31 weeks!!

We're now 31 weeks into our second pregnancy! Praise God everything is going great so far! I have had no complications this time around. Hopefully the next 9 or so weeks will be smooth sailing, too!

I'm starting to feel very pregnant and very tired (I never really got my energy back this time around). Most days I feel I need a nap when Jack takes one. But I haven't been taking as many lately since there's so much to do with moving into a new house. It's also getting harder for me to get up from sitting on the ground...which I do a lot of since we have a toddler! I think Jack's starting to take advantage of it a little bit. He has not been listening quite as well as he used to. But maybe it's partly just because he's getting older and getting an opinion of his own :)

Can't wait to meet our sweet Brady boy!

House Updates...

Luke, his dad and brothers have been working SO hard on refinishing our kitchen cabinets. It has required much more time than we thought it would....we didn't realize just how bad the paint job on them was! Since we want to move in this weekend, we decided to hire painters for Jack's room, our bedroom, and the family room/ kitchen. If you know us, we're "do it yourself-ers," so it was a big deal to hire someone else to do this. But, they did a GREAT job and we are really happy we did it! Now we can move in this weekend!! YAY!!

Family Room Before:

Family Room After (amazing the difference paint can make, huh?):

I was nervous that this shade of green might be too dark, but I'm super happy with the way it turned out!!

Fireplace:

Kitchen Before:

Kitchen After:

(You can see how the cabinets are coming along. In this picture, they have one coat of primer. They will be antiqued when it's all said and done. I think it'll look great with the green!)

Jack's Room Before:

(Can't really tell in this picture, but it's a VERY bright blue.)

Jack's Room After:

Chair rail still to be added.

Master Bedroom Before:

Master Bedroom After:

Our Little Artist....

This morning Jack was doodling on a piece of paper. He handed me the pen; I drew a star (the only shape he knows) and asked him what it was. Then I drew a smiley face and asked him what it was....of course, he didn't know. Then, he took the pen back and started drawing little squiggles and asking me what each one of them was. If I didn't answer, he would ask again! This kid keeps me smiling all the time!!

On the News!

It's hubby brag time! Since we've moved to Greenville (about 2.5 months ago), Luke has been intereviewed for the local news TWICE as a "Tech Expert!" I couldn't be more proud of him!! Here are the links to both of the news stories:

Story #1: http://www2.wspa.com/news/2011/sep/20/mobile-apps-under-investigation-bogus-claims-ar-2438075/

Story #2: http://www2.wspa.com/news/consumer-watch/2011/oct/18/hackers-user-mobile-apps-steal-account-passwords-ar-2570755/

ROAR!

While walking around Lowes (Luke's favorite store) the other day, Jack decided to try to scare mommy. As you can see in this video, I didn't know that he was "roaring" at me for a little while. This little guy surprises us with his fun and creative personality all the time!

Mark 12:30

Jack "saying" his Bible verse:

He does "mind" like he does when he's singing, "If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it."

The Waiting Game...

We closed on our house in Lynchburg yesterday (Monday)!! The process could not have gone any smoother. The lawyers we worked with said we'll never have another closing be so simple and go so smoothly (she was right!). We are so relieved to that house sold and so excited to get moved into our new house in Greenville! However, when we got back to Greenville Monday night, Luke had an email from our lender that the USDA was requesting more information from us. This is a bit of a bummer since we are supposed to close on our new house here in Greenville Wednesday (tomorrow). It has become clear that we'll definitely have to delay the purchase of our new home :(

According to our realtor, she has not had a closing on time in about 4 months. She said that the USDA is in control these days and they "send requests at the 11th hour every time." After quickly getting all the new information to our lender, he sounded like we MIGHT be able to close on Friday (although he origally said around 10 days). We're keeping our fingers crossed for Friday!!

The biggest delimma with delaying the closing is that we had planned to move in on Sat. the 22nd, leaving this upcoming weekend as the only weekend to do work on the house. So, if we can't close, we can't do work on the house, and we can't move in yet. Which means we'll have to pay for another month or storage :(

Although this news is very disappointing to us, we still remember that God is in control of all things. This delay did not happen "by chance." It is not an accident. And God has purpose in this, even if we can't see what it is. We are trusting Him that in His timing, we'll be able to close on and move into our new home!

But for now, we'll play the waiting game :)

"Thank You!"

