Saturday, December 20, 2008

On the Road Again!

Just headed in the other direction!! I am so excited to be going home to see everyone! We left this morning around 5:00. We are currently in N. Georgia so we still have a LONG way to go... But so far so good. We stopped and got breakfast and Starbucks. Andon has already watched one movie. And has already asked if we are in Florida about 50 times. :)

Here are a couple pictures of the back seat passengers...



And of course the handsome driver.. :)


Please pray for safe travel for us. It is pouring where we are and visibility is awful!

Thanks so much!

~Jen

Monday, December 15, 2008

Our sweet little Juma

Last night we sat down as a family and went through the Compassion International website. Compassion International is a Christian child advocacy ministry that aids children all over the world. We have been talking about sponsoring a child forever so it was very fun to actually do it!

If you go through the website they have many pictures of children who need a sponsor. It only costs 32.00 a month to help provide food and clean water, medical care, educational opportunities, important life-skills training and most importantly they will hear about Jesus!

We narrowed it down (it is so hard to choose) to a sweet little 4 year old boy in Tanzania, East Africa. His name is Juma and he has no siblings and lives with his grandparents. The website tells you what chores they do around the house and what they like to do for fun. We can write him letters and sweet cards anytime we want!

We are so excited to be a small part of Juma's life. Even though Andon thinks he is already his brother and that we may go get him!! :)

I put a link on the side of my page if anyone is interested in sponsoring a child.

~Jen

Friday, December 12, 2008

It's Snowing Here!!

Yesterday evening when Jared came home he said it was lightly snowing outside. I looked and it really wasn't much. It already has snowed once but just a few flurries and I was freaking out! Hey, I was born and raised in Florida, what do you expect? :) Well a few hours had gone by, Andon was in bed sleeping and Jared and I just finished watching a movie. I kept hearing people outside and had to know what the fuss was all about. I looked out the window and everything was pure white!! It was so bright outside that it looked like daylight! It was beautiful! I was running around the house so excited. We had to wake Andon up because he has been waiting to be able to make a snowball! :) So we all got dressed and headed out to play for a little.

I didn't have my camera last night or I would have pictures. But, I did get it today!! Yes, I know that is very exciting to everyone reading this... Probably not, but I am thrilled to have it back before Christmas. :)

So, here are a few pictures of Andon playing in the snow today...


Here he is making one of the many snow angels he made! :)


And here he is eating the snow! Don't worry, I reminded him of the yellow stuff... :)


Andon is home today because they called off school for this little bit of snow! He can say he had his first "snow day"! :)

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Rockin Out at the Show!

I mentioned in a previous post that when Jared was working the YS Convention here in Nashville, Andon and I were able to hang out one of the days. We had so much fun hanging in the booth and walking around the show looking at all the fun stuff there.

One booth was a company that does youth camps in Colorado so they had fake snow blowing out the whole time with a really neat outdoorsy backdrop. Andon brought me back to that booth four times to play in the snow. I guess he thought it was real. :) There was also live music playing just a few booths down from where we were which was so fun.

Jared's company was having a contest running in their booth and the prize was the game Guitar Hero. So in between all the people playing, Andon would grab the guitar and rock out a little. While he was playing Pam snapped this photo for me. Thanks, Pam!

He loves playing guitar and really any instrument. So for Christmas one of his gifts is a new guitar and lessons. Jared and him are going to learn together! I don't know, maybe this Nashville thing is already starting to rub off on us! :)

Monday, December 1, 2008

Pics with Santa!

A couple friends of mine have posted pictures of their kids with Santa from the last few years and I loved it! So I went looking for the pics of Andon and Santa. Trying to figure out which years I took him and actually have a picture to show!

Andon was born in November of 2003 and we didn't take him to see Santa that year so no picture. :(

I did take him in 2004 but I didn't get the picture on a CD and I didn't bring a camera so I have a really cute picture that I can't post. It is the cutest one, you know when they are screaming their heads off to get away from the crazy man!

