21 weeks!

We are halfway there now to having our son home with us. It still seem forever away and I am sure it will feel that way until I only have one or two months to go. I am finally starting to really show (I am sorry I can not post any pictures yet b/c I have not found my camera battery...hopefully soon). We are starting to sort through some names and it seem yet again that Matt is very picky. With Isabella it seemed like I was pulling teeth for him to agree on a name. I think I was hoping since this time it is a boy it would be a little easier..that does not seem to be the case. We did decide however to keep the name a secret until he is born...there has to be some sort of surprise. I am feeling pretty good and hope that continues until the end.

A "little" Frustrated

Well, we are doing pretty well. I seem to be getting frustrated lately. One reason is because I can not find my camera battery charger with extra battery...so, I can not take pictures. Maybe this is an excuse that I can get my Christmas present early. I have been saving for a Digital SLR for months now and hopefully will get the last remaining dollars needed for my Christmas presents. But since I currently have no other way of getting pictures then maybe I should just get it a little before Christmas. I don't think Matt will go for that reasoning.

The other reasons for my frustration has mainly come from our little bundle of joy..which she is, but as of late she has become quite difficult. She is still on a food strike..this has been going on for about 8 months now. Then there is the bedtime issue; she is not going to sleep well. Last night for instance she did not fall asleep until almost 10pm!!

This parenting thing can be difficult and draining. I have a feeling we are going to have a couple of very hard weeks ahead with trying to stick to our guns and discipline. If anyone has any advice for us it would be welcome at this point. We really want to do this is a Godly way and try to figure out what is going on behind the behavior, but that seams difficult with a two year old.

Lord, give me grace and strength for what is to come.

Flight Show (from a while ago)

The pic above is just of Izzy playing outside...she loves being outside.

I think I mentioned a while back that we were able to go to a flight show at the Air Force base here in September. It was a lot of fun for all of us. The planes were very loud and Izzy didn't seem to like that as much...she would not keep her earplugs in her ears. Matt and I really enjoyed seeing all of the planes on the ground and then in the air. They are pretty amazing!!

It was neat to imagine my friend, Ian, flying one of them and what he could do. I still can't really imagine what it feels like to be up there going at the speed that they are. Here are some pics that I got with my 35 mm SLR...I just got the pics today.

Family Separated

Well, we are a separated family this weekend. I left with Isabella on Thursday for a six hour car ride to Tulsa, OK to visit our dear friends, the Lees. Matt left to go back to Harlingen for a mans weekend with the husband of the friend I am with this weekend and three other men from our old church. They are all having a great time together on the beach and enjoying talking and relaxing. Us girls are having a great time with the kids. It is just so nice for me to be with someone that I feel comfortable with. Sarah (my friend) is someone I can bring anything up with and it is just refreshing since I have not had that kind of relationship with any of the woman in St. Louis. It is difficult only being in a place for a year because it takes time to get to know people.

We have been talking a lot about community lately and what that means. It is very hard to define in a few words. But if you are not purposeful about it... it is not going to happen. I am kind of rambling. I guess I am saying all of this because we have had some great community in our years of marriage together--in Philadelphia (we had an incredible community there) and it was wonderful in Harlingen. We are finding great community in St. Louis too, but it is just different because I don't think people are wanting to put time into forming relationships with us when we are leaving in 7 months. This is hard for us because we thrive on community with other believers.

All of this to say.. I am really enjoying my time here in Tulsa and am finding myself not wanting to leave. Izzy and I will be driving back on Monday and I will post some pics when we return.

Fall fun!

We had forgotten for a little while what fall was really like. We loved the leaves changing on the trees around us, but we forgot that those leaves most come down. Our backyard is FULL of leaves! Matt started yesterday to get them up and Isabella seemed to enjoy "helping" him.









She was pretty tired because she didnt' take a nap that day. She knew she
was looking pretty cute.

Happy Halloween!