Once Jack learned to say "please," we started working with him on saying "thank you" when we give him something. We've probably been working on it for 4 months at least. We always tell him, "say 'thank you,'" and he would repeat us. However, the past few days, he been saying it on his own without our prompting!!! I think he's realized how much we like him saying it, so today he's started saying it just out of the blue: "Thank you, mommy. Mommy, thank you!" for no apparent reason! So sweet :) Of course, when he says "thank you" it sounds more like "tee too," which makes it even cuter! I hope our little boy continues to lean and use good manners!

Our New House!!!

We found a house in Greenville that we love!!!! Well, actually it's in Simpsonville, but it's all the same area :) We put in an offer and it was accepted!! If all goes well with the inspection and the closing of our house in Lynchburg, we'll be the new owners of this home October 12!! Here's some pictures of the house taken from the MLS website.

Front:

Close-up of the front door (which I LOVE!):

View when you walk in the front door:

Dining room (on the left when you walk in):

Living room (on the right when you walk in):Half bath downstairs:
Family room:
(The TV stays. The open door next to the TV will be a playroom; there's no picture of it. Having a room downstairs for the kids to play in was a huge selling point for us! This is open to the Kitchen) Breakfast and Kitchen (doors on left go to pantry and garage) This picture is taken while standing in the living rom(picture above):

Master bedroom (love the chandelier, but we'll need a fan!):

Master bath:

Master bath sinks:

Closet off master bath (LOVE!!!):

Bedroom #2:

Bedroom #3: Bedroom #4:
Guest bath:

Laundry (washer and dryer stay):

Fenced backyard:

IT'S A BOY!!!!

Wednesday we went in for our 20 week sonogram (actually, it ended up being at 22 weeks). It's always so exciting to see our baby moving around and hearing his heartbeat! Let me start by saying this baby seems very active to me. But the only thing I have to compare the movements of this baby to is Jack, who was less active in the womb. During the ultrasound, the technichian kept saying, "be still....quit moving for a minute..." I told her this is how he is every time I lay down. About half way through the ultrasound, she said he had already flipped over at least twice!! So, I guess it's not just me and this really is one active baby boy! Hopefully Brady gets it out of his system now! hahaha! Or maybe it'll just make it easier for him to keep up with Jack!

Here's the profile of our little booger:

And the heartbeat (152 beats per minute):

And I just LOVE the 3D pictures!! I know he'll change a lot between now and when he's born, but Brady's lips look just like Jack's when he was newborn :)

We didn't find out if Jack was a boy or girl until he was born and we kept going back and forth about finding out this time. To find out in the doctor's office seemed kinda anti-climactic, so we decided to take the gender in a sealed envelope to Publix. They colored the icing that held the layers together either pink for a girl or blue for a boy. When we cut into the cake, we saw BLUE!!! This was a very exciting way to find out! And we got to share this experience with Luke's parents, Laura's mom, Uncle Nick, Aunt Liz, Uncle Zack, and Uncle Caleb!

Everyone's predictions before cutting the cake:

Cutting the cake!!!

I'll spare Brady the embarrassment in the future of having the "it's a boy!" sonogram picture posted online. But trust me, it's definitely a boy!!!

Insomnia...ugh!!!

Last night I had the WORST case of insomnia! At first I thought I couldn't go to sleep because I drank a lot of sweet tea a dinner. I don't drink a lot of caffine anymore, so I thought maybe that's what was keeping me up. I finally fell asleep around 1:45am, but woke up again around 3:30am. I laid in bed for a long while trying to go back to sleep, but I was just wide awake. I finally got up at 5:00 am.

Since I was up, I decided to work on a sewing project that I've been needing to do for a LONG time. Our friends, Dom and Bekah, who live in California are expecting their first baby...a boy! Since they live so far away from a lot of their family and friends, Bekah decided to make a bird mobile for their baby, but to have their family and close friends each make one bird to complete the mobile. You can read more about it and see a picture here. SEVERAL months ago I recieved instructions on how to make a bird and swatches of fabric that will be thier nursery colors. My instructions were to pick 2 pieces of contrasting fabrics, follow the pattern to make the bird, and return it to them by August 1st (OOPS!!).

