Moving to Naples, Fl

We are moving to Naples, Fl. This all happened exactly a week ago. A couple of weeks ago, Lara, one of my best friends husband Garrett was talking to Josh and suggested moving back home in with family to get rid of our debt. (We have a substainal amount of student loans from Union. We also have a small amount of medical bills were paying due to Josh getting Lime's Disease back in July. Due to this we have not been able to save any money for Josh to take classes next semester so we were going to have to take out more student loans.) Josh said something to me about it and we did not think twice about it. Well this past Monday I was with Lara and Josh was with Garrett...don't worry Kaylee was asleep with Josh :)Without knowing it each of us got into this conversation again. I came back home that night after having a blast with our friends and Josh and I stayed up til 3 am praying and discussing it. By the next day we felt like the Lord was probably leading us to do this but did not make rash decisions and wanted to pray about it more. Josh asked his parents on Tuesday to start praying about us moving to Fl. and in with them. Wednesday my Assoc. Pastor's wife, Meliane came over and I shared all of this with her. By this time I had a complete peace about it. Both Lara and Meliane said it was a very wise decision to make.
The Lord calls us to be good stewarts of our money and taking out more loans is not being a good steward. Also, how can Josh preach to the congregation one day and tell them the Lord calls them to be good stewarts of their money and we have not been living it. You must practice what you preach bc while your preaching the Word to the congregation you are also preaching it right back to yourselves! Also, we were told that when you go on interviews for a position the committee is going to ask you how are you doing stewartship wise..how are you finanically. If you sit there in say we have got ...... amount of debt due to school. They are going to say...ahhh ..you probably need to take care of that first before you conisder taking a position. It was awesome to hear Meliane say....I can see the joy and peace you have about this decision.
God has blessed us so much with all the encouragment from all of our friends and family already! Such a blessing. Also, it has been so neat bc after we made it offical that we were moving...Wednesday..yes..two days later...the Lord blessed Josh with 10 sales on Friday and a large check from a couple in our sunday school class. We now how what Josh would make in a two week paycheck to deposit into our account to pay bills we didn't know how we were going to pay. He is so good and faithful!
We are so excited to move...7 weeks and we are moving...Dec 15th. Josh will work full time and I will continue to stay at home with Kaylee as of now. Right now we feel like we are to stay for 2 years and pay off as much debt as possible. We could end up staying longer depending on the Lord's. It has been a crazy week but very exciting. It is so neat how this all happened in one week. It was such a blessing to have such a peace so quickly bc with Thanksgiving in the middle of this 7 weeks and Josh's class we have a lot to do and get done.
I think I have put everything in here..if you have any questions..just ask!

Running the Race!

I, Misty....defiently not Josh...he thinks running is of the devil :), have been training for the half martathon that is to be held on Dec. 6th in Memphis tn for St. Jude. I was extremely looking forward to it due to my step dad, mom, her sister and her son were training for it. It was going to be a famiy event. My best friend Lara and I have been training together and we were up to 6 miles a couple of weeks ago. We went out for an easy run of 3 miles and at the end of my run all of a sudden I wasn't able to run anymore. I started hobbling trying to finsh. I finshed but I have not run since and that was almost 3 weeks ago. I just tried to run again an easy 3 miler this past week but could not even make it a mile without severe pain in my knee.
I walked it off with Lara. As we did this I shared with her something I felt like the Lord was trying to say to me through all of this. I felt like the reason I was having knee problems was bc it was a spiritual issue. I have been wanting to run the race, I wanted to run with my family....I, I, and I. There is absolutely nothing wrong with running in the race for anyone else but it is for me.
I am a discussion group leader for MOPS this year and for me to run in this race I was going to have to miss the last meeting of this year in Dec. This meeting is when the speaker will present the gospel to all the women. I don't know if the Lord wants me to be there for my own spiritual growth or to lead someone to Christ but all I know is the Lord wants me to be at that meeting. The last meeting the discussion was on Priorities and is what you do day to day showing the true order of your priorities. Mops is one of my ministries and I was putting the race over one of my priorities. I honestly felt like the Lord had been speaking to my heart saying Misty until you make it clear that your not going to run in this race, your knee will hurt to where you will not be able to run. Since I have let my family know and truely got it out of my head that I was going to run this specific race my knee has felt a lot better.

Kaylee is 6 and a half months!

