Bella Grace is here!

It's official! Randy & I are an uncle & aunt again! Bella Grace was born last night at 8:24 p.m. She weighed 7 pounds, 6 ounces and was 20 3/4 inches long. Mom, Baby, and Daddy are all doing well. Randy & I are heading to Tyler to visit Kristi, Andrew, and Bella this weekend. We can't wait! We'll have lots more pictures after that.

Thanksgiving

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now Christmas is around the corner. Wow, this year has gone by fast. Randy & I have our 7 month anniversary tomorrow! Can you believe it? 5 more months and we will have been married for a full year. I know for those of you who have been married 5, 10, even 15 years, that 1 year is nothing. But still, it is a milestone for us! :) Anyways, back to the point of this post - Thanksgiving.

Randy & I headed north to Oklahoma Tuesday night after work. Wednesday Randy & Daniel went mountain biking at Lake Murray. I hear they have some pretty cool war wounds to show for their fun. Ask them about them sometime. Mom & I baked and cooked most of the day on Wednesday. Mom & Dad hosted Thanksgiving at their house last year and did the same this year. Thursday all my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. There was way too much food (as usual) and lots of full stomachs by about 2 o'clock! This year (which isn't normal) almost everyone had to head somewhere else for supper. Normally, everyone stays and we eat leftovers for supper. The boys braved the cold to play a little football and have a pecan war outside.

Friday was pretty laid back. Randy & I spent a couple hours at the doctor, waiting on a breathing treatment for Randy. It seems his allergies/asthma didn't appreciate the cold weather/pecan war/being in Oklahoma. We aren't really sure what caused all of his breathing problems, but after a 10 minute treatment he felt much better. My grandparents came up that afternoon and picked up the rest of the pecans from our pecan trees. The poor squirrels were wondering where all their nuts went that evening. We wrapped up our Friday with a double date with my little brother Daniel and his girlfriend April.

Saturday it snowed(very little)/rained/misted almost all day long. Mom & I put up the Christmas tree with help from Dad and Randy. It was a long process, but their house looks very festive now. Sunday we went to church and enjoyed worshiping with our friends and family in Marietta. It was good to see old friends and catch up on everyone's lives.

All in all Thanksgiving break was wonderful. A relaxing break, away from the busyness of Dallas, getting to be with family and friends, and most of all stopping to thank God for all his many blessings on us this past year. We have much to be Thankful for - much more than 1 day of celebration can represent.

Thank you God, for blessing us this year. Thank you for giving us your Son as our Savior and Lord. Thank you for giving us health and life. Thank you for our family and friends, our church, our jobs, a place to live, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, for our freedoms we take for granted. We don't deserve any of your blessings and yet you continue to bless us - without reserve. Thank you. We pray that our lives would be a thanksgiving offering back to you in how we live each day. Not to us, O Lord, not to us. But to your name be the glory.

Weekend with the Family

This weekend Randy & I went to Oklahoma to celebrate my mom's 50th birthday with her, my dad and my little brother. It was a great weekend - we helped them work around the house (more on that later), then gave Mom a surprise dinner party that evening. Check out the pictures from this weekend below. Sunday we went to church with them, and then spent the afternoon just hanging out.

Today is Mom's actual birthday, so Happy Birthday Mom! We love you soooooooooo much! Thank you for all you have done and do for us. You have been a blessing to us and to so many others whose lives you have touched. I hope you have a wonderful day! Love you!

Other news - my parents have been remodeling their house for the past few months. They put on a new roof, with new porch, took out a wall between the kitchen and living room, retextured the walls and painted, put in new doors and windows and put in central heat and air. Needless to say, they have been very busy lately. Here are some pics of the house and of our weekend helping out.

Bella Grace - We can't wait to meet you!

