Big news!



Our little blessing, so cute already!

So I haven't been very good at updating the blog this year, but I have a good excuse.  I'm pregnant!! I found out December 1st, but wanted to keep it a secret until 12 weeks, and since that was pretty much all I thought about for two months, the blog suffered.  But now I can talk about it!

We are so thrilled to welcome baby Shepherd (yes, just one in there!) this August! I'm 14 weeks now and past the ugly first trimester.  Actually, I didn't have it too bad, I was mostly just exhausted and nauseous if I didn't eat something every hour or so.  I had about a month of feeling pretty gross, but it definitely could have been worse, so I am thankful. I started to feel a little more normal around 11 weeks.

This week the baby is the size of a peach!  I am feeling good for the most part.  I am still tired a lot, and I seem to be always hungry.  I still fit in most of my clothes, although I had to retire my tightest pair of jeans today.  In about a month or so we get to find out if its a boy or a girl and I can't wait!  I have lots of ideas for the nursery.

Well it's time for me to go to bed, but I'll leave you with a couple of pictures.  And hopefully I'll have time/energy to post more often.

10 weeks

13 weeks

14 weeks, getting harder to hide the bump.

Snow!

 

We've been having sub-freezing temperatures lately, and it finally cooperated and gave us some snow!  4-6 inches is the most we've gotten since we moved here, it's so pretty! This makes the 14 degree weather a little more bearable.  And on the plus side, it's supposed to be in the 50s next week, yay! 

What I'm Thankful For

I know this is super late, but I wanted to post what we are thankful for this year!  Every year James and I like to write down things we are thankful for and put them in a jar.  Then on Thanksgiving we read together all the things we are thankful for this year.

This year we are thankful for:

Our house
Kari
My wonderful husband
My job (James)
Kari's sense of humor
My health
A great church body and lots of good friends
The freedom to vote
God's sovereignty
Potatoes, garlic bread, pasta, chocolate, fruit, queso, and ice cream (all my favorite foods! haha)
The ease by which I can obtain information: i.e., the internet
Clean water, plumbing, healthcare, AC/heat
Safety and security

We have a lot to be thankful for!

My girls

Some of you may know that I co-lead a youth girls group with my church.  Every Monday, 6 or so girls ages 14-18 come to my house.  We eat loads of snacks, we chat and giggle wildly like only girls can do, and then we dive into Bible study.  We just finished up studying the book of James, and boy is it relevant!  We discuss things like what the Bible says about showing favoritism, controlling your tongue,  mercy and judgment, the relationship between works and faith.  And the girls ask us and each other real questions, hard questions, about what it looks like to be a Christian in their world.  I only get them for an hour and a half a week, but boy do I love them!

And I still can't believe I'm doing this leadership thing.  I've never been drawn toward teaching, it's just not my thing.  I'm not good with words.  Plus, I was homeschooled through highschool, so what do I know about what my girls experience every day?  But for some reason, God nudged me to do it.  I knew it was from Him because the desire to teach could not be coming from me!  I feel incredibly blessed to get to know these sweet girls, and incredibly intimidated because I am a role model for them, and I do not want to lead them astray.  They are not afraid to discuss the hard stuff and Nicole and I have to be ready to speak truth in areas where the world speaks lies.  They keep me on my toes and I find that I am so glad that I was taught the Bible growing up and that I have that Christian foundation to draw from.

Next year we are doing So Long, Insecurity by Beth Moore and I'm looking forward to it!

Fall update

So I don't really have any actual news, but it's been nearly a month since I posted last, so I figure it's high time to update.

Our ready-for-fall front door :-)

Fall has arrived here in Maryland.  Trees are starting to turn colors and the weather is pretty awesome - usually in the 60s and 70s during the day, and in the 40s at night.  I don't feel ready for winter, but that is normal.  In fact, I find it pretty weird that summer only lasts for the standard 3 months here, I'm still used to Texas weather. I bought some mums and pansies last weekend, but forgot to buy a little shovel (a trowel?  a spade?), so they are still sitting on the patio waiting for me to plant them.  Hopefully I'll get to that before they die.  I don't have the best luck with plants.

We haven't done any more improvements to the house.  We still have pictures waiting to be hung from when we moved in.  We'll get to them eventually!  Having a job has greatly limited the time I have to work on house things.  Which is good in that I don't have time to spend as much money, but bad in that stuff doesn't get done for weeks on end, because when the weekend rolls around, James and I want to do fun things.

Speaking of the job, it is going well.  Emma is 4 months old now and super smiley and sweet.  She rolled over for the first time the other day soon after I left for the day, the little stinker.  I don't love being at someone else's house all day, but I definitely love taking care of Emma! 

So adorable

I lead a youth girl's group at my house (through our church), we host our small group here as well, and I have worship band practice every week, so we keep pretty busy during the week. We love having a house where we can host events and have people over!  It is such a blessing, plus it forces me to keep my house clean!  We are having a Halloween costume party this year and I'm already excited.  I'm not a huge Halloween person, but I do love dressing up/wearing costumes, so that is fun.  I've got a few fun decoration ideas and I just ordered my fair trade chocolate!  It should be fun.

It's superdog!

I hope you're having a great fall season!

House update

I thought I'd share a photo update of what we've been doing in the house.  It is slowly coming together!  We have a long way to go, but it's finally starting to feel like home. 

 

I am stumped about what to put on the green wall. 

piano :-)

Painting Before and Afters

Last weekend my parents flew up here and helped us paint our entire lower floor.  Thank you so much to the best parents ever!!  Not only did we get it all done in two days, but we learned a whole lot about painting thanks to their expertise, and my Dad even painted the stairwell all by himself which is almost two stories tall. 

The house looks soooo much better now, no more Kermit the Frog green in the dining room!  Here are the before and after pictures for your enjoyment.

Living Room

Before

Before

After

After

Dining Room

Before

After

Kitchen/Office Area

Before

Before

After

After

My favorite room now is the dining room.  It's a million times better!