I found 2 pieces of fabric in their nursery colors I liked from WalMart for $1.50 each (score!). Since I was wide awake this morning, I decided to get to work on making this bird. I mean, they do need it before the baby makes his big arrival! I am not a seamstress. I have only sewn a few things in my life. And to be honest, I didn't know if this bird would turn out right at all. But I wanted to give it a shot. (I even had to borrow a needle and thread from my mother in law!) I know this is not the best bird in the world and there are lots of blemishes, I'm sure. I actually stuffed it with left over fabric...I mean, c'mon, I definitely don't have any batting laying around my house! So, it turned out a little lumpy. But, this bird was made with much love! Maybe Bekah can put my bird at the top of the mobile so people can't see it real good :)

The top side of the bird:

The bottom side of the bird:

Now let's just hope it doesn't take me as long to ship the bird as it did for me to make it!!!

Birthday Weekend!!

This past Sunday was my 27th birthday. This one was really special because my mom and dad were able to come spend the weekend with us. It was the first time in 10 years I've spent my birthday with them!!

We watched movies, went to a Drive game (local minor league baseball team), walked around downtown, went to church, looked at some model homes, ate dinner downtown, ate hot & ready Krispy Kreme doughnuts (my birthday cake), and just had a really good time!

My parents have been to Greenville before, but have never visited Greenville. I think they were pretty impressed with the city :)

Here's a picture of my mom, me, Jack, and Luke's mom Sunday night after my birthday dinner downtown:

Tonight Luke and I went out on a birthday date...just the two of us!! He took me to PF Chang's, which was AMAZING! He also told me that in a couple of weekends, some of my girlfriends from Lynchburg are coming down for a girls weekend and he's taking Jack with him somewhere else (TBD) as part of my birthday present! I couldn't be more excited!!!!

Pure and Faultless Religion

A couple of Sunday's ago, we visited a church where the pastor shared James 1:27:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

When the pastor spoke about this verse, he focused on the part about looking after orphans. I was thinking about that sermon this afternoon and the part about looking after widows hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that we have a sweet 86 year old widowed lady, Mrs. Jean, living in the condo right next to ours and although I speak with her every few days, I have not done a good job of "looking after her." Mrs. Jean loves our son Jack to pieces. She only has one daughter living in town that visits her once a week at the most. I thought about how lonely she must be and it made me want to cry. I felt so convicted that to look after widows is what God loves and wants from us, and I have failed to do so with the person I share a front porch with. Never once have I invited Mrs. Jean inside my home. Never once have I invited her over for dinner. I guess there's always some excuse like, "my house is messy" or "I haven't prepared anything great to eat," but I honestly don't think she would care one bit. I think she would enjoy our company more than anything in the world.

So, we hope to have Mrs. Jean over for dinner later this week and hopefully spend more time with her and do a better job of looking out for her in the future.

My challenge to you (and myself): God's Word clearly says that the religion He loves is when we look after orphans and widows (not going to church, not singing in the choir, not soaking up knowledge, etc., etc. - although all good things). What are you doing to look after orphans and widows in your life?

Potty Training???

A couple of weeks ago, Jack started telling me when he pooped. Not every time, but most of the time. So, I decided that even though Jack is still really young (20 months), we'd give potty training a shot. I haven't pushed it very much or even been really consistent with it because we've been out and about most mornings. I though he didn't really seem to interested in it or know how to control his bladder, so I was gonna call it quits. I figured he's too young for it anyhow. After his nap today, I decided to put him in big boy underwear one last time. He peed all over the den floor. But when I went to change him, he wanted to wear his underwear again instead of a diaper. A little while later, we noticed he was wet again, so I put him in a diaper. Later I went into the bathroom and saw that he had peed on the bathroom floor.....right next to his potty!! Maybe it was coincidence. But maybe I'll give potty training a little more time before calling it quits :)

Baby #2

I feel like our second pregnancy is so different from our first. When I was pregnant with Jack, we took pictures of my belly all the time and I would NEVER forget how many weeks pregnant I was. I guess we're just so busy keeping up with Jack that I forget to post much about Baby #2 on our blog! So, here's a brief update of what's been going on in my belly recently. I'm now 18.5 weeks pregnant. I've been feeling the baby move for a long time now and Luke's been able to feel the movements for a couple of weeks. The past couple of days, the baby must be doing some crazy somersaults or something because we've both been able to SEE my belly move when the baby does!! I haven't had another doctor's appointment yet. We're waiting to get our group and policy numbers with our new insurance. I have my first appointment down here scheduled for a couple of weeks. We should be getting another ultrasound soon, so more pictures to come (yay!)!!

Potty Time!!