This was from Sat. night..Isabella's first trick-or-treating experience. She really loved going up to all of the houses and saying those three magic words. Her little bird friend is Caleb who is her new best friend. They had a fun night together. Sorry in warning these pictures are a bit out of order.
This was my favorite picture of the evening! She was so excited!




This picture was taken on Sunday morning.. she wanted to put her
pumpkin back on.

This picture was from a couple of weekends ago when Matt's uncle turned 60. It had been over 6 years (our wedding day) since we had seen a lot of the family that was here. Isabella had a great time playing with the girls and all of the different toys they had--she did not stop for 4 1/2 hours!

This was the start of the evening when we were starting to hand out candy. She kept on asking if she could have some...she already has a sweet tooth--it is in her blood though so I can't hold it against her.

1st Visit to the Arch

We had a beautiful day here yesterday and we were out all day..it was great being outside and enjoying St. Louis. We went to Grant's Farm again...it is a great place to go for no money. We have learned that you can park off site and walk about 5 minutes to get in for free! We love that even more.
We then went to the famous Soulard Farmers Market. There is a lot of food there! Then we decided to head downtown and walk around. We decided to go to the Arch and got a metered spot that had 50 minutes left!! This was turning into a very cheap day out in St. Louis. Here are some pics from the Arch:


Isabella was not wanting to sit and take a picture with me.
But it had the potential to be a very cute picture.
She thought she could climb the tree like Winnie the Pooh.. it was pretty funny.
I was feeling artistic.. I don't know if it is or not, but I think it looks pretty with the color of the leaves.
The Arch is really pretty and huge. I like these pictures because the sky is so blue.

Grant's Farm

So, it has been WAY to long since I have posted "real" post and I am so sorry. I am blaming it on the fact that I do not have a laptop and I hate sitting at a desk to type..so, I shall just do the blame game for now. Also, now that I am out of the first third of my pregnancy I am started to feel more energy..so, maybe I will not have as big of a problem sitting at the computer desk. We shall see..
Matt was off one day a couple of weeks ago (yes, a couple of weeks ago) so we decided to go to Grant's Farm for the morning. It is a really cool place we found out. It is the original home of the Bush family. They have turned into a an animal park (I guess you could call it). As you will see they have all sorts of animals...it was really fun for all of us.

She LOVES these!! She has a very hard time if we see one and she can't ride it.


They had two bald eagles there. They were both injured and would never
fly again so that is why they are there and can't fly away.
Palmer here is your namesake...I thought he was strong and hansom.
I thought it was a very fitting name.
The camel wasn't really that close.. it was just the angle.
The elephant, Mickey, was great! He did some amazing tricks..
Isabella loved clapping for him.
The clydesdales were one of my favorites! Those horses are huge!
All I could think about was what it would be like to ride one of them..I think
my thighs would really hurt after a while. But it would be completely worth it.

The Taco Ring!

This is a Pampered Chef recipe:

3/4-1 lb. ground meat or turkey
1 package of taco seasoning mix
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 Tbsp. water

2 packages of refrigerated crescent rolls

*Preheat oven to 375
*Brown meat and drain
*In a medium size bowl mix the meat, taco seasoning, cheese and water

*Unroll the crescent rolls
*Separate into the triangles and arrange the triangles on a round stone with the wide ends overlapping in center. You should have about 5-8 inch wide diameter opening in the center.
(if you do not have a round stone, then I will explain another way to arrange them on a cookie sheet at the end).
*Scoop about two tablespoon full-size of meat evenly onto th ewidest end of the each triangle (the part that you overlapped).
*Bring the points of the triangles up over the filling and tuck under the wide ends of dough at the center of the ring.
*Bake for 20-25 minutes.. check at 20 minutes though..until golden brown.

It is really good with shredded lettuce, tomato, more shredded cheese, sour cream and avacado.