Time is flying by. It has been such a blessing from the Lord to be able to be at home to cherrish these precious moments of her life! It is crazy to think that Kaylee is already a half a year old! She has changed so much. She is becoming more and more like a little girl every day. Her personality is developing each and every day. She has a bubbly personality. She loves to laugh,smile, jump on the bed aka-bouncing on the bed with daddy/mommy and read books. Everything intrigue's her. She is so fasinated with everything that suronds her. She loves playing games with songs to it. If she is crying mommy can sing the A A apple, B B ball song-sing the sound of each letter twice and then the word..it rhymes and it will instantly calm her down. Her favorite book is her Bible. I am not just saying this either family :). That is the book that she reaches for. She loves to be read too. She loves to be in control too. She wants to turn the pages of the book, take the spoon out of mommy hands and feed herself and have the bowl in the other hand. She is eating marvelously!
She has now experienced almost every food that I have made for her. She loves zuccine, asparagus, squash, brocceli, mangos and so much more. It is really funny becuase her mommy is an extremly picky eater but Kaylee is not. The only two foods she does not like is mashpotatoes and green peas....one of the only two her mommy loves. I have learned that if I mix these two with corn she will eat every bite! She started out eating 1 cube of food at 5 months and is now eating 4 cubes of food at each meal. Kaylee's first two teeth started coming in on Sept. 1 and they fully pushed through on the 18th of September. The doctor said at her 6 mth appointment that her top gums were swollen so she should be getting in at least another tooth in a month to a couple of months later. I was praying that it would be later than sooner. It was an extremly rough week when the teeth were really pushing through. I don't hold Kaylee a lot unless we are playing but I was not able to put her down. She was miserable and running a high fever the entire week. I felt so bad. The medicing defiently helped but it did wear off.
When Josh's parents came to visit Josh thought it would be funny to let Kaylee try out a straw. Not expecting anything but just watching her basically slobber all over it. She slobbered over it and then figured out how to get something out of it. After that she would reach for the cup with the straw in it. Ever since then she does this. We let her practice sipping out of a sraw a little. When my mom and sister came a few weeks later my mom and sister has a strawberry bananna smoothie and she reached for it. I had told my mom that she could do it but could not beleive her eyes. It was so precious. She enjoyed that smoothie. We have been giving her sippy cups and one with a staw but they have the invention of spill proof and she is not ready to use those. She has not figured out how to suck hard enough to get anything out. We are so excited about Halloween. We will be going out with one of my great friends Lara and her son Jack and her husband Garrett to their church, Providence Baptist. Kaylee is going to be a bird. She has this bird squill she makes all the time. It is hillarious. Also when she was younger she made bird faces when she was hungery. So she will get to be a colorful bird this year....hip hip horray!!
The Lord has been doing a lot in our lives and we have some crazy and exciting news about what He is doing but can not announce it yet. We will soon! We love all of you.

Kaylee's 4 months old!!

Kaylee is growing up a storm. She starting eating rice cereal on Aug. 3, 2008 for the first time and she LOVED every bite of it. She kept moving her legs back and forth to mean that she wanted more! The only time she has not liked it is after we visited the doctor for her 4 month appointment the doctor said to mix with my milk b/c she is on the smaller side to help get more calories in. I didnt start doing it at first bc I am producing just enough milk for her and it is very difficult to pump anymore out.
Her four month appointment went great..except for the shots...I hate hearing her scream like that! She now weighs 11 lbs and 15 oz. and 23 and 3/4 inches long! The doctor was very happy with where Kaylee is developmentally too. The peds. office gives you a sheet to show you what you baby more and likely will have accomplished for the next visit..6 mth visit..only by God's grace is it that Kaylee can do it all already...nothing I have done only God! She has been for a while doing most of these things: coo's, blows bubbles and makes "raspberry" sounds, laughs and giggles all the time and mommy and daddy know how to tickle her to where she just can't stop laughing, reaching, grabbing for her toys and playing well with them, hold her head up with no difficulty, supports her weight on her legs, holds body stiff when being pulled up from the ground and much much more. Please don't take this as bragging, I have done nothing to have Kaylee where she is now except play with her and spend time with her at home..also by God's grace. I am writting all of this b/c it will be many months before most family will see her again and I just want to let you know where she is right now. The doctor said the next thing she should be accomplishing is saying "mama and "dada". Oh how we can not wait to hear those words one day!!
Kaylee loves to play games and have books read to her. The only problem is she loves the TV. I have nursed so often that I would turn the Tv while nursing so now it draws her to it any time it is on. We are defiently working on this though bc she loves it way too much. She loves her Baby Einstein movies! She usually watches one every day. We are still having difficulty with her taking a bottle. I was always with her so it was just made more sense at the time for me to feed her...little did we know that bc she didn't have a bottle after 2 weeks of age and then at 6 weeks for a weekend while visiting grandparents...it would hurt her. Now it is hard for me to go anywhere without her bc Josh can't take care of her bc she wont take a bottle. We are working hard to get her to take it at home and at church. She is in the nursery on Sun mornings/nights and on most Fridays while I am at MOPS meetings preparing for this year to come.

Kaylee is rolling over

Kaylee and I just got back from Tennessee. We were there for 8 days and hung out with Mimi. Daddy missed us extremely bad. He said we were not allowed to travel without him again...he just couldn't take it! How sweet. Kaylee learned to roll over but mama never got to see her do it. The Sunday after we got back, the 20th of July, we were at our friends house for lunch and she rolled over for mama and dada. Hip Hip Horray!! Now that she figured out how to do it without difficulty she doesn't want to stop rolling over. She is still not sleeping through the night. I am waking up around 12:30 am and 4:30 am and 6:30 am to feed and once 6:00 am comes she is wide awake but she lets mommy sleep until 8:30 (her next feeding)...which I have really needed. Kaylee is going about 2 1/2 hours between each feeding. She just got over a growth spurt. She was eating every hour. All mommy was doing was feeding.

Life in North Carolina

Josh and I have been married for over 3 years now. God has and is continuously blessing us and our marriage. Kaylee was born on April 10, 2008 at 9:35 pm. She was born on Josh's birthday. She is now 3 and 1/2 months old. She is growing so fast. I already put up her 0-3 month old clothes and brought out all of her 2-6 months clothes. I just dont understand how anyone could have a child and not believe in God. How amazing it is to see a baby that the Lord created in my womb and now is out in this world. How blessed we are that God is intrusting us with her. Just to look into her beautiful eyes and see how she is such a gift from our Lord! On the way home from the hospital I looked at her and was reminded about how important it is to share the gospel.
Josh is working full time at State Farm while I am staying at home raising our precious daughter. I am so grateful to be able to stay at home and raise our child. Josh is about to start his second year at Southeastern Baptist Theological Semianry. Due to working full time and having Kaylee Josh will not finish for about four more years...Lord willing.