19 Weeks and We Are Having A....

BOY!!!

We are so excited and thankful that we have a healthy baby boy growing inside of me! The doctor's appointment was so much fun. We were able to hear HIS heartbeat again and we got some incredible pictures : ) Here they are with some explanation...

This is his arm and hand. You can see his torso too. The four dark spots are the 4 chambers of his heart : )

These are his adorable feet

This one is my favorite. It is a great profile shot. You can see his eyes, nose and mouth. He looks like he is smiling (or maybe it is just me!), and his little hand is up by his face.

This is another profile shot. His mouth is still slightly open and smiling :)

We are feeling so thankful that this pregnancy is going well, and that everything with this little boy looks healthy. I will be 20 weeks this Sunday, and that means half-way through! Please keep praying that the second half of the pregnancy and the delivery go just as smoothly.

For any who are interested, here is what the baby belly looks like right now.

I will post again soon with some other life updates!

P.S. The wall on the last couple of pictures is strangely splotchy. That was a hotel wall, and you couldn't see the splotches with the naked eye...only with the camera. Strange, huh?

So it has been awhile...

So, if anyone still reads this blog...here is an update! : )

I haven't posted since February because I had a hard time posting when I wasn't ready to talk about the main thing going on in our lives! We found out over Spring Break that I AM PREGNANT!

This is the morning that we found out! We were on a cruise (and, yes I took a test with me on the cruise...I had a feeling!)

So, we have been to three doctor appointments now and the baby is looking great! Our due date is November 29th. I am 15 weeks along, which means I am definitely in my second trimester and definitely looking pregnant too...not really big, but you can tell that I am pregnant :) I will ask Stephen to take a picture of the little baby bump for me to post. We had our third doctor appointment yesterday and listened to that strong heartbeat! We loved it. And, we set up our appointment to find out the sex of the baby! We will know in 4 weeks.

Other things that happened the last couple of months:
1. I finished my Spring semester of classes and got a couple weeks off. I am about to start summer classes on Monday!

2. We hit our one-year mark of living here in the Metroplex, and Stephen hit his one-year mark working as a Youth and Involvement Minister.

3. We have been looking to buy a house. It makes more financial sense to do that when we don't foresee moving anytime in the near future. We have an offer out on a house at the moment and we are crossing our fingers that it works out! It is a cute little house and would be just what we would need for the next 7 years or so!

4. My brother and his wife found out that she is pregnant back in March also! We are exactly 4 weeks apart. I am excited that these kids will have somebody else to play with.

5. Oh yeah...although I didn't post about it, my entire family went on a cruise for Spring Break. We had a great time relaxing together and gave Stephen and I some rest and rejuvenation to get back to working hard. We have the summer coming up and we can tell it is going to be busy!

I plan to post a lot more often now. Thanks for stickin' with me to find out everything that has been going on with us. I have definitely still been keeping up with all of your blogs! And now...we are back : )

Another month goes by

Sorry everyone who reads this. I have a terrible habit of forgetting to post. SO, since another month has gone by since I posted, of course a lot has happened! I will just do a quick life update and then hopefully my next post will be more fun:

• My spring semester is in full swing and I love it. Counseling is a lot more complete than I ever could have imagined. I am sort of still at the nervous stages of thinking, "Can I really do this" I felt like that at the beginning of my undergrad degree too. I still have a lot of learning to go.
  
• I decided to substitute teach on the side, and I am really enjoying that too! I have only done high school so far. I haven't been brave enough to try elementary school. Each time I see a job for elementary I debate so long that the job is already gone before I can accept it.
  
• I have really enjoyed the weather lately. I can't wait for ALL of the cold days to be gone.
• Stephen is still really enjoying his job. He is finally starting to feel really comfortable in it. A lot of times it takes an entire year to really feel like you understand a job. The first time we went to this church (to interview) was last March, so we have almost seen the church go through a complete one-year cycle. That really helps...
• My immediate family decided that it would be really fun to play in a Flag Football league. So, we found a Christian Sports league and recruited some people from our church to play too! We have a 14-person team (even my dad is playing!) and we had our first game last Saturday. We got creamed. There were a lot of rules that we just didn't know. We had a blast, though, and we can't wait until our next game this Saturday.
• Last but not least, my family is going on a cruise in March (Spring Break) to celebrate my parent's 30th Anniversary. So...we are excited about gearing up for that too.
  
• Oh and I finally posted the 25 Things About Me on Facebook if you are interested and haven't read them yet. I keep trying to pressure Stephen to do his. :)

That is an update of what is going on in a nutshell! I promise that my next post will be a little less frantic. And to end this awesomely sporadic post, I will say that my favorite thing about Spring is the smell in the air. There is just something about the smell as winter goes away and warmer weather comes in...and the rain. I love it. Seriously : ) I want to know what your favorite thing about Spring is...so post a comment!

One Week Ago Today...

was January 1, 2009...exactly 30 years after my parents got married! Their 30th anniversary was on the 1st and as a tribute to my sweet parents, here is a cute picture from their wedding day. They had a very low-key wedding and then changed to go back to my grandparents house and eat cake.

