What you all have been waiting for…

So we have been residents of Tennessee since the very beginning of September.  And I just know that you have all been dying to see our cute Tennessee house.  So here it is…

Isn’t it super cute?  It’s on a corner lot.  And we are now full time residents of Milan, Tennessee.  It’s a town of about 7,000.  Which is quite an adjustment for me.  But I do enjoy being close to family.  I really can’t argue with having several full time babysitters that are within minutes of our house.  Jonathan’s parents, sisters, brother, and of course all their kiddos Caden’s cousins are just loving having him around.  Since the next oldest grandchild is about a 13 year difference it’s easy to have hands to have babysitters.  Lots of fun!  Also, we are very thankful that it hasn’t snowed here yet and that there is no brutal wind that blows through us.  However, we are still praying for our home to sell in Nebraska.  It’s still sitting there waiting for us to come back and we keep telling it that we are so sorry but it needs a new owner.  So hopefully the Lord will provide very soon for yet another resident to enjoy our very comfy townhome that is in Nebraska.

Here’s what else you missed…

The big FIRST BIRTHDAY BASH!!!!!!!

Doesn’t he look great!  We have a fabulously fun Elmo party!

This is the super cute cake (and it was super tasty) that I had been dreaming about for well over a year.  I so wanted to throw him a Elmo party before he was even born!

And the most recent adventure that you missed…da da da daaa!  The cutest scarecrow in the entire world!

And trick-or-treating for the first time!!!

I must say how proud I am of my $6 very cute scarecrow find at a garage sale plus a very cute costume that is coming next year so you will have to stay tuned.  I think those are all the biggies, we did visit the Memphis zoo where I of course forgot my camera (how could I forget it for the first trip to the zoo?).  My mother-in-law however did have a camera and we took some very cute photos with the animals in the back ground.  I still need to get those from her camera so you can see too.  Well, I hope you enjoyed the short update of our move to Tennessee!

FINALLY!

AH!!!!  You have no idea how good it feels to have the macbook finally resurrected.  Before we moved to Tennessee our hard drive fizzled out and since then I have been trying to communicate from our ancient computer that my husband got for himself when he got out of college which was only…um, like more than 10 years ago.  I think the booger has done him well but it is really time for it to go.  I have so missed the speed and time saver of the macbook.  I have hardly been able to post pictures, surf the internet, and of course update my blog!  I’ll HAVE to take some new photos of our new pad as well as post the precious photos of our little guy.  He is doing so well and we are excited to announce that baby #2 is on the way here!  I am about 14 weeks preggers and we are so excited that we will have another little one in the house at the end of April or the beginning of May, Lord willing!  We are very excited to be so blessed!  So for real this time more updates to come!

ahh, the slow computer

I plan in the future to continue my blog but my computer is so slow it would take me all day to make a post.  Please forgive me as we look for a new hard drive and hopefully a inexpensive desk top in order to continue my blog.  Many blessings!

Finally Internet!

Alright!  Finally, today we do have internet in our home!  So future posts are to come very soon!  There are so many updates I can’t wait to share with you! 

Lots of Love from Tennessee!

Just Moved!

Well, we’ve made it to Tennessee.  I will try to post some photos soon!  We can’t get an internet connection to our new house yet so it might be a little challenging.  Stay tuned!

Our First Family Vacation

We just got home from our very first family vacation ever!  Me, Jonathan and Bugs!  Bugs did fabulous!  We traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota to check out Mount Rushmore.  I mean, we will probibly never live this close again.  So we had to take the chance.  Now we are back home and moving in a week!  Time to start packing like a mad woman!  But first…here are some pics of our first family trip!

The Whole Fam

Here we are with Mount Rushmore in the background.  Just to prove we were there!

Here’s me and buggy boo with Mount Rushmore WAAAY in the background.  You probibly can’t even see it from the pic!

Happy as a Clam!

We ate buffalo, but not this buffalo!  This one was like feet from our car! 

And we saw real dinosaur bones!  Here’s bugs and I getting eaten by one.  We had so much fun and Caden did great!  He decided to skip his daily naps (pretty much both morning and afternoon) and take cat naps in the car instead.  It was an hour time difference so we ended up putting him to bed every night right after 6.  He’s sleep until 6 and even 7 the next day taking 12-13 hour nightly snoozes!  He was fabulous!  And of course, happy as a clam!

