Our Big Girl!!!!!

Today Merrae fed herself with a spoon. She dipped the spoon into her fruit. It was so cute watching her grin as she put it in her mouth. She was so excited. She's such a big girl!!!!! She'll always be our itty bitty teeny tiny baby though.

Baby Baby Baby Baby

Those are the words we hear on a regular basis lately! Merrae loves her baby doll. She takes it all over our apartment. Since I was behind a day on posting I thought I'd let you guys see these sweet pictures of her and her baby eating cheerios. She wanted to bring her baby into her high chair.

We had fun

We had a great anniversary. Mom got here around 1:15 Tuesday and Merrae was really excited to see her. Everytime my mom would go out to her car to unload, Merrae would cry thinking that she left. Matt gave me 3 red roses. One for each year of marriage. They are big and beautiful. I think roses are so pretty. God's creations are so numerous and amazing, aren't they?

We did all the things I planned for us to do and had fun. It was nice to be able to go to a movie. Of all the nice places around we ended up eating at a pizza place! But, it was a nice pizza place that someone recommended to us and it was delicious. The ice sculptures we went and saw were incredible! Below are the pics. After being in that resort at Christmas time I told Matt that next year instead of spending our money doing stuff around town, let's just spend it on staying at the resort! It would be so relaxing.

Today is our Anniversary!

Today is our 3 year wedding anniversary. Hard to believe. I don't have our wedding pictures on my computer so I had to take a picture of a picture. That explains the poor quality! We decided to take turns planning each year and this is my year. Mom is coming up to watch Merrae the rest of the day while I take Matt on the town. We are soo looking forward to it. I have a lot planned and am still deciding what order to do it all in. I plan on taking him to a local resort to see some ice sculptures followed by hot cocoa and Christmas festivities there. I also want to take him to see a movie or two : ) since we don't get to go as often as we used to. I'm going to take him to Plano for dinner down by the new shops. It should be decorated pretty down there. Across the street from where we live there is an outlet mall where there is this silly little ride thing we will ride and go through a movie memorabilia shop that Matt wants to go in. Also, down by that restaurant I'm taking him to later there is an Angelika theater where they show independent movies as well as the regular movies. That's where I'll take him to see the 2nd movie. Well, gotta run so I can get ready for all of this! OH and by the way, I am CRAZY in love with my sweet Matthew. I am blown away at the way God has dumped out His blessings on us. Sure, we have our own issues at times since we are both imperfect sinful people, but I am so grateful that God has given us to each other. We have a blast together. He is so much fun, so loving, loves and honors God, a great father, good cook : ), funny, handsome, kind, gentle, hard worker, creative, servant, good friend, good company, good listener.....and the list will go on another time when I have more time. I love you Matthew!!!!!! Happy Anniversary sweetheart. I hope you have fun today.

Under the Weather

It's been a rough weekend. Merrae hasn't been feeling well. Thank you Jesus that she is feeling better today. But, she's still not quite over it. She had an ear infection that has cleared up and now she has some type of upper respiratory infection with the runny nose. Of course fussiness has gone along with that and neediness. We love that she is more cuddly during these times but it also wears on you. Today has been a good day overall, thank God. We still took her to the doctor to just check in on her and she looks the same as she did Friday....ears clear but still getting over the viral infection. That was encouraging that she didn't look worse. We are praying that she would get over this. She's been sick on and off for the past several months. I guess because she has had more exposure to the kids at church in daycare.

Matt has been sick on and off as well. Thank God I haven't been sick at all. Must be all that fattening guacamole I eat! Ha! I'm thankful He has been protecting me. Hope all of you are feeling well!

Our Dog Lehya......

Our dog Lehya....is the size of a small calf. Most would say she's the size of a small horse. But, I have proof here that she is not! Ha. Here she is having a stand off with one of Matt's parents' calfs. She is a Great Dane and believe it or not, she is a petite Great Dane. She is 10 years old and the sweetest dog God has ever created. It's funny to me that I ended up with a huge dog because I used to be terrified of dogs growing up. I think it's because I never had a dog for any long period of time growing up. When I was a toddler we had 2 outside dogs (I think they were outside dogs)...Tippy and Sissy. Then, my dad gave us a dog when I was in high school but he ran away shortly after we got him. There was a kid across the street who was attacked by a dog and I think that must have been what did me in....not sure. But, overall I think it's because I wasn't used to being around them. Anyway, Matt got Lehya from his parents right when we started "courting". So, she's always been my dog too in a way. She's always been such a sweet, loving dog. Even as a puppy she would just lean up against you and stand there so you would pet her. Of course she's always thought she was as small as a lap dog so as a puppy when she would jump up to greet you, it would be quite overwhelming. But, that was few and far between that she would jump on us. She has always had a calm, gentle personality and likes to lay around and be wherever we are....unless we are vacumming. : ) She got to grow up on Matt's parent's land with several other dogs, chickens, cows, horses, pigs, bulls, and geese. Then, she moved into a few houses and apartments with Matt and is now in our small apartment. In her old age she has done very well with being in an apartment because all she likes to do is lay down anyways. She's gotten to go on many walks and runs and her favorite thing to do is sunbathe just outside our front door. We don't even have to put a leash on her because she will stay right by our apartment. When we let her out to go potty she goes straight there, does her business, and then comes straight back. We don't even have to go with her! That is a huge blessing especially now that we have Merrae to take care of and as the weather gets cold. Lehya is so good with Merrae. She lets Merrae pat on her, put stuff in her face ocassionally, and is careful with her. I guess the only draw back to Lehya is that she takes up 1/2 of our dining room area and when we don't pick up her "business" outside, EVERYONE knows it's from our dog!!! Ha!!! As she's gotten older she's had some degeneration in her spine which makes it hard for her to get up and down. Vitamins have helped to make her feel herself and she still ocassionally runs up and down our hallway and out onto our porch chasing her stuffed animal cat. She still loves her trips back down to the farm where she grew up but she's developed quite nicely into a "city girl". We LOVE you Lehya!!!!!!!!

