Happy Easter!

Easter was great this year! Besides the amazingness of realizing once again that Christ died for us, we also had a house full of people to celebrate with! Cole's sister Julia dropped by for a quick overnight on Friday with three friends from college and Chris & Jordan Stern came for a long weekend. This was Chris' 6th Easter break with us... keeping the tradition alive! It was a great weekend, full of good talks, fun games, lots of food and drink, and just a little sleep to keep us going :)

Happy Easter Y'all!

10 months!

Our Clay-man is 10 months old! 

- He isn't walking like we thought he would, but every day we think he's almost there!

- His new thing is yelling: yelling when he's happy, yelling when he's hungry, yelling at his sister when she makes him smile, and yelling when he wants me to pick him up. 

- He's also gained a lot of weight in the last few weeks. At his 9-month appointment, he was a little small, so my pediatrician recommended giving him more food and more formula. He gained 3 pounds in about 3 weeks (!) so he's an even 20 lbs now. 

- He cut his top four teeth this week so he's been a drool-machine, but hasn't complained much. Those new teeth sure are sharp though!

- He's still our smiley, happy, goofy baby and we sure do love our little guy! Come visit him (and us) in our new house soon! 

Diving in

We've only been here at the Vine Community Church a few weeks, but today we had our first crisis. One of the students from a much loved family in our church died last night in a car accident. Cole woke up this morning to the phone call and has been gone all day meeting with students, grieving with the family, and preparing for an impromptu memorial service for the youth that happened tonight. It has been an emotional day. I just got back from the service and am heavy with the grief that I witnessed there. I didn't really know the boy, Peter, but had gotten to know his sisters and parents just a little bit in the last few weeks. Last week I actually sat with his mom and sisters in church and took communion with them (Cole is usually running around the whole service so I'm on my own) and felt so loved by them "adopting" me for that Sunday. And here we are, a week later, and their whole world has crashed down on them. 

I keeping thinking about the day Matthew died and my heart just aches for his mom especially. The disbelief, the numbness, the anger, the crushing grief, and the aching emptiness is so overwhelming. Just making through the day is painful. I remember this wild and crazy sorrow that would come over me where I would think that I might not being able to keep living with my son gone. It's horrible. It gets better, of course, but the first days are horrible. I wish so badly that I could do or say something to make it better for this family. I wish Cole could give a magical sermon that would ease all the pain and calm all their hearts. But we can't do that. So instead, we pray that God would give them glimpses of heaven; glimpses that will bring peace, and eventually joy, to their hurting hearts. 

So I ask that y'all would pray for this family and for our youth group; that God would use this tragedy to bring glory to His name and that the hearts of all these hurting kids would be drawn to Him. 

New House!

Here's a pic of our new house! I'm not ready to show pics of inside yet :) Give me a few more days (or weeks) and then I'll share!

9 months old!

We've been in the process of moving for the past week, so Clay-man's 9 month mark came and went in all the hustle and bustle. Now that we're finally settled (kind of), I thought I'd update you on our little guy.

Height: 28 inches, I think

Weight: 17.4 lbs, which is on the small side

Eats: since he's a little small, I've started feeding him more real food. He LOVES it and yells at me for more :)

Sleeps: he's an awesome sleeper. He naps twice and sleeps at least 12 hours at night. He and Claire have definitely spoiled me by being such good sleepers!

Personality: very much a little man! He is constantly on the move and likes to yell at us. He is also super-smiley and good natured. The only time he gets grumpy is when I'm not giving him much attention. Last week was hard because I was in full-time packing mode and couldn't play with him much. He wasn't a fan of that and was pretty upset at me most of the week. Now that we're settling into our new house and there's lots of stuff to explore (i.e.: lots of boxes to chew on), he's much happier.

Oh, and the beer was not my idea. Poor confused baby! 

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I'll update y'all on our new place once we're a bit more settled! So far, we are loving Cumming and are very happy here. Our house is awesome, the people are church are very welcoming, plus there's a Starbucks on every corner. I mean, what's not to love?!!

Oh my goodness!!!

Where has the time gone!!! In one week we're moving to Atlanta! Wow. I've been packing like crazy and realizing that even though I think we don't own much, it's still A LOT of STUFF! Box after box after box and I still have lots left to do.

I haven't blogged because Cole has the computer with him. He had to start work on January 28th, so he's already there with all his stuff and I'm here packing everything else and hoping that all goes well on our house closing so that we can be reunited! I am not a fan of this single-parent thing that I've had to do for the last three weeks. I will be very glad to be with my man again! He did come back and visit for my birthday (Feb 4th - 27 years young!) but I think Claire was a little confused when he left again. I think she's missing her daddy and not totally understanding why we have to wait to move with him.

Melt my heart!

Anyway, we filled our time by taking a nice, long trip to Asheville to see my parents. Mom went all over town with me to shop for little pieces of furniture that I'll need to fill all the rooms in our new place :) We found a headboard for Claire's bed and a little coffee table/cabinet to keep media stuff in (at Goodwill of all places!). 

On the way back home, we stopped in Columbia to visit Matthew's grave. I realized that this may be that last time for awhile that I'm able to visit my little man's resting place, so I wanted to stop and take a minute to miss him and to grieve over the fact that he wasn't there to meet his little brother (it was Clay's first time to come to the graveyard).  

