Saturday, April 25, 2009

Picnic Fun (this occured before the haircut)

One "good" thing that came from Matt's staph infection was that we got to attend the PC Spring Picnic! Thankfully Matty was feeling better so we got to join everyone on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. The PC admin team did an amazing job putting together the event (as always!). There was good food, animals, a playground, smores and plenty of time to just hang out together.
Case meeting the goat
Case riding the goat!
Katie telling Matt about the goats "nose nose"
Case meeting the ducks
Case talking to the ducks
My fellowship ladies, Megan and Emily and their girls, Izzy and Eva
Julie, Tiffany, Besty and ITime for Smores!
Case had his first ride in the swing!
He loved it, but got a little fearful when Abbie and Katie took over!
It's crazy to think our time here is nearing an end. We only have so many more PC events left! In fact, 6 weeks from tomorrow is graduation! Unbelievable!

Who's the big boy?

This morning I decided to cut Case's hair. I love it, but I am SO shocked how much he looks like a big boy! What happened to my sweet little baby?! He sat amazingly still while I snipped away at his hair. I found the trick was to let him hold something he had never seen before, in this case, the comb. He just starred at it in his hands and turned it every which way and ended up sitting perfectly still! Oh, I love this little man so much! He looks even more like Matt now! He has been having a hard time with four teeth coming in at once over the last week. But yesterday was a big improvement, and I have my happy little man back. He laughs all the time now. Just seeing Daddy makes him laugh. And babble, babble, babble... he loves to tell us what he thinks.
Here's the before...

And here's some after...
I love my hair cut THIS much!

Friday, April 17, 2009

Quite the Evening

So the "plan" was for Matt, Case and I to leave our house this morning at 5am. We were going to fly to one of the places we are currently considering moving to at the end of our PC year. Thursday was a super busy but very fun day. Case and I headed out to gym day like we do most Thursday mornings. We saw Matty there and he told me he had some bumps on his leg that were kind of painful, he thought maybe he had been bit by something. We didn't think too much of it. After gym day, a couple of the PC wives and kids came over for lunch and to play in the backyard. We had a great time, and it was an absolutely beautiful day!

After that, Case and I headed to the PC to pick Matt up for dinner, we grabbed some Wing Stop and we were on our way to run some errands before the PC ladies got together. On my way to get together with the PC ladies, Matty called and told me the bumps, one in particular, was getting bigger and was turning black. We decided he needed to go to the doctor since we were flying out the next morning. When I called him two hours later, he was at the ER, feeling miserable and had a temp of 101. So at about 10pm, I headed home to pack our suitcases while Matty waited to see the doctor. He called home at about 11:30 to say the doctor said he had a staph infection! Yikes! After finding a 24 hour pharmacy, he got home at 12:30 and went straight to bed. At that point, I had to reschedule our flights because it was not recommended to fly out first thing in the morning. I rescheduled our flights for 2pm today and then finally crawled into bed at 1:05am, ahhh... sleep! Not quite! At 1:06am my darling baby boy who is normally a wonderful sleeper decided he needed some mommy time (top front teeth are coming in). So I finally feel asleep about 1:30am. This morning Matt woke up still feeling horrible and still had a temp of 101. Poor guy! So we talked with a few people and decided it was best to just stay home.
So I spent today taking care of both my boys, doing laundry as Matt needs clean towels and linens and everything after every bath he takes (he's supposed to take 3-4 baths a day to try to get the infection out). And we didn't have any food in the house since we thought we'd be gone for four days! So sweet Tiffany brought us dinner!
At least I didn't have to travel all day with a teething baby!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!


Today was a GREAT day! We spent our morning celebrating our risen Savior at the Easter Celebration at CLC, it was a great service with a wonderful testimony to God's grace! We spent our afternoon with a bunch of the Pastors College Families and friends. Siobhan and Jen L did an amazing job orchestrating a Potluck Easter meal of ham (my favorite), scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls and desserts. After that the kids had an Easter Egg Hunt. Case was amazing, some how he found the little green egg we placed right in front him, I tell you - he's a genuis! He did have an absolute blast shaking the life out of the little egg for about an hour, someday he'll figure out the noise means there is candy inside. It was so fun watching all of the kids run around to find the eggs. After that, Matty and I were in charge of "Old Time Relay" games. We started out with the dads running a relay where they had to spin around a bat 10 times then run to a tree about 20 yards away, do two somersaults and run back. It was histerical, and of coarse, us wives took full advantage of an opportunity to take pictures...
Spinning...
Somersaulting...And "running"!