I guess I didn't take him to see him in 2005 either because I can't find a picture and really can't remember taking him. Oh my, I can't believe I am talking about this! I know this is a big tradition with some people and you really wouldn't miss it but it hasn't really been to us. Though I will say it has been fun the last few years taking him!

Here are a couple pictures from 2006...



Here are a couple pictures from 2007...


And here is the pic from this year... We took him over while Daddy was home for the week of Thanksgiving.

I have to say, the Santa in Florida was awesome! The Santa here was very sweet but the colors of the photos and the whole setup wasn't nearly as good. But oh well, Andon didn't notice a differance.
It was so cute watching him talk to him so seriously about some Batman toy he wanted. And Santa was looking up at us saying "Oh a Batman toy, good". So funny! I don't really remember that from the years before so it was very funny to me.

On a side note, I really can't stand not having a camera around. There are so many times I have gone to pull it out. I haven't heard back from Nikon yet as to when I will be getting it. Hopefully before Christmas!!

I took Andon to his first Tae Kwon Do class today. They told us to come at 3:50 so we did and when we got there the guy said the class starts at 4:30. So he gave Andon a private lesson until the class began. We get 2 classes for free as well as the adorable uniform! And then we can decide if we want to enroll him. I think we will after Christmas vacation. It was so fun to watch him learning from a Tae Kwon Do master, I was just sitting in the back quietly watching and smiling.

Jared had the last week off and we spent a lot of time together. Watching movies, eating way too much food and getting some Christmas shopping done. The only bummer thing was the day before Thanksgiving we decided to upgrade our software from Tiger to Leopard or something like that and cleared out our internet!? It was terrible! I'm not on the computer that much but to not be able to go on it AT ALL was no fun. And it was like that for 5 days! Anyway, I'm back in business and the computer is running better and faster than ever!

Hope everyone is doing well!! All 10 of you who read this!! :)

Friday, November 21, 2008

Just one of those days...

I just want to write a quick post about how my day has started off.

I guess I should first tell you about yesterday.

My husband left the house at 8:30a.m. and didn't return until 11:45p.m. His company is at the Youth Specialties Convention here in Nashville until Sunday. So needless to say it was a long day. I had mine and Andon's day all scheduled out with school time here at home and plenty of play time. You know with only having one kid you are the playmate! :) But for some reason all throughout the day I felt like I was being attacked. I kept focusing on negative things and just crying and feeling so sad for myself. I even thought to make a list of all the things I am sad about or struggling with and then I told myself that I have so much to be thankful for as well so I better write that list too. I really wanted to write them down, get them out of my head and just give it to God. I'm not going to write out the things here but I will tell you that loneliness has been a big one. Missing my friends and family and Andon's little friends from home so much. I am making new friends here and I am so thankful that God quickly put them in my path. But I still ache inside, just typing this brings tears to my eyes.

Well this morning after I dropped Andon off at his Mom's Day Out I headed to the bookstore. When I was getting out of the car I saw a family of six getting out of their car. Something about them just caught my attention and felt very familiar. I really wanted to talk to the wife. But I thought how can I just walk over to them and tell them that, they will totally think I am crazy!

So I headed to the store and outside were these clearance baskets that I had to go through. As I am going through those baskets one of their kids asks if they can look so the parents stop with him. I thought here's your opportunity! So I asked them if they were on vacation, because it's 9:30 in the morning and they were all dressed up like they were going somewhere. They said they were traveling from Illinois to Florida! So quickly the wife and I started talking and I had told her that we just moved here three months ago from Florida. As I was talking to her I noticed their youngest daughter who they adopted from China had a cleft lip that had been repaired beautifully. I was so excited to tell her all about Andon and show her pictures of my precious boy. It was so nice to be able to tell her how the last few years have gone with surgeries and therapy and see God show himself in so many ways.

