Where has the time gone?

I have no idea how it became such a long time since my last post. This fall went by so fast!

The biggest news in our lives is that we are expecting baby number 2! He or she will be joining us around May 15, about two weeks after Jonathan's first birthday. Other than that, I'll let these pictures update you on what we've been up to.

We ended the summer with a trip to the beach at the Outer Banks.

For Memorial Day we had another Meat Feast...yum!

Jonathan loves to help with the dishwasher. Every time I open it he gets the soap out of the cabinet for me.

Grandpa came to visit.

Jonathan did this with his sandwich while I ran upstairs for a minute.

Jonathan loves to curl up in a blanket and read a book, just like his mommy. Books are his all time favorite thing right now, and this one, The Fire Cat, was Ben's when he was little. Jonathan is loving it now.

He found these things in his drawer and had to put them on. Who says boys can't play dress up?

To say "please" in sign language, you rub your hand in a circular motion on your chest. This results in food EVERYWHERE.

My First Living Room Fort. Fun Times!

Headed to class at church. He is there about 5 times a week.

My little man

The Fire Cat again.

Thanksgiving. The funniest part of this meal was when he realized that there was a picture of a dog on his plate (the same plate that he uses several times a week), gasped, and pushed all the food off so he could see better.

So that's where we are now. Getting ready for Christmas. Our good friends from Alabama will be coming to visit in a few weeks and then we will be headed home for a visit.

See you soon!

Meat Feast

I'm so sad that I forgot to take pictures of our Fourth of July celebration. The guys (Ben, John Paul, and Trey) decided that they wanted to go all out and eat as much as possible. They were in charge of the meat and I was in charge of the sides. They told me they were going to do steak and chicken kabobs on the grill and ribs in the oven. I learned the day of that they were also doing sausage on the grill. I also learned that they were splitting this meat fest into 2 seperate meals...kabobs for lunch and ribs for dinner. Oops, I only planned sides for one meal, thinking it would be like Thanksgiving, make a lot of food at once and then eat leftovers later. But we did a little rearranging and a quick run to the store and all was well. Better than well really. Since I don't eat pork, they saved me a huge steak for my dinner. I also made my Grandmother's Banana Ice Box Pie, which was a big hit thanks to some last minute instructions over the phone. A few years ago my Grandmother, mom, and aunt made all the girl cousins a cookbook with recipes of the stuff we grew up on (except for one recipe in my mom's section that I have never seen or heard anything about...hmm). Girl cousins, if you don't use it, you should. Get it out. It is great! And moms and aunts, keep the recipes coming. I rely on them heavily. I love how they are tried and true. Anyway, it was a great day.

We finished the day off with a game of Texas hold em (no cash, just chips for fun), which I had to learn since I had never played before. I am hooked! This is a super fun game! Last night Ben, John Paul and I played again, and the above picture is almost all of my winnings. I somehow managed to beat the guys out of all theirs. I do have to say that my hair looks like that because it was after midnight. Please excuse it.

I'm also adding some pictues of Jonathan from our lazy Saturday morning. We got him the cardboard blocks this week and they are a huge hit. He loves to knock over the tall stacks. After they all fall down he squeals and stomps his little feet around in a circle. It's awesome! He's also saying so many words, but most of them are a one shot deal. If we don't catch it the first time, it's not coming out again. The ones he's saying consistently are ma for ball and tic tic for tickle (he tickles his own tummy while he does that one). This week he also saw an arena football game on TV and a baseball game on TV, and both times he took one look at the TV and said "ma, ma, ma" and they weren't even showing the actual ball!!!! How does he know that ? He also has been trying really hard to say avacado. I guess he knows it's a funny word.

Summer Fun

We had a super fun day today. Jonathan and I were home all day, so after breakfast we took a walk to the neigborhood dog park and let Mazie run free for a little bit. Then after lunch I hooked up the garden hose and let Jonathan play in the water. It was so hot today and the water felt great! I ended up soaked too. Mazie wasn't the biggest fan of the water, so she hung out in the shade. After that we enjoyed some fresh apple carrot kiwi juice and then took a long nap. Yea for summer! I love it!

Summer's in full swing!