My three kiddos - two here and one waiting for us in heaven. 

For Valentine's Day, Claire and I made heart-shaped cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then we all went on a dinner date with my friend from college, Becky, and her two kids. Her husband was out of town too, so we decided it was a good night for Chicfila! 

My little Valentine! 

Claire and Ryan were great playmates!

Now I'm just going to be packing and cleaning until next Saturday. Hopefully Cole will be home on Thursday and he can help me organize everything for loading it on the van. I am not looking forward to that chaos! 

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a picture of my kiddos. Claire wanted me to take a picture of "me and Clay with our cheeks together!" so here it is :)

Claire is 3!

Today Claire turned 3! For her special day Cole took her out to breakfast, then we had photo shoot, then we had a birthday lunch, then we said "bye-bye" to her pacifiers! She has loved them since she was a little baby and I've only been letting her have them to sleep, but we figured the time had come for her to give them up completely :). It was a sad day for Claire-bear. But she was cheerful about it. We tied them to balloons and released them into the sky... only to have them fly straight into the trees. Oops. (They blew out later, so who knows where they are now.) She also had a princess party on Sunday, but I'll share pics of that later. It was a lot of chaotic fun! 

We love our little Claire. She is sweet and sunny and such a joy to be around in this stage of life. She is soaking everything up like a sponge and is so very eager to please us. In fact, when she saw her birthday decorations on Sunday, she said "Oh mommy! Thank you, thank you! I'm so proud of you for putting up my decorations!" What a girl! We love you, Claire Ann Nickell :)

What's going on?

Well let's see here...

- We are homeless. Yay, we sold our house!!!

- We are jobless. Cole has finished up at NCPC and has a couple of weeks before he starts at The Vine.

- Cole and I have been married 5 years! (1/5/13 was our anniversary)

- We spent last weekend looking at 3 bazillion houses... not really, but it felt like it. We may have found THE ONE though!

- At least one person in our house has been sick for the last 3 weeks.

- Cole started packing today and got rid of lots of junk!

- Our kids are growing up wayyyyy too fast!

Chat more later! Claire has a "Princess Party" for her 3rd birthday on Sunday, so you can bet you'll be inundated with cute pics of little girls :)

Happenings...

Here are some happenings from the past week or two...

We had a youth group Christmas party at our house and Cole made everyone squish together for a picture so that he could "look back and remember all y'alls smiling faces" ;) 

Jooj came home from college and we had fun goofing off, working out, shopping, getting her ears double-pierced, etc. She left yesterday and I miss her already! 

 We had Christmas in Asheville and of course we had to take a cousin picture of Caroline & Claire showing off the dresses mom made! 

 Christmas day was as blurry as this picture! Seriously. Craziness with five kids running around! Claire, Caroline and Bruton all got dress-ups and loved running around together! 

Claire's gift to me was puking all over my lap and mom & dad's office floor Christmas night. Then she got a cold and cough to go along with it. Yay. Not!  

 Clay-man was pretty bewildered by a the fuss and threw me for quite a loop by deciding that he wasn't going to nap anymore. I'm still trying to convince him that I'm the mom and I'll decide when he's old enough to quit naps (I'm don't think he's listening though... he's hollering at me from his crib as I type). 

My little brother James decided to gross us out with his molestache ;-) 

 The kids all used uncle Sammy as their playground on the one day it was nice enough to go outside. 

We came back to Aiken for second Christmas and finally got a family picture! 

 Claire got a cookie-making set from Dee & Pops and proceeded to serve all of us :) 

Then New Years came and I ushered it in with a bladder infection. Gross, I know :) Was that too much information? I guess I just want you all to share in my pain. It is horrible! I finally got some drugs today and feel much better. 

Also, we're house hunting and that is so much fun! Best shopping I've ever experienced! We're going to Atlanta (actually it's Cumming GA where we'll be living and working, but I say Atlanta cause it's easier) next week to look at places, both to rent and to buy. Woo hoo!

That's it! 

7 months

Once Clay turns one, I'll probably stop posting monthly updates. But I found the ones I did of Claire's first year so helpful, that I figured I'd keep going with his for awhile, if only to look back on them for reference someday.

Clay at 7 months old:

Height: who knows...

Weight: who knows...

Sleeps: not so great. I don't know if it's a growth spurt or his new found love of moving, but he hates naps these days. He is still a great night sleeper though, going from about 8 am to 8 pm.

Eats: still loves the bottle and is eating a larger variety of baby food.

Movement: this is the big thing I want to remember - he's already standing up! About two weeks ago he pulled up on the stairs, which was great but not that hard to do. Then a few days later he pulled up on the couch and then the coffee table and then me! Now it's all he wants to do :) His balance is getting better and better and he only needs one hand to stabilize himself. Last night Cole was watching him and he crawled all the way up the stairs. Needless to say, I think he'll be walking very soon!

Personality: Loves people and attention. He does not like to be left alone. When I put him in the jumperoo or the swing, he complains and complains! He wants to be out and exploring :) All in all, he's a happy baby. (He's just become a handful with all his movement!)