Hello again everyone! I am finally back to cyber world. We moved into our house on the 8th and I just now got my dsl working this week and our phone has been on and off, so we've been out of touch for awhile. We also don't have cable and our friends took their rabbit ears back, so for almost a week we were without tv, phone and the internet. And amazingly we survived! :) Ryan did finally hook up the vcr and dvd player so I watched a lot of movies to keep myself distracted.

I'm just sitting here looking for blinds for our windows on line. Those things are freakin expensive! We have 2 bedrooms were the width is about 2 inches too wide to get blinds already made in the stores and our living room windows are 10 inches too long. Which means we have to do custom blinds if we want them. We priced faux blinds for our living room. For 36X72 blinds that you can just buy in the store they are $29. Our windows are 36x82 so we figured we could get them for around $40 or so, but no...they are $79! come on people..it's only 10 more inches! so who knows what we'll do. as i'm sure you can relate matt and tracey...it sure is expensive to fix up a house. but lots of fun! we absolutlely love our house! i can't believe that 3 years ago we fell in love with it and now we are actually living in it! thanks Lord..you are way too good to us! And the paint colors we picked out look great. i didn't realize how different they would make a room feel. i'll have to post some pictures soon of it. that would be so great matt and tracey if you could come down, but i'll understand it you don't want to drive any more than you have to.

Hannah is doing great. She is really getting on a good schedule. Sometimes she struggles with her naps still, but she eventually gets herself back to sleep most of the time. She's been kind of finicky eater lately, but today has been a good day. it's amazing how one day you can be so confident that you are doing everything right, but then one little thing doesn't go as expected and you start to completely doubt yourself. i honestly don't see how people can raise a child without God's help and stay sane. If it wasn't for being able to just rest in Him and let His peace take over when i'm at my wits end, I would be a very stressed out person. 90% of the time Hannah is perfect angel, but for some reason that 10% can take a lot out of me. but boy is she a cutie. i'm amazed at how i melt at every smile and coo she gives as if it's the first time she's ever done it. and every little thing she learns or does i think she's the smartest baby in the world! she's a blessing that's for sure

we are reading a book called the purpose driven life by rick warren in our sunday school. i guess it's quite the popular book lately. i haven't been very good at staying up with the readings, but I am definitely going to read it again when we are finished with it in our class, because it's a very practical book. some of you might have already read it. if not i highly recommend it. he basically shows how the bible tells us what 5 purposes we have in this life...worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism. i let myself get so overwhelmed with life somtimes that it will be good to ask myself before doing something, is this fulfilling one of these purposes. it seems like most of the time the purpose i am fulfilling is having fun and doing as little as possible to get things done.

well i guess blogging isn't fulfilling one of those purposes so i'll end it here. :) have a great weekend and christmas if i don't get a chance to blog again. i know it's a very cheesy cliche but it does speak the truth..dont' forget that "Jesus is the reason for the season!!"

Merry Christmas!!!!

It's time to say goodbye to my couch desk! It's been kind of nice working on my couch these past couple months, but I'll be glad to set up my office! Just thought I would send out a shot before I pack up my puter. Ryan and our friend Dan have been busting their butt getting our place painted before tomorrow. They didn't get home until 1am last night and Ryan was back there this morning at 8am because our appliances were getting delivered. And it's 1:30am right now and he's still not home. I'm pretty happy with our paint choices I think. The guest room is a little bold, but I think I like it. Ryan did say though that when the sun shone in the room this afternoon that it looked like the walls were glowing. So we may have to put sunglasses on the night stand for our guests. :) Dan said it looked kind of southwestern. So I may actually go with that theme. I know Ryan likes those bottles with peppers and stuff in them, so we may have to get some of those to decorate with. We shall see...the possibilites are endless!

welp i'm tired. i hope hannah sleeps in tomorrow. she seems to like to get up early the nights i stay up late.

have a great weekend everyone!

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. How did the thanksgiving run go? I wish I would have fun 3 miles before eating all that good food last weekend. Tis the season! We had a good time last weekend. It was fun shopping with ya Em! I bought a tv for our bedroom so now our old one can go into the guest room. I'm excited to decorate our guest room. It's going to be a the best room in the house I think. Well other than the nursery. We found some cool furniture at Meijer. It looks kind of IKEAish. And the IKEA end table that I bought We love guests so anyone can come and stay with us anytime!

As Ryan's blog mentioned we are closing on our house this Friday and moving in on Sunday! I still can't believe that this time next week, I could be blogging at my desk in our loft! We got a lot of packing done last night. God gave me some great revelation yesterday which was much needed. I was just getting really stressed with everything that needed to get done and I was getting headaches and not sleeping well. So I was praying for peace yesterday when God opened my eyes to what I was stressed about. I was stressed about packing to move into a beautiful home that He has blessed us with. I was stressed about getting my work done with an awesome job that I am able to stay home with Hannah. I felt so freed, yet so selfish! So no more complaining from me! I Praise God that we have a ton of stuff to do to get ready for our house and I Praise God that I have a lot of work to do with this great job and I Praise God that I have a beautiful little baby that takes up alot of my time that would otherwise be spent on something so much less unfulfilling. I hate when I get stuck in those selfish ruts.

Hannah is doing great. On her 2nd month birthday in Cincinnati last weekend she put herself back to sleep! I was such a proud mama! And now she's been napping great. She's so much more active and happy now too when she's awake. She's been discovering her voice this week and has been cooing and squealing. You would be proud Trace...I think she'll be an early talker...of course she could just continue to babble until she's 5 too. :) She got her first shots yesterday. :( It was the saddest cry I have ever heard. I tried not to, but I teared up myself. But she's happy as a lark now. (by the way, what is a lark and why are they happy, no one's been able to tell me?)

I was watching the Today show last week and heard about a family in Bowling Green, OH that has 29 kids. Have you guys heard of them? I think they are the Newsons or something like that. I figured they would be pretty known up there. Their new house is like the size of a warehouse with elevators and everything.

so anyhoo guess i should work now. have a great week everyone!