Little update, Baby Brady, and Chocolate Lover's Day

So it's been a few days since my last update so I'll start with this past weekend.

Friday afternoon, we packed up the car and headed down to Beckley, WV to visit my Aunt a couple days and attend an Egg-stravaganza she invited us too. The trip down was wonderful. Jaren slept most of the way and Jesse and I just goofed off, sang, reflected, held hands, talked, and sometimes just drove in silence enjoying the view. It was wonderful!! We met my Aunt at KFC and picked up some dinner and headed to her sister's house to get ready for the evening at Church. Dinner was great and it was nice to just sit and talk with everyone. Jaren was ecstatic. One of Elizabeth's dogs name was Cookie, so every time someone yelled at the dog, he looked around reaching, thinking he was getting a cookie. He's so funny!!
After dinner we headed to the Church where their drama team performed 'Jesus Messiah' It was beautiful. Lot's of song and dance. Afterwards we headed back to my Aunt Brenda's to get ready for bed, and prep ourselves for Saturday.
We woke up early on Saturday, and got ready and headed back to Beckley for the egg hunt. This wasn't your normal every-day Easter Egg Hunt this was 'Operation Egg Drop'! It was at the Family Worship Center in Beckley in their large field they have located next to the Church. Through donation they received 10,000 eggs that were filled with candy and change and were going to be dropped from helicopters into the field. It was great seeing the kids faces. It was cold and wet, but everyone came out for a great day of worship and fellowship. We had to sit in the car once and warm up while waiting for the egg drop. Finally at 2:30p the rumble of helicopter propellers filled the sky! The first up to hunt eggs were ages 0-6years. It was a little frustrating because it was not announced just how much money the eggs would contain, so parents were taking the hunt far to seriously. I got pushed 3 times, and didn't end up getting any pictures. Jesse wanted to block off one egg for Jaren to pick up((he would have been so proud to show me that egg)), but a mother was dragging her child through the mud to get to the eggs, Jesse had to stop and pick the poor 3 or 4 year old up out of the mud and set him back on his feet. Needless to say, Jaren did not get a single egg, but it's okay, we still had a great day. We headed back to Grafton shortly after the egg hunt to get Jaren ready for bed, and to go meet up with the Easter Bunny. OH BOY DID WE HAVE FUN :) :)

Easter Sunday was wonderful! We woke up bright and early, and the Easter Bunny had delivered Jaren's basket downstairs!!! He had so much fun pulling the eggs out of his basket, as well as the little toys he had gotten. We started getting ready for Church and brought him upstairs for him to find the eggs that had been hidden all throughout the living room. Since the egg hunt didn't go so well the day before, we decided to have him a little one here. HE LOOOOVED IT!!!

Church was amazing, we completely misunderstood how the services were going to be, so we missed the sonrise service, but we did go to the family worship event at 10:00. The choir put on a great performance as well as the drama kids. After Church we came home and feasted. THE FOOD WAS GREAT!!! YAY MOM!

Anyway, the rest of the week has just been chiropractor appointments and playtime with Jaren!!! Wednesday I had my 6 month prenatal checkup and everything is going great! I've gained 8lbs so far and the Brady is growing good. We finally have my c-section scheduled and now officially have a deadline for finding a house.

Speaking of finding a house....Jesse has a job interview Monday at the Hazelton Federal Prison in Preston County. So if you could pray with us on this situation, we would greatly appreciate it.

TOMORROW...OH TOMORROW, not only is tomorrow Saturday, but tomorrow is 'Chocolate Lover's Day!! That's right folks the chocolate festival in Morgantown. I've never been to a chocolate festival, but I'm looking forward to this one! It's in downtown Morgantown, and over 40 vendors are participating. The way this works is you register at the beginning, and you are given a map and a stamp. As you stroll downtown Morgantown stopping at each vendor to sample chocolate you collect points. At the end of the festival, you are registered by your points to win a family 4 pack of tickets to Hershey Park in PA. I don't really care if we win the tickets because I can't really ride rides right now or anything, but how fun to just spend the day as a family, strolling through Morgantown and EATING CHOCOLATE!!! Oh did I mention its possibly going to be 70 degrees! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't really have anything else exciting to report. I hope you all are doing well! WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!

blogging on a rainy day....

