Let there be light!

A quick update on things here - we have our walk through of the house tomorrow afternoon, close on Thursday and after Terry hits the road Friday & Saturday for the ASU/ECU game. Then...Sunday is THE big day. As in moving day. WOO HOO. But at the rate of my emotions these days, WAH WAH all in the same breath! Feeling so excited and so overwhelmed! But we went by tonight for a quick photo update to be able to show you stained floors and a good old thing we like to call e-lectricity. Thank you Mr. Edison. It's amazing how warm and cozy the house already feels with lights and dark floors! More to come next week!

Abundance

We continue to be amazed by the abundance of love in our lives and how many sweet people love us so well. When we moved to Charlotte from Durham, we did so with a main driving factor away from Durham being that we just didn't have a community there. We will continue to tell our friends who are getting married that we believe community is one of the most important things you need (especially) in your first year of marriage. And we can say that because of the over-abundance of blessing that was poured out on us when we moved here and found such an amazing community of dear friends. We had no idea what awaited us here, but we are so thankful that we followed the Lord's call here! Already living lives both full of supportive families and dear friends living near and far, 'our cups runneth over' with our friends here in Charlotte.

Several amazing people in the "App Family" and beyond traveled to be with us this weekend while we got to be loved on by all of these wonderful people while we celebrated this sweet baby girl coming into our family in a short 11 weeks!

We think these pictures pretty adequately show a whole lot of love going around -
for us, for the Pea, and from us.
Flemuce Love


Kat isn't just pointing at her wine, which she loves,
but her cup reads 'Aunt Kat,' she thinks it's great!


With the hostesses with the mostest in their hostess aprons - I heart these girls.

A whole lot of love

You might notice seeing a lot of Kat in these photos - it's because she deserves to be highlighted because she made an amazing gift for the Pea's room. She rocks. Aren't these great??? It was a total surprise! There are 3 of them, but I don't have enough hands to hold them all, sorry.

And in the midst of this, we know that another sign of the abundance of blessings in our lives right now is this new home that we are soon (September 6th!!!) to move into. I may or may not be having break downs every few days or so right now being overwhelmed by all of this going on at the same time, and all that is left to do to be ready for 'all of these things' (read: baby and house) - but we are nonetheless so stinkin' excited. And you will be so stinkin' excited to know that we finally have pictures to share with you!

We have house numbers and (some) grass!
Staining of the porch and under happens this weekend.We are both sort-of obsessed with our porch.
Love the view. Love the stain on the ceiling. Love the fan.
Love the sconce lights.
Love the pricing of special orders from Lowes!We also kind of love our kitchen.
The electrician comes today to hang 2 more pendants over the island like the one over the sink. They match the one over the kitchen table that looks like this:And this is what is hiding under the covering on the island.
What can I say, we also kind of love this!And there is carpet in the nursery and Guest room, and we can't walk in the house for the next 4 days because the floors are being stained as I type and as you read -
we cannot WAIT to see them finished!

And if you aren't exhausted yet by the abundance of this post, the final pictures are of the family-mobile - this time, our car in front of our house!

Playing House

Let's pretend that this is our new house and this is our new car in front of our new house. Well, it isn't our new house (although we do have one of those!) and this isn't our new car. Because the one we bought last night is black! Family car, here we come/here we are!

Terry has been researching and researching cars for us like crazy and we started the official dreaded go-to-the-dealerships-hunt this past weekend. We realized last night that in the span of the short 2.5 years that we have been married, we have had FIVE cars. Granted, some of them were held together by bungee cords and got broken into and we only had for 3 months and others we bought with cash and are laps of luxury. And maybe we could say 6 modes of transportation since some of us took the bus to most days for several months (I like that about myself, is that okay?) :)

We hunted Saturday and found some pretty good options, but ick, the best one we found was a gold car. I'm not talking like champagne gold, I mean like bling bling GOLD. We considered painting it. Seriously. It would have made for great before and after photos. But then last night we landed right smack in the middle of the Lord's favor and a great haggling phase of my pregnancy and while we started looking at a much older car with way more miles on it, we ended up in a much newer car with very few miles on it, a warranty, it doesn't need to be painted, and is only slightly more than we were paying to lease our little two-door totally impractical but very fun while it lasted car!

November is fast approaching and with all of the things I have read about the hassle of installing car seat bases, this should give us just enough time to figure out how to install ours and let someone tell us we've done it wrong and fix it for us! Also fast approaching is the move-in for the house! Floors start getting stained on Friday, and we close on the 4th and move in on the SIXTH - SO SOON!!!! Sorry for the lack of pictures, really got to get the flash fixed on my camera - one more thing to check off the list of things to do before baby Bruce comes (put together crib, get nursery ready, move into and settle* into house, new car - check, name baby Bruce...) you know, small things.

