New Blog and Update

I wanted to let y'all know that I started a new blog that can be found at:

www.withjoyfulhands.wordpress.com

I am using it to share pictures and as a place to practice writing and share pieces I will write.  I may keep this blog as a family update blog but I am not sure.  I just found out that I have used up all of the free storage for pictures.  I will not be able to share anymore pictures unless I pay for more storage, which I not wanting to do.  

We are excited about our first Christmas in Wilmington.  We picked out our tree last night and Adah had a blast walking (and falling down) all around the tree lot.  Yes, Adah is officially a full-time walker now! 

We are exploring what it means for our family to put Jesus back into Christmas.  Kyle and I swing from being excited to overwhelmed as we talk about new ideas.  We are thankful that we do not have to have it all decided right now.  Any ideas you have to share are welcomed!

I hope you and yours are doing well and enjoying December and all its wonders!

Taking steps

Adah took her first steps just after her birthday and is continuing to take more and more steps on her own without any encouragement from us.  We think seeing her cousin walking around and her birthday gift from Nana and Pap both contributed to the exciting first steps.  Nana and Pap gave her a musical car that she can sit and ride on, or walk behind and push.  Before the car came into her life Adah had no interest in trying to walk, only to hold on to the edge of the sofa or coffee table.  The car was just what we needed for her to experience the sensation of putting one step in front of the other, not just side to side.

She suddenly seems so grown up and mature.  I am looking forward to her being able to walk on her own around the house and especially outside.  Simply because she has gotten too heavy to tote around everywhere.  My back is looking forward to those days.  I do anticipate her getting into more things and me having to chase her when she decides to run away from me.  But for whatever reason I am not scared and feel more excited for the challenge than anything.  Bring it on Adah!

She knows and loves to tell us what a cow, doggie and lion say.  She loves baths.  When we tell her it is bath time, her face lights up and she shouts "Ba, ba, ba" as she crawls down the hall toward the bathroom.  Her Auntie taught her how to hold up one finger when you ask how old she is.  She loves to listen to music, especially "Rain for Roots" a gift from her Aunt and Uncle.  The words are written by the woman who wrote "Jesus Storybook Bible" and the singers are women with beautiful, folky voices.  It is fun to enjoy her "kiddie" music with her instead of being annoyed or getting a headache.  I highly recommend this album that has sweet Truth for our children and for ourselves.

These pictures are from the last weekend in September when our friends from Burlington, Danny, Grace and Anna came to visit.  Anna and Adah are eight days apart.  This was Anna's first time to the beach and she and Adah loved it!  What a sweet weekend with dear friends!

Our Garden

Here are some pictures of the initial stages of the garden.  Sadly, I don't have an updated picture to share what a beauty it is right now.  Radishes are done, turnips are beginning to be ready and lettuce, kale, and collards are in full swing.  We are patiently awaiting the broccoli, carrots and cabbage!  Adah loves to touch all the different plants when we go outside to swing and hang out.  We recently got some strawberry plants from the Murrays and are hoping they will make it to spring! 

Adah and Kyle with the first radish!  Behind them you can see a more accurate (but still not as recent) picture of the garden.

Kyle has loved getting to be in the garden, have his hands in the dirt and to have beautiful, delicious plants to care for.  The garden has been a substantial, temporary "farm" substitute for us for now.  After leaving Kyle's full time job on Sunset Farms that he loved, we knew we at least had to have a garden to fill that hole.  I love getting to walk out in our backyard and pick the freshest veggies to prepare for a meal! I have been learning more about growing food and am enjoying that as well.  The garden has also been a great conversation starter with neighbors and we have gotten to meet many of them while we were outside working.  They meandered over to check things out and it has been sweet how the garden has brought joy to all the neighbors around us.  One elderly neighbor used to garden but doesn't any longer after having a stroke.  He loved getting to talk about everything with Kyle.  It has been a prayer of ours to be a light in our neighborhood and to love on our neighbors and it is cool to see God using our garden for His purposes.

Morgan and Max's Wedding Shower

On Saturday we celebrated the upcoming marriage of my dear friend Morgan and her Fiance, Max with a couples shower.  They will be married on September 30th (so soon!!) in the Bahamas!  We are so excited for them and we had such a great time celebrating them and "showering" them with love.  It was a beautiful evening with great food, gifts, games, family, friends and a stubborn chocolate fountain that refused to cooperate even after Kyle gave his best efforts!  We are thrilled for the future Mr. and Mrs. Benton and we are thankful to be living in the same town again to get to see each other more often and share in our marriages together.

My sister had asked both the bride and groom some questions prior to the shower and they had to try and guess one another's responses.  Two of my favorite responses were that they both claimed to have initiated the first kiss and they both forgot to include their cats in the three things to take on a deserted island but both guessed that the other would have brought the cats! 

Then we blindfolded Morgan and she had to feel all the guys right arms to determine which was Max! Everyone enjoyed it and she finally found her man!

Opening gifts.

I'm not sure which Morg loved more, the toaster or the map I used to wrap it in!

The girls did so great!

We have all known each other since Morg and I were three and Laur was six! Insane!

The future Mr and Mrs!