Trying to Trust

I have found my self challenged daily to trust the Lord lately.  My heart is sad that the wear and tear of life has taken me further and further from trusting God.  I continually try to remember all the blessings we have been given.  We have an amazing, healthy, happy, laughing, smiling baby boy who takes my breath away every time that I look at him.  I have a loving, giving, helping, wonderful husband who is helping me around the house as we get ready for our adventure to move 10 hours away to Tennessee.  My husband has a wonderful family that loves us and that wants to spend time with us and that is so excited for us to move to Tennessee.  And though I have been nervous about moving to a small town in Tennessee I am excited too!  We have been seriously lacking in good church fellowship since we moved to Lincoln.  Being on staff with a Christian ministry was difficult because it felt like whenever we went to church we were expected to lead something, teach something, or start something.  We didn’t have time to devote to investing in the relationships of the people around us because we were so busy and overloaded with the college students that we worked with.  We have been SO HUNGRY for relationships of people our age.  So I am also excited to move to Tennessee because we found a church fellowshipjackson.com where it looks like it is just something we are looking for and is a sister church to Fellowship Memphis which is the church in which we hope to one day be invovled in when we finally move to Memphis.   I am SO wanting to be fed for a change, be in a small group and share life with people.  It always helps to hear what others are going through and what is helping them make it through.

Sometimes I feel like every step I take my world is crumbling around me.  I have contemplated that perhaps I am just not the best problem solver and maybe others handle their stresses much better.  I am daily trying to give up my burdens to the Lord.  I often have to do it even minute by minute.  My heart continues to ache as many of those so dear to me ie. family members make decisions that are taking more and more pieces of their heart away from the Lord.  I feel as though sometimes I have the tendency to do the same and I do not want to leave that legacy to my children.  Oh, Lord have mercy on us.

Here are a few things that I am praying for an added measure of faith for:

- That God would draw our hearts deeper with him

- That we would connect to a church in Tennessee quickly and find instant friendships even more quickly

- Our home to sell in the next few weeks

- That God would help us recover the debt we’ve gotten into quickly due to transitions and job struggles

- That our move will go smoothly to Tennessee and everything will work out with the job my husband is taking with this library and that he will have doors swing wide open for him for the Chamber of Commerce job he so wants

- That God would renew and awaken the hearts of my parents and siblings

Thank you Lord ahead of time for what you will do.  Please increase my faith.

Eating all by Himself

Caden likes to feed himself.  He REALLY REALLY likes to feed himself.  Sometimes he refuses to eat unless he is the one putting his food in his mouth.  Like today I was feeding him avocado.  If I would put a small piece in his mouth he would spit it out but if I put little pieces on his tray and HE would put the food in his mouth then he would eat it.  Already my son is so independent and he’s not even 11 months old!  I had the most difficult time trying to figure out how to get him to eat veggies.  Even veggies that he once enjoyed like peas and sweet potatoes he stopped eating until I started steaming veggies and putting them on his tray, THEN he would eat them.  So Caden, you are starting early my child, no more baby food for this one.  He wants to be a big boy folks.  My little baby boy is growing up much much too fast!

Here’s my little guy after he had some strawberries which of couse he had to feed himself.  He also started to get a little sleepy while he was eating and rubbing his eyes so of course the strawberries are smeared all over his face! Time to throw the kid in the bath tub!

Caden’s Favorite Toy!

This

happens to be my son’s favorite toy!  I couldn’t get a picture with him with his favorite toy because he has become too distracted any time I even think about taking out the digital camera or the video camera.  I think he likes his pictures so close all you can see is his eye balls.  I’ve tried several times because he is rather passionate about this thing and I think it’s funny so I’ll try to take one so you can see it.  Very recently he has learned how to get into the kitchen cabinets.  The only one that I will let him get into is the one with the tupperware, he found this little shovel in there too and it has become one of his most favorite things.  Sometimes he’ll open up the cabinet just to get it.  Once he gets it he’ll shut it and crawl away.  He crawls around holding it in his hand and making a heavy breathing sound.  This kid breaths so LOUD!  I’ve tried to stop him from slamming it on the coffee table and denting it up.  I’m trying to keep my coffee table looking nice.  He likes to wave it around and sometimes even dance with it.  Other than his love of the shovel Caden has also started dancing.  He’ll bob his head up and down when he hears music and sometimes even when he knows he’s about to hear music like when we take out his instrament bird.  I think he can hear the music in his head.  Funny guy.  It’s funny how those favorite toys are often ones you don’t even have to spend money on!

It’s Love!

Yep! Love at first sight!