Showering the Pea with Love, Love, Love

Had a great weekend in Winston this past weekend being eventful finding mirrors for the bathrooms in the house - we're down to the final details! - furniture for the babe's room, and having her first shower!

It felt like de ja vous of my bridal luncheon since we were at Rebecca's mom's house (which I sadly realized afterwards, maybe this was the last event we will have there!) with a lot of my dear friends who were in our wedding, and several of my mom's dearest friends who have been like second, third, and extra mothers in my life. Not that I need extra moms, because we all know I have the greatest one in the world! Laura agrees!But there are a few girls who might argue that they feel the same way about their own moms, and they are the ones who threw this shower for the Pea.

[Side note - please look at these blonde headed/dark headed matches in daughters and moms with Rebecca and Kelly. This is hilarious and scary to me all at the same time - What will I do if this baby girl comes out with BLONDE hair?! After all, Terry did have blonde curls until he was 6!]

Kelly and I have been friends since were were together since middle school; have known Rebecca since 3rd grade, and Steph has been with me since my 102.1 jamz listening days in highschool. Kelly has led the way for us with her family and I feel like we were just having her baby shower! Instead, she was there with her precious Jackson and 9 month old Katie, and I'm so glad to not be the total pioneer of this road! (You would think I was having a baby boy for sure with all of the blue in this picture - thank goodness for that strap of pink in my shoes!) These girls did so much for this fun lunch shower including my favorite chicken salad, putting a fan by my chair at lunch, getting me the most fabulous diaper bag, delicious pink lemonade cake squares with precious little birds on it that matched the invitations and the mobile in her room. The bird theme, by the way has been completely unplanned. I saw a mobile in a nursery while on a house tour months and months ago that I loved and scoured the internet for. The closest thing I could find to it was this. In case you don't want to look at this link, it was $110. Did you just spit out your drink? Yes, I did too when I found it. So I turned to crafty Katie Kate to see if she thought she could recreate it for me. She was up for the task, but I was still determined to find it. Terry said he would go knock on the door of the house where we saw it, but before we got around to that, we were on a trip to the Pottery Barn Outlet in SC looking for other things for the house when VOILA. There it was, the very mobile I'd been scouring the internet for! For fifteen dollars. Yes, that's right. Fifteen dollars. I was beyond excited! And the girls didn't even know about the mobile when they picked the invitation or decided to do the cakes. Definitely meant to be, huh?I had a blast getting to love on and be loved on by these wonderful girls and women in my life and was so blessed by all of the fun and wonderful things they brought to shower the sweet Pea with. Our guest room/storage room/ironing room/where to store laundry while it's waiting to be folded room is SERIOUSLY filling up. That September closing on the house can't come soon enough!

Dog Days of Summer

That's right people, I'm taking it back to middle school today. I took a hiatus from public school for middle school. I'm not really sure why my parents decided to do this at the time; but from the horror stories I hear from others and the great friends I have from my private school days, I'm so glad they did.

One great thing that came out of Calvary Baptist Day School was getting to be a cheerleader...tight rolled jeans...the Bible I wrote in and scratched through boys' names during chapel services that my mom recently gave to GoodWill...the time I broke up with a boy because he kissed me on the cheek on the track gym...oh right, the Chetwoods. Eric transferred to Calvary and was the new boy in school that all the girls loved; his mom taught middle school music and was close to if not, the sweetest woman you had ever met. And the whole Chetwood family only wrapped you more and more around their fingers. The Chetwoods have two other fabulous children (and now lots of grandchildren), an all American dog at the time, and all headed up by a dad who just melts your heart. Jeff was the minister at our wedding, and I was so honored to have someone who knew and loved me so well to be such a part of such a big day. All this to say - I met the Chetwoods during middle school, and have very clear memories of music class with Jodie. She always put verses to song for us to memorize, and probably the one that I most remember is:

Joshua 1:8

"Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth.

Meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful

to do everything written in it."

Maybe I say this verse in my sleep, or sent Salem subliminal messages about it recently because last week when I came downstairs in the morning after Bible study at my house, here is what I found:

This may not be the clearest picture ever since I took it with my phone, but I think you get the main idea. She took this verse VERY literally. She is not letting this book depart from her mouth! Unfortunately, this is not her first go around with something like this. When we lived with Becky, she ate Becky's Message. Maybe she was trying to compare the NIV to the Message, or maybe she's trying to be REALLY holy. Or maybe she needs to go to doggie day care because she has so flipping much energy despite the dog park in our back yard and daily walks.