This weekend Randy & I had the pleasure of traveling to Odessa, TX to visit his family and celebrate our new baby neice, Bella Grace. She is due around the first of December. Sonia's wonderful friends threw Kristi the sweetest baby shower on Saturday. Randy's dad Ronnie, and step-mom Lupita, along with his sister Katrina, and her cutie son Caleb, were also able to come in. We had a great time visiting with everyone and celebrating Baby Bella. Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Randy = EMT :)

UPDATE:
HE PASSED!!!!!!!!! Randy just got the results of his test and he passed! Thank you all for praying. Our God is good, worthy of our praise!

EMT Test is here!

I should have blogged about this sooner, but I didn't. I was sitting here at work and realized there are people who would like to pray and may not know. Randy is taking his EMT National Registration test today at 2:00 (like in 5 mins!). Please be praying for him. I know he will do well. God has blessed him so much this far. Just wanted to share and let you be a part! love you guys!

The Weekend

Randy & I had a great weekend. Just visiting with friends, church, small group, resting, etc. One of my best friends Tiffany came in to spend the weekend with us. Tiffany and I have known each other since 1st grade (we think) and good friends since 3rd grade. We can't really figure out when we first met, but that doesn't matter, right?! :) Anyways, I got to thinking about my life and how much Tiffers has been a part of it. So I thought I would give you a snapshot of our friendship and let Tiffers know how special she is to me and now Randy!


This is probably the earliest photo I have to Tiff and me. It was the 1st grade field day and we were running the 100 yd. dash. I am in the dark pink shirt, blue shorts and pig tails. Tiff is in the lighter pink shirt with curly red hair. This is probably the only time in our lives I beat Tiff in a race! ha ha ha!


This next one was taken when we were in the 4th grade, Mrs. Armstrong's class. The 4th grade had a tradition of reinacting the Oklahoma Land Run every year. We picked our "families" and made our own "covered wagons." Then we were given stakes and allowed to go pick our "plot" of land. Tiffany and I, along with Natalie and Ramon, made quite the family. Oh, and the little person in the corner of the photo is my little brother Daniel who had to be a part of the action too! Don't you love our wagons, stick horse and lunch!

Then we move on to 5th grade. This was after our end of year awards/promotion ceremony. Our moms checked us out of school early that day and we got to spend the afternoon at Tiffany's house. We thought we were so grown up! I'm just glad I wasn't the shortest one, that would be our friend A.J. By the way, what do you think of our choice in fashion? Pretty cool for the 90's, huh? :)


I'm almost hesitant to post this next picture. It could probably be taken and used against us, but oh well! We were having Nerd, Geek, and Dweeb Night at church in Middle school and this is what resulted. Please don't hold it against us! We only were getting into the spirit of the night!

On to high school, where things got a little more civilized. Here are a few from high school in random places:

Then we graduated and left for college, ECU Tigers! Tiff and I ended up living on the same floor in the dorm we were in. Thank goodness for that. We both wanted to spread our wings a little, but it was so good to know Tiff was just down the hall when I needed someone familiar. Ask Tiff sometime what our dorm floor smelled like after cooking sauerkraut and weenies! Yum!

Next came Graduation. Me from ECU and Tiff from TWU. We had finally done it. School was finished (for now) and we were ready to start our lives in the "real" world. We both always wondered why they call it the real world? What were we living in before that, a fake one? Anyways, I digress. I got a job in Dallas working for Fossil and Tiff got a teaching job in Gainesville. We didn't get to see each other as much, but still did our best to maintain our friendship.

Now to my wedding. From the day Randy proposed, Tiff was there to offer help and support. She listened to me try to decide on flowers and a cake, went with me when I had my bridal portraits made, planned my personal shower and bachelorette weekend, designed our wedding programs (and dealt with all the printing problems), and created an amazing wedding scrapbook for Randy & I to use to capture all our wedding memories. I know she helped with way more than I listed here. These were just some of the highlights. She went above and beyond the call of a friend and for that, I want to say thank you, Tiffany!

You have been an amazing friend to me through the years. I can't wait to see what God has planned for both of us in the future. Even though we don't see each other as much as we used to, know that I love you (and Randy does too!). You are very special to us and our door is always open to you. Love you!