Wow last week was a crazy ride. We had our Super Summer event Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights. It was such a great thing, and different from anything we've done before. The kids were divided into teams (each team was a different color), and they earned points for things like team spirit, bringing friends, winning games, etc. They loved it! It was so fun to see what they came up with for team spirit. So that was the beginning of the week. On Thursday one of the girls from our student ministry in Alabama came to visit for the weekend. She stayed until Sunday and it was so fun to see her and catch up. Now she's halfway through college and the last time we saw her she was just graduating high school. Thursday night we had our weekly college volleyball gathering. Friday Ben and I spent all day buying me a new car. My old one was too tired to work anymore. I am loving the new one more than I expected. I didn't realize how much I was putting up with in my old one. I was just loving no car payment. Then Saturday we spent the day at the lake (or the ocean, I'm not sure, I was told it was a saltwater lake?) with the college group. It was a lot of fun. Jonathan swam in the swimming pool for the first time ever and loved it. We got him this cute little crab floatie to sit in. The water was take your breath away cold so I coudn't handle it as long as I would have liked to, but it was fun while it lasted. So anyway then we had Sunday and that was our week. This week is an easy one. We don't have Wednesday night or Sunday night. So hopefully we will be able to finish unpacking. We're pretty much down to the stuff in the garage and hanging pictures on the walls. We need to go through the attic, but that will have to wait till fall when it's not 200 degrees in there.

Settling in

We are finally mostly settled in to our new house. There are still a few boxes left, but we should be able to get to them this week. John Paul's fiance Crystal has been visiting this week and staying at our house, and we have had a lot of fun spending time together. I'm pretty sure Jonathan thinks Crystal is the most beautiful person he's ever seen. He stares at her with starry eyes and touches her face and hair all the time. John Paul is our new middle school pastor and we are so excited about being in ministry with him and Crystal.

Next week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night we are doing an event with fun activities for the kids and then our student ministry staff will speak, presenting the gospel and teaching kids how to have a closer walk with Christ. We are praying that it will be a time that we see God move in a mighty way. If you are a believer, please pray with us.

Above are some pictures of what we've been doing lately. We stopped at the beach for a few minutes yesterday and planned on taking pictures there, but I didn't realize the batteries were dead, so we'll have to do that next time. This morning we went to the aquarium. Compared to other aquariums we've seen it wasn't very exciting, but Jonathan seemed to enjoy the outing. There was one fish tank that he could touch from his stroller. It had small fish and hermit crabs in it, and he pointed at each one and babbled on and on about them for several minutes.

The second picture is Jonathan's first ever sunday school art project. When I saw it in his diaper bag after church last week I was the proudest mama ever. I love it so much! Jonathan seemed proud of it too. If he gets ahold of it he pulls those little fuzzies off and throws them like a ball.

Next is Jonathan practicing his key skills. Tonight he got ahold of someone's keys and immediately went to the door with them. I am amazed because there are only a handful of times in his life that he has ever seen anyone do this. He is definately watching and taking in everything around him. Finally is a picture of him in his new PJ's. For those of you that know how he has still been in 6-9 month PJ's, you'll be proud of me for finally buying more.

Home Sweet Hotel

Ben and I are sitting on the bed in our hotel "suite" just hanging out. We have one light on and the tv is on, but the volume is turned to like 2 because Jonathan is sleeping about 4 feet from the foot of the bed.
We signed the lease for our townhouse today and the movers will be here with our things on Thursday, so we'll be in the hotel until then.
The flight in was good, nothing eventful happened (thankfully), and the people we sat by on the airplane were very sweet, which was a huge answer to prayer for me.
My first Sunday here was great. Obviously Ben's was last week, so he was able to introduce me to the people he had already met. Everybody has been so warm and welcoming and glad we are here. I look forward to getting to know them all better.
Tonight Jonathan went to play with a new friend while we went to a reception with some church folks. Emily is 15 months old and her dad is on staff with Ben. Emily's aunts were babysitting and I think he had a great time playing with real toys in a real house. This hotel thing is getting old, even for him.
I think that's about all there is to tell right now. I'm feeling pretty disoriented since we're not in our house yet, but that's coming soon and we're going to have to celebrate somehow.

A day at the park

Today we had a picnic at the park with the moms and kids from our Tuesday morning Bible study. The kids had a blast. I'm going to miss these ladies like crazy- they have meant so much to me over the past year and I have learned so much from them.

I'm also posting some pics of Jonathan's first haircut. He was not a big fan. I never have understood what it is that little boys think is so horrible about a haircut. Ben says it's because she was having to hold his head still. I guess he'd know since he was a little boy once too.

