Thankful

Admist the packing I ran across this gem of Emily Sr. & I. (For the newbies around here, both of my brothers married Emily's so naturally we have Sr. and Jr.) This is probably when she and Paul were Juniors in High School. I'm cringing hoping this wasn't on a date of theirs. I might have tagged along on a few of those.

Finding It made me very thankful...
Thankful that I have had her in my life for so many years.
Thankful that she was around as an example for me in the trying middle school years.
Thankful that I learned about eye brow waxing.
Thankful that I learned about highlights.
Thankful that I am now allowed to apply eye makeup.
Thankful that my braces came off.
Thankful that I remember that clip in my hair was from the Valentine's dance I had recently attended with Rainer.
Thankful that Rainer knew me and even loved me in my most awkward of phases.
Thankful that even though we don't have a really awkward picture to prove it... I love Emily Jr. as if I've known her my whole lifetime too...

A good mix

Packing up and moving has involved lots of reorganizing and we've run across some old pictures that have been fun to re-visit.

Here are baby pictures of Rainer and I. Wasn't he the cutest little baby boy? I've already begun praying for a little boy who looks just like him! Ok so maybe I've already been praying for that since I was like 12... But I think Bitty is a pretty good mix of us!

What do you think?

Lately

We have been busy with house stuff and are feeling so blessed. We've closed on both houses!

(who remembers my first car with the LAH license plate on the front? ha! )

Sharing some cheer in front of our new home!


And we've been busy with projects, good thing we have this little helper to keep the front porch clean!

She seriously loves to clean, when she is not making a mess. Which almost cancels out all the picking up I do.

Easter Catch-Up

Here are a few Easter pictures. Thanks to Anna's mom for making Bitty's the sweet bunny dress! We had a wonderful Easter celebrating the reason we have Life! And the littlest Kendie got a Bubble Machine from The Easter Bunny!





Praise the LORD, O my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits-
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
Psalm 103:1-5

Tease of Spring

We are running full force towards warm weather! (we hope!)

We had the best time playing outside last week at the Gardens!

What fun day with lots of tickles from Daddy!






Hurry up warm weather. Please return and say you're here to stay!

My Groundhog

I hope this doesn't mean 6 more weeks of winter, but my little one found her shadow for the first time today. It was so cute to see that little mind work, her cute little shadow caught her eye and she began to dance with it! I'm so blessed I get to see all these sweet little moments in her life.

Fun in a Box

How to entertain a busy toddler while the majority of her toys are being packed up? Easy, put her in a box and let her play with packing supplies.

When that wears off, put the dog in a box next to her.

Poor Ginger.

No Animals were harmed in the making of this post.

Ketchup...A mistake?

In a moment of weakness today I introduced ketchup at lunch. I held out for 20 months, but now she's offically addicted. She said "moe, moe?" atleast 25 times after she was finished dipping her chicken. I was frantically loading the dishwasher while she inhaled ate her lunch and turned around to see the Joker from Batman this ketchup-stained grinning girl!


And yes, we're still in our PJs at lunch time.

Miss me?

Its been forever it seems since I've last posted. Please forgive me, life just gets crazy sometimes, doesn't it? We've had an awesome, busy and blessing-filled start to 2010. Over my laptop are many empty cardboard boxes to be filled that are looking at me (yes I said boxes, because we are moving!) So, I need to get to packing, T minus 7 days until closing #1, but I figured if things weren't slowing down soon I'd go ahead and post before its summer!

We had been praying about God's timing to put our house back on the market, and in January we felt His peace to move forward with it. In His delightful sense of humor and perfecting timing, He sold our house for us the day BEFORE it was listed. A friend of a friend came to see it one day at lunch and bought it that night. Meanwhile we had started praying for the next house and were prepared to wait as long as it took to find the perfect house, and again God totally came through. Our perfect house dropped into our price range the day we got the contract on our house and it all went very fast! We have laughed at the difference between our timing and God's timing as it felt like we would never sell this house this summer and we finally surrendered it and it was so easy. How encouraging that God was just holding our next house for us, and just waiting to bless us in His time.

So, needless to say its been crazy busy packing with a 19 month old who loves to pull things out of boxes and Rainer has been busy traveling with work. Ann Edwards is as precious and busy as ever. She is so funny talking and developing her little personality more and more these days. I will try to do better not waiting so long to post next time...Also, for all you blog stalkers come on out and let me know if you missed me, maybe it'll even inspire an other post soon, you know like within the month...

Here are some recent pictures of what we've been up to!

Her new favorite food is corn on the cob, its hilarious how aggressively she eats it!


Can you tell she loves it?


Rainer and I ran a 5K last weekend to celebrate the full restoration of his heart!


We've had some chilly days lately, but Bitty loves to play outside regardless, here we are bundled up!



And swinging is always a favorite around here, boy will we miss this backyard!