New Beginnings

We have been living in our new home for three weeks now and we are feeling pretty settled in.  We have a few boxes waiting to be unpacked and some pictures we are planning to hang but other than that our home feels good and cozy, like home!  We are enjoying being back on the coast but have definitely been going through a lot of changes that come with beginning again in a "new" town.  We are thankful for Kyle's job, our home, along with our parents and old and new friends who have welcomed us so well.  It has been refreshing to our hearts to be able to join with other believers in worship on Sunday and to live life in community with them as well.  We have met most of our immediate neighbors and we are enjoying taking walks as a family in the evenings or just Adah and I in the mornings.  The woman across the street is named Ada which makes me smile.  The neighborhood has a great atmosphere with bike riders, stroller pushers, joggers, dog walkers, lawn mower and golf cart riders that really give a welcoming and friendly feel to the place.  Adah and I are still figuring out our new routine and I am looking forward to walks to the park and more visits to the beach once it cools down a bit.

Adah turned ten months old last week and I cannot believe it! She just recently fell in love with her stuffed animals and is especially fond of a yellow lab that she just squeezes and waves around.  Thanks to my moms encouragement when she babysat last weekend Adah learned how to give her stuffed animals kisses and has even given Kyle and I a few!  It is the sweetest thing.  She has recently started "talking" so much more and points at anything that catches her eye and tells us all about it.  She still just has the two bottom teeth and the little bit of hair she has is a light honey brown color more like her Aunt Lauren's hair than her mama's.

Adah's new favorite spot is in front of this glass door that leads to our carport where she can look at the trees, birds, daddy when he's mowing the lawn, and mama going to do laundry.

We had a busy weekend with Lauren, Brad and Eva coming to town to celebrate our friends Morgan and Max at their wedding shower on Saturday.  Kyle's Aunt and Uncle along with their children and grandchildren are staying at Topsail for the week AND Jamie, Chris and the kids from Sunset Farms will also be at Topsail this week and we are so looking forward to seeing all of them!  I am excited about a whole week full of people and the beach!

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us during this transition, we are grateful!

Here is a not so fabulous snapshot (but the only one we have) of our home so you can at least have a glimpse at where we are living now.

Saying My Goodbyes

Goodbye to... the zinnias in the front bed that Adah loves to grab, the view of the fields from our backyard, Snowball (one of two cats I have ever liked) relaxing on our car, the short walk down the farm road to the Murrays house, the pond with its loud toads, the pigs and their silliness, Sali and Belle in their big white fluffy coats, the sweet screened in porch, Jamie and the kids randomly popping in to say hello, the biggest kitchen in the world(!), the rowdy cows, being an hour's drive from Raleigh friends, the crazy hens and their scrumptious eggs, the freshest of produce you can get, the lovely coop grocery store: Company Shops Market, beautiful sunsets over the fields, the friendliest of neighbors Gary and Wanda, Harley the german shepherd patrolling the premisses, dear friends Danny, Grace and baby girl Anna, the short forty minute zip to Aunt Lauren and Uncle Brad's house along with the weekly hangouts for Adah and Eva, the Durham Farmers Market, picking strawberries and blackberries from essentially our backyard, the quirkiness of our lovely home with its beautiful uniqueness, the sound of cars pulling down the gravel driveway, baby chicks chirping, the Saxapahaw General Store, the greenhouse teeming with life in spring, the creepy basement I avoided at night, the fruit vine wallpaper in the kitchen, the memories of pregnancy and newborn Adah in this place...

I am thankful for time to say goodbye and grieve what I am leaving behind.  I am thankful for God's peace in this difficult transitional time.  I am thankful that God is going with us to Wilmington and that the next chapter He is writing is going to be just as exciting and blessed as this one.  I am thankful that I am allowed to be sad and excited at the same time.  I am thankful for our two, beautiful years at Sunset Farms.

9 Month Stats

Weight: 21 pounds, 10 ounces
Height: 29 inches long

Boo yah!

Nine Months and Moving

Our baby girl is nine months old today! I know it is said far too often but I am seriously wondering where the last nine months went?!  She is so dang grown up! Adah has two teeth on the bottom and has thankfully yet to bite me AND She is officially crawling! It is amazing to watch her go.  She is excited about it too, it's like a whole new world has opened up for her to explore.  It has definitely made things more interesting in keeping her out of trouble but it really is fun.  She is clapping her hands and waves and her auntie taught her to raise her arms up high when you ask in an overly animated voice "How BIG is Adah?!?!" It really is too much.  She enjoys flipping the lightswitches up and down, knocking down block towers I have built, waving her bright yellow spatula around and playing parachute with the bed sheets.  She is still just as joyful as ever and is a delight! We are excited to find out how much she weighs when we go for her check up today.

 Along with Adah, Kyle and I are also moving... to Wilmington! Kyle recently got a job which is a HUGE answer to prayer and we have a lovely home waiting for us as well.  We move in eight days.  We are going through a mixture of emotions as we are saying goodbye to an amazing, beautiful place and amazing, beautiful people.  When I think about our time here at Sunset Farms these words come to mind: rest, learning, transformation, hard work, growth, blessing, joy, challenges, creation, beauty.  What a gift it has been to share life alongside the Murray family!  Kyle and I have been so blessed by the example of Chris and Jamie in their roles as husband and wife, parents and farmers.  Kyle has learned everything he knows about growing good food from Chris and I have learned just as much from Jamie about cooking.  One word that describes how I feel about these last two years here is thankful.  Praise be to God! We are excited about the next chapter in our lives and what the Lord is going to do in and through us next!