Please pray

I wanted to post a specific prayer request for those of you who do know, and some who might not, the Green family. Harris was our RUF intern at UT while I was an undergraduate student. He married Lisa, a friend I met through RUF at UT. They just had baby #5 less than a month ago, and about a week ago found out their 3-year-old son has leukemia. They have set up a caring bridge site, so if you know them or just feel the Lord calling you to pray for them you can check this site and read what specifically they are asking for in prayer
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danielgreen
My heart has been so heavy and sad for them. I know I posted last year about another college friend's little boy's battle with cancer, so after that shock now here is another one. I know God's truths and promises, but yet the human side of me still knows the pain and heartache for these families is there and real, and makes me want to question why another friend must endure this journey. In the post from last night the mom, Lisa, quoted Jesus "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
She writes she knows the Lord is with them, admist all the pain and uncertainity. Which isn't that really all any of us have to cling to as we and those around endure hardships and trials. He is our hope, our strength, all that we have to cling to in this life. If nothing else I know I so need to be reminded of this every minute of every day! So please keep this sweet family in your prayers.

Pictures, pictures, pictures!

I'm updating with pictures--none of the house, as I'm STILL working on it, sorry. You may see some of it in the background of a couple of these pictures. But mostly these are just some recent pictures of the kids.

Here is Casey with Matt and Jared, 2 of the UK b-ball players. He has been getting to know them this past year and spends alot of time with them and several of their other teammates. As you can see Emery-Claire was not very happy to be in the picture. Casey had tried taking one of her and the guys and she freaked out!

Emery-Claire playing with blocks, she loves them lately!

Above is Reed, actually at our old house, I just thought he looked cute in this one.

This one is in our new backyard--the first snow before the ice storm!

The awful ice storm that left us without power for 4 days!

Reed enjoying his hot chocolate with Quinton and Addie. Our friends, the Pepiots, were gracious enough to let us stay with them while we waited for the power to come back on.

We're back!!!!

Ok, we don't officially have the internet yet, but we will on Wednesday! Finally! At this moment I'm logging onto the internet from someone nearby, and it's actually working! Since we've moved it's only worked like seconds and then kicks us off, but tonight it's been consistently working for the past hour of so, so I thought I'd type a quick update since our big move almost 2 weeks ago. No pictures tonight, afraid with the jump off internet it may not work, so only words for now and pictures will come later this week I promise! It has been an interesting last couple of weeks for sure! We moved all day Wednesday, January 21. And it's been a nonstop fun ride since then. A few days after moving, we discovered our water heater was not up to par, and then the kitchen sink was leaking and filling up with water--oh, nice! But our wonderful landlord took care of it all immediately, so we realized the nice benefit of renting! Then a week later, this past Tuesday, we had a HUGE ice storm here in KY, and I believe north of us as well (with no tv or internet I had no idea what was coming or going on).....so Wednesday morning we wake up to no power (luckily we FINALLY closed on our other house Tuesday)--all got delayed from Friday to Tuesday, but we were very relieved to be done with that! So Wedneday we headed to our friends', the Pepiot's, for warmth and shelter---we are so thankful to them for allowing us to reside there from Wed. to Friday. And thankfully later Friday afternoon our power was back on, so now we are home again, yeah! Still a mess of boxes here, so lots to do! And again we have a clogged drain connected to the washing machine, so hopefully tommorrow that will be fixed so I can do the loads of laundry we've accumlated! Another storm is predicted for Monday/Tuesday of this week, and I'm really praying it is nothing major, I don't know how much more I can take! I'm longing so bad for spring for sure, and it's just now February! So that is our craziness in a nutshell, probably lots more details than you wanted to know.....hopefully this week, I will just post pictures of the kids (who have done really well considering all the craziness) in our trying to resume a normal routine.

Moving Day!

Wanted to give a quick update on my break from non-stop packing!! Tommorrow is our big moving day, finally! We have made several trips already taking odds and ends, but tommorrow we will have a truck and move everything. I took a load last night, which helped, but I am really struggling with anxiety over this move. We do have a cute house and it is in a great area, so fresh and clean (it was recently renovated, so it feels like new on the inside). But I still think the whole overall process is so overwhelming, as I ponder the petty things like will everything fit, will we have enough room (the biggest size difference will be the kids' rooms--they are much smaller than what they have now), will we adjust and adapt to a new home, etc. etc. My sleep, of course, is affected by all this--or the little sleep I'm able to get right now. I'm just trying to stay focused on getting us packed, and not worry about what is out of my hands. Praying and asking God to get us through this transition, and for me to trust Him that this is what is best for our family!
Anyways, all that to say as we disconnect our cable and internet at our current house tommorrow, at some point we will be back online but I'm not sure exactly when---so as soon as I can I'll post some pics of the new place, and hopefully by then it will somewhat be put together.

