Audrey Caroline

I recently attended a Selah concert in which one of the singers, Todd, shared his testimony about he and his wife recently losing their baby girl, Audrey Caroline. Their story is heartbreaking, but their faith is so strong. And although there is so much sorrow they are going through, they are using their situation to bring glory to God. Please cry, laugh, pray for,and rejoice with Angie and Todd and their family. You will be touched by Angie's posts even if you haven't gone through their situation. I know that Holly and I have. You can find their story at www.audreycaroline.blogspot.com

Eli

Life has been so crazy over the past 3 months - An amazing crazy, but still very crazy! Holly and I have fallen completely in love with our son more and more each day. If I had 1.00 for everytime he made me smile I could retire! He is such a joy to be around, Eli is such a well natured little guy. He has been sleeping through the night since a month old, (which makes us love him even more!). His entire family have been blessed by having him our lives. I am so anxious to see God's plan for his life... I'm such an impatient person.. It drives me nuts not knowing what he will look like, what he will be when he grows up... oh well, another much needed lesson for God in patience! Holly and I are moving to a larger apartment, so over the past 3 weeks we have been cleaning and packing as well as working full time and also spending all of our "free time" with Eli. I love watching my wife with Eli... she knows just what he needs and when he needs it... they have such a bond. Last night Holly and I went to a SELAH concert at Bangor Baptist Church - We have been blessed by listening to their music ministry over the past 6 years and were thrilled to have the chance to see them in concert. It was a great evening!! Check them out at www.selahonline.com (Thanks to my sister for the tickets!!) I'll end with a few pictures of my beautiful son... and maybe a few others... TAKE CARE!

So it's been awhile...

WOW, it's been such a long time since I have written that I have to wonder - does anyone care, I mean.. I would understand if no one checked my blog... anyway, because I have a few minutes... here goes....

So Holly is now 7 months pregnant and we still don't know if we're having a boy or a girl, but... our little one has been very uncooperative everytime we have an ultrasound!!! That's okay though, because so far baby is doing well! Mom on the other hand has been sick the entire pregnancy with her latest adventure being gall stones... I firmly believe that after this pregnancy Holly's picture will be replacing the woman on the front of What to Expect When You're Expecting.... she has seriously had more than her fair share!! There is a woman pregnant at work who has had ZERO problems and life is well and merry.. I have fondly nick named her "Princess Perfect Pregnancy"...... Oh well, only a few more months to go!!!!!

Every Christmas Dr. Martin gives his staff the week off between Christmas and New Years.... I'm sooooo looking forward to the week off, unfortunetly Holly has to work that week... sooooo I will probably spend the week waiting to get back to work... but hey....


So I am putting out a plee to the cyber world, Holly and I have NO IDEA what to name our baby.... she has her list and I have my list, and that's where we end... so if anyone has any ideas, please tell me!!!

Holly woke up this morning and wanted to move - I'm blaming it on the pregnancy - she even started to look up the numbers for moving trucks.... it was getting scary.... haha

Besides that, it's life as usual...

Merry Christmas!

Good Times

Yesterday was a GREAT day! Our very good friends Mike and Christa came over for lunch.. my awesome awesome awesome wife made a.. well... awesome lunch! She is such a great cook... she made BBQ Chicken, BBQ Pork Ribs, new potatoes and string beans.. mmm.. and we had salad and rolls .... very yummy... I'm SOOO looking forward to left overs for lunch today! And, hats off to Christa for the yummy brownies she brought :) We had a really nice visit with our friends and had fun playing games and as always enjoyed our conversation ... It was such a slow day but filled with lots to do, those are the best kinds of days.. we went to Wal Mart after our friends left and walked around looking at baby stuff... then we went for a drive... it was getting dark by then and Holly was determined that there was some machete wielding mad man on the back roads I was trying to take soooo we had to turn around and head for home.... I love my wife, she has quite the imagination! The best part of the day though was that Holly was feeling well enough to do all that we did.. she hasn't been feeling up to cooking or going out she has been pregnant... I was happy to see her starting to get some energy back and that she is staring to feel a TINY bit better..... anyway.. that was my great day.. hope you all had one just as great!

