Going to the Chapel

Congratulations are in order again! My little brother Brandon asked Lauren to be his wife and she said yes! It's a very sweet story (guess I should have asked before I shared..BP tell me you want me to remove this. :) ) Brandon works for a boat club on Lake Norman and worked up this whole scam with his boss and wife. First Brandon took her to eat at a place right on the lake. As they were eating, BP said he saw one of the boat club boats parked at the dock. He started looking around for a member. He played like it really bothered him why one of the boats was parked out there. He made a call to the owner's wife asking what was going on. She made up a story about how one of the members got sick and had to leave the boat there. BP conveniently said he could bring the boat back. She thought it was a great idea. What Lauren didn't know was that BP had already planned this with the wife and the wife was in the bar to switch keys with him. She took his car back to the home dock for him. They get on the boat and Lauren thinks she knows what is going on. BP drives around the lake for like 45 mins. Finally he stops and gets down on his knees and washes her feet. He reads her Scripture he had prepared. He then proposed and she said yes. :)

We are so excited for them! Jeremy and I have been praying that the Lord would bring Brandon a Godly, kind, nurturing wife ever since we got married. The Lord has answered those requests and more. We love Lauren and can't wait to make her our sister-in-law! Congrats again guys.. let the wedding planning begin!!

Moving on Up

As if we didn't have enough going on in our lives, we decided to add one more thing. We are moving!
Last week, Jeremy was offered a web designer position at a design agency in Charlotte. He's excited about narrowing his focus (he did web & graphic design along with photography) and the opportunity to work in a small firm along with other designers (right now he's the only one).

There are many great things about this move:
1) More money! :)
2) Bigger city with more to do and more to choose from
3) Closer to Jeremy's family
4) Close to both our brothers and so many friends

We are sad though that we are moving farther from my parents (and they are too!).

As far as the move, we are not sure when it is going to happen. Jeremy is to report to his new job on June 7th, just 2 short weeks. Of course, this is really fast and we have a house here. He is going to have to without us at first and stay in my brother's spare bedroom. As far as Owen and I, we will stay here until we can rent the house out. After talking to a realtor, it looks like the best thing for us is to rent out the house instead of trying to sell it. Since we have only owned this house for a year and half, we don't have a lot of equity in it. We're afraid that we would not break even in the sale so we are going to hang on to it for a while. This also will allow us to be together as a family quicker. Homes here are taking over 6 months to sell at the least and we really just don't have 6 months with the new baby coming.

To help with the renting process, we have found a property management group that will help us. They will collect the rent and be on call for an issues that would come up. Once we rent our house, we can rent a house in Charlotte. Because Charlotte is such a big area, we need the time as well to figure out what area we want to live in.

We are really excited! The Lord has proven faithful in providing Jeremy a new job and we know He will bring us through the rest. We are so thankful for how fast and easy this job search has been this time. Please pray for us that this transition time will be really quick and we can be together as a family as soon as possible.

Messy Eater

Owen has a tendency to wear his food. He loves to get into whatever he is eating and enjoy it to it's fullness.

One day for lunch he had a jelly sandwich. He pulled the pieces apart and licked it first, creating this mess you see on his face, hands, and bib. He gave me this look like, "what? What are you looking at?"

Saturday we made homemade pudding pops. It was Owen's first experience with it and to say he liked it was understatement. As you can tell, it was not a clean adventure.



Poor Jeremy ended up with pudding pop on him too. I think next time we are stripping him down before he gets to eat one.

Sharing The News

To share our news with our families, we wanted to do something more creative than just telling them. So we put our creative juices to work and this is how it turned out.

To tell my parents....

I tried desperately to find some kind of big brother shirt but had no such luck in our small town. Jeremy suggested we just make our own. Thanks to the many years of making shirts for my elementary school kids, I had tons of experience with iron on transfers. Rather than just do a simple big brother shirt, we thought we would do something a little more exciting. My dad calls Owen his little buckaroo. So here is what we came up with...It says, "Papa's Lil' Buckaroo is gettin' a new pardner! -December 2010-." We put the shirt on him one night before we went over for dinner. My parents' chairs sit on either side of the entryway to the living room so we had Owen walk in on his own. He leaned over to say hi to my dad and my mom starts to read his shirt. She said "Owen's shirt says Buckaroo." She asked me where I found it and I realized she hadn't finished reading it. I asked her to keep reading and she was like, "What does this mean? Are you pregnant?" Of course then, Dad picked him up to read his shirt and Mom starts to tear up. I think the shirt was a success! :)

For Jeremy's family...

