Photos Galore

A whirlwind of a weekend. Star Wars Friday night - totally rocked having a date night out. :-) The movie tied everything together really well and that's all I say about it so as not to spoil anything. Saturday was a staff/elder/deacon retreat at church - planning, praying, thinking about plans and future. Good meeting and has gotten me fired up about several things. More on that later probably. Then we went over to my parents for dinner and to watch fireworks. The subdivision they live in has an annual picnic and fireworks show that is pretty good. We went down to the picnic and there were rides and kid games and all sorts of booths. There were pony rides and we tried to get Noelle to ride a one of the little horses - Travis was even going to walk around the ring with her, but she would have nothing of it. She LOVED looking at them, but there was no way we were going to get her on them. :-) We took her and played on the big playground they have there - she has recently discovered the slide and loves to go down them. My Dad got a GREAT picture of her on the slide, but I'll have to post that one later . . . I don't have it yet. This is a family shot my Dad snapped at the picnic:

We've been in a picture taking mood around here lately so here are a few fun ones to share. :-)

Noelle's speech is improving so much - she's starting to put consonants on the ends of her words: "doh" is now "dog," etc. She can say cracker very clearly. She also says "back" when she is putting something back where she got it, "stop it" when the dogs are bugging her or are in the way, and "outside" which needs no translation. She would live in the backyard if we let her, I think.

Anyway, I suppose I should expound a tiny bit on our family news - we are pregnant and due January 22, 2006. (Probably that will be fine-tuned when I go to the Dr. in a few weeks). We're so very excited. I'm a little nervous that we are telling people so early, but God is soveriegn and in control of this little life and I am trying to be faithful to trust in that. We probably would have held on to the news for a few more weeks, but like I said before, we were part of a long-range planning meeting at church on Saturday and it would have been weird to go and discuss and plan and not divulge a need for maternity leave around the first of the year! In a wild coincidence, my friend that I co-coordinate our church music ministry with is also due in January! She's about 10 days ahead of me with her pregnancy . . . so much praying and thinking is in process as to how we will handle both of us being off and for how long.

As far as actually being pregnant, I've had a tiny bit of nauseau the last few days and am extremely tired. My first Dr. appointment isn't until June 21 and I'll be 9 weeks, I believe, by then. After having Noelle in October and being pregnant through the hot, hot summer, I'm especially thrilled that this is a winter pregnancy, although I've already grimaced about how big I will be in Christmas card pictures. I need to do some maternity clothes shopping - with Noelle, I wore my friend Gina's clothes, but now that she is pregnant at the same time as me, I need to get what I have left back to her so she's have what she needs. I didn't buy many things before, so other than the whole spending money thing, I'm looking forward to getting a few new clothes. :-) Luckily I have a fairly big wedding card job in the next month so that will probably go towards a clothes budget.

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