Ah.... County Life

So I have to admit if I sat down 2-3 years ago and wrote about living in Aroostook County it would probably be filled with MANY negative things, but ever since getting married and moving back to Presque Isle in 2004 I have fallen in love with "home". Friday (8/10) my wife and I along with my Holly's sister and her family went to the Caribou Cares About Kids parade... it was REALLY nice, and nice to see how much work actually went into it - I'm a sucker for parades anyway...I love summertime here in the county.. I love the colors, and the smells. I especially love this time of the year with all the little vegetables stands... I love how simple life is here - Yesterday morning I went out in search of "new potatoes" for lunch that day.... It blows my mind when I stop at the stands, the prices are listed and that's it.. the farmer just trusts in you being fair and actualy paying for what you take.... I LOVE IT!! The stand I stopped at had an old tin Christmas can... I opened the can to put my 3.00 in and there was qutie a bit of money in it... and I just thought how awesome it is to be so trusting that the people who stop and buy your products aren't going to swipe a few dollars -- I'm sure though that unfortunetly this happens, but... I just loved it! It was about 7:45 in the morning, the air was cool and they sky was beautiful! My wife and I have recentely gotten into a love of "driving around" especially on the weekends (we're such an old married couple!) I just love driving around on some of the back roads in the area and looking at the scenery and the beautiful homes that are around. It is such a quite way of life here in Presque Isle and I just love it! I was talking with my cousin the other day who grew up in the Bangor area, but now lives in Florida and she was saying that sometimes she just really misses the little things... like the fair and farmers markets... It really is a different way of life here in Maine..especially Northern Maine and I LOVE IT and am so happy that for now God has called us to live and serve here, and that he had a county girl picked out to be my bride!

Hmmm

Okay, here's something random as I promised you could expect from this babbling fool..hahaha....

Last night I was doing the dishes and I reached in the water and got a cut on the tip of my right index finger from a knife.... now... I'm going to guess that the cut is about.. 1 cm long... how on earth can this be a crippling injury? seriously though.. why does it hurt so bad? I find myself babying my finger.. when I write I have to hold my hand differently....typing is dreadful, am I seriously such a wimp? Paper cuts and hang nails are the worse... I've had dental work without anesthesia that has felt better than this.. I've stepped on nails that have gone through my .50 wal mart flip flops and caused my feet to bleed.. right now i'd step on 10 nails instead of having this TINY cut on my finger. Seriously though.. it's incredible.. I had less pain when I was in the hospital last year with swollen parotid glands the size of cantaloupes (spelling??)... of course then I was on an IV drip of pain medication... so that doesn't count....

Anyway, my finger hurts and I'm a big baby - guess that's the point of the post!

YES!

I am so very happy to tell everybody reading this that my wife, Holly, and I are going to have a baby!!!!!! We have known now for about a month that we were pregnant, however we wanted to wait until our first appointment (which was today) before telling everyone. Our happy news comes at a time when friends dear to us are hurting because of a miscarriage - and our thoughts and prayers are still with our friends. It was difficult at first because we knew that the hurt and sorrow over the loss of their child was still so fresh when we found out. I'm so glad though that our friends were so encouraging when they found out. I never wanted to keep our news from them, but how do you handle a situation like that? It's like saying I won the lottery while someone you know is going through bankruptcy (although I've never won the lottery!) Even though I know now that our friends aren't upset or hurt by our news I hesitate to post this because my wife has friends who have been trying much longer than we have... the last thing we would ever want to do would upset our friends and families.

We had our first appointment today, and it was such a surreal experience - I mean... all of the sudden there we were in the examination room -- this can't be for real! The past month has been full of dreaming and long talks about what we want our child to achieve and also what we want to achieve as parents. My wife is a fan of the tv show "Friends" and there is one episode where Rachel is having an ultrasound and she breaks down because she can't "see" her baby... she doesn't know what she's looking at ... I have to admit I thought I would have a bigger reaction at first when I saw the ultrasound, but I didn't... I was Rachel... what in the world am I looking at.. what I thought was a head wasn't... and at this point in the pregnancy the baby looks like a shrimp.. all curled up... we were able to get a better view as the ultrasound went on... all of the sudden there was a tiny swirling on the screen to which we were told that was our baby's heartbeat ----- wow, how suddenly you can feel like you get a giant slap on the back of the head as if someone was saying "DUH"..... that moment wasn't an overjoyed/crying moment like I had planned for, I felt so peaceful in knowing that our baby was just "hanging out" while i watched its heart beat... I felt proud, almost like I can start a list of accomplishments my child has made... It is truly amazing how fast you can fall in love with something or someone, All I have to look at right now is a fuzzy black and gray photograph - but everytime I look at the picture my heart becomes overjoyed and all I can say is "THANK YOU GOD!". It's amazing to be chosen by God to raise really one of his children.

Please pray for my little family - Mommy is very sick right now (which we are told is a good thing) and also pray for my baby - that he or she will continue to grow stronger each day. And I guess that Daddy needs some prayer too --- no really LOTS OF PRAYERS!! It is a huge task and privelege to be called a father - I just pray that I can live up to all the expectations that come with my new role.