Then we started to talk about moving. I was having to fight back the tears (you know, don't want her to think I am crazy)... She said they have moved quite a bit in the last few years due to her husbands job and that it gets easier after the first couple of months. She said she realized that every time they moved God had something better for them where they were going. I told her I got that from God too but have yet to see it. We then got out my bible because she wanted to give me a verse to really soak in. She said she really loved the whole Chapter of Isiah 43. Which happens to be one of my favorites as well. Isiah 43:1 has meant a lot to me. That is the verse I have on the side of my blog. It says...

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine."

Really, that says's everything to me.

She wanted to read to me Isiah 43:18,19 "Forget the former things; do not dwell in the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."

She said it's just learning to trust Him through this hard time.

And I do.

I just have those days where I have to tell Satan and tell him loud to get behind me! And yesterday I didn't. I was attacked until the time I fell asleep holding my precious little boy. (When Jared's not home at night I let him sleep in my bed :)).
I actually fell asleep with him telling me "Mommy I just want to look at you" while rubbing my face. Does it get any better then that?! Sweet thing.

I am once again amazed by our Heavenly Father. He put me in the path of a family traveling from Illinois to Florida. They were just waiting for TJ Maxx to open to grab their daughter a coat and then getting on their way. Thank you so much God for allowing me to meet Melissa and her family even if it was just for 45 minutes in a book store.

We did exchange e-mail addresses, I just have a feeling we will always be in contact.:)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

My camera broke!!

I don't really know what happened but my camera is broken! I sat on the phone with the manufacturer trying to figure out what was wrong with it and no luck. I am so bummed because it's the only one I have. We are shipping it to Nikon today and they said it could be up to 3 weeks with shipping and everything!

Ever since I started blogging I see differant things we do as an opportunity to take pictures to post about. Now I feel like I have nothing to post about! :) I'm sure I do but I just like to add pictures.

We put up our little christmas tree! Yes, already. Andon and I got so excited about Christmas and wanted to decorate so when Jared came home he said "let's do it". So the apartment looks so cute and festive. We had to use Andon's little tree that we usually put in his bedroom for our living room so it wouldn't be too crowded. And of course we decorated his bedroom with lights and garland. It looks really fun. I'm sorry that I have no pictures to show.

And last night we decorated a cute little gingerbread house. Well it looks cuter on the box but ours is pretty good. And no pics of that either....

Well with no pictures i'm going to have to try and let my true writing talents shine through!! We'll see how many posts I have written before I get my camera back! If i've been gone for a while you'll know why! :)

Friday, November 14, 2008

It's my turn!

A few of my friends from home have passed around this fun Tag. You have to write a list of 15 things you aren't afraid to admit. So here goes....

1. I have lived a great deal of my life held captive by fear. It comes and goes. But through my relationship with God I know that I am free in Him who gave His life for me.

2. There have been many times where I have found myself saying way too much in a conversation with people I don't know very well. By the time it's over I leave and just can't believe what I have said!! I get nervous and start spilling the beans!! Oh my! My stomach hurts right now thinking about it! :)

3. I recently tried Jared's cigar out of curiosity and liked it!

4. I am a very simple person. Not simple minded just a simple girl. Living in a world where I don't understand a lot that goes on out there.

5. I am Deeply In Love with my husband. I Thank God for him daily. I have been blessed with a man who loves God, and his family above anything else. He is selfless in so many ways. We are best friends and truly in love. I am thankful.

6. I truly believe that the three of us together as a family is just the sweetest and absolutely perfect.

7. But if God would allow or bless us with more children that would be perfect too!

8. I don't really like our dog. I know that's sad because i'm the one who wanted to get her for Andon for his 4th birthday. But her shedding and the responsibility of walking her and picking up the poop is disgusting!

9. I would love to live on a few acres, grow a HUGE garden, hang my clothes out on a clothes line and walk around bare-footed all the time. Just living simply!! See #4.

