Hello 2012!!

Hello again blog world; it's 2012!!! Hopefully I'll get the hang of that fact soon - 11 days in and I still keep writing "2011" in my journal during my quiet times each morning. 

As you can see, it's been a little long while since my last update, so rather than one cohesive post about a single topic, we're going to go bullet point style for what's been happening in our household to kick off 2012!

* First a picture from the end of 2011

Our 5 year anniversary on December 29th!!! So hard to believe it's already been 5 years. My incredible husband surprised me and took me to an amazing, fancy castle-ish themed bed and breakfast in Kansas City. And Landon got to spend the night with Kyle's parents; it was a great way to celebrate 5 years!

* Then to kick off 2012, Kyle and I were headed down to Oklahoma City for our annual winter conference with StuMo, creatively named SMC for StuMo Conference. (we're a very creative bunch when it comes to naming things). Staff had to be there on the 1st and students were there from the 2-5. Over 1400 students attended, including 300 from K-State. We had workshops, times with our campus, and 6 main sessions where we got to hear Bryan Lorritts and Tommy Nelson speak - WOW so good! I'm so honored and privileged to get to be a part of this every year. So many students either made decisions to follow Christ for the first time or were propelled forward in their walks with Him; it's so encouraging and inspiring to see! Here are a few pictures (notice they're all of girls; guess who had the camera)

Those last 3 are actually of the girls from our India team this summer! So great to hang out with them =)

* While we were at SMC, Landon was kicking it with my parents, which meant Grandma had to send me LOTS of phone pictures because I missed my sweet boy so much! He had a blast with Grandpa & Grandma though.

He even broke out his dance moves for them.

Dancing while drinking his milk. He's already better at multitasking than his Daddy =)

We were REALLY happy to get back to Landon, even though we had such a great time with our students.

* We finally got home on the 6th and have been enjoying just being HOME together. We've done some relaxing and some working, and Landon has done lots of playing

A typical day's work for Landon

 Just before Christmas we rearranged the furniture in our living room, which we've liked for the most part (minus the "sample" sticker that is now visible on our rug that used to be hidden by the couch. Not sure how to fix that problem). Now our couch is up against a wall, and Landon has discovered his new favorite activity:

 I was in the kitchen making dinner and noticed I could hear Landon but couldn't see him, only to find him crawling back and forth behind the couch. It's really hilarious.

His other favorite new activity is trying to climb in and out of a small box of books my sister-in-law sent for Landon. It's not usually a very successful activity, but doesn't keep him from trying!

* Part of the work we've been doing is getting baby rooms ready! As I've mentioned, we're moving Landon over to a bigger room that used to be Kyle's office and then putting Baby Girl in his current room. Here was the before:

 Before we left for SMC we got everything cleared out of the room and took down the built in bookshelves from one wall. We also took down the border around the top of the room before SMC.

 An unwelcome discovery - the evil people who put up the border put it up OVER the existing border, which meant doing the de-wallpapering process twice. Soapbox moment: Just say no to wallpaper. And if you must say yes to wallpaper, please don't put it up over existing wallpaper. It only makes life miserable for the subsequent home owners.

We got all that done and then the past 2 days we patched up all the holes in the walls and painted! Ta Da!

You can't really tell from the picture, but I promise the wall color is different. It was just white, but we painted it a silvery gray color (wall color options are somewhat limited when you have blue carpet). We're thinking of turning it into a castle theme eventually for our little Knight :)

Now that the painting is done, we just need to rent a carpet steam cleaner to get the carpet good and clean, and then we'll move all of Landon's stuff over and transition him to his new room! Then we can start painting the GIRL room!!

* Speaking of our girl, we're officially at 32 weeks today!

I've been feeling good; starting to get a little more tired/generally worn out, but still doing great! She's still our little gymnast in there, but I love feeling her move all the time! I actually have my 32 week doctor appt this afternoon, and from now I start going in every 2 weeks instead of just once a month - WOW time has flown! And now it's just going to go faster! But we're sure excited to meet our little princess (just not quite yet!) Landon seems completely oblivious to the fact that anything is going on; he doesn't even seem to notice my stomach getting big. He'll be in for quite the shock, but I think he'll handle it well =)

So there you have it - a massively long update! Lesson learned: update more often and posts can be shorter =)