It's for real

First, Shawn and the youth made it safely yesterday to Dubois after 24 hours of driving. They started working on painting the church building today after worship. They are going to go to Yellowstone Park tomorrow and then get back to work painting on Tuesday.
Now to address the title. I just finished ordering new checks with our new address on them. I am slowly tying up all those little loose ends that you have to take care of when moving. I filled out a change of address form a few days ago and ordering new checks was another big step. I am trying not to think about all of the wonderful friends that we will be leaving, but instead dream of what our exciting future holds. I have said at least 10 times today, "Please come see us if you're ever headed to Austin!" I hope our good friends will take us up on that because I mean it!
The girls are doing well, though I think Elle is missing her wrestling partner. I'm just not too good at that...I end up hurting her no matter how soft I try to play! Ava has gotten more clingy I'm guessing since I'm the only caretaker. But, she is also getting much more adventurous in exploring the house and it's been fun to watch her be a little more independent.
We will leave for Tyler on Tuesday and be back Friday sometime. I'm looking forward to seeing family. Plus, I hope it helps the week go fast. When Shawn gets home, we will have 9 days until moving day. If I haven't already stated in previous posts, we are officially closing on the house August 14th, which is the same day the moving company is moving us....so pray that everything goes well. In about a week I am going to put all of our information in the church bulletin and also I will email my entire online address book so if you aren't able to get our info from either of those places, email me and I'll send you the new info. Have a great week!

Wyoming Eve

Yes, it is the eve of Shawn taking the youth group on a mission trip to Dubois, Wyoming, about 24 hours drive from here. He will be gone for 9 days, and I've been dreading that for weeks now. Elle has been for lack of a better term "intense" lately. I could write a whole post of her behavior lately, but I'm too tired from dealing with the "intensity". And dear little Ava, well she's actually doing quite well. She had a few fussy days and had a fever all day yesterday. Today, no fever, but HORRENDOUS smelling poop....signs of impending teeth. Her two top front teeth are getting ready to come through. She is crawling everywhere which is actually quite nice. I do have to vacuum more often though...which means like once a month at least now :) The girls and I are going to head to Tyler next week to spend time with my sister, nephew, mom and dad, in-laws, including my two nieces. I am very excited for Elle to get to have some time with her cousins. They love being with each other. In other very good news for us, we found out earlier this week that there was a chance that we were not going to have a moving company pack us and move us but would have to pack ourselves. This sent us into a big time panic since when Shawn gets back, we will have about 7 days worth of time to pack. Anyway, we had 2 companies come and give us estimates for moving costs. One was ridiculously high and the other was AWESOME! We told the elders the estimate and they said Yes! so we are going to be able to have someone pack and move us. YIPPIE!!!! So all is set. We will for sure be moving on August 14. The countdown is on.

I ask questions second.

I'm not squinting or closing both eyes, I'm aiming using the end of the barrel.
Shawn skeet shooting.
The gang

Saturday night we had a last minute, barely planned, fun get together with a few friends. We all know that our time together is coming quickly to a close. We will be moving in about 3 weeks so we are trying to spend as much time as possible with friends. That is easier said than done mostly because Shawn is super busy right now with youth stuff. He seems to be busier than he has been all summer! They are getting their money's worth out of him these last 3 weeks! Anyway, only in Texas can you have a get together like we did. We all met at the Ransom's house for some dinner and gun shooting! I have found that I LOVE shooting guns and boy did I get the chance. I shot a 357, a shotgun, a 22, and a 9 mm and numerous other guns but they probably all fell under the same category as one of the ones I just mentioned. I will have to say that the 9 mm was by far my favorite. The shotgun was the least favorite considering that my right shoulder STILL hurts from the kickback. We did some skeet shooting with the shotgun and it was just so heavy I had a hard time keeping a steady hand. Shawn did AWESOME. He did a double skeet where two disks fly in 2 different directions and it was a pump action shotgun so it had to be pumped after the first shot and both times that he did the double skeet, he shot them both! It was unbelievable. He definately earned bragging rights. Anyway what fun! I know what I want for Christmas...ha ha ha! Elle and Ava had fun also. Elle played with all the other kids there and Ava got passed from person to person, which I loved. It was nice to have others taking care of her.

