short haircut, amidst the snowy weather. Pete, my barber, has been cutting my hair for almost 23 years. He was excited to be doing so on my birthday, and he was even more excited at the prospect of Baby H. getting his hair cut with Pete too! Three generations of Horlbecks–yikes, how crazy!

After the haircut, I stopped into the office just to make sure everything was still working. It was. After cleaning up my office a little bit, I headed back home.

Renée and I had lunch at home and she gave me my first birthday gift: a beautiful card and a steering wheel cover for my truck! Sweet. We then quickly headed over to Tim and Jeni’s house, where we were meeting up with Scott before Jeni and Renée went over to a baby-shower. Tim, Scott, and I celebrated my birthday in the best possible way: playing the almighty Halo 2 for many, many hours. Like six. It was great. Of course, Renée and Jeni came back and pried us away from the game long enough to eat. We made our own calzones (courtesy of Jeni and Renée’s fabulous ideas and shopping) and indulged in pure Italian bliss. We then played Apples to Apples (which Jeni won) and nertz together (which Jeni won). A horrible way to treat the birthday boy, if you ask me.

So after a long afternoon of enjoyment, Renée and I headed home to rest up for Easter!

We had a great church service Sunday morning–it was totally celebratory and it was awesome to be with such great friends and family and all rejoice in the common hope we have in Jesus! We are totally unworthy to receive such lavish grace and love from God, but God made the first move, declaring us righteous and forgiven! It’s such an awesome truth that has totally changed my life forever.

After church, we went over to my parents’ house for some awesome Easter tacos and present-opening for my birthday. Well, Dad got me an airhorn for the truck (man, if you had heard what is in there already, you’d laugh), and then I opened a gift totally unexpected. In fact, everyone thought I hated it when I first opened it because I was so stunned. I opened a big box, not knowing what it was, when all of a sudden, a burst of neon green (accompanied by black) hit my eyes, along with the letters “X B O X”. “Could it be? What?? I didn’t even ask for this? Is this really what’s in there? Are you serious? No way!” Indeed, it wasn’t just an X-Box box, but an actually X-Box in an X-Box box! The whole family (and Tim and Jeni) had teamed up to buy that along with Halo 2 for my birthday. How unworthy I felt, but how excited I was! So, the rest of the afternoon was spent playing Halo 2 with Scott while everyone else just slept. How boring for them!

So I had a spectacular birthday despite the trauma of the previous week, but more than that, I am so blessed to be one of God’s children and know that I am going to heaven and that I have a real-life, true relationship with the living God!