Is it obvious that they were both a little hippie-esque :) And, it is probably obvious that I look a little bit like my mom.

Happy 30th Mom and Dad! Thanks for being such incredible examples to us kids. We know you are more in love today than you ever have been!

As Promised...

I did go to sleep as soon as I finished that last post last night! It was 1 in the morning, and since I am old now...I was tired : )

Anyway, here is the fun picture I promised...can you guess what happened?


Stephen and I met for lunch at Braums so that I could give him a pile of stuff for work...that he had left at home! So, I am casually eating my grilled chicken sandwich when all of the sudden the little cup of ketchup began to fall upside down onto my lap!!! Everything started happening in slow motion and I could just hear the movie music playing in the background : ) And, then I, being as graceful as possible managed to catch the ketchup cup before it hit anything else! Ketchup poured out into my hand but touched NOTHING else! I had to take a picture...as a clumsy person, I don't get too many opportunities to say that I actually SAVED the mess from happening!

Anyway...just some fun.

First Few Days of 2009

This will surely be a random post, but that's okay! There will be some fun pictures.

First fun thing on the agenda is that Stephen and I got each other new couches for Christmas! We don't usually surprise each other for Christmas because we aren't too big into gifts (in fact, we really don't ever get each other Christmas presents), but we decided to use some of our Christmas money and buy ourselves some new couches! The ones we had were probably a good 20 years old (Thanks Hannah!). Anyway, we found these on Craigs List! It was a great purchase and we plan to have them for a LONG time! Here they are in our apartment...(in the first picture you can tell that we are using a cardboard box as our end table...it is awesome!)





For New Year's Day we had my brother, his wife, and my sister over to grill some burgers on our new grill that we got for Christmas. We had a really good time, and even busted out some Bible Scattegories. This game is way harder than you think it will be : ) Here is Stephen on the floor playing the game.




Here is Stephen, the photographer, taking a picture of my bro, sis-in-law, and sister!


Here is another shot of Bible Scattegories. My answers were the most creative, by the way...this is probably a shot of them discussing whether or not my answer should get credit!


I have one more interesting picture and a fun story to go along with it...but, I will save it because it is late and I am sleepy. Check back tomorrow, though!

Happy New Year

Well, you may have to bare with me during this post! I might ramble a little, but I am just sitting here thinking about this last year and decided to try to put some thoughts down. When I think back to where Stephen and I were on Jan. 1, 2008...I am amazed. We have had an incredibly eventful year. One that sort of makes you tired when you look back on it! : )

In January of 2008, I was still working at ACU, Stephen and I lived in Aspen Place and Stephen was starting his last semester of grad school. Just one month later...big changes! I left ACU and we moved! It was an adventure to live downtown, and I really enjoyed getting to experience a different type of job...I learned a lot and made some great friends. THEN...we began the 3 month period of being out of town on the weekends. Seriously, it was crazy! We had friends getting married, and then both my brother and my cousin got married out of town...more trips. We got so used to packing up and driving back and forth on I-20. My sister graduated from college down in Huntsville, TX too! One of those out of town weekends was spent visiting with and interviewing with a potential church for Stephen to be a minister at. Within a week of that, we knew where we were going to go next. And, then it was time to move again. This one was sad. And, happy. We were excited about what lay ahead, but sad to leave so many friends. Just before the move, Stephen graduated from ACU for the second time. His grad school education was such a blessing to us, and I was really proud of him!

So, we moved here right in the middle of a youth minister's busiest season....SUMMER! We took several trips with the kids, planned our first big lock-in and enjoyed spending time with our families more often.

THEN...I started grad school! I feel like the big transitions in life just kept coming and coming...

Of course, I am focusing on the good or exciting things...because those are fun to talk about. We had our fair share of tough times this past year too. Yet, we still believe that God loves us, and that He is bigger and more magnificent than we can even imagine. Our faith and our hope is in Him. We aren't promised an easy life, but we are promised certain joy in sadness, and I find joy in knowing that I am a stronger person after the trials of 2008, that Stephen and I are more in love and are stronger together, and in knowing that I am now more equipped than I was before to help others.

So yes, just as I warned, I have sort of rambled. I am excited about 2009. I am happy this year to say goodbye to 2008 and to look ahead. Stephen actually preached for the first time on a Sunday morning this last Sunday (it is streaming online too)! He was anxious the night before, but did an incredible job...and when he got up there, he looked SO calm. In his sermon, he reminded all of us that above everything that we do, everything we strive for...Jesus is first. That by Him, through Him, and for Him, everything was created. Nothing else is more important to focus on. I want to try to live in 2009 like Jesus truly is the most important part of my life.

And, I guess to end my post, I will leave you with a few pictures to say Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you!

My parents beautiful tree this year. I LOVE Christmas trees...the lights are my favorite

Stephen and I as we rang in the new year last night. We joined our friends from church for a sports-themed new year's party. I sported my Boys jersey...even though they embarrassed me during the last game, I am still a fan. Stephen sported his Ultimate Frisbee shirt!

Friends that we spent New Years Eve with! We had a blast...Wii Tennis, Wii Fit (this was hilarious), catch phrase, buzzword, and lots of great food and conversation)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!