10. In the past few months I have learned to live more frugally. I always think i'm doing pretty good and then I look at Cassie's blog and realize I could be doing way better! :)

11. I miss our church from home terribly!! After church shopping for the last three months I am starting to think there isn't anything like it.

12. I don't know much about a lot of things but I know a lot about the important things. My relationship with God, my marriage and my son. And I pray that I continue to learn daily.

13. I could drive through Starbucks every day but my budget and husband won't allow me.

14. I am in denial about having a slight form of OCD. Ex: I will vacuum the carpets three times a day because of the dog! By the way, this one was my husband's idea! :)

15. The Lord profoundly changed our lives with the birth of our son. It hurled us into a deep and intimate relationship with Him. That we are so thankful for every day!

There you have it! Do what you will! :)

I am not sure really who has done this. I will go ahead and tag...... Sunday, Elizabeth and Cass. Have fun!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Corduroy comes home!

This weekend Andon got to bring Corduroy home from school. When I picked him up Friday he came running out of music class grinning from ear to ear about this!

When we went for orientation to meet his teacher on the first day she told us how she let's every kid have a chance to take him home and we have been waiting ever since. Last week when another little boy's name was called Andon came walking out with tears in his eyes! Sweet little guy! I told him " your chance will be soon".. And his name was pulled next.

Here are a bunch of pictures from our weekend with Corduroy. He's going back to school tomorrow...

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Praying for our Children

I've added a little button on my sidebar from my friend Angie's blog. Well, we're not really friends yet... :) I've been in a couple bible studies with her and we keep saying we're going to get together for coffee and talk. So, I say we are friends! :)

She wrote a post yesterday with 7 prayers you can pray for your little ones throughout the day. The first one being when they wake up and then when they get dressed, while they are eating, when they go out of the house, while they are taking a bath, when they go to bed and while they are asleep.

I started this yesterday and told Andon what I was doing and when I was going to pray for him next. He was eating his breakfast just listening and then said "now I want to get in the bath"! Because he wanted to hear me pray for him in the bath... So sweet!

Just click on the 7x7 Pray button and you can see the the post she wrote. I wrote each prayer on an index card and just keep them with me all day.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Celebrating at School

Yesterday afternoon I brought cupcakes to Andon's class. When I got there Mrs. Evers had a table all set up and a birthday crown at Andon's chair. I brought Power Ranger plates and napkins because he specifically asked for them!? He asked for them the night before school and I didn't think anything of it. Well in the morning I told Jared I was going to run to Wal-Mart and grab some red plates and Jared said when he was getting him dressed Andon told him "Mommy's bringing Power Ranger plates to my school". So what was I supposed to do!? Cute little thing... :) Here is a pic of him in his class, waiting to eat his cupcake..

And here is his teacher giving him his birthday spanking's. Not really, they were pretend spanking's. I don't think Andon knew what to do though we've never done that before. It was very cute...

It was so fun to be able to go hang out in his class with him and his friends. They are an adorable little bunch of boys and girls and i'm so thankful that Andon is there.

On a side note. Please pray for me... The one and only sad thing about this time is that it's a reminder of how long we have been trying to get pregnant. When Andon turned 2 we decided we were ready to have another baby and obviously that has been 3 years now. It seems a little harder now because Andon keeps saying "I wish I had a brother". He carries around differant toys and say's they are his brother. Sweet boy. We've gone through infertility treatments and testing and the Dr's say there is no reason why we are not getting pregnant. So please pray for us. Anything can happen through the power of prayer.
Thanks so much ~Jen

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Happy 5th Birthday Andon!

My sweet little one's birthday is today. I honestly can't believe he is already five! We spent an hour or so this morning watching videos from when he was a baby. I remember it like it was yesterday. He was the sweetest little baby with his big green eyes and head full of light brown hair. He was standing at my feet in one of the videos trying to say mama and kept saying yaya with this new little voice. And now he is so big in every way. My five year old is over half of my height! He'll definately be taller than me by ten or eleven!

