Thanksgiving Pics...

Just a few pics from Thanksgiving and a very silly video of my little cousins rapping.. ha ha!

Blessed

Blessed is the best word to describe how I felt this Thanksgiving. Above are some pics of Sammy with his grandparents over the last few days, he was on cloud 9 as you can tell. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and feel refreshed for this new week of work. We are so blessed as a nation and although we try to remain thankful year round, it is nice to have a day when our country as a whole gives thanks to God for all that He has given us. I feel like God is so removed from our culture/society and so this day serves as a great reminder to each of us that He is our Creator and Provider. Our experiences down in Guatemala serve to remind Sam and I that as horrible and destructive as poverty is, the poverty experienced here in our great country in no way compares to the poverty around the world so we are very thankful to live in a country that although far from perfect, nationally recognizes all that our Savior has done for us.

Our Thanksgiving celebration started on Tuesday night with the Thanksgiving dinner at our church. It was a great time of fellowship and a perfect way to get our hearts in the right place for the holiday. We sat with Bryan & Suzanne and the girls and as Sammy got restless he really enjoyed planning with Addie and "copying" her. It was so cute to see him try to mimic her every action. He LOVED the worship time and dancing and it made me realize how much I miss having him with us for that. He is always in the nursery so it was nice to get to share that time with him. We both talked on the way home about how thankful we truly are for our church family. It is funny b/c our church has a little tag line .. "where friends become family" and it really is true. It has been so great to have "Family" here in Gville while we are away from our biological families. Our church family has been there for us through everything and have laughed and rejoiced with us but also cried with us and most importantly lifts up each of our needs in prayer. On Sunday Lance shared a message with us from Romans 15 :30 -33 about joining with each other in prayer. Paul asked his brothers in Christ to join him in his struggle and pray for him. Other versions have the words "strive" or "agonize", so we are called to agonize together. I was reminded this Thanksgiving of just how thankful I am to have our friends and family to agonize with and pray with us. We would have NEVER made it through all that came about this year if it hadn't been for those prayers and the support we received. We are truly thankful for each of you.

We spent Wed and Thursday up in Jacksonville and had a good time visiting with both of our families. We hung out with mom during the day on Wed then met up with Sam's family on Wed night. Sammy got to show off his new walking skills to both sets of grandparents and it was too cute. He just ate up all of the attention. We spent Thanksgiving day at Aunt Sandra's and were so glad that Sarah & Brennan joined us.. so much fun! I found it hard to eat sitting by Sarah b/c she had me cracking up and my cheeks hurt from laughing. I will post some video of my little cousins doing their strange "McDonalds rap" that they practiced over and over. It was very funny to hear them perform it and I promised I would post it up here but I still can't say I completely understand why they would rap about McDonalds of all things.. gross... ??? Does this mean I am old?

Sam had to go back to work on Friday so Sammy went to visit his Grammy while mom and I went shopping. It was just like old times, I had so much fun! Sammy I think had more fun though. He played all afternoon with Grammy and Grandpa and he was so tired when we picked him up that he slept in the car but woke up when we got home. We tried to give him dinner but he could barely keep his head up and his eyes kept rolling back, he was just give out. He sure did sleep that night, thank goodness! Guess he needs a good dose of Grammy's house every day! We had been having sleeping issues the nights before since his back molars were coming in so I was MOST thankful for sleep! After bed time I got to hang out with Cindy and had so much fun eating more pumpkin and pecan pie (don't judge) and catching up with her. We just laid on her bed chatting, just like we used too. I love you RP!

We hope everyone reading this enjoyed their Thanksgiving time as well and took a few moments to reflect on all you are thankful for. We are so thankful for the way we have grown in our marriage this year, for our Samuelito and his health and development and the joy he brings us, for our families & and for the love and support they have shown us- they are always there for us and it is such a comfort to know that we have them, no matter what. We are also so thankful to our friends who laugh and cry with us, for the kids at Casa in Guatemala and relationships we have been able to maintain not only with them but the missionaries too, for our little Banana and her family and all that they mean to us, and for our jobs! Hey in these times, as difficult as it may be, especially for Sam, we have paychecks coming in and that is a blessing in itself. Sam said it best when he talked about just our comfort of living we enjoy.. the families in Guatemala don't know where their food will come from or when they will eat and they sleep on cold dirt floors yet we have a warm house, a pantry full of food, and health care, etc. just so much that so many in this world lack. Most importantly, we are thankful for our salvation and for the peace and hope we have from our Savior. He supplies ALL we need, not all that we want but ALL that we need and He is always there to provide comfort, guidance, direction, strength, whatever it may be. We are very very blessed.

Little Friends....