Oh Salem...

Let's hope we can work this out before we move into the new house and have a baby - okay? Okay. Great. Thanks. I'd really like to keep her. Most days.

Tan babies, houses and party vans

The weeks are flying by around here, I am starting to feel like I'd like my next present from someone to be a time turner like Hermione has in Harry Potter - anyone?? We spent the past weekend at the beach with my mom and family thanks to a great 'end of the year present' from one of her students - which was a week at their beach house at Sunset Beach! I can't remember the last time we were all at the beach together, so it was great. My skin is a little more sensitive than I anticipated and I got seriously 'redneck red' the first day there! As Becky said, maybe now our babe will come out tan!

[Sidenote: some of you may not know this story. Our great friend John Kessler, who you saw knocking at our door in a picture several months ago, relayed this story to us from his sister who is a labor & delivery nurse. A rather ...redneck... white couple from eastern NC came into the hospital and were having their baby - 9 months after their wedding, a total honeymoon baby. When the baby was delivered, he was mixed. The father looked around and wanted to know what in the world was going on. To which the mother replied, "Baby, Baby, don't you remember on our honeymoon when we were both so tan???" (insert silence from doctors and nurses in the room) AND HE FELL FOR IT. "Oh yeah, oh yeah..." Can you imagine? Do you think she had been planning to use that line or did she just come up with it on the fly? I still don't know whether to feel bad for that guy or to just be amazed at how well that defines eastern NC in my mind...]

Well other than tanning this baby girl, much has been going on at the house but I haven't been able to capture it because the flash in my camera is broken and it's been after dark when I've been able to get over there the past few weeks.

But, things look much different with no dumpster out front, landscaping has gone in, and we have part of our front steps finished!

Can't wait for everything to grow and mature - it all seems so little right now!

We're kind of obsessed with our sink - which we found on ebay and was such a steal of a deal...well that is until you factor in freight shipping for a 160lb cast iron sink. Details, details...But, we can't wait to do some of this with our own little pea in this sink!

Meanwhile we're also fighting SIDS one fan at a time! The electrician was out yesterday and started putting in all of our lighting and fans - apparently it was a big job because only the upstairs got finished; but here is the fan in 'her' room (stop complaining that she doesn't have a name, she'll have one soon...or at least once she's born!) A fan. VERY exciting, I know!

But something that is very exciting are these little signs of life sprouting up around the house - let's just hope they don't all get washed away in these crazy downpours!

This weekend, we are headed off to Richmond, VA for an intern reunion...oh, and Pat's wedding - once again with the fabulous group of interns I worked with at Windy Gap in 2004. And this time, we're getting serious and bringing back the party van. Michael had his parents mini-van at camp the summer we all worked together and we would all 12 pile in anytime we went somewhere and it was the official party van. To bring it back, this time around we are renting a 15 passenger van and making the drive all together (minus 2 slackers who are flying straight to Richmond but plus 2 kiddos in carseats) - should be TOTAL hilarity! Pictures and stories to come next time!

The 4th and Beyond

We headed to Emory for the weekend of the 4th to spend the most redneck 4th of July ever with my dad, Adam (+family) and Laura. As evidenced by the picture to the left. [To get the full effect, you should know that the shirt I'm wearing, from Ashley, says 'knocked up.']

We even got the BB shotgun out and had a competition to see who had the best shot. I won with 8/12 (six of those shots were in a row!) - I knew that riflery class at Crestridge was worth more than just all the letters and notes I wrote in between my turns laying on the mats! I don't think I've touched a gun since then, but clearly it stuck with me :) We lit up the night sky with our own fireworks show that night in the front yard supplied with fireworks from Blackbeard's Firework shop in Gaffney, SC. It was mostly successful minus the times that the girls hid behind the stone wall as Terry & Adam were debating on which way they should be pointing some of the rockets they were holding (already lit!) We took an intermission during which I taught Laura how to control the shutter speed on her camera and she got some great pictures from the sparklers!

Got to see lots of this cute little man who is growing up so fast, and we are headed to his 'baby' dedication at church in Raleigh this coming weekend and will get to snuggle him some more. Before we go, we're doing the dreaded baby registry, let's pray we don't get totally overwhelmed!

When we got home, we had lots of new updates to share from the house - kitchen cabinets as promised, paint colors, built in shelves, cabinets in our bathroom, stained front porch! Enjoy!