Maternity Pictures - Sneak Peak!

I had my maternity pictures tonight and here is a little sneak peak from the photographer! I'm much further along now (36 weeks) than I was when I had my maternity pictures with Madison Claire so I wasn't quite sure how I was going to feel about them (READ: I'm almost too big to feel cute anymore....).

I can't wait to see all of the pictures! I'll post a link to the gallery once I get it! In the meantime - enjoy this little sneak peak :) Special thanks to Karen Halbert Photography for the great photos!

Happy Easter!!

Madison Claire spent the week before Easter with the McSwains in Ohio. Ryan's cousin Billy got married on Thursday night and Gary & Cheryl took Madison Claire up for the wedding festivities. She got to see her great grandma & great grandpa Terry and her great grandpa McSwain. Word on the street is that they were all smitten with her!! They stayed in a hotel room with 2 double beds and the McSwains said that Madison Claire slept great...Praise the Lord! She was gone from Tuesday - Saturday and Ryan and I enjoyed the time home alone but by Saturday morning we were ready to see her!

We met up with the McSwains on Saturday at an Easter Egg Hunt that was sponsored by their church. I wasn't sure how Madison Claire would react when she saw us, but it was priceless - she took off running across the grass towards us and was so happy!! It was her first Easter Egg Hunt and she had fun as you can see from the pictures below. She did start getting upset that she had to wait so long and couldn't just go right for the eggs but that's my fault for walking her down there 10 minutes before it started. Lesson learned - next time I'll go down 1 minute before it starts! On another funny note - Ryan said that we are teaching kids the wrong definition for the word "hunt" and that it should be called an "easter egg gathering" or "easter egg pick up" because there was NO hunting involved!

This morning, we headed to our wonderful church - Cumberland Church - for the early service. We helped serve and it was a wonderful service. I was hoping to get a picture of Madison Claire in her easter dress but this pretty much sums up how she feels about getting her picture taken:

So...I gave up and decided that one with my sweet hubby would suffice:

And then finally at the end - we got a few family shots:

After church, we went to Wild Ginger for lunch. Madison Claire is engaged in a deep conversation with Ryan here about coloring on her kids menu.

We finished up our day with a great dinner with the McSwains. What a great day and weekend with family...we are so blessed....and yet it doesn't even come close to the blessing of our resurrected savior, Jesus! Happy Easter, everyone!

Playing with Daddy

Madison Claire LOVES her daddy...and who wouldn't when he is this much fun:

and if that wasn't enough:

Talking to Annie

Madison Claire's new favorite thing to do is to talk to people on the phone. I will call someone and then give her the phone and she holds it up to her ear and waits and waits while it rings until someone answers. She then proceeds to announce herself with a loud "HI"!!! Sometimes she talks coherently, sometimes she totally rambles, 100% of the time she is sad when the conversation is over. Thanks to everyone who takes her calls!!

Here she is talking to Annie the other morning:

Friends...

We have been so blessed the past few months to be surrounded by some great friends. I'm super thankful for our small group...

Fun, late night dinners at the Melting Pot with the Kecks....

Going away party for the Tildens...we will miss their sweet family!
Wish that Ash was still in Nashville but happy to see her when we can!

Wish I had some pictures of my womens bible study and all of our other sweet friends who have just surrounded us with love & encouragement & prayers the past few months when I'm sure we haven't been the most fun people to be around. You know who you are and we are and will be forever grateful!

35 weeks

This baby boy (who is still yet to be named) keeps growing, and growing, and growing!! Here are some pictures at 35 weeks...I mean, seriously...I don't know how my belly can get any bigger! I'm starting to feel uncomfortable and tired and just ready for him to be here! For all of you who say I'm just all belly, I have news for you - I'M NOT!!! I've gained 35 pounds which is so frustrating because I've tried really hard to not gain as much as I did with Madison Claire, but I'm tracking right exactly where I was with her. Oh well - my body must need 40 pounds to carry a baby...and that's okay. I just have to remind myself that I will look normal again one day!

We are pretty much ready for baby to get here...outside of me needing to transition some things with work and Ryan needing to find a job! Minor details....

The room is painted, bedding is purchased, clothes have been purchased or borrowed and washed, etc. I still need to pack my hospital bag and put the car seat in the car - we are planning to do that around May 1st. Right now we are hoping for a due date of May 17th but I should know more after my doctors appointment this week. Thanks for the continued prayers!!!