Our dream come true....

Yesterday was a monumental day in our lives....we signed papers on our very first home!!! I wish my emotions could be conveyed in this post, but I guess the closest I can do is WRITE IN ALL CAPS AND USE THE EXCLAMATION!!! POINT! KEY! REALLY!! OFTEN!!!!!!!!!!!! But, that is pretty annoying so just imagine me yelling all the following at the top of my lungs, with a smile from ear to ear :) We headed to Georgetown Thursday to find a house. We looked at 14 houses in 4 hours. We thought we had found the one by Thursday evening and were prepared to start the paperwork Friday morning. All night I tossed and worried and something just didn't feel right. The next morning I asked to look at a few more houses so that maybe I'd feel a little bit better about my decision. Our realtor, who I must say ROCKS!, he's with Remax....shameless plug, but more importantly he's a member of the church and even better, goes to the congregation where Shawn will be preaching, decided to show us this one house that was WAY over our highest budget and out of our league, but offered great incentives to buy. Long story not as long, we walked in, fell in love, and immediately felt so sad knowing this couldn't ever be ours. We didn't even want to look at the rest of the house because we felt it would be a tease. We went ahead and looked and of course loved it. We went back to the main office of this subdivision and they started running our credit. What was suspose to take 20 minutes turned into at least an hour of just waiting for a fax. I was getting annoyed and ready just to leave because I knew there was no way to afford this house, but we persisted because we felt bad just leaving when she was working on the loan info. After doing a lot of talking and having them pull all kinds of number stunts, somehow, someway, they worked the payments to within $25 of what we had budgeted and we don't have any up front out of pocket expenses except the earnest money which we'll get back. (Here's where you insert that yelling and exclamation point stuff)! We talked it over during lunch and we were all for it. We started signing and as of today we are going to own a BEAUTIFUL home that truly is the home of our dreams. So, here are the basic specs and then I'll include some pictures:

brand new

4 bedroom

2.5 bath

2 story

2300 square feet

Lots of closet space!

Anything else you want to know email me! It will be great for entertaining because the kitchen/living room area is large and open. There's actually a pantry...WITH A LIGHT! (We have a wire rack that holds our food right now!)

The one improvement we will be making is to add at least one or two trees in the back and one in the front. I think it will make a world of difference. Know any trees that grow fast and tall?

The kitchen/eating area

My WALK IN PANTRY!!! Freak out!!!

The living room looking from the kitchen

Saved the best for last....my big tub...I have wanted one for a LONG time...now you can say you saw the preacher's wife in the tub!

FINALLY got to go swimming

With all the rain we've had, we have not been able to go swimming one time this summer! Finally Monday we got to get the swimming pool out and take a dip. Of course Elle loved it. I wasn't sure what Ava would think but she LOVED it. She was so happy to be splashing in the water. She also loved turning herself around and trying to climb out to pick the grass. They had a lot of fun and Shawn and I have found that we are intoxicated with the smell of sunscreen on a baby. I could just eat her up!
p.s. there are no individual pictures of Elle lately because she is in the don't-take-my-picture phase. :(

