Waiting to find out if I won some amazing boots....

Ever the optimist. Trying to win something on Pioneer Woman! One day, I will succeed and I'm afraid it might just be one of the biggest highlights in my life!!! Is that sad? Wait. Don't answer that. Guess what? It's POW WOW weekend - do you realize what this means? Only the biggest yard sale weekend of the YEAR!!!! Nevermind that we haven't gone to a yard sale the rest of the summer. We decided we have too much junk in our house as it is and we don't need anymore. I did a little the beginning of the summer looking for some baby treasures and that's what I plan on doing this weekend! I'm not exactly sure what I need, but don't you worry, when I find it, I'LL KNOW! My one brother in law, Judah, thinks it's all junk, but my other brother in law - the kindred spirit, Charlie, he sees it all for what it really is - a treasure!!!! Sorry Judah, but I'm sure you'll come around one of these days! :)

Well, we are on countdown for a lot of things. #1 - Rally Sunday, that's this Sunday and that means Sunday School starts back up again. So after being gone from church for too many Sundays to count, we'll be back, full fledged! #2 - Rally Wednesday is this coming Wednesday night (16th) which is the start of Confirmation! We are switching things up quite a bit and so Sam's got a lot on his plate right now. But it'll be nice when that is over. The first one - you just never know how it's gonna go, but we have a lot of people that have put a lot of time into this service and I'm pretty sure it's going to knock everyone's socks off. The only dilemma I have is that my Women's Bible Study is at the exact same time. So I just don't know - I'm so torn. I need the fellowship, but I might have to skip the first one just to gain the momentum of the back to school spirit!!! We'll see. I'll keep you posted. #3 - Thursday night (17th) starts Sam's league Men's Volleyball. Yes, he signed up for a weekly league to play V-ball with the boys and have a Bible study afterwards. Good for them. That goes till December or something. #4 - Friday night (18th) is our back to school kick off for Jr. High Crossfire. #5 - Sam is starting back to school with Liberty Theological Seminary. I don't know when his class starts exactly. #6 - It's time for the annual Papa's Pumpkin Patch family fun day! Which crazy enough, Sam is in charge of! But he says that he's pretty much handed those responsibilities over to someone else, but we'll see. #7 - Sam's got a big commission art piece that he has finally started on and I pray he feels like he's got a good start, because I think it looks great! Don't know exactly when that's due. #8 - Sam's also got a one man art show the last week of October! Hmmm.... I should be working on some invites for that. At least getting some labels ready for that. Thanks for the reminder. He just has to get 30 originals ready to put up... No big deal, right? #9 - We have 2 senior and 1 family photo session to edit and 2 more seniors to take during the Fall. #10 - Oh, I almost forgot - we have to squeeze the birth of our first born son in there somewhere between #6 and #7. So you can see, we've got a lot going on. Any prayers you've got to spare, we'd sure appreciate it!!! And winning the oh so cool cowgirl boots on Pioneer Woman sure would help! But I'm not going to hold my breath! (Pretty much winning anything on Pioneer Woman would help!)

I know I need to add a few more pictures, I will. I actually got the nursery straighten up yesterday. It looks pretty close to being ready to welcome a new person! I've got laundry washed, books ready to read, diapers ready to put on, and who knows what else? I don't really have a clue what I need for a new little baby, but we'll figure it all right? I've decided that you can really get inundated by all the "things" to do to prepare for a little person. You've got people telling you that "life is never going to be the same" "you'd better sleep now - you'll never sleep again" "you've got to change everything that you ever knew" "you'll never have fun again" "this little tiny person is going to take over your life" "your whole entire world will be turned upside down" "Sam will finally have to grow up" "you'll never have peace and quiet for the rest of your life" "you won't even know what hit you" "you better do whatever you want to now, ie, travel, etc. because you won't be able to do it again for the next 18+ years" "you'd better get out of your system everything you ever wanted or hoped to do it because now you have to do whatever your kid wants to do" - but.... "it'll all be worth it." Yeah right. No wonder parents are super heroes. It's been about 9+ months to get all of this hysteria out of my system and actually look forward to meeting this little guy. I have to remember all the advice is coming from other people with other lives and they aren't me. Sure, I'm sure some of it is legitimate, but I think we'll figure out how to adjust to our new little addition. There might be bumps along the way, but I have an amazing husband, who is surprisingly a lot more grown up than a lot of people give him credit for. And most of all, we have a God that loves us more than anything and has already filled our life with lots of loving people that have already offered to come along and help us. He's given us this little blessing for a short while to raise in the nurture and admonition in the Lord, and we will do our darndest to make sure that happens, even though I know we'll screw up - we always do! But God is bigger than us! So that's about where I stand these last few weeks as we look forward to meeting our new little guy! (PS. I know you think I'm kidding about all that advice, but it's true, I heard every bit of it and more at least once in the last nine months!)

On another note - please continue to pray for my mom. Her radiation starts on 09-22-09. And she'll have it for 5 days a week for at least 6 weeks. So if you work out the math there, it means, we're hoping she'll finish up before Thanksgiving and that also means, no time to come out when the baby is born. We will be heading back to VA for T-giving as we have a lot of family coming from all over to meet our little fella and fellowship. So there is no sense in Mom and Dad coming out. That also means our projects get put on hold for another year probably. It's quite disappointing, but I want mom to get better and healed up! So please pray for her during this time as well. Thank you!!!!

Sorry for all the writing and not so many pictures... Pictures will definitely be coming! Thanks for your patience!

Fall is on it's way in the Tundra,

Sarah