Monster Moth

This fuzzy fellow was hanging out on our porch the other night. I don't think I have ever seen shuch a big moth. He was so cute :)

EGD at 7, almost 8, months

Here are a few pictures I took of Emma this morning. She is the perfect photography "subject"...just perfect! She is getting so big and is just so much fun. She does something new every day. The best is when we go in to her room when she has woken up from a nap or in the morning and she is peeking her little face up over her bumper on her crib looking towards the door. When she sees Tim or I she smiles so big and you can tell she is just so happy to see us. We can tell that we are her world and she loves us so much. It is amazing being a mom...there are no words to explain it. I LOVE her!

EGD's birth story

So I think I should post our story of how Emma Grace entered this world. I started this blog after she was here so I did not get to post about it. So...it was November 11, 2007 and Tim and I had gone to bed. I was woken up around 10:30 p.m. with a very sharp pain in my belly (it was a contraction but I had no idea). I decided to head to the restroom since I was feeling something I had not felt all pregnancy. Once I sat on the toilet my water broke! I was very confused becuase Emma still had 5 weeks of "baking" to do in me until it was time for her to come out. I woke up Tim and told him I think my water broke and I was going to call the doctor on call. I called and got the answering service and left a message. 20 minutes later I got the call back from Dr. Zimmerman (the best OB in the world!). He said to me, very casually, "yep, sounds like you ruptured your membranes, come on in". WOW...now I am freaking out. I wake up Tim and tell him the doctor said to come on it. I will never forget that LONG ride to the hospital. My contractions were coming every 3-4 minutes and I prayed the whole time asking God to make sure Emma was healthy before she came into the world. So we got to the hospital and the nurse took me into the triage area. She asked me lots of questions and confirmed my water had broke. She confirmed and admitted me (and this whole time my contractions were getting worse and closer together). Tim went off and made the appropriate phone calls...to my mom and his mom and we got in our room. Dr. Zimmerman came in and checked me and told me I was 2 cm dialated (I think this was around 12:30 a.m. or so) and reassured me that little girls do very well around 35 weeks and not to worry. They took my labs and I had to wait about an hour for the labs to come back before I got the epidural :( BUT...once I got the epidural, I was good to go! They checked me again after the epidural was in and I was at 8 cm (you need to be at 10 cm to push)!! Wow, this was going fast! My mom had made it there and was a huge support and Tim's mom made it there just in time for the pushing. I made it to 10 cm by 3:00 a.m. and started pushing. I pushed for a hour and a half and at 4:30 a.m. on November 12, 2007, Emma Grace entered the world with some welcomed cries. The special team of nurses checked her over and gave her an A+ on health and Tim and I were able to hold our baby! It was the most amazing experience I have ever been through. So...that's our story. 20 years from now I can come back and read this and re-live it all over again...which I would do in a second!

Time for a third tooth :)

So my sweet Emma Grace is getting her third tooth. She got her two bottom ones and now she is getting a top one. The cool thing is is (I know...two "is'" together is not correct...but it just sounds better) that she is not getting either of her two top, center ones. She is getting the one to the right of center. It is going to be adorable!!! I will try to snap a picture of it once it comes in more.

Flowers from the Bahamas

I love taking pictures of flowers. The Bahamas offered some great flowers to snap some pictures of. Enjoy!

Emma Grace having a laugh :)

My Testimony

I had a great childhood growing up. I went to church every Sunday with my family and was a good kid. I knew about God, Jesus and heaven and figured since I was a good kid and went to church every Sunday I would be going to heaven. Once I hit highschool I stopped going to church so much. I did not have any sort of spiritual life through highschool. A couple months after graduating highschool is when I started dating who is now my husband (Tim). Shortly after we started dating he began talking more and more to me about being a Christian. He talked about praying, having conversations with God, being saved, witnessing, all of which I had no clue what he was talking about, but pretended I did. He would take me to church with him occasionally and every time I went I would feel a strong urge to go up to the preacher during the invitational but I had no idea what I wanted to say or why I was feeling that way. I began to ask Tim questions about his life as a Christian and compare it to mine. I wondered how anyone could have a personal relationship with God, someone who I had learned about as a child but never imagined having a relationship with. The more Tim and I went to church the more I felt I wanted to learn. I wanted to know what it was like to be saved. I had no idea how it would happen or what it would feel like. I did not know what I had to do or say.

One Christmas I received a book called The Purpose Driven Life as a gift. Tim and I made a commitment to read it every night before bed together and that is what we did. The book was wonderful. It helped me understand more about my life and more about knowing God. Tim and I got to a chapter where it talks about accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. As we finished the reading I felt an urge (also known as the Holy Spirit) to get down on my knees beside the bed and accept Christ into my heart. I told Tim, so he got down beside me, also on his knees, and asked me to repeat after him. I will never remember what he said but it was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. Finally! I knew what it was like to be saved. There was a hole in my heart and it was filled that night with the only thing that could fill it, and it was Jesus Christ.

From that moment on I had a completely different outlook on life. I had, and still have, a hunger to know God better and to grow as a Christian. God has blessed me beyond what I deserve with my husband and daughter. I live today to tell other people of His glory and power and how He can change lives.

Fancy Hats

Here is a picture of Emma Grace with Grace Caroline. Gracey is my bosses (Jodee's) daughter. Gracey is actually the one to suggest to Tim and I using the name Emma.....pretty cool. :) This was at a yard sale this past Saturday.

Some cute pics of EGD

We may have baby turtles soon

So this morning Bella showed us that there was this HUGE turtle by one of our trees. Of course, I had to take a few pictures. When the turtle left, we went to her spot and there was a hole. I am no expert, but when a turtle digs a hole....I think she lays eggs in it. We are going to research how long it takes turtle eggs to hatch and we are going to keep watch. How lucky would we be if we see baby turtles making their way for our creek. So cool!

This is the hole she left...I think there are eggs in there :) It said online that it can take all summer for them to hatch and some stay in their eggs over the winter and come out next summer.

**After a little research Tim and I discovered it was an Eastern Snapper turtle. Their demeanor is usually aggressive but she was really sweet. The record length we saw on the internet is 19 inches. She was very close to that.