10 months old

I'm a few days late on this. Ava turned 10 months on Friday the 13th, but we were driving all day and I couldn't get her weight checked until today. Ava is starting to do a lot of exciting things. She started crawling yesterday...YEAH! Good luck Elle. In the last month she also figured out how to sit up by herself, she can pull to stand up sometimes and can get up on her knees and look around, she plays peek-a-boo, she is weaned as of today...BIG TIME YEAH!!!, she has signed "more", she can say "woof woof" when you ask what noise a doggie makes, she can say "dog", "uh oh", "bear", and my mom says she said "Nana" and my dad backs that story up, but neither are real reliable with their stories! ha ha ha These word are in addition to mama, bye, and dada. She can give wonderful kisses now when asked, she waves when anyone/thing leaves and says "bye". She can clap and pat on command. She smiles a lot! She still only has two teeth, but she has been super fussy the last 2 days so I think maybe more are coming soon. She is very attached to me lately...but that's same story 53rd verse right now. If I turn to leave she cries really loud and immediately stops if I come back and get her. I don't do that too often...don't want to start something I'll have to break later! So here are the statistics:

Ava: 17 lb 4 oz 27 1/2 inches (somehow she lost half an inch???)

Elle (at 9.5 months): 16lb 4 oz 27 1/4 inches

Ava's crawling!!!

Mooooo....

....ving. The time has finally come for me to post this newest development in our lives. About this time last year, we began was has been a year long search for a church that needed a brand spankin new-to-the-pulpit-minister. Gabriel Oaks church of Christ in Georgetown, Texas answered that call. Shawn accepted the position of preacher about 3 weeks ago. We announced it this morning at Johnson Street. This has been so hard to keep to ourselves for the last year. This has been a bittersweet decision. We are excited for the new direction we are about to go, but also so so sad to leave some wonderful friends. Please pray for us as we prepare to move down there...they are about 25 miles north of Austin. We most likely won't be moving before the end of August but I know that time flies and it will be here before we know it. I will keep you updated as we look for a house and work towards moving there.

Headin Home

Thank you Ava for helping Daddy drive the 12 hours to home.

CBH pics Part 3

She really did like Uncle Chad regardless of what this picture implies...thank you Uncle Chad and Aunt Lesley for helping take care of the girls and loving them so much!

Twins day...they won the precamper competition.

CBH pics Part 2

Our class...that was really great.

The 4th of July

Although the water was cold, Ava actually liked for me to put her feet in it.

This was hilarious...as we were walking to a devo, Elle's pants fell right down...I just happened to have my camera. Chad, Lesley, and I could not stop laughing.

CBH pics Part 1

Just starting out....6:30 a.m.

Elle's 1st fishing trip....with Disney Princess rod and tackle box of course!

Elle's first fish...notice her bawling her eyes out...not because she was sad for the fish but because she was scared out of her mind by the flopping fish. It was hilarious and just as I predicted. It was a half pound trout.

We're baaack!

We returned from Camp Blue Haven late last night all in one piece! What a great, exhausting, awesome, tiring, very cool(as in weather), sleepless, rainy, uplifting two weeks we have had. It is so so so good to be home. I put in the last of 7 loads of laundry a few minutes ago and have just finished adding all the photos from our trip, on the computer. I took almost 500 pictures in two weeks. If you are interested in seeing those pictures, I thought the easiest way to do it would be to download them onto an online album at snapfish.com. If you want to view all the pics, email me and I'll send you the email that has the link to the album. Anyway, is was a great experience. I will be doing a few posts on some of the very interesting things that happened to Shawn and me later. I wanted to thank Paul and Carolyn, Mom and Dad, the Gilberts, Barbara, Lauren, and Brooklyn for the mail! (Sorry if you sent something and you weren't listed...those were the only pieces of mail I received) Yippie! Thank you to those that remembered my b-day which was yesterday...turned 29....last year in my twenties and one of the worst bdays yet! We drove for 12 hours with 17 kids plus my two. Not very fun. But the day was redeemed when we drove up to our house and my parents where there with a balloon and a banner and yelled "Happy Birthday!" They came to Greenville last night and stayed in a hotel, then came over to our house this morning with breakfast and spent the day playing with the kids to allow me to get unpacked and cleaned up a little. It was absolutely wonderful! It made everything much better. Well, that is a majorly fast update of what has gone on. I will add a select few pictures from the past 2 weeks but the majority will be on the snapfish website. Let me know if you want to see them.