** Now if you don't have a stone than you can do this instead of the ring: THE BRAID
*Unroll the 2 packages of roll
*Lay them flat with the longest sides of the rectangles across the width of the sheet. Roll dough to seal seams.
*starting on the longest sides of the baking stone, cut side of dough into eight strips, about 1/12 inches wide and 3 inches long.. then fill in the middle with the meat mixture.
*Starting at one end, lift one strip of dough; twist one turn and lay across top of filling. Prepeat, alternating sides of dough to form a braid. Fold bottom edges of dough up at ends of braid.
*Bake for same amount of time.

I hope those of you who try it will like it..don't worry if your rings or braids don't come out the way you think they should.. it is good no matter what it looks like! ENJOY!

Izzy has a new shirt!

She wasn't too excited about taking this picture, but I had to take it anyways. We are very excited about having another baby. We will be due mid-April; I am almost 7 weeks. I am starting to feel sick some of the time which is not fun with a toddler running around. I hope to get to the doctor in another two weeks or so; I'll make sure to post then when we hear that everything is going ok. We are praying that is the case and this time around we think we are going to find out what it is; we'll see.

NC videos

Here are two videos that I took at Gran's house: The one with her playing the piano is really funny. If you pay attention you see her taking bow and saying "thank you." Gran taught her that.. it is really funny.

Back from NC

Izzy and I got to go visit my family in NC last week for 9 days and it was so nice to be back there.
We had not seen my brother and his family since early November of last year. ...way to long.
All of the cousins had such a fun time together. Brantley (9) and Palmer (6) played so well with Izzy; it was so fun to hear and watch them play.



Pops and Isabella


Cousin Gibson--him and Izzy are almost the same size and they are a year apart.

Gran and Isabella.

Newness

well, as you can see I have changed the blog a little bit. I am still not sure about it, but I am trying out new things. We will see where it takes me in the coming weeks.
It is refreshing to me at this time.. so, I think I shall keep it like this for a little while.

Exploring our surroundings

We are finally getting a little settled into our home. We love our house and where we are located! I am a few blocks away from Panera Bread Co. Oh, how I have missed those bagels. We did not have bagels in southern TX..only tortillas. It has also been nice having sidewalks again to be able to walk on around the neighborhood. Did I mention all of the beautiful architecture? All of the stone and old buildings are beautiful to look at.
Here are some pics from a recent outing we made to a local park where we found a little pond and fountain.



Ooppss... this picture was taken when we were taking all of our Christmas pictures.. sorry about that. I kept it though thinking it was nice to see Rocco again. He is staying with our good friends in Harlingen for the year. They are taking very good care of him and we know he is in good hangs...thank you Coopers!

Her favorite past time

The pics above were just for fun..she looks so cute! Her hair is a little crazy in the second one--it was right after a nap. Isabella loves to swim. When we were at the apartment she would wake up everyday saying "fweeiming." It was really cute, until she would ask for it all day long everyday. Here are some pics from our last week there at the pool with her Pops.


She is just a little fish. She loves the water and to jump in. She even loves to go under already! Hopefully that will stick and she won't have trouble when the lessons start.

Graduation Night

Way to go Matt!! We are so proud of Matt and what he accomplished over the last three years. We have been through a lot in the last three years and God has been so good in providing a home (or three) and friends to join us along the journey. Valley Baptist Residency is a unique experience to say the least in the world of residency life. For Matt to be able to learn how to integrate God and medicine in a daily way was amazing. Here are some pictures of our friends and of the evening:
~~Sorry that these are so late; we just got our internet up and running. It took a little longer than we had planned.
These are some of my ladies. What a fun group of woman. Thank you for being such a support for me and friend to me.

Stacey and MaryAnne (and their hubbies) lived up the street from us. What fun we had dropping in on each other. I hope that we will see one another soon.

This is Dr. Ferris and he was the graduation speaker. He has been practicing in Harlingen for over 50 years! What an amazing story he has..and he is still practicing!

Both sets of parents were able to come down for the special occasion and help us move. Thank you so much for all of your work. We hope you won't have to do it ever again.

This is the graduating class with the program director, Dr. Liebert.

These are our really good friends, the Torklesons. We will miss you so much, but we look forward to coming down to visit.