So cute!!

Here's little Micah and Kendra...Ben's cousin's kids. They are sooo precious and sooo good!! They came up for a visit yesterday to check out some churches in the area. We all got to play in the "squawkers" room at church during service and little Micah is such a hoot...always laughing and giggling!! What a little blessing they are!!

Raquelle can READ!!!?

Well, not quite! But if you watch this video, you'd think she could!! She has an amazing memory!! Her cousin Ryder can do the same thing...it's incredible what that kid can recite - maybe it's a Harris thing! :) Here she is "reading" one of her recent favorites, "Where's God when I'm S-Scared?" She's almost has all the words down...it's pretty amazing! She's sooo animated...she makes me laugh!! She should be a little actress!!

Gather your kiddos around and enjoy story-time! :)

AHHHHHHH! :)

This is a good AHHH! :) - The couple that put an offer in on our house has accepted our counter and we are moving forward with all the inspections. We've never had our house inspected (when we bought if from Jer and Angie we checked it over good, but didn't have it professionally done)...so, we're a little scared of what the inspector may find!! So, pray all goes well and we'll be closing on May 28th - and moving the week of June 1st - 6th. Not sure where we'll be living yet...so, also pray for us, that the Lord will reveal which home or apartment we're supposed to live in for a little while till we find our permanent residence!! :) We're excited to see what He's going to do!! Praise the Lord!

It's not always whining around here! :)

Just to redeem my little man, here's a cute video of him being silly after he was done eating lunch. I always throw a few cheerios on his tray just to make sure he's done, and this is what he started doing the other day. He thinks it's funny to throw food onto the table when he's done! - it's okay for me when it's on the table (for now)...just not on the floor!! :)

House update:
We also got another offer on our house on Monday night. It's from a sweet young couple starting residency at OHSU. We sent them a counter offer yesterday that we'd be more than happy with, so hopefully we'll hear back from them today. Please pray the Lord's will!! If they accept, it would mean us moving within a month...if we can't find a house, it'll be into an apartment! Which, may not be all bad considering we'd have a pool and fitness center for the summer!! :) We'll keep you posted!!

The Whiner!!!!!!!!!!! Please Lord have mercy!

I hear from so many of you how lucky I am that Easton is such a happy baby! Well, I think you haven't seen the "new" Easton!! He's sick again - for the sixth time in 4 months - and is realizing that his whiny voice/cry gets him attention...because it's soo annoying I have to either put him to bed, feed him or pick him up before he'll finally stop. Because he's been sick so much, I think he's forming a pattern...or his little personality (with a much-needed-anger-management-course) is rearing it's ugly head!! We've tried holding his mouth and saying "No whine!" and we've tried ignoring it (to the detriment of my ears) and just putting him to bed...now, I'm just plumb out of ideas!! I know he's not feeling well, but jeeepers son, work it out! - toughen up!! So, if you have any advice for a 10.5 month old, I'd love to hear it. I totally don't remember Raquelle going through this...but then she's only been sick like 6 times in her entire life!! I know he's still teething molars, and the sickness is just tiring for him too...I probably just have to suck it up as a season of life for him...but oh, man...bring on the next season Lord!! :)

So, here's a short video of a typical day for Easton right now. He's a bit hungry I think in this video (and probably tired because he's not sleeping great), but this gives you a great idea what he's been up to lately! Pretty much, he cries like this if we do anything he doesn't like...which includes about everything except feeding him and holding him right now. Crazy boy!!

I actually laugh when I watch this because it's just soo fake that he cries like this...the minute we tickle him, or "fake" sneeze, he starts to laugh. Also, listen to Raquelle's voice...it cracks me up, "Mom, give the book back to him!" :) - she hates the whining too I guess!! :)

Don't worry...he still melts my heart and I love him to pieces!! - you just wonder what's going on in the mind of a 10.5 month old!! :)

Hilarious Blog...

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/

If you all need a good laugh at how silly we can be as Christians, this guy nails them right on!! He's got some pretty funny stuff on there! Some of it's pretty funny!! - there's lots on there so you can scan through the side bar to see the topics you might like to read about...

Those baby blues

It's crazy to me how blue Easton's eyes are! I still can't get over it! It's just plain weird to me...probably because I come from a family of hazel and brown eyes!! Mindy and I went to the Tulip festival today and Easton was chill'n in his stroller and I snapped a quick one of him. I just got home and was going through the pics and his eyes continue to amaze me! - they are sky blue - I guess it helps that the sky was super blue today...maybe that's the trick with his blue blue eyes. And I promise, I did NO saturation tricks here...this is right from the camera!!

Shout to the Lord - American Idol style

I don't know if you all saw this last night on American Idol...but I was totally blown away by it! Yes, they took out the word "Jesus", but you can't help but know, this is a powerful song about our gracious savior and Lord!!

