29 weeks

I can't believe that we are almost to the end of this journey! 11 more weeks to go! Hopefully it'll be sooner than that. But at this point I will just be glad if we don't go past my due date. I have a sweet friend that thought she would go early and ended up going late!

Here is an updated picture of me. I am starting to wonder why I keep posting these. In each one my face gets a little more full as do my arms. But hey, I figured it's fun for you guys to see the progress and it'll be fun to look back on. This picture is from yesterday. Some sweet friends threw me a shower. It was my first one here in Charlotte. We had such a great time and it meant so much to me to be surrounded by these women that have truly walked through life with my family and I. Many of them have known me since the day I was born. We felt loved beyond measure. Thanks to Norma and Missy for an amazing shower!



Updates on the house:
The new house is still coming along great! We have siding up and shutters! It looks so great! We went out there last night and things are really progressing. They have all the insulation in as well. This week they will be doing all the drywall. So we are still on track to close on either the 12th or 13th of August. So exciting! Anyone that wants to come help us move in that weekend is more than welcome. :) I promise we'll feed you and keep you hydrated! Ha! here's a picture of the house that we took last night.



We'll have more updates on Sweet Baby James later this week. Thursday we have our next appointment. This will be our final ultrasound of our little guy. The next time we'll see him will be live and in person! Can't wait to update you on how he is doing!

Praising the Lord

What a day yesterday was! To fill you all in. A few weeks ago we found out that my sister Kelly had a tumor on her ovary. At first they thought it was a cyst, but after further scans determined that it was in fact a tumor. Long story short she met with the her Oncologist this Tuesday and he told her that he would not be able to do surgery to remove the tumor for about 2-3 weeks. It was a bit discouraging because as you can imagine Kelly just wanted this thing out of her. Yesterday I got a call from Kelly saying that she was in excrutiating pain so I rushed to her house. (Gorden was in Columbia for work)My mom and I took Kelly to the hospital per her doctors orders and found out that she would get to have the surgery that day. After a full day at the hospital Kelly's surgery began around 4pm. It lasted about 2 hours. And when I say that it was a success, I mean success! The Doctor told Gorden he could not be delivering better news. Kelly's tumor that originally was the size of a softball had grown to the size of a volleyball. (hence the pain) He was able to remove the tumor and not have to remove her ovary. The best news was that the tumor was BENIGN! God is so good!
She had a really rough night filled with pain and vomitting, but I am sure Kelly would say she would rather have all of that than have that tumor in her! I ask that you continue to pray for healing for Kel. But also that you join us in praising our sweet Heavenly Father for his grace and compassion. We all sat around yesterday and talked about how evident it was that God was in all of this. He protected Kelly and took care of her in a way that no one would have been able to do. It was a huge reminder that our trust can only be placed in Him. When we are weak, HE is strong!

10 things I am thankful for right now...

1. That this weeks marks me entering into my 3rd and FINAL trimester!
2. That yesterday we got to celebrate Manny's first Father's Day
3. Air Conditioning...Can I get an AMEN!
4. Peanut Butter and Strawberries (just two of the lovely thing I crave right now)
5. That my Best Friend is about to have her little girl...any day now!
6. That Sweet Baby James moves all the time. I truly think that once he is here I will miss this feeling. It is so awesome!
7. That the World Cup is on...Weird I know, but if you could see how much my husband loves/gets into it you would understand. It makes him happy, so therefore it makes me happy!
8. For my sister's Doctor's appointment tomorrow. She has been so patient in waiting, so there is much to be thankful for that it is tomorrow.
9. Air Conditioning....I just feel like it deserves a second shout out. I mean until you all are pregnant in the dead of summer, you will never quite understand! :)
10. For my family. As mentioned in previous post, this has been one heck of a month for us. So I am just thankful for each and every one of them. The one positive to all this craziness is the fact that it brings us all closer and we lean on eachother in a new and different way. With them I can be real, I can just be me. I love them all for that.

* Just felt like today needed two posts! :)

Updates on the new house!

Well things are coming right along with our new house. We had a meeting with them this week and we are set to close on either August 12th or 13th! So just in the nick of time before Sweet Baby James gets here!

As far as our current house goes, the showings have definitely picked up! We anxiously await an offer, but continue to remind ourselves that this is all in God's timing and not our own.

On a funny note, the people in our new neighborhood have nicknamed our house the "Preacher House". Apparently several of them have walked through and seen all the verses that we wrote on the walls and thought that it was weird. Now they call it the Preacher House. We got a good laugh out of that! I can't wait till we are all moved in and get to meet all these new neighbors! Ha!

Here are some new pictures of the house. It's so fun to see the progress.

Trusting in Him

What does that even look like? As I sit here and want with all that I am to constantly trust the Lord and know that he has a plan, I find it very difficult to do at times. This past week we were delivered some difficult news in our family. And although at the end of last week I struggled to understand what God was up to, I sit here today knowing that the only place that I can put my trust is in Him. I will never understand his timing or ways on this side of life. I don't even think that I would want to. But what I do know is that God promises to continually meet us where we are at and he promises to "show up". One verse that continues to always bring me comfort is Proverbs 3:5-6:
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight"
My prayer is that in the weeks to come and the uncertainties that follow that I remember this verse. That I continue to seek Him and walk in His ways. Life will always throw things our way that we think we cannot handle and that are hard, but I don't want to get through all the hard times and say I wish I had trusted you Lord. Instead I want to say faithfully that I did trust Him and be able to give Him the praise that he is so worthy of!

Bless this house

So this past weekend we invited a few close family friends and family out to our new home to Bless our house. Everyone spread out and took the time to write bible verses and blessings on the framing of our new house! I cannot begin to describe to you how amazing and powerful it was. As we stood in Sweet Baby James' room and wrote God's word on his walls and then moved to other rooms throughout the house. The Holy Spirit was definitely amongst us that day and it was something that I will not forget. I went through and took pictures of all of the verses. I've included some of them here. Our prayer is that our home will continue to be filled with the Lord and that we will always seek him as we go through life.

Belly Time

Here I am at 26 weeks. Looking large and in charge!



I go to the doctor today, so I'll be sure to post updates on how James is doing!