Bob/Reed the builder....

Reed loves the Bob the builder song.....I don't think he's ever watched it but we've read some books and the song goes "Bob the builder--can we fix it?!--yes we can!" So he loves singing it all day! So with our poor quality camera/video and possible weak volume that is what he is saying here at the table.

Georgia boy and a big girl!

So I'm really behind and have slacked in blogging over the past week---I have barely pulled out the camera to be honest, so not much to put on here. And between trying to somewhat maintain normalcy with meals, picking up, laundry, etc. and of course the biggest time consumer PACKING TO MOVE, well, needless to say I haven't had tons of free time to do whatever. Funny how things work out because actually this week (which should have been my most productive seeing that sometime probably next Tuesday or Wednesday will be our big moving day) has really slowed me down. Reed started throwing up Monday night at like 1:30am, "oh no!!" we thought, here we go again. But it was only about 3xs, and then around 3am we all fell back asleep, with him on towels on the floor of our bedroom. By the next morning he seemed totally fine! I definitely made sure he ate lightly, but wondering if our "breakfast" dinner the night before just didn't sit well with him?? He has been fine ever since, thank goodness! And then late Wednesday night I started feeling awful--no real symptoms except I just couldn't sleep and had horrible stomach cramps. So I slept on and off all day yesterday not eating much myself. But today is a whole new day, I definitely feel back to normal--so maybe we did have some sort of "bug" in our house, who knows?! So this weekend will be full of lots of busyness to pack, pack, and more pack to be ready for next week. So here are just a few pics of the kids as we spend our last week at this current home---kinda sad I suppose, but I never completely felt too attached to this house as I always had a feeling we really wouldn't be in it for very long--funny how things work out, huh?!

Reed in his Geogria attire---yes, don't be too mad all you TN fans out there reading this. But his daddy is proud to see him wear his favorite team attire. And we do have a boggin' the exact same as this one that is TN, and he loves wearing it just as much!

Finally--our girl has mastered sitting up all by herself--yeah!!! We've really tried to work alot since we've been home from the holiday traveling. She is doing such a great job, and really appears to be developing all around! So much more vocalizing and babbling--Casey swears he's heard "dada", but sounds more like "yahyah" to me.

Playing together--we've really been working on the concept of "sharing", which is not easy for Reed (but is it for any toddler?) As he cries and falls apart when it's "her turn" to have a toy.

Happy January!

Now that the holidays are over and of course it's freezing cold outside, and will be for like the next 3 months!!, what does one do with their time? Packing and preparing for a move is one thing..... After coming home from our very long travels and finally seeming to be on the mend, oh we did go back to the doctor last Friday to find out now the kids have "Adenovirus"
another fun sickness to deal, but it seems it is passing and definitely was nothing compared to what we went through with the rota!


I don't have much really to update about our move at this point, but wanted to just post some fun pictures from our beginning January very cold month! So hopefully we will have a closing date set in the next few days and I can update from there our exact plans as far as the move!
Having fun in the exersaucer.

Reed laughing at Casey's dancing, he thought it was hysterical!

Playing in the new Thomas train he got from Gigi and Pops for Christmas! It was a sure hit today on this cold and rainy day! He couldn't get enough of it and continued to giggle and go in and out of it all afternoon! He also got to attend his first Mommy and Me Gymnastics class today! It was the first one (also one of his Christmas gifts) and once he finally warmed up he appeared to have a great time. So I'm hoping each week he begins to look more and more forward to it. It is such a great way to be active and get to run around when it's too cold and yucky to be outside.

And last, but not least, our newest announcement for 2009.....oh yes, we are crazy, but don't think this was at all planned (at least by us it wasn't, now the Lord has other plans that is for sure!!!) We will welcome the newest Willis (baby #3) sometime in late July! Emery-Claire and this baby will be just 14 months apart (and Reed still won't be 3 until September). I know the Lord knows what He is doing, apparently stretching both of us that is for sure! Even though it isn't our ideal timing of when we would have planned for #3 (I definitely would have chosen to wait a little longer) we still know this is a great blessing and God knows what is best for us---which obviously includes another baby 14 months after we just had a baby! We are excited nonetheless and pray for this baby to be healthy and strong....so here is a picture of our little peanut (this is as technically savvy as I get since we don't have a scanner on our printer)! I am now a little over 12 weeks...feeling good, as I really don't have rough pregnancies, tired, but hard to know if that is pregnancy or having a 2 year old and 7 1/2 month old!