I won't go into too much detail or post the picture that I texted to Jack's daddy and grandmas (and his Aunt Liz who didn't appreciate it ;) ). All I'll say is Jack pooped in the potty for the first time Friday and this is one proud mama!! Hopefully we can continue down the potty training road with some success :)

Life in Greenville

Well, we've been pretty busy since our move! We almost completely settled into our apartment now. Luke had his first day at work yesterday (which went GREAT!). Yesterday we also celebrated Luke's 27th birthday and went out to eat with a bunch of family here in town. Jack and Laura visited downtown for about an hour today. It's so fun down there, but SOOO HOT!! All in all, everything's going great so far!! I (Laura) don't have much access to the internet right now, so I'll go ahead and apologize in advace for the lack of posts. Thanks everyone for all your prayers and all of your continued support of our family!!

Our BIG move!!

I think that most people have heard by now, but our family is moving to Greenville, SC!! We are so excited about this opportunity that God has provided us with! It's something we've prayed about for over a year. Luke accepted a job at the University of South Carolina Upstate as their Director of IT Client Services. We move down next week and he starts July 26 (His Birthday)!!

If that's all the info. you want, you can stop reading now. If you want to hear more details about how we've seen God's hand in the midst of this whole process, keep reading :)

WHY GREENVILLE?
Luke's parents, 3 of his brothers and a whole slew of aunts, uncles and cousins live in Greenville. Also, Laura's family lives in Georgia, about 3.5 hrs. away from Greenville. We're currently 8 hrs. away from Laura's family. We've wanted to be closer to family for a long time now and have been specifically praying about moving to Greenville for more than a year.

THE JOB
Luke first applied for another position at USC Upstate. He received an email from the vice-chancellor of IT (Jeanne) saying he was not qualified for that position, but that they would be posting another position soon that he was qualified for and to apply for it once he saw it on their website. Several weeks later, Luke saw the position posted on a Monday night. He submitted his application and sent his resume to the vice chancellor and got a call Tuesday morning before 10 am about an interview! We ended up driving down to Greenville after Luke got off work Wednesday, he interviewed on Thursday, and was back at work at LU on Friday. Talk about a quick trip!! We later found out that the Jeanne did not even have his application (only his resume) when she interviewed him! That in itself is a God-thing.

We got the job offer call a couple of weeks after Luke's interview and accepted the next day. When Luke called back to accept the job, he asked if they would pay any moving expenses. Jeanne told him she had never heard of them doing that before, but that she would ask. Turns out they're going to reimburse us up to $1,500 of moving costs! Thank you, Lord!

THE HOUSE
Prior to anything with this job, we had dinner with our neighbors and mentioned that once we have another baby, we'd probably start looking for another house. Now, this is before we were pregnant again. After we found out we were going to have another baby (which was a surprise to us!) and told our neighbors, they remembered what we previously said about our house. I guess you should know that our neighbors only live next to us part of the year; they also have a home in Vermont. Before they left for Vermont, they told us to let them know if we were planning to sell our house, that they were interested in buying. This is all before we knew about the job! Since accepting this new job, we have talked with them several times and they are going to buy our house!! What a blessing!! We will never have to even put it on the market! The even bigger blessing is that once everything is said and done we won't have to pay anything else on the house. This is really great considering today's economy and the fact that we bought our house at the peak of the market. What a God-thing that we won't be loosing any money! We do have a few things to fix up on the house before our neighbors take possession, but most of them are minor things. The biggest thing is that we need to replace is the linoleum in the kitchen and back door, but it's definitely something that needs to be done. We really feel that we would not have gotten a better deal if we had listed with a realtor.

THE NEW PLACE
We left Lynchburg Sunday after church and headed for Greenville to look for apartments. Our plan was to spend the day looking at apartments on Monday, and Tuesday if needed. Well, Sunday night Luke's uncle came over to his parents house to drop some stuff off and metioned that maybe we could rent Allison's (his daughter's) condo. We went Monday morning and looked at one apartment, then we went to check out Allison's condo. We knew going into it that renting from Allison would be the best deal for us. Since we only want to do a 3 month lease while we look for a house, all the apartment complexes charge an extra $100 a month for short term leases. Plus there are application fees, pet fees, deposits, etc., etc., etc. We had lunch with Allison and discussed the details if we rented her place. We would have none of those fees. Over lunch, Allison also shared with us that she was planning on moving back in on July 4, but just didn't because she was too busy. So, it's a God-thing that her condo is even available for us to stay in!