Yesterday we spent the whole day celebrating his birthday because Daddy was home. I let Andon pick what he wanted for breakfast and i'm sure you guessed it, junk food! :) We went and got a donut at Dunkin Donut's. Here's a few pics from there.


For lunch we went to Chuck E. Cheese. It was Andon's first time going there and of course he loved it! We all had so much fun there! Here are a few pics from that...




Andon hit the jackpot on this game!!

I scared all the kids away with my skills!! :)

Yeah this picture, we'll have to do a seperate post about Jared and the honeypot game... :) too funny!!

After dinner we went to Cold Stone Creamery and got some ice cream...

Here's what we did to Andon's room while he was sleeping last night.. He loved waking up in his party room as he called it. :)

And here he is playing with the gift that we got him today. He loves pirates!

Tonight i'm making his favorite dinner. Baked chicken (he loves the skin), baked potatoes and corn on the cob. It also happens to be Jared's favorite too! :) And we picked up a Carvel Ice Cream cake that looks like a football. That's what he wanted.. :) I'll take pics of that later.

It has been so much fun celebrating the birth of my boy.

I am so thankful God blessed Jared and I with this precious little boy. My life changed forever November 4th 2003 at 8:15 a.m. I will never forget holding my brand new baby, looking at his little face and telling him "I will love you forever". Thank you Lord for this precious gift!

Monday, November 3, 2008

Daddy's Home!!

We picked him up this morning at the airport. Andon and I stayed pretty busy while he was gone but we missed him so much. Here are some pictures of Andon waiting outside the car for him..


And as soon as he seen him exit the door he took off for him! It was so sweet to see Andon running as fast as he could to his daddy!!


Jared took the day off to celebrate Andon's birthday!! We had so much fun celebrating all day! His birthday is tomorrow, I delivered him at 8:15 in the morning. Tomorrow i'm making his favorite dinner and he picked out a special cake that he wanted. Then we'll take cupcakes to his school on Wednesday. So, this is a 3 day celebration of Andon turning 5!! We don't mind though, he's our only one. :)

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Trick or Treating

Last night was Andon's first time going trick or treating. We were invited to go with Owen and Lucas in their great neighborhood. It was such a busy place with lots of kids out all dressed up.
Andon was so cute at this. Every time he would go up to a house and say "trick or treat" or "happy halloween" they would try to put the candy in his bucket but he would make sure they just put it in his hand. I would make sure he said "thank you" and he would come running back to me to show me what they gave him. Grinning from ear to ear saying "look mom wasn't that so nice"! It was so fun! Here is Andon and Owen at one of the first houses...

Here's our group all together getting their candy. The princess, pirate, batman, superman and thomas! :)

This house just left a bunch of candy bowls out with a note to take two. So Andon is trying to decide what he wants.

After trick or treating we all went back to some friends house to hang out and let the kids play. Here is a pic of the boys reading a treasure map. They had so much fun playing together.

It was such a fun night hanging with new friends. The only thing missing was my sweet husband. He'll be home just in time to celebrate Andon's birthday!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Pumpkinfest

We went to Pumpkinfest with some friends last weekend. It was a very crowded event! But that didn't hinder the kids from having fun together. There was a whole street designated for the kids to ride pony's, play games and jump in inflatables. Very fun! Here is a pic of me and my little pirate..

And here is a pic of Andon and R2-D2.

Eating some sour candy! ;)

And waiting for his friends Owen, Lucas and Avery to arrive...

Here is a pic of the boys is their costumes... Aren't they so cute!?

Here are the boys waiting to ride the pony's. Andon was very emotional the whole time we were waiting because there was a specific horse that he liked and wanted to ride. Every time he saw a kid get on that horse he would start to cry! We almost didn't let hime a ride a horse at all. :) So, finally when we got to the front he asked the man if he could ride the brown horse with the green on it.

