Thankful

 This is Jamie's Dad, Tony, working his magic on Hadassah on Thanksgiving Day.  :)  It was so sweet to see her snoozing away, so content, with her Papa.  

Eventually, one of the dogs, JJ, got a little jealous and had to join the snooze party.  :)

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for family.  I do not take for granted that we have healthy, functional relationships, and that when we are together we truly enjoy each other's company.  I love each and every one of you.

She is Seven!

Sophia Ruth, my beautiful firstborn, turned seven yesterday!  I remember so much about the day she was born.  It was a really magical day and I love that 10 days of waiting past her due date, 12 hours of labor, and 2 hours of pushing, resulted in a beautiful, 9lb, 14oz, 22in baby girl!

Sophia is such a joy.  I love her spunk, her creativity, her artistic ability, and her love for life.  I love how she has always loved helping me in the kitchen and around the house, but now she's an actual help!  It's wonderful!  Seven is a really great age.  Sophia is a great reader now and loves reading herself to sleep at night, just like her Mama.  :)  Her faith is so delicate and real, I pray each night that the Lord will bless her with a deep and constant faith in Jesus, that will allow her to glorify Him with her life.

We had a great time celebrating her birthday with both sets of her grandparents, her Great-Grandma, GiGi (Jamie's Grandma), us of course, and her Great Aunt Cathy and Great Aunt Connie and Uncle Kerry.

Prior to her party starting we found some of my old wraps and gloves from dances of old (we were at my Mom and Dad's house).  So, we created a dress for her to wear for her party.  :)

The cake had a fun surprise inside!  It's a rainbow.  :)  I have seen these on various blogs and gave it a shot.  It was pretty simple, just a little time consuming.  The result was so fun though!

Today we arrived back home from being out of town for Thanksgiving and Soph's bday.  Jeni and David (and kids) were just heading back to their home after being in our city to be with David's Mom and step-Dad for T-Day.  So, it worked out for them to stop by our house to give Soph a gift and spend a few minutes with us.

That is my nephew, Ben.  Cora was off playing with Riley.  Ben is such a doll!  He was super sick last week and in the hospital with some nasty virus, so it was so good to see him happy and healthy again!

I just love birthdays.  It is so fun to plan and plot and prepare special parties and cakes and gifts for one you love!  I will never tire of celebrating the lives of my kiddos!  They are so precious to me and definitely a source of great Thankfulness for me.  

I love you Sophia!  It is a joy being your Mommy.

You didn't think I'd ever be back, did ya'? ;)

Hi Everyone!  I have missed writing in the space so much!  My last post was on September 1st.  If you know me in real life, than you know this was the day before a rather eventful day for us.  See, on Friday, September 2nd, we started our move to a new city and new home.  We had lived for just over 6 years in the same small, quaint city.  We had purchased a house and made lots of wonderful friends, some of which were our actual neighbors.  We had been attending the same church this whole time as well, another source of great friends!

So, over Labor Day we moved.  We went from a house we "owned," that was situated on the perfect sort of street.  Mature trees, green lawns, friendly neighbors, lots of kids, close proximity to fields for playing and playgrounds for climbing.  We could leave without locking our door, we could leave toys and strollers outside for days - never fearing they'd be stollen.

Sophia was not even one when we moved to the city we just left.  Both Riley and Haddie were born while we lived there.  All of their friends were there.  Our church home was all they really knew of church, and so on...

But, after about two years of praying and seeking the Lord over some pretty personal issues, dreams and hopes, we got to move!  I will always think so fondly of our time there.  We made a lot of memories and met and befriended people that I pray will always be in our lives.  But, it was time to go.  I honestly have not missed living there for a second, and that helps me realize just how ready our family was to make this move.

So, we now live in a big city, on a busy street, in one side of a rented duplex.  I always have my door locked, even if we're home, and I would never leave toys or strollers out front - unless I was feeling generous I guess.  ;)  We weren't here two weeks and Jamie's car window was smashed in and his GPS stollen.  We did have a handful of friends here, and we already knew what church we'd be going to - so all of that made the transition much smoother!  But, our kids have had to make all new friends and Jamie and I have had to be open to going deep with some new folks so that we too could cultivate true friendships.

Our journey to get here was a long one, and is a story for another day.  We are so happy though.  We adore our church and new church family, and in spite of the challenges of big city living, I feel perfectly safe and secure in our new home.  It helps that the renters on the other half of our duplex are a group of single men from our church!  Just one of the many ways God has shown us favor and blessed us since moving here.

We moved here with great purpose, planning and intent.  All of that is also a story for another day.  But, as we dive in to life here, we feel so peaceful and joyful over seeing so much come to fruition.

And, as of today, our house that we just moved from, which has been for sale this whole time, just received a viable offer!  We are so thankful and hopeful that it will sell and we'll be out from under that!

Now that I've broken the ice I plan on writing here regularly again.  My absence was nothing but us moving and getting settled.  I chose not to make time for it as I felt rather swamped with life in general, but, I am excited to get back to it!

And, just FYI, if you move somewhere new and meet a whole bunch of new people all at once, be careful about engaging in witty banter.  See, the one with whom you try to engage with a cutesy story, may not be the person you think it is.  Instead of being the host of your community group, it just might turn out to be one of the guys that lives next door.  If that's the case, he will look at you quite quizzically, having no idea what you are talking about.  Once you realize this, and see the look of horror (and amusement might I add) on your husband's face you seek to make it right.  Unfortunately you can't remember the name of the person you thought you were talking to, nor the name of the person you actually are speaking with, thus you try to cover (and fail miserably) and then leave in a hurry, contemplating whether or not to ever return to your new church.  You will also be so embarrassed that the amusement your husband is experiencing will not be shared.  You know, just FYI.