Wedding up North

I just had to share some of the fun pictures from Tim's cousin's wedding last weekend. We had a blast and enjoyed staying at his aunt's house.... WAY better than a hotel.

Ava was the sweetest flower girl

My two boys

The happy couple with Kate's daughter, Ava

Caleb and Ava

The beautiful cake topper that Janna made!

Fun wedding cake

There were goldfish on the tables as part of the decorations. After the reception, they were sent home with anyone that wanted one.

Jamie & Matt (Tim's cousin) with Sonya

Tim's cousin, Lauren with Caleb

Chad, Mary, and Lauren (More relatives!)

Tim's aunt Terri (mother of the bride) and my beautiful, Sonya

Janna holding Sonya

Dancing the night away

Janna and her husband, Nick

There's my Sonya again. She liked watching Nick make faces.

Great is Thy Faithfulness

This is just a short post before I head out to work.....

I'm getting closer to being a stay-at-home mom! Only 7.5 days to go! During the process of decision making, I kept reminding Tim that God is faithful and he will always provide for us. We'll be ok with just him working. We have enough in savings right now to last for a while (unless we buy a house... then it'd be a little more tight with the budget, but still manageable). As Tim's doubt was slowly fading away, a grassroots advocacy position became available at the American Heart Association where he worked. He was about to tell his boss that he was interested, when she said that one of the youth market directors was quitting and wanted Tim to take on additional tasks and more or less get a promotion. (and yes... it'd be a raise of some sort too... not just additional work tacked on to what he is currently doing). No matter which way he goes with his job, it is such a blessing to have these opportunities present themselves so close to my leaving the workforce. It's amazing how perfect that God's timing is. Great is Thy Faithfulness!

6 months old

I can't believe how time flies by. Just the other day at ABF, I was comparing my little Sonya to some of the other new babies and she's SO big next to them. It's hard to imagine that she was that little only 6 months ago. They pick up on just about everything too!

This little munchkin loves to watch people and seems to wait patiently until she has their attention. Then she starts babbling up a storm and smiling like crazy. She loves when people talk to her! Her favorite things to do are play with Caleb, roll everywhere, and put EVERYTHING in her mouth. I set her down in the middle of the living room the other day and between rolling and scootching, she made it to the dining room. She really likes eating paper and playing with plastic bags. (Don't worry! I didn't give them to her.. just found her with them and had to take them away). Silly little girl.

Yesterday at the library, Sonya and Tim were having a little conversation. He told me that he was telling her to say "Hi dad" and she repeated back "ha da." Now, when Tim told me this, I wasn't fully sure I believed him, but had seen her watching us talk and looking like she was mouthing words. Sure enough, later that night, she said it without prompting! I could hear it clear as day and knew exactly what she said. (She wouldn't say "ma" or anything like that for me though... tis sad.)

I don't know if I'm ready for her to start crawling and talking yet. It's still so fun to watch her grow. :-)

A special moment

Tonight as I was tucking Caleb into bed, I sang him a lullaby that I've been slowly trying to phase out since it's more of a baby (and maybe a bit girly) song. I can't believe how big he has gotten. He's FOUR! It seems like it's just happened in the blink of an eye and I feel like I missed a huge chunk of those changes because I was at work. The daycare got to see him more than I did, I think. I enjoyed my special moment with Caleb, taking a stroll down memory lane and cuddling him in my arms. I love my little cuddle boy... he doesn't do it very often anymore... unless hanging on me is the equivalent. lol

I'm SOOO looking forward to being at home fulltime. I'll get to see some of those moments with Sonya that I missed with Caleb and I'll hopefully get to catch up and spend more time with my little boy. God has blessed me beyond belief. My kids are wonderful...even when they're driving me crazy. My husband is amazing... even when I think I'm always right and probably drive him nuts with my mood swings. He rarely argues with me and makes sure that the family is taken care of. Above all, he constantly tells me that he loves me. I almost take it for granted, but just writing this... I'm reminded of the love we have for each other. I'm going to stop writing and spend some time with that man right now.... :-)

To work or not to work

So, I've been talking with my supervisor to figure out if I want to continue working when Caleb starts 4k. I have been wanting to stay at home with my little man for a while. Now that we have two kids, I want to be at home even more. It's not even the fact that daycare is a bit expensive. I just need to have the special time with my children while they're still little. They need their mommy. Plus, they won't be my babies for too long and I want to enjoy it while it lasts. Some day, they'll be teenagers and won't even want to spend time with me anymore.