And here he is on his horse! The whole time he was riding it he was petting it! When the ride was over he stayed on when all the other kids came off. The lady was standing there trying to get him off but he kept talking to her about the horse. When he got off he came running over saying my horse's name is Blaze! It was very funny!! We weren't sure if he made it up or she told him that name! :)

All in all it was a fun time outside in the beautiful weather. Because really ever since the weekend it's been in the 40's! I think we went straight to Winter here. I'm guess i'm gonna have to get used to the cold weather!!!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Rock Star Night!

Well, like I said in the previous post, last night was Family Fun Friday. We had so much fun playing guitar hero and rocking out. :) We keep saying we need to get 3 mullet wigs to wear while we play the game. We would end up wearing them all the time! There is just something so funny about a mullet wig!!! I am laughing right now!

Anyway, Jared has decided to start printing some T-shirts for Andon. I am very excited about this! So this week he came home with a few shirts "hot off the press"... Here are the two he brought home Friday night..

Here is the art Jared designed for one of the shirts... Very cool huh!? Especially for a 4 year old to wear!

Here is a pic of the boys wearing their Rock Star shirts..

And here are the boys playing their guitars! I know, Jared looks pretty serious! :)

It was such a fun night and then we had such a busy, fun day today. Andon and I helped Jared put together his booth for the YS show he's going to next week and then we met Jeffrey and Elizabeth and their kids in Downtown Franklin. After that we headed to their neighborhood for a Halloween get together. We had such a fun time hanging out with them and all their neighbors! I have plenty of pictures from this fun day but will have to post that tomorrow. I am exhausted and we are headed to a new church tomorrow. Jared met a guy tonight who invited us to their church. :) So, we'll see. Please pray for us in this situation. I am ready to have a church to call home!

By the way.. if we ever get mullet wigs, don't you worry!!! Those pictures would be on here in a second! :)

Friday, October 24, 2008

Letter S Week

This week Andon learned about the letter S at his MDO. When I dropped him off on Wednesday his teacher told me to have him wear Silly Socks on Friday. The fun thing is when we got home there was a little package in the mail. My Mom (Nana) had sent Andon a letter and a couple pairs of fun socks she had picked up for him! He was pretty excited because they were Batman. And the letter was so sweet! Thanks Mom! Here's a pic of my little feet... :)

And here's a pic of my silly boy. He saw a picture of his friend Bradley this morning on the computer wearing a clown nose and wanted to take a picture wearing these glasses! :)

Tonight is Family Fun Friday! We are having a Rock Star night and I already have plenty of pictures for another post! But I'll spare you for now... :)

Pumpkin Carving Take II

Well our cute little pumpkin we carved last week didn't last very long. We put him out on the porch and within a few days I found him laying on the ground. Busted and stinky! It had rotted already and couldn't hold up any longer. So we headed out to get another. This time the boys said they wanted to do a mean face again. Boys. :)
So here is a pic of Andon pulling the stuff out...

And here is our new pumpkin.. Sorry not the best picture. It was hard to get a good picture with the blinking light inside. :)

We haven't really been up to much lately. Tomorrow we will be headed to downtown Franklin for Pumpkinfest. That should be fun and I can't wait to get some pics of Andon in his costume. Next Friday is Halloween and we've always gone to the Fall Festival at our church. I am so sad to miss it this year... :(
Jared will be headed to Pittsburg from the 30th to the 4th of Nov. So I think Andon and I will be going trick-or-treating with Elizabeth and her kids. Andon has never been so i'm sure he will have fun. Other than that, Andon's birthday is coming up! He will be 5 on November 4th. He wants to go to Chuck E Cheese. He has never been so I think we may do that. My baby is gonna be 5!! I really can't belive it. I've been going through all my pictures lately, seeing how much he has changed. I think i'll post some baby pictures here soon. :)
So that's all for now. I still haven't got any good pictures of the leaves changing. As soon as I do i'll be sure to post.