For Gina

Thanks for checking this blog every day Gina. You don't go unnoticed. Hope you had a fab birthday. Miss you and can't wait to see you again SOON!!

Wow...it's been a while...

This blog has CONSTANTLY been on my mind. Why you ask? Because since we have moved I haven't updated it once! So much going on! Adam took a principal position at our church's Christian Day school. We found out that we're expecting a little girl whom we are planning on naming Jennalyn Faith. Noah had his first birthday party. He is eating everything and walking everywhere. Time has flown by! We don't have internet in our house yet AND somewhere in the move we lost the camera cord to put pictures from our camera to our computer. Bummer. I've had to do it all by other ways. Soon as we get internet i'll be uploading some pictures so don't you worry. Just wanted to let you all know we are alive and well. We absolutely LOVE bein up here with our families and back at our home church. I'll be on again soon...hopefully :-)

Top Ten Reasons We're Moving!

I've been doing some serious thinking the past couple of days. Every day it seems like there is something new to look forward to with our home base being Indiana. Here are just a few of them...10 to be precise.

1. I can get a Rickers frozen coke for 79 cents any day I want, maybe every day (except Sunday of course)
2. Playing games with my in-laws and eating their delicious food. Did someone say cheese dip?
3. We can take Noah for walks at Shady side park. Ahhh...
4. So many babysitters to choose from.
5. My mom and mother in law and aunts fighting over noah in the services at church so I can actually listen to a sermon. :-)
6. Watching movies and eating pizza with my mom.
7. Being able to have lots of family at the hospital when the new baby is born and no one has to travel more than 15 miles.
8. Being able to help in junior church...something that I really miss doing.
9. The temperature change is welcome as far as we're concerned and we're looking forward to snow in the winter! ~I'm dreaming of a white Christmas~ snow, baby, snow
10. Grandparents get to be ACTIVELY involved in taking care of Noah :-) I'm looking forward to having a bit of help, can you tell?

Well that's just to say a few. We're looking forward to seeing what God has for us up there and we're looking forward to it. I guess that's putting it mildly. We're running towards it enthusiastically with our arms open to hug it as soon as it gets here. I miss my mommy.

Pics from the week

Not much to report this week. We've been keeping ourselves busy. Had a great dinner on Sunday with Bethany Griggs, Brian Wardlaw, and Rebecca Fetzer. We've been working really hard to get our move worked out. i'm absolutely dying to get moved back to Indiana. Each day that passes I want to be there more. Adam is just waiting on a job and we'll be on our way. Noah is all over the place these days. He follows me to the bathroom, the kitchen, well, anywhere. He doesn't like to be in any room alone. Don't get the wrong idea. I wouldn't leave him in a room alone if he wasn't safe. If I wasn't confident he'd be on my heels, he'd be in a play pen or bouncy chair. Lots of prayer requests though. First of all, Noah has been teething or something. He hasn't been sleeping all that well, which means no one in the house gets to sleep all that well. He's doing better now than he was at the beginning of the week, so I hope it's getting better. Two, this move is driving me crazy. I feel so anxious and uncertain. I've been praying a lot about it, but it's like going through the mountains: high and encouraged one day and down in the dumps the next. Being pregnant definitely doesn't help since I don't have much energy and haven't been feeling very well. Third, pray for my cousins Amy, Mandy and Meaghan Closser. They recently lost their mother and are going through many hard changes. It's very difficult for them.

Thanks for your prayers. I hope you enjoy the pictures! There's a cutie in 'em! :-)

Arizona Family Reunion

We had a fabulous trip to AZ. The only two problems with it was the time change and the pure and simple fact that it was far too short. We had tons of delays at the airports on our way, I wasn't even sure we'd get there. God helped us and we made it... We flew into Phoenix and drove straight to Tuscon. We spend friday and saturday night in a hotel for the reunion, and then drove to Phoenix and stayed one night there by the airport. It was so much fun to spend time together swimming and watching movies. Noah had a great time with grandpa in particular. He even said a new word... "papaw". It's been fun to try to unspoil him since we've been home.
Some of these pictures are out of order, but I don't want to take the time to organize them. Noah is wanting some attention. Enjoy!

Noah and grandma James after swim time
Noah and Mommy after swim time

Here is Noah enjoying our pretty view from our hotel room.

Daddy went outside to get some pictures of Noah from the outside. Noah loved being at the window.

Nathan and Cecelia waiting for the pictures to be finished.

Dad and Noah, Noah was exhausted from the long day and our travel night the day before, with the three hour time difference, it threw of his schedule a bit. We didn't get into our hotel until 4:30 AM Florida time, but it was only 1:30 AZ time.

My dad doing one of the things he does best...entertaining the kids! :-) It's so fun to watch...

Dad, Stephen, Abigail, and Kaitlyn

My dad and his bro's and sis's choosing pictures at JCPenney

Grandma Thompson

Noah and Abigail. Abigail was getting kinda tired of all the pictures...

My bro Nathan and my potential sister-in-law to be, the beautiful Cecelia.

My Uncle Ed and Aunt Carol

Aunt Judy and Uncle Darren, Eric and his wife, Greg and his wife and daughter Kaitlyn.

My fam

Aunt Peggy and 3 of her 8 kids. Adrianna, Donna, and Belinda. Adrianna's son Aiden, and Belinda's daughter Arianna.

Several of us cousins and our kids, but there were lots of us that couldn't be there. Too bad.

My Aunt Margie and Uncle Mark with their kids and grandkids: Dalton, Dana, Kevin, Maria, Terri, and Joey (Josephine)

Grandma and Grandpa James played with Noah one morning in their master suite bedroom. It was so nice to have their help with him for a couple days! I think he enjoyed it too!

Here is Noah playing in all the clean clothes mom was getting ready to pack for our trip to AZ!

~Florida Fun in the Sun~

We took a fun trip to the beach today. It was so nice to spend time together as a family. Noah is scared to death of the ocean. He's ok so long as he's on daddy's shoulders far, far away from the water! :-) It was fun to watch him as he tried to decide what he thought of the crashing waves. We had a picnic of sub sandwiches and root beer. Noah ate banana orange delight gerber baby food and a graduates baby cookie...which he devoured quickly and made quite a mess with. We had a good time.

Noah's cubbies and tunnels

On this one particular day, Noah hid in several little places. It was pretty cute, so I'll start from the beginning...
This is how Adam found him when he went to get him out of bed in the morning. If it had been me, I would have ran and pulled the blanket off his head and checked to make sure he was breathing. Not Adam, though. He went and got the camera and laughed as he took pictures. He guesses that Noah slept in this day because he still thought it was night time because the blanket was over his head and he couldn't see the sun. Hahaha.

And then Noah went and crawled onto the saucer part of the exersaucer. He played in there for a little while. It was pretty funny. Eventually he whined because he couldn't get out and he needed me to come help him.

And here we have Noah playing in a little tunnel/cave toy he has. We bought this transitional toy for him when he was like 2-3 months old. It starts out as a mat on the floor that has arches with toys dangling from it to lay the baby underneath. Then it can turn into a belly mat that has the toys slanted upwards from the floor to help the baby get some tummy time. Eventually, it can be made into this little cave/tunnel for mobile babies to crawl through and play in. I hope he enjoys it lots in the next few months!