In the spirit of true procrastination ( I should be working right now) I thought I would also put a few pics from Julia's first birthday party. Julia is one of the 3 amigos... her mom Deborah was preggers with Julie & me and we were each 4 weeks apart. So, Daniel was born first, then Sammy a month later, then Julia a month after him. It has been fun having them to go through pregnancy and this first year with. Our Sunday School class is really unique b/c for 3 years now we have had pregnancies in groups of 3, so 3 per year. Anyway, Julia was just adorable, she was passed out asleep but still eating while she slept when we arrived, it was just so funny! She had a very cute Care Bear top hat to wear for her special day, loved it! Sammy has so much fun seeing and playing with his little friends. Here are some pics from the park.. little baby Luke was there too all bundled up and David was there but he was way too fast for me to catch on film!

We were "Those" customers

We had such a great weekend! Very busy but lots of fun. Sammy's little friend Julia turned 1 so we went to her birthday party. It was so cute to see him and all his little friends, after that we met up with Sam and played outside but then as it got pretty cold we decided to head on over to Toys R Us and play inside. They prob frown on people doing that but we had a blast! Sammy rode in a nice big wagon and loved it, he found a rocking horse that he was VERY unhappy about leaving, Sam pushed him in a fancy electric car, he played with Elmo, found some cool chairs to try out, and read some books. We did bring some quarters with us so we were paying customers.. we let him ride on the little coin rides at the front of the store and he had so much fun! He looked so big sitting in there and using the steering wheel! Funniest part of the evening was when we went to Publix and he got his free balloon. He clung to it the rest of the night and even took his bath with it and took it with him to Gloria's this morning. So funny!
The Guatemala meeting went super well. This was the informational meeting and Kelly who is leading the trip this year did an excellent job. She said that we have a lot of people signed up who are interested so we will just wait now and see who turns in the applications. It is so very exciting to see how God stirs the hearts of people for those kids at Casa. It really is amazing when you think back on their history and how they got started. I am just so thankful He allows us to be a part of it! Sam and I can't wait to go back, we miss those kids and think about them each day.

We Finally Flipped....

Sammy! That is now that he is 1 we turned him around from the rear facing position in his carseat to the front facing. Mom, I know you are so happy we FINALLY turned him around and he can finally see out of the dashboard. She said she was worried we would drive up to kindergarten with him facing backwards. This car ride was just too funny, what an experience! We unfortunately didn't realize what a big deal this was to him so we didn't catch those first few moments on video but we did get some of it once the car got going. He cracked us up.. he was a good combination of stunned, confused, amazed, and humored all at once. It was classic Sammy, and we laughed the entire way to the park and all the way home. For those of you who are around him regularly and know his most used word... "this", well you can only imagine how much he said it on this car ride. At the end of the second one he gets very into his monkey shoes so just ignore that, sorry. Here are the videos!

Leslie, Benji, & Jamin Came for a visit!!

"They finally came down from their mountain" as Hannah put it. We were so excited to have them come down for a visit. It sure was baby-tastic in our house! I hadn't seen 7 month old Jamin since he was 2 months old and Sam had never met him, so it was great to see our little guy and love on him as much as possible while we could actually hold him. He had grown so much and is just as cute as can be! He has these puckered out little lips like Zoolander and the most gorgeous giant blue eyes and he is so tiny! I just love how small he is, he is super early with crawling, walking, and just about everything so it was so shocking to see a tiny little thing like him pull himself up and start crusing! We had a great time.. our outings sure have changed now that we have babies in tow! Matt, Kendall, Jenn, and Kim came over for dinner one night, it was so fun to catch up with everyone. It had been just about a year since Leslie saw them and it was fun to have an almost reunion (missed you Andrea!) of our Guatemala team.
We had to spend some special time with Hannah, she has developed a relationship with them over the years and had so much fun when they took her out last year. So.. needless to say she was thrilled beyond belief to have them here and play with Jamin. She had been asking for about 6 months when they would ever come back to see us, so it was fun to surprise her. I posted some separate pics of her time with them too.
Sammy & Jamin got along really well together. Poor Jamin had to suffer through what was probably our worst time of Sammy's hair pulling and biting but thankfully he was a good sport and we are even more thankful that those days seem to be behind us for the most part... Just a side note, had no idea disciplining a 1 year old could be so challenging.. seriously dreading the two's. Leslie and I grew up living in different states but have remained super close throughout the years, seriously closer than sisters I would say, and so we are hoping that our little guys will also develop a strong friendship and will share a similar bond as they grow up together. We are so glad that they are really close in age. We had so much fun, so hard to say goodbye but I am already looking forward to my trip up to Nashville in the spring! Love you guys!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Make a Smilebox postcard

Video of Sammy walking... yay!

Ok, so we caught him walking, finally! We had our real video camera out for all the action and I can't begin to figure out how to upload those videos so I finally remembered tonight to use our still camera when we were playing and viola! Here are some videos .... now if I can only figure out how to post it.. The first one is him walking on his own, he is up to about 7 or 8 unassisted steps now. I really thought based on some of my friend's babies that once he took those first steps he would be off but I think he has a little confidence issue. He is soo cautious (which I love!) and so his first week of walking wasn't so bad. Today he started letting go of his push car while he was walking, it was so funny. It seemed like he needed the car to get himself going and then he would just let go and keep on walking, that is the second video. Hope you enjoy them!