One Wonderful Year!!!!

This week we celebrated our one year Anniversary!!!! It's so hard to believe that it has been a year because it has flown by. At the same time, so much has happened that it seems like we have been married for longer! They say the first year is your hardest... and if that's so then I think that we have many more joyous years to go! We are so thankful that the Lord has blessed us with this marriage. It has never been more evident of his providence in bringing us together. I could not imagine a more perfect husband for me. Michael leads and loves me so sacrificially and at the same time the Lord uses him daily in the process of my sanctification. We also have so much fun together. Some highlights of this year were our travels. We took trips to Seaside, Miami, Cincinnati, Mississippi (several times of course), the Smokey Mts., Colorado, and Nashville.

From the pictures above you can see that we attempted to eat the top of our wedding cake. Michael tried first and nearly spit it out... so I just faked it. We also exchanged our gifts that morning. We went with the traditional paper gifts for our first anniversary, which we figured were the traditional gift because you're so poor the first year and all you can afford is paper. Michael's gift was really creative and something that I will cherish for years to come. He put together some of our favorite hymns and had them bound for us to use during our family worship times. I made him a scrapbook that told our story. We left that morning to spent the day in the quaint historic town of Madison, IN. We had lunch, walked around and shopped, and just enjoyed spending the day together. That night we stayed in a great hotel on the river! It was beautiful and a great one year anniversary. Hopefully there will be 100 more to come!

Nine Weeks to go!

Happy late Easter!!!! We hope that you all had a wonderful weekend remembering and celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord! We had a wonderful first Easter celebrating together. Michael said Sunday morning that this would be our last Easter without children, but as you can see from the picture... we are definitely with child this Easter! I cannot believe we only have 9 more weeks until our due date. It has flown by and with all we have going on I am sure the next 9 weeks are going to fly by as well. We have the nursery all set up just in case Madeline decides to come early. We went for another Doctors appointment today and she said everything looks great and she is measuring right on time. She has really grown this past month. She is about 3 1/2 pounds and 16 inches long. She moves constantly... which she probably gets from her dad! Like him, she can't stay still for very long. Supposedly she is about to hit a growth spurt. I can't imagine getting much bigger, but I know I will.

As for us, we are both trying to finish up papers and midterms. It has been quite the challenging semester in many ways, but the end is in sight. Spring break is coming up in 2 weeks, and my sweet husband has bought me a ticket to fly home, probably for the last time until Maddie comes. After that we will only have a couple of weeks until finals. Graduation in scheduled for May 16, and if Maddie holds out, I am planning on attending. If not then we will be thrilled to finally have her here. We'll keep y'all posted as it gets closer to her arrival.

The Finished Product

Well after many, many hours of hard work and sweat, Mike finally finished the changing table/book shelf/ dresser, a.k.a. "the baby station." He and Jason, our neighboor brought it over from the garage yesterday, and after much struggle, because it is so heavy, got it into Madeline's room. I am so impressed. Who knew he had such carpentry skill? It is beautiful and perfect and I don't think I could have ever found anything that I love more. So I just wanted to show off the new baby station so everyone could see how amazing it is! Now we just have to set up the rest of her room (which we will add pics later) and wait for her arrival!

Mississippi Baby Shower!

Sweet little dress
Blanket Granne made Madeline
Molly
The Grandmother and Great Grandmother to be
Two of my best friends, Katie and Becca
The awesome stroller mom and dad got us
The sweet pillow Erica and Uncle Al got Maddie

This weekend my Aunt Kathy and cousin Molly threw our first baby shower in Mississippi. It was a blast. A lot of my family got to come, and a couple of my home town friends. It is the first time I had seen everyone since Madeline has made her presence known in my growing tummy. It was fun to get to show her off, and towards the end of the shower she did a little show of her own so everyone could feel her kicking. We had a great time getting to celebrate getting ready for Madeline together, and we were so blessed to get so much to help us prepare to bring her into our family. Thanks Kathy and Molly and everyone who was so generous! It was truly a special time and I am so grateful!

Check out my Slide Show!

The Next Uncle Jerry

Many of you may be thinking..."That's a really weird title for a blog!" Well for those of you who don't know my Uncle Jerry, he is a master carpenter. This week my husband has been showing off his carpentry skills as well. He has spent much time in the garage this week working on a changing table/bookshelf/dresser for Madeline's room. Since her room is so small we don't have room for all three, and my hardworking creative husband decided to build her one. He took me to see it today and I was amazed, so I had to get a picture of it. Pretty impressive, huh? And the carpenter is pretty good looking too :)! I think its so special that she will have something that she can keep and use, maybe even for her kids one day, that her daddy made. He says that this is the last time he will let me see it before it is comeplete because he wants it to be a surprise. He wants to have it finished by the time Mom, Erica, and Susan come up in March so they can see it... so we'll have more pics up of the completed furniture in about a month. I know you'll all be on pins and needles to see the finished product... So will I!

Baby Bump!

Our little Madeline is growing, and as you can see as a result so is my tummy. It has been fun to finally look pregnant, though I think the cycle of maternity clothes will wear off soon. We are almost at 25 weeks! I can't believe how fast the pregnancy is going by. Just three more weeks and I will enter into my third trimester.
Maddie weighs about 1 and 1/2 pounds now and is around 13 and 1/2 inches long. She's like to move especially during class, which can be entertaining when I get bored, and at night.
We are getting more and more excited about her upcoming arrival! This weekend we did a few home projects like getting a new book shelf for the living room because all the books we had in her room needed a new home. We also bought some wood because Michael is going to build a changing table for her room. I just got back from the neighbor's garage, where he is building it, and its already looking great! We also finally found bedding and material that aunt Susan is going to make us some curtains out of when her, mom, and Erica come to visit in March. Needless to say, we are slowly getting ready.
We have our next doctors appointment a week from Tuesday and then get to go to Mississippi for our first baby shower that weekend. We are really excited to make it back down south for a weekend, and I can't wait to show off the Maddie tummy to the family and friends we will get to see while we are there!