Visit with Kate & Big Girl Bike!

My company conference was last week in Nashville at the Opryland Hotel, so Kate came in town early to spend some time with us & Madison Claire. It was great to have her with us for a few days! She couldn't believe how big Madison Claire has gotten! She had purchased a big girl bike for Madison Claire for her birthday so since we knew Kate was coming in town so close after her birthday, we waited until she got here to give it to her. Her reaction was priceless - her mouth made a big wide "O" and she went running to it! She wanted to ride it all day and would cry anytime we made her stop...needless to say, she LOVES the bike! THANK YOU, Kate! She needs to grow about another inch or two in order to really be able to use it, but she's loving it as is right now!

Welcome to the World, Adelyn McKenna Proctor!

Our good friends David & Mandy had thier sweet baby girl yesterday! Welcome to the world Adelyn McKenna Proctor! She was 6 pounds 14 ounces and 20 inches long. We got to see her today at the hospital and she was PRECIOUS!!!! I can't believe Mandy's little one is here! Now 4 more weeks until our little one can join her in the world! Congratulations, David & Mandy!

Deep Thoughts...

It's been a hard few weeks and months as Ryan and I deal with a lot of uncertainty in our lives right now. I still feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster and I'm not really sure whether I'm headed up the incline or down the slope. I hope I'm on the home stretch getting ready to pull into the covered area and get off! I've had good days and bad days, with some really hard ones lately. I've got friends telling me that I don't seem like myself, and I'll be honest, I don't really feel like myself a lot lately. My heart is just burdened.

Ryan is looking for a job - we are open to moving anywhere, and feeling at this point that there is a high likelihood we will end up somewhere other than Nashville this fall. Please pray for us in this job search - for the right doors to open and for us to have clarity on the next step.

God has been revealing himself to me in different ways throughout this time to remind me that He is in control. One way that He really just pierced my heart recently was through the blog of an amazing young woman named Katie Davis who runs a ministry in Uganda. We have sponsored her in the past and had the chance to meet her several years ago. If you truly want to be inspired - check out her blog at http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com. She had a post a month or so ago that I felt God had her write just so I could read it because it met me 100% where I was in that moment, and where I was on Wednesday of this week. I hope you will take the time to read it:


"We sit in our circle in the dust of a slum and we share our hearts and our prayers. Jja Ja Maria, who looks to be a hundred years old and reaches no higher than my shoulders, is the last to share.

Her life, it has been hard. She is in Jinja because she had to flee from the war in the North that tore apart her life and her family. Her son was shot last week by a soldier on the border of Uganda and Sudan and frail, little Jja Ja had made the 13 hour bus ride in the stifling heat and watched as they had lowered her last living child into the ground. The journey had taken almost a week and when she came back she found her grandchildren sick and even though her whole body ached from travel she still took them to the clinic and continued bending over her work so that she could make enough money to put food on the table. Now she is back and we are happy to embrace her and ask about her journey and ask how we can pray for her.

“What ever He wants," she chuckles.

I look at the joy that is spilling out of her wrinkled face and I repeat the words that she has spoken in my head and that doesn’t make sense. She is hurt and she is suffering and she is laughing about it and sparkling with beauty and radiating Joy.

That doesn’t make sense. Not to me. Not yet.

But she already knows what I am just learning. That even this, it is from Him. Even this, it is Holy ground. This thing that I label suffering, it is really Joy.

“Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” Amos 3:6

I live with these human eyes, and with these human eyes of mine I label. I label one thing as good and one thing as bad. I label moments as blessing or burden. And I forget that all this labeling, it is not my right, not my place, not mine to do. To declare what is a gift in my life and what is a curse is to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to sit in the garden full of abundance and beauty and choose the forbidden. The knowledge of good and evil, that was never intended for me. Could I, like Jja Ja Maria just quit my labeling and say, "Whatever God wants. Whatever HE wants!"


Because God IS. “I AM.” He tells Moses and still today He IS. And if every good and perfect gift is from above, and a Good and Beautiful God can create only good and beauty then these moments that I choose to label as loss and suffering, they are really good and beautiful, perfect gifts?


“See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; it is I who put to death and I who give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal.” Deuteronomy 32:29

Suffering, pain, loss, shame – all these things I have blamed on a broken world, Satan even. But can’t a broken world and even Satan only give what God allows? Suffering, pain loss and shame are only these things because I label them as such. Because I, a sinner, choose to eat from the tree, choose to turn away from nail-scarred hands and ignore the grace and miss the gift. He is beautiful and everything He creates is beautiful and if I choose to label it suffering I am choosing to miss the beauty that is freely offered me."