Sleigh Ride!!!!

Merrae got to go on a "Sleigh Ride" tonight. Daddy was emptying out the diaper box and decided to make it into a sleigh. He stuffed it with a pillow, her blanket, and her baby and attached his belt to pull her. It was so fun and too cute as she continued to want more rides throughout the evening. Eventually she went and got her puppy stuffed animal to come along for the ride and she even tried to pull her baby for a ride herself. Later, her friend Ian came over from next door to play. She got the sweet red striped outfit in the mail today from her great Aunt Melanie. She looks like Santa's little helper or rather, JESUS' little helper! Enjoy the pic's.

Merrae's 1st Birthday

Merrae turned one on October 19th. Below is a slide show of her big party at our church. The first few are of her at home trying cake for the first time on her actual birthday. Then, the others are at church. The last few are back home again playing with her new toys.

Christmas Cookie Nightmare

I made Chocolate Mint cookies tonight. They are kind of like sugar cookies where you roll out the dough and use cookie cutters and then frost them. They tasted delicious but I HATED the process. I don't have the patience for that kind of thing I don't think. I thought I would enjoy it and make it a tradition to make them for Christmas every year. But, I don't think so!!! Part of the problem could have been that Merrae was especially needy today and so it took a lot longer to get started and as I was mixing the ingredients she was crying for me to pick her up because she needed her mama! Then, I was wearing long sleeves and my hair was down so I got really hot standing next to the hot oven. My feet were killing me by the time I was done due to standing so long. The clean up took forever too. I had to make them for my church lifegroup in the morning. We are having a cookie swap. Next year, if I do this : ) , I will do a recipe that is less involved!!!!

Funny!!

I went out for a girls night out tonight and Merrae and Matt hung out while I was gone. He put her to bed and everything because I stayed out later than her bedtime. I just went in her room to check on her and her shoes were still on! Poor baby! That cracks me up! Granted the shoes did kind of blend in with her socks so I can see how he may have not seen them, but it's still funny. I can't wait to tell him in the morning.

I'm excited!

Matt has been offered a full time position at our church doing video production. He has been there part time for several years doing video along with running his own video production company. He was offered a job in Nashville several months ago doing video work for a non profit organization and when our church found out about it they offered him a full time position so he'd stay at the church. We didn't expect this to happen at all. Well, we met with them yesterday and discussed the details. After doing so we accepted the job at our church. We are blown away at the way God provides for our needs. Our church is fairly new and we didn't expect for them to be able to offer him anything full time for several years but they found a way through God. I believe that if God's people weren't tithing and giving above the tithe, this would not be possible. We have been focusing on that a lot at our church lately and are trying to give above our tithe in order to help out with the down and out such as orphans or other people who have needs. We are so thankful to be a part of a church who are striving to be obedient to God's word and living it out. Thank you God for this job promotion!!!!! You are so good! I'm excited that we get to stay where we are. I really like it here. I'm also excited because of course it's more stability financially and we may be able to get a house soon. We love our apartment and God has put many people in our paths to love here, so we'd be willing to stay longer if that's what God leads us to do, but it's also fun to start seeing what is out on the market. It's also exciting to see the way God is using Matt through video. He surrendered to the ministry in high school and is now seeing God use Him through something he loves to do! He is also getting to continue his own film company that he helped start several years ago by staying here. I could go on and on. He still gets to work from home to do the church job and his own business gets to continue. We are so blessed!!!!!! I'm in awe. It's all because God is good and loves us very much. He blesses us in ways we didn't know we'd want to be blessed in. Wow! I can tell I'm going to get long winded doing this blogging thing!

Didn't expect to ever do this!

Well, my friend Stephanie decided to join the blogger world so I decided the Colemans would too!!!! I didn't want to at first because I didn't want people who don't know us to get too much information on us, but.......I want to keep in touch with friends and family, so here we go!!!!