The only thing constant

Moving is hard. Ben left a few minutes ago with Mazie to begin his drive to our new home. I'll be here for another week and then fly with Jonathan to meet them in our new home. I've tried so hard not to be super emotional this time around, and for the most part it's been easy. We've only been here 2 years (this time), I know we'll always be coming back for visits since our families are here, and I've moved away from here before and been fine. Plus I've seen this coming for the past 5 months, so I've had plenty of time to prepare. But it's so hard to close a chapter of life. The townhouse we're moving into will be our 8th place to live in our almost 8 years of marriage. Every place has meant something special to me. This morning Ben and I spent our last hours together in the house where we brought our boy home, bonded with him, had his first birthday party. It's the place where we worked together to make his nursery a special place. There have been very good times in this house, and it's sad to see it go. So I'm mourning its loss today, very thankful for the blessings that we have received here.

Happy Happy Birthday Baby

Today is Jonathan's first birthday. We had his party on Saturday and it was so much fun! He scarfed down his cake. At one point I asked him if he was finished and he clearly shook his head no.

Last night I was looking through pictures of the past year. It has been such an amazing year! It is so fun to watch him grow and change and learn. I can't help but think what he'll be like on this day next year.

On another note, we will soon be relocating to the East Coast. Ben will be the student pastor at a great church there. We are excited about the new opportunity, but of course sad to leave friends and family here. I am very thankful for the time that we have had here and know without a doubt that God directed our steps from Alabama to here and now from here East.

Above is a picture of the townhouse we will be renting for at least our first year there, and one of our family at Jonathan's party.

Juicy

I've decided to start making my own juice. Yesterday at our moms group we had a guest speaker who told us all about eating for wellness. She said a lot of things that I have heard before, some I practice now, some I get on kicks about and do for awhile, some I haven't ever been able to implement, and some things I had never thought of.
One of the things she said was that as soon as a fruit, veggie, or grain is sliced, crushed, or opened in any way, the nutrients begin to oxidize into the air and go away. So the only way to know that you are getting maximum nutrition from your food is to eat it fresh and raw. Juicing is one of the ways you can do this, and since I have a 10 month old with no teeth and a hubby who isn't the biggest fan of fruits and veggies, it sounded like a good plan for us. She also let us sample some freshly made apple juice, and it was very different from the so called 100% apple juice that I've been buying for my boy. That juice has been pasturized (heated so that all the germs are killed, how are nutrients supposed to survive if germs can't?) and chemical vitamin C has been added back to it. She also said that you can get a juicer at Wal-mart for $30. So first thing this morning I headed to Wal-mart to begin this new venture. I decided to go for the $60 model, because the $30 one looked like you would have to cut the fruit pretty small before you put it in. The one I got can fit a whole apple...you don't have to cut anything! I still think $60 is a good deal for those health benefits, and will probably pay for itself if I use it enough.
So I got it home and washed it just in time for Jonathan's morning juice. I stuffed an apple in the top and out came about 4 oz of juice. He usually drinks 2 oz plus 2 oz of water, so I fixed this juice bottle the same way. He drank that stuff down so fast and cried for more. So I gave him the next 2 oz with 2 more oz of water. A big hit, and sure makes me feel better about what's going into that precious little body of his.
When I read or hear about how bad processed food is for our bodies, it makes me feel overwhelmed and helpless. I pray that the Lord will help me to take the time and effort needed to provide my family with the nutrients that He has made for us and BLESS THIS FOOD TO OUR BODIES.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So it turns out I'm about as good at keeping a blog as I am at keeping a journal. That figures I guess since they're kind of the same thing. I would make a new year's resolution to post more often, but I'm sure I wouldn't keep it so I'm not going to fool myself.
We had a fantastic Chrismas withe Jeremy, Jeni, and Olivia. Jonathan and Olivia loved each other to death and had sooo much fun together.
Jonathan is completely mobile now. He's crawling everywhere. He's also pulling up on the furniture already. I didn't expect that yet. His favorite thing to crawl to is Mazie's bowl, so now we are having to put Mazie's food in her room and we leave the gate in the door but put it up high enough that she has enough space to crawl under, but Jonathan doesn't have enough room to get underneath. It works well since she's littler than him, but I feel sorry for her that she has to go to that extra trouble just to eat or drink.
Everything else is pretty normal around here. I'm ready to get back into the normal routine of things...Tuesday morning Women's Bible study and Wednesday night with the kids at church.
I'll try to remember to post more often, but if not, it probably means we're just carrying on as usual.
Have a great start to your '07!