Wow. I believe that. I 100% believe that is true - if I could only tell myself this every morning, because my heart believes it to be true but my head keeps doubting. I know without a shadow of a doubt that God has a great plan for Ryan (and for me and our family) and that this is a part of that. He knew that we would be right in this exact place, on this exact day, and He knows how this fits into the future that He has planned for us. A future that we can't even fathom ourselves - if that isn't comforting, I don't know what is! I just have to remember this every second of every day.

"Where helicopter go?"

Every day since we were at the beach 3 weeks ago, Madison Claire has asked "Where helicopter go"? On a good day she asks about 5 times, on a bad day she asks about 50 times. She will ask as seriously as she can - "where helicopter go" and no matter what you say in response she will say back to you "high in the tree?" Before the helicopter, she was fascinated with the squirrels in our backyard so she would ask Annie where the squirrels went and Annie would say "high in the tree". Now in her little mind, everything goes "high in the tree". She will ask "Momma - where helicopter go?" and I'll say "to the airport" and she'll say "high in the tree?" and then immediately turn to Annie and say "Aa-ee, where helicopter go?" and Annie will say "up in the sky" and she'll say "high in the tree?" and then immediately turn to whomever else is in the room and ask them. Seriously...sometimes 50 times a day! One last thing - if anyone actually responds with "high in the tree", she'll 100% of the time change her reponse to be "airport?". Stinker, stinker...always wanting to disagree (sounds to me like her daddy :))

"DOCK-TA"

Madison Claire had her 2 year doctors appointment today and thanks to her Elmo Goes to the Doctor DVD (one of her faves) she calls the doctor the "DOCK-TA". It's pretty cute. Anyway - on to the appointment. Overall, everything went well. Here are her stats:

Height - 36 inches, she was off the chart for girls, so above 95%

Weight - 25.5 pounds, 30%

BMI - off the chart, she was like 0.2%

Dr. Heil said he wasn't worried about her BMI even though it was so low because her height showed that she was clearly growing. She's just a thin little thing. She charmed everyone by saying "Thank you" between screams. She won't have any more shots until her 5 year appointment - so Praise the Lord for that!!

Elmo Birthday Party

We celebrated Madison Claire's birthday this weekend with her little friend Grayson. They are one week apart from each other and they both love Elmo & share the same little friend group from church, so Mandy and I decided to partner up and have a small Elmo Party at Granny White Park on Saturday. We went back and forth leading up to Saturday because the weather was supposed to be nice and sunny but on the cold side in the morning. We finally made a last minute decision on Friday to keep it at the park and we were so glad that we did! It was a little windy & chilly, but the kids had such a great time playing! Special thanks to everyone who helped make the day special for Madison Claire & Grayson! Once again...I know there are about one thousand pictures below, but I clearly have issues with picking my favorites, so enjoy!

Madison Claire & Grayson

Elmo Cakes - how perfect!!

The cake bakers - Nanny Annie & Kathryn (or as MC calls "Tat")

Having fun with G-mama

MC loves "Nutmeg"...here she is walking her

LOVES the swing - she did this for at least 30 minutes, saying WEEEEE

Sweet baby Marlee

Baby Jacob - seriously, I think he is the cutest thing I've ever seen!

Peek-a-boo

No birthday party would be complete without a Sonic drink!

Going on a ride with Papa Gary

Hugs for Keatyn Marie

Jenny, Eddie & Marlee

Getting ready for cake

She loves some cake!

Love this series - reminds me of the "jumping" picture from our wedding :)

Mandy, me & Audra (okay - seriously, my stomach looks HUGE!!!)

Sweet Sara

Keatyn Marie LOVED Nutmeg

Ryan has been sick the last few days so he was a trooper at the party!

Madison Claire LOVED spending time with Annie & Zack

Blowing bubbles was her second favorite activity - with Zack holding the bubble bottle

I swear that Madison Claire drank at least several tablespoons of the bubbles - I was somewhat seriously considering calling Poison control! She had the want right up to her lips!

Sweet Grayson - he LOVES his "Ma Ma" (pronounced Mah, Mah...not momma"

The Howard clan...we missed Patrick & Ben

Chillin at home that night...she had such a fun day!