Easter!!!

Praise the Lord! It is so much fun to celebrate our risen savior!
We had a great Easter this year. Stephen was up early and out the door to be a part of all four services at church. Mary Beth and I leisurely had breakfast and got ready for the 8:15 service. It was a wonderful celebration. There is no place I'd rather be on Easter Sunday.
Combined in all the services we had over 1400 people! Praise the Lord! It is such an honor to be part of a church that the Lord is clearly using to reach our community.
After the services we all piled in the car and drove to Georgia for Easter dinner with my fam. Yes, my mom's potato salad is worth a 3 hour drive. Here are some pics from our evening.





Mary Beth racked up on clothes this year (since you cant really buy an 8 month old chocolate bunnies) Grandparents are great! Later I'll add more pics of her many Easter outfits.

Family Announcement

God has blessed our family beyond our wildest dreams!



Baby #2 is on the way!

I am so grateful for God's timing for so many reasons, but just to list a few:

I have not been really sick but extremely tired and I'm so thankful that this stage is happening now: Mary Beth isn't crawling just yet so hopefully she'll give me a few more weeks to rest before I start chasing her around the house and she is still taking 3 naps a day, which means that I get three naps a day if I need them. =)

I will be in my 2nd trimester during the summer (not the 3rd like last time) which means that I'll have a little more energy while Stephen is out of town for camps and mission trips.

The baby will be due at the end of October which is great for our family because November and December are the lightest months on our youth ministry schedule. Stephen will be home a lot as we adjust to having two babies.

We've received a lot of mixed reviews from families and friends. I know that having children close together is not for every family but it is a desire that the Lord has placed within us. We've learned that it's better not to argue with the Lord, but instead embrace His plan and know that He will provide for all of our needs.

We appreciate your prayers during this exciting time for our family.

Black n Whites - 8 months

Our cutie will be 8 months old on Tuesday!
We had to get some great pictures to embarrass Mary Beth with when she's in middle school.
Don't worry, I only posted very modest ones. In our youth group, "modest is hottest!"

Our friend, Amy Gans took all these pics for us.
Thanks Amy!

New Beginnings

When we decided to move to SC for a part time youth ministry position, there were plenty of people in our lives who didn't quite understand. There was so much evidence of God at work in this church, I was ready to move here even if Stephen didn't get the job.
Stephen and I have never been more certain of His calling on our lives. We serve an awesome God! We are so blessed to have an amazing church family. This is such an exciting time for our church. We have just broken ground on our new facilities and I wanted to share these articles with you.

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20080126/NEWS/801260304/-1/xml

http://www.baptistcourier.com/2244.article

Some pictures from Groundbreaking (you'll have to read the article to find out how we did it)

5 points for anyone who finds Stephen in this picture!
1000 points if you find me and Mary Beth.

The House

We really love having a house, we finally have something to make our own. We have had a blast with painting and fixing things up. The kitchen is about 90% done, so hopefully one day soon I'll be able to report that its finished. We finished the nursery and I have had several people ask me about it, so here it is.

Here is the 90% done kitchen


(the yellow isn't really as bright as it looks in this pic)

We have plans for the rest of the rooms in the house too -
in our "one day, hopefully, someday, we'll get around do it" catergory

6 months!

Our little one is already 6 months old!
Here are some pictures of our little munchkin.

Look at my new tooth!
Kinda hard to see but this is the best picture I could get.
One came in last week and another one is about to pop through.

Mary Beth's first snow!
Hopefully we'll have another snow this winter that sticks around longer so we can actually play in it, but since it was rainy by the time we got bundled up and got outside, we just took a couple pics and ran back inside.


Mary Beth's new trick!
She is mastering the art of sitting up all by herself. She just started last week, 4-5 seconds before tumbling over, but now she'll sit and play for a few minutes while mom says "don't move, I have to go find the camera..."

Here are a few more from my little photo shoot after I found the camera.





And for all of Stephen's middle school boys who like disgusting things...
Mary Beth spit up right as I tried to take a picture... green beans.... GROSS!

---For the rest of you... Ignore this picture---

We moved again!

When we moved into our apartment in August, I remember telling Stephen that I didn't ever want to move again. Well, as the awful memories of packing and unpacking fade from mind we started to think - what if we had a house...

The Lord has provided once again for our family.
We moved into a house last week.
It is a great little starter home only a half mile from our church.
We have a little cleaning up to do, some painting and we'll add a fence to the yard but we are so excitted !!!! The best project so far is painting the nursery. (I'll add pics when I finish it)
We are having a blast! (even though I hate living amongst piles of boxes)

Christmas Pics

Since a picture speaks a thousand words.... I think I'll just post some cuteness for you. Love you all - Hope you had a very merry Christmas.

Wake up Daddy!

Dec 22 is Christmas!

Today is Christmas!!!!
Okay so for those of you that are thinking Laura has lost it, I do realize that if you look at the calendar - it doesn't list Dec 22nd as Christmas but TODAY is MY Christmas. Let me explain...
Growing up we might be at our house for Christmas, or at my grandparents house but wherever we were on Christmas morning, we'd wake up, open presents and PLAY all day long. Well we might have done other things like eat lunch and stuff but what I remember about the best part was just being at home with family all day. We never went anywhere, we just had family time.
As an adult life has changed a bit, since I got married we have traveled on Christmas Eve and Christmas day - it's just not the same. So this year, my amazing husband is giving me the best gift ever - a whole day, just us, to hang out as a family.
I am so excited, I feel like a little kid. I woke up at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep! I'm still waiting for everyone else to wake up. I'll add more and pics later today!

Mary Beth video (5 months)

I'll let the video speak for itself! (You can ignore Oprah's voice in the background - it has nothing to do with the video)