After lunch with Allison, we were going to visit 2 more apartments just to check them out. We got to the first one. No one was in the office and the door was locked. And they looked a little too ghetto for me, so we decided to head on to the next one. We got to the next one and they looked nice, but there was a sign up saying they wouldn't be back until 2:30. It was only 2:00. We didn't really feel like waiting around for a half hour, so we took it as a sign from the Lord that he was providing us another place to live. So, we left and went home (well, to Luke's parent's hosue that is).

THE PLAN NOW
We're packing up our house right now and we're planning on moving everything down Tuesday of next week! We'll have to put a lot of stuff in storage for a few months. Hopefully we'll get to know the area quickly (schools and such) and will be able to find a house we like and buy it! Our goal is to be in a house and settled before Baby #2 comes in January. We're shooting for October to purchase a home in Greenville and Luke is shooting for baby # 2 to come this year :-).

Precious Moments :)

This probably goes down as one of my favorite, sweetest moments with Jack so far :) I was on the phone with Luke and was going to put Jack down for his nap when I got off. I guess he just couldn't wait a few more minutes! I let him sleep like this for a little bit because it was just too sweet. I didn't want to get up and put him in his bed, but I knew it must be done....especially if I want to get a nap ;)

Sidenote: Yes, that is a pink paci. He has a particular kind he likes and they needed replacing...BAD. I checked all over the place and couldn't find some exactly like he had. I finally found a pack, which included a pink paci. This is the one we keep in his bed. He's probably gonna kill me when he gets older for posting a picture of him with a pink paci!!

Jack has something to tell you!!

Jack's been waiting for weeks and he won't let us make him wait any longer. He has something very important and exciting he wants to tell you! Go ahead, Jack:

I don't know how it happened,

but I'm obviously VERY excited about it!!

Here's a picture of my little brother or sister. The baby's 10 weeks old in this picture and his/ her head is down. You can see a cute little arm sticking out - awwww!

No, it's not a boy. That's an arm.

Q & A time:

Q: How far along are you? 11 weeks

Q: When's your due date? January 5, 2012

Q: How are you feeling? A Pretty good. I'm mostly over feeling nauseous. I'm just really tired! This pregnancy has been MUCH better than the first so far!

We went last week for our first doctor's visit, where we got to see Baby V #2. We are so blessed! Baby looks healthy and has a strong heartbeat. Mom is doing very well, too. We praise God for such a great report! (If you remember from my pregnancy with Jack, our first report was not all perfect.)

Got Weed?

First, let me explain the title of this post. I asked Luke, "What's a good title for our garden blog post?" "Got Weed?" was his response! hahaha He sure keeps things interesting around here!!

If you've been keeping up with our blog, you know from my post about 2 months ago that I started some vegetable seeds for a garden. Our wonderful, super-generous neighbors gave us 8 different types of organic veggie seeds. Of course, I should've planted these in the ground a LONG time ago, but we have just been so busy and out of town so much that we haven't gotten around to it. Yesterday, we FINALLY planted our veggies in the ground! Now I'm just praying that they will take to the soil (well, mostly clay) and actually grow into something we can eat!!

That's the tiller that our other awesome neighbor (who owns a lawn care business) let us borrow to get the ground ready for our garden. We (and by "we" I mean Luke) seriously would not have been able to do this without a tiller!

Jack "helping" Luke get the ground ready. Not sure how a golf club helps....but I'm sure somehow it does ;)

Luke mixing in some soil with our wonderful clay yard.

AAAnnnnd......the after picture!! That's our ghetto cheap way of making something for the tomato plants to grow up - hahaha! We had some lattice left over from a couple of years ago when Luke put some around our back deck. Thrifty (uhh....cheap), huh??

What's in our garden, you ask? Well, there's Sweetie Tomatos, Rutger Tomatos, Romaine Lettuce, Oakleaf Lettuce, Onions, Peppers, Okra, and Collards.

Beach Time!!!!

Last week my sis-in-law, Liz, her daughter Sophie, and Jack and I were able to go with our in-laws to the beach for 3 days! Our hubbies weren't able to go with us because they couldn't take the time off work. It sure is wonderful to have such a good relationship with your spouse's parents that you can go on vacation with them without your spouse. God has certaintly blessed me with wonderful in-laws!!

I'm really bad at taking pictures, so I only got a few on the first day we were at the beach. Here they are:

Jack and Sophie playing with YaYa and Grandpa on the beach :)

YaYa playing with Jack in the ocean. Jack LOVED the water and the waves!!

Figuring out how to dig in the sand....

....and then put the sand in the bucket!