Then the kids took a turn and were basically unfazed by the whole spinning process. While the dads fell over, ran completely side ways, the kids just spun and then ran as if it was no problem!
Then we had a spouse three legged race, ahhh more laughs! If you know how competive Matt and I can be, I'll just let you guess who came in first place :)

Then came the kids three legged race, a spoon in your mouth balancing an egg on it relay, a kids water balloon toss, a spouse water balloon toss (this competitive couple was out pretty quickly in that one - I've never claimed to have much hand/eye coordination!) and then the games concluded with a fierce bobbing for apples competition. The afternoon was so much fun, and the kids were great! This will be such a fun Easter to remember, especially since it was Case's first.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

So Good!

Everything about the Pastors Conference was so good! We sat under powerful teaching, had amazing times of worship, reconnected with wonderful friends from SGF, met some great people and ate and ate and ate. I was really tired from the late nights and from toting Case to a hundred different places but it was all worth it! He did great! Like I thought would happen, I don't even think he noticed I wasn't around cause he was having so much fun. One thing he did notice was the craziness of his sleep schedule, he proved this to me by waking up at 5:45 the day after the conference. Oh well, it could have been worse!
As far as the Cherry Blossom 10 mile, one word best describes it... painful! My knee was hurting so bad I was actually thinking of quitting at mile one, but I just couldn't quit! So I just jogged slowly and walked a lot of it and tried to take in the scenery. It was absolutely beautiful and I made it to the end, unfortunately in quite a bit of pain. But its basically fine already. After the race we went out to an amazing restaurant with the Alexanders and Hansens. Then we visited Ford's Theatre and the Portrait Gallery and then crashed on the metro ride home. The cherry blossoms were really beautiful and it was a great day to be downtown.
My wonderful supporters!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Taste!!

This week we introduced Case to baby food! He's had rice cereal, but he wasn't a fan. Veggies has been a totally different experience. I have to admit, giving him food made me a little nervous, what if he's allergic to something, how quickly will I notice? Well... I started with peas, I mean, who's allergic to peas?? He LOVED them - I think he gets this from Uncle Scott! He took a bite and did his excited, arms straight out to his side, little shimmy shake. It was hilarious!
After two days of peas, he got green beans. I think he liked them, but no little shimmy shake. Then, tonight... sweet potatoes! He made excited little noises between each bite, it was great. They ended up all over him which, of coarse, made for a great picture!
Yesterday, Case made his first mess! It was so cute, although maybe I think that because it was a clean mess. I left him in a room with some toys and his box of wipes because he was having so much fun banging on the box and then I came back to this...
Tomorrow I am running the Cherry Blossom 10 mile with Kim and Tiffany (two other PC wives). It's supposed to be gorgeous, so I am really excited. Then I think we're going to spend some time in DC on a beautiful 70 degree day! Then, Monday through Wednesday is the SGM Pastors Conference. I am really looking forward to wonderful teaching, time with my hubby and spending time with some great couples from SGF! With everything that's been going on lately the conference has snuck up on me and my procrastination problem has effected finding a babysitter! I mean, how long have we known about this conference?! Ha, I'm so bad with this... I just started on Thursday! But the Lord has provided and it looks like we'll have several if not all of the sessions covered. This will be the most I've been away from Case since he's been born. Good thing he's a people lover, I bet he won't even notice while he's having so much fun with his friends!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Big Announcement

About a month ago, Matt was scheduled to have a phone conversation with Rick, our Pastor from SGF in MN. We had no idea how this phone call was about to drastically change our future. Rick explained that our church would not be able to bring us back on staff as he had originally planned.

So what does this mean? Well, long story short, we will not be moving home to MN, or even the Midwest, at the end of our PC year in June. We are immensely grateful to God that SGM (Sovereign Grace Ministries, our family of churches) does have a couple of opportunities that, along with SGM leaders, we are currently exploring. While we were very sad to find out we will not be returning home to our family, friends and the church we love so much, God's grace has been so abundant during this time. He was drawn us closer to him and is continuing to show us that his will for our lives is much better than "our plan". We are excited to find out where God is going to call us to do his ministry. Our prayer request is that he would grant clarity for where he is calling us to go and that we would continue to cling to the promises of the gospel and God's goodness during this time.

As soon as we know where we'll be moving and we have the clearance to share it, I will post about it! In the meantime, we'd appreciate your prayers!

A Day at the Park

Tuesday was absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside so I called Tiffany, we packed the kids up, and went to the park. We had a great time and I got some great pics! Case wasn't quite his smiley self due to the fact he had his shots that morning, but he enjoyed being outside and watching the girls.