Jeremy's parents came into town for an overnight visit before his mom's appointment in Durham. We told her we had an early Mother's day present for her since we wouldn't see her for it. She unwraps this.. We tell her there is a slot for every new member of her family that she is gaining this year. For those who don't remember, we have gained 2 new sister-in-laws this year and Erin (Jeremy's sister) will have twins in August. There is a 5th spot for our new baby.

She didn't get it at first. Jeremy finally told her to count and she was like, "Wait there are 5. Are you pregnant!!?" It was really fun to watch her get it! :) We also told her it could be a slot for all her grandbabies now. She is going from 2 to 5 very quickly!

Later she told me that it was funny because she had told her friends that the only way to top last year's gift (a Shutterfly photobook) was to give her another grandbaby. Who knew we would really accomplish it?!

Both families are excited and we are thankful that they are so supportive of us as we become a family of 4!

The Best Christmas Present Ever

Up until now, I would probably say that the best Christmas present I ever got was a sewing machine. Or maybe a swing set. :) This year, I think that will change... this year I'm getting a new baby! That's right.. Owen is going to be a big brother! :)

We had our first doctor's appointment today and Dr. Fisher said everything looks great. She did an ultrasound and found a tiny beating heart. The picture is a horrible quality but you can see the tiny little lima bean.
Here's some answers I have been asked so far..

1. What is your due date? She estimated my due date as Dec. 20th.
2. Were you trying to have another baby? We weren't trying but we weren't always preventing it really either. I probably wouldn't have planned a baby to be born in Dec if I had my way. As being a Dec. baby myself, I hated having all my holidays in one month. Because this one's birthday will be so close, I want to make sure that I make this little one's birthday special.
3. How far apart will the kids be apart? 2 years and 3 months.
4. Are you going to find out the gender. If so, when do you find out the gender? Yes, we are going to find out. It will probably be around July.
5. How are you feeling? I'm feeling ok. I have had some nausea and been really tired. I feel like I've been really lucky.
6. Are your families excited? Yes they are. Jeremy's family is growing leap and bounds this year. There will be 3 new grandkids! My family is excited as well...everyone is hoping for a little girl this time.
7. Do you want a girl this time? Yes, I would love a girl, but I will be happy with a boy too. :)

We are excited about this new little one and can't wait to be a family of 4! Please pray with us for a healthy pregnancy and a baby.

Owen's Developmental Evaluation

Today Owen had his developmental evaluation by the Children's Developmental Services Agency. I was worried how he would perform for a stranger but I was pleasantly surprised how fast he warmed up to the evaluator. She had him perform all sorts of tasks, from placing cubes in a cup to matching objects to completing puzzles. As I feared, he came to a point where he was just done and became clingy. The end didn't go as well but I felt like she got an accurate picture of what he could do. While she scored his evaluation, I fed him lunch and then we went over the results.

He scored in the average range in all his daily activities, socialization, and fine motor skills. He was right on the border with gross and expressive language. He was below standard on receptive language. Because he was below on one and borderline on the others, he was borderline for qualifying for services. The evaluator and I both agreed though that it would be in his best interest to get services. At 19 months, he is too young to qualify for speech therapy so we will do developmental therapy, also called play therapy. For the next 6 months, a therapist will come in once a week for an hour to work on goals that we have put in place. Some of his goals were like being able to name an object instead of just pointing and grunting. We also will work on more coordination activities, seeing how he is still learning to walk on all surfaces (currently he won't walk on any uneven surface, like grass or sand).

People have asked me how I feel about all this. I personally am excited about it. After being a teacher for so many years, I realize the need for early intervention and I want to do anything that will help Owen. As a teacher, I hated when parents were naive or stubborn about their child's need for help because they didn't want a label. I want to help Owen now when he's only a little behind rather than later when he is really behind. I'm looking forward to seeing the activities the therapist brings and implementing them on a daily basis.

Thanks everyone for your support and your advice! I'll keep you updated as we go along.

18 month checkup

Owen went in for his 18 month checkup finally.

He weighed 26 lbs. (33%) and was 31 in long (55%). He evidently has a big head as he is in the 95%. He got 1 shot, which is the last one he needs until he's four.

Though the doctor doesn't really seem worried about his development I have been. While he is walking now, he still behind in his speech and a few motor skills (like stacking blocks). A couple of weeks ago, after getting advice from a few trusted friends and family, I contacted the Child Development Agency about my concerns. I talked to their awesome director and she thought an evaluation may be necessary. She assigned us a service coordinator, who visited us this past Tuesday. The coordinator asked every thing about Owen, from his birth story to all of his routines. She took down all this information and then presented it yesterday to a team of evaluators. They have set up a hearing test on the 20th and an in-home evaluation for the 27th.

Even if nothing is wrong, I'll be glad to have a professional's advice. The evaluation is free so it doesn't hurt to have it done. I look forward to getting the results!