Surprise Surprise! The morning I wake up with absolutely NOTHING to do until 3, it rains. I just wish one day, I had nothing at all to do, and it would be warm and sunny out, and I could play outside and walk with Jaren all day! Or at least until he gets tired. Speaking of tired. Jaren's morning naps having been coming so quickly. It seems like within an hour and half to two hours after he's up and had breakfast, he wants to lay back down. The Dr. did say that when he is going through growth spurts, he will sleep a little more. But I just feel like he's been sleeping an extra lot lately. He'll sleep roughly 10-12 hours a night and still sometimes takes 2-2 hour naps a day. I read somewhere that up until their two most children will sleep an average of 13-15 hours a day, including their night time sleep. So I guess Jaren is just being a normal, healthy, growing 17 month old.

Not really a whole lot new going on here. My Grandma is finally home, which is WONDERFUL news. She's doing great and adjusting perfectly to being back home. It's so great to see her in the morning and be able to hug her goodnight.

Jesse's job hunt is still continuing. He's put in about 10 different applications, and alot of the closing dates are this week or early next week, so I'm just praying that door opens soon. I'm starting to stress a little because Brady will be here in the end of July and I want us to be in our own place, Jaren adjusted, and us fully prepared before he gets here. I know God has never failed us and I trust him always. I know it's all in His time, and I know all too well not to rush that. (example: Jesse and I prayed and cried and prayed and pleaded every single time we were not pregnant, when we were trying to get pregnant for the first time. Months and months of negative pregnancy tests and I was beginning to doubt everything. March 3rd 2007, just a few short weeks before Jesse was to deploy for Iraq, we found out we were expecting a little miracle. Now this may not mean much to most, but think of the timing. Had I gotten pregnant anytime sooner, Jesse would have been in Iraq when I delivered our first child. I was almost 8 weeks pregnant when Jesse left for deployment and he made it home 10 days before Jaren made his appearance into the world. God is nothing short of amazing in everything He does.) I know not to rush the job placement, I just pray that no matter where God is planning on leading us in this journey that we faithfully follow. Pray for us please!

I have another chiropractor appointment today at 3pm. I love going and I always feel great after the massage, but I just feel like it's becoming a hassle. Jesse has to work everything he wants to do around my appointments because we only have one car. Just another reason a job would come in handy!! I just pray that I start feeling a little more relief so I can possibly go down to 1 or 2 days a week instead of 3.

Let's talk about Jaren for a minute. OH HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO HAVE THIS LITTLE BOY IN MY LIFE. I love waking up to him yelling Daddy as loud as he can. I quickly get out of bed, go into his room and get him, as we come around the corner into our room he immediately dives out of my arms on top of his Daddy who is still 'pretending' to be asleep so he can scare and tickle Jaren. He gets so excited. I've always heard that boys are Mama's boys, but in this case he is for his Dad all the way. The last 4 or 5 days he has become attached to a train car. I had a diaper cake at my baby shower with a train track around it, and this was one of the cars with the train. He loves it. He sleeps with it, eats with it, goes to Walmart with it, he even slides down the sliding board with it. It's so cute to watch him try to function with this train car in his hand, but he manages just fine. He's started trying to swim in the bathtub, which is an adventure within its self. He used to freak out if there were no toys in the tub to play with, now he throws them out, one by one, to make room for swimming. He dunks his head, and flips on his belly and moves his arms and legs. He is going to be so much fun this summer. He learns a new word or two or ten every day! HAHA! He's started saying I love you, he calls the dog by name, cookie, baby and always tries to say Brady while lifting up my shirt, and so much more. He's such a good little boy. I love him so much.

WOW! I haven't updated like this in a really long time, and I'm sure it sounds like a bunch of rubble, but I hope you guys enjoyed reading. If you've made it this far! We love you all!