Anyway, going back to my job..... I had been quite torn on whether or not I wanted to try doing part-time from home. I wasn't given an exact offer or anything, but they wanted to work with me since they felt I was a very valuable employee. Heck, I've done everything from training other employees to translating big chunks of the website into Spanish to helping test new technology and even assist with designing the new 1-pg application. I can see that they wouldn't want me to leave. In fact, most days, I like my job... or at least I used to like it more. Maybe it's the anticipation of not working anymore that makes it harder for me to leave the house in the morning. I just miss cuddling with my baby in the morning and spending time with Caleb all day while I was on maternity leave. I had a lot more energy for my family then.

The part-time, working from home opportunity was very appealing, but I just kept picturing my life becoming even more hectic as I tried to shuttle Caleb to and from 4k and then have both kids in daycare while I'm actually working. It'd be cheaper to work in the mornings while Caleb was in school and Sonya is at daycare because then we'd only pay for 1 kid vs. 2. Then, it probably wouldn't even be worth it to try and work 10 hours a week. Also, I didn't think it would be fair to give either my family or my job less than 100% so I had to make a decision. I had been praying about it for months and then all of a sudden, I realized that my priorities had changed when I went back to work after maternity leave. God had always been the center, then came family (and close friends), and lastly there was work. But, I was noticing that work was consuming my thoughts since the majority of my time during the week is spent at work. Then I was thinking how I didn't see my kids and husband because of work. God seemed to be on a back-burner.

It became clear to me that God needed to be #1 in my life again and that's how I decided to be.... a full-time stay-at-home mom starting in September!!!!  :-) I'm excited, but a little nervous on how everything will work out. It'll be nice to get stuff done around the house and have a little more time to myself to blog or play music or maybe even paint! I'll be able to spend some time with friends and other moms. Hopefully I can even get a nap or two in during the week so that I'm more fun to be around when Tim gets home! Above all, I'll be able to focus more on God and get involved with some sort of ministry again. God is good and he definitely spoke to me while making this decision. I just had to open my heart and listen. I'm so glad I did. :-)

4th of July Weekend and Birthday Fun!

This weekend went by way too fast! 

It was a lot of fun though. 

Friday night, we headed out to the Lion's Den Park and walked out to the lake. 

On Saturday, the Ferguson, Smith, and Wynveen families met us at Possibility Playground to celebrate Caleb's 4th birthday. There really aren't a lot of little boys at church that are Caleb's age, but I was kind of glad not to invite 20 kids since smaller get-togethers are more fun.

 The boys enjoyed playing with Caleb's new soccer ball.

 (p.s. I think Tim loved playing soccer with the boys too!)

I was kind of sad that Joey had left before I could a pic with him and the boys though... :-(... at least I got a pic of his sister with Sonya! ......It's kind of slow to upload the pictures one by one... so I'll probably post a few more pictures later when I have some more free time. :-)

Another baby play date

Last night, we got the babies together again. I can't believe how much they've grown!!! Kayla, Debbie, and I walked to the park with the kids while Tim and Nathan threw a softball around. Caleb played on the slide and watched us laugh at the babies.

Our cute little munchkins!

(Levi, Sonya, and Jonathan)

Cute little bums... :-)

I love hanging out with my mom friends. It's so nice that our kids are close in age because we are constantly comparing what the other is doing or where our kids are at developmentally. Even though each kid has their own uniqueness, we're all in the same boat and can totally relate to each other. I'm constantly amazed by how quickly our little babies have become more alert and can hold their heads up. Soon, they'll ALL be rolling around. Watch out, moms! Here we come!