A looooong overdue update

Well friends, since we have last seen each other a lot has happened. Let me esplain... no there is too much, let me sum up. Matt turned 25, I turned 27 and Michaela turned 1! We have purchased a home in Nashville, TN and have lived here now for about 10 days. We moved out of our apartment and stayed with our (awesome) friends Grant and Brittany Comp for just over 3 weeks. We also had a weeks-long visit from some of our dear friends from Colorado, Seth and Carrie Schaeffer! Whew! Ok, now I will elaborate.

First of all, the decision to buy a house was not made until the beginning of March. Our lease at our apartment was due to be up on March 31st... so we asked for a one month extension and started looking for houses. We looked at about 1,000 houses online. Or I should say Matthew looked. He has a little more computer time than I do so he did most of the research for us. We ended up looking at about 6 houses in the flesh. The house we chose was one of those 6. After a (long) ordeal and a lot of waiting, we signed the papers and became homeowners on May 27th! We now have a 3 bedroom 2 bath house with a sunroom, fenced backyard and one car garage with a ton of storage. And we are paying less than we were per month in rent at our old apartment. Can't beat that!

We had fun celebrating all of our May birthdays but, of course, the one we were most excited about was Michaela's! We can't believe our little girl is one year old already! We had a little party for her and she did very well eating her own cupcake. She didn't even get that dirty and she LOVED being the center of attention! We are blessed with great friends and family who got her some amazing gifts. New toys, books and clothes. What more can a girl need? She is so much fun right now! She is crawling on her hands and knees and she still throws in the army crawl once in a while. She has this little scrunchy-faced grin that is maybe the cutest thing I've ever seen. She has been using signs since she was about 9 months old and she still uses them along with sounds that sound more and more like words each day. She says "mama" "dada" what sounds like "thank you" and "bye bye" "I love you" and a few other things that sound like words. She also responds like crazy to words and phrases. The other day I asked her to show her shoes to her babysitter, Monica and she held up her foot. I also will ask her to use her hands and she does. If I tell her "No" she will stop doing what she is doing... most of the time. She is such a good natured little girl! We love her so much! She is now also sleeping in her own crib in her own room and, for the first time in her entire life the other night, she slept through the night! You can imagine how this made her tired mamma and daddy feel. We are so proud of her. She is becoming a Toddler now and it's amazing to see how much she absorbs in the world every day. She is very snuggly and cuddly. She gives us kisses with full puckers and kissing smacks. She hugs just about everything from her baby doll to her daddy's iphone. She pats your arms when she hugs you and says "Oh!" She is the joy of our life. We are hoping to add to our family in the next year or so. No concrete plans yet though. We are enjoying our time with Michaela. It's weird to think that when we have more kids she will be our oldest child. Huh, funny how that works out

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Matt continues to play his songs as much as he can and we are hoping that the right person hears them soon. He is still playing with his band, Brookline. They are playing a lot more this summer all around Nashville. He is working at DSI still doing cash posting as his day job. He works with some of our best friends our here and so he enjoys the time that they all get to spend together.

I am still working at the day care center for now. It is not my first choice to have to work but it is what we need right now for our family. Michaela has an amazing babysitter that we met through my church. We are truly blessed to have someone to trust her with every day.

We are settling into our house and new routine. Looking forward to some visits from family this summer. My sister, Kelli, is coming this weekend and staying for 4 1/2 days!! I can't wait and I am sure we will blog about it.

This little ache in my heart never goes away as long as we are away from our family but it gets put on hold when they come to visit so, thank you family for making plans to come see us this summer! You have NO IDEA how much I need it!

Love you all.