A prayer challenge

One of my fantastic village sisters told me about how prayer has been changing their family! - so, I want to challenge you all to pray with your husbands when he gets home from work! These past few days when Ben has come home in the evening and we've both had an exhausting day, we've been taking a few minutes as a family to stop, hold each other, and pray! We pray that our focus would be on Christ and that He would help us to love each other this evening. We pray that our conversation will be glorifying to Him and that we would delight in Him and with each other during the evening. We pray that His presence will be felt! It has totally been like a fresh breath of air in our home!! It makes sense...because we've both been separated by the world, him with work and me with the kids/errands/discipline/etc. We have been working on different things...so, when we stop and pray it allows us to reconnect our spirits to become one again. Usually when daddy comes home we kiss/hug for a sec and then everything switches to auto-pilot and time to get dinner made, the kids fed, bathed, and to bed! Whereas now, it seems there is peace, a purpose and more joy in our home. I thank God for being faithful and answering our prayers!! - so, I challenge you too to try it...to commit to it! When your husband comes home tonight from work, grab him, hold him and pray a blessing upon him, pray for your attitudes and your evening! - and then let me know how it goes!! :)

The most wonderful Nana!

We were in Reedsport at Ben's mom and dad's house over Spring Break. Despite Easton getting sick Tuesday night and Ben getting sick Thursday night and Raquelle getting sick Saturday night, we had fun!!! :) Here's a picture of our Nana - she is amazing...oh, and she got sick too! :) - but before she got sick, she managed to make "Rocky" the cutest Cinderella dress! We should get it in the mail today, so I'll post pics later! Fortunately I've managed to hold off a full-blown cold and am feeling much better today!! I can't wait for summer!! Anyway, it was great being there...very relaxing!! Nana always fixes us such wonderful food and makes us feel soo at home! We love her soo much...thanks for the little dress, we can't wait to get it!!!

A shameless plug...

If you have ever wanted to find the most amazing dentist ever, here's the link! I had the pleasure of designing Kelly Blodgett's office over a year ago. His technology is INCREDIBLE! He has TV screens everywhere and from what I've heard he is the best dentist in all of Portland!! So, here's his website and link to his blog...check him out if you've ever thought of having any kind of work done - cleaning or cosmetic!! He's the one you'd want to go to!!

Also, there is a "virtual office tour" link on his site...you can pan all around with your mouse (up/down - floors, ceilings, skylights, etc). Check his office out...Kelly and I made a great team! :)

His website: http://www.blodgettdentistry.com/
His blog: http://www.blodgettdentalcare.blogspot.com/

The craziness continues...

I don't even know where to begin! Let me back up a bit...
So, we got a full-price offer on our house a week and a half ago...and because we hadn't found anything to immediately put an offer on, the couple that wanted to buy our house gave us two weeks to look before canceling the offer. So, we've been out frantically searching with our wonderful friend Dana Crocker with Remax (highly recommend her by the way for anyone considering buying/selling) and we've been stumped! - we just haven't found "the house"! - except one in Metzger by Jer & Angie (but they wouldn't accept our offer because they had just listed it and we wanted them to come down $15k). That is until the night before last! We got home from seeing a few houses on Monday night and I was getting a little frustrated...nothing felt right for us! We sat down with Dana and started asking her what we should do? - look a little further out than we'd like or just "settle" on something that's not ideal, or just stay put. We decided maybe we should consider/buy the Metger house and just live it with all the 80's finishes until we can gradually fix it up...not ideal for me because I like NEW NEW NEW!! - and would almost rather stay in our little house that's done. So, we decided to give it another day or two. Later that night I was looking on craigslist and found a house fsbo at the very tip-top of our price range...but it had been completly remodeled...new everything including stainless steel appliances and all the finishes were neutral and honestly it had EVERYTHING Ben and I had put on our wish list!! - in fact...I've been watching it for the past few weeks but it's been way out of our budget and I just look at it, dream a bit, and keep clicking!! It's just a crazy deal because the night I found it, he had it on craigslist for $30k less than the day before - I was soo excited because that would work for us!! So Ben went with me yesterday to look at it and we were like, "SWEET, this must be it...it's perfect for us!" So, today we were planning on putting an offer on it to buy.
So, this morning we had scheduled to have a couple from N. Carolina look at our house (because it wasn't in "pending" mode quite yet and we didn't want to shut our doors), so I was getting ready to call them this morning and say, "Hey, we found our house, we're going to be closing on ours, never mind and good luck!" - when while I was getting ready to dial their number, my phone rings...it's the Realtor for the couple buying our house.
Let me back up now...this morning in my quiet time I kept praying, "Lord, please put a giant boulder in front of us to let us know this isn't the house for us because we love it and want to put an offer on it today!" - okay, back to the story...so, the Realtor calls and guess what - it's a boulder - a giant one!!!!!! :) - he said the couple's mortgage program they were using to buy our house isn't available anymore and they can't get another loan that will work for them financially and they have to back out!! - CRAZY! I was like, okay, no problem, there's some serious clarity Lord!! :) Then I thought, okay, I'm not going to cancel on the N. Carolina people!!! :) And, we're not going to write an offer on the other "perfect" house today...pretty much, we're back to square one!! So, the couple from N. Carolina came through and they were so sweet. They were placing their furniture in their minds and saying how cute everything was, but who knows!!! - we might never hear back from them...but it showed me that there is still a lot of people stopping by everyday and somehow, somewhere at the right time, there's a house for us...and that our wonderful, loving Father has our backs and is protecting us and guiding us! It was actually really cool to see His hand today because we've been looking for direction from Him sooo much lately! And, who knows...maybe that will buy us the time we need for the owners of the Metzger house to want to negotiate more and come down to where we need it to be! :) - so I can re-do it! :) - and it will all work out in the end! :)

So, continue to pray direction for us! We're totally at peace with where things are at and thankful the Lord is totally in control!! Thanks for your prayers!!