Happy New Year

This year is almost gone...

a new year is on its way,

Time to put the past behind us

and look forward to a promising year ahead!

My, has this been a crazy year for us. A huge prayer answered ending with our little blessing and early Christmas present! We had a lot to be thankful for this year. We look forward to an exciting future with our son!

May God bless you all with a promising new year!

Tyler's First Christmas

We survived Tyler's first Christmas.

We had so much to be thankful for this year - especially our special Christmas present. ;-)

The holidays started out with our traditional Christmas Eve with family from Troy's dad's side. It's a traditional going back 3 generations where we get together and have chilli and cornbread. We usually go to Trina's (Troy's sister) house but this year, it was at our house. That meant that I had to get all my Christmas decorations ou and put up the tree. We hadn't decorated for the last few years as we're hardly home because of Christmas rehearsals and such. We didn't have a big production this year, and we now have a reason to decorate.

Christmas day was a busy one, as most holidays are. In the afternoon, we went to my sister's house up in the mountains, and then came down and went to Troy's mom's (Judy's) house that evening. It was quite a day and Tyler was awake through most of it. He got a little cranky at Judy's house, I'm thinking because there was a lot of people there.

We had 3 different 'Baby's first Christmas' outfits that we put Tyler in for the holidays including a Santa hat that was unfortunately too big on him. He looked so cute in them. We found one onesey that said, "Who needs Santa when I have Grandma." That's especially true for Tyler since grandma Judy is already spoiling him. We saved that one for Christmas day so we could show the grandmas.

Among Tyler's gifts were clothes, toys, and a cute little overnight backpack with Mickey Mouse on it. It was way cute and I was tempted to keep it for myself. One special gift we gave to all the grandparents was a double picture frame. On one side, it had a cute picture of Tyler smiling. On the other, was his footprint imprinted in a clay-like substance that turned rubbery when dried. It was specifically designed to hold a footprint image on one side. It was quite a chore to get his footprint, but based on their reaction, it was worth it.

I took a few pictures, but not many. You would think I'd be going picture crazy since this was Tyler's first Christmas. It'll be more fun next year when he's able to open his gifts on his own. Tyler's is growing so quick. He turned 2 months old on December 18th. According to the last doctor's appointment he's now weighing 11 lbs, 5 oz. Believe it or not, that's just one ounce more then I weighed when I was born (I was a month overdue).

With the new year right around the corner, that means I'll be back at work soon too. I've gotten used to staying at home with him, but actually look forward to getting back into the swing of things. My mom will watch Tyler while I'm at work. They live close to campus so I can go check on Tyler during lunch and it's on my way to and from work.

I'll post pictures soon, when I get them downloaded.

Until then, Happy New Year to everyone!

May God Bless each and every one of you for 2008!

A new adventure

A new adventure began today... our first service in our new building.
For the past 6 years, New Harvest Church has met and worshipped in a high school cafeteria. Four years ago, we purchased an old citrus packing plant and TODAY

WE HAD OUR FIRST SERVICE IN OUR NEW HOME!

We have done Christmas and Easter productions over there but it has never felt the way it felt today. Allbeit, there were a few first day hickups but overall, everything ran well and the music was awesome! Our pastor, Mitch, was nearly in tears talking about how much he's prayed for this day and thanked all of us who have helped to make it come true.

The 'plant', as we called it, has a lot more to come (a huge event/main worship center to seat 3,000 and a fully functional commercial kitchen for catering) to come in the next few years. In the next year or so, we will have a fully-staffed child care center on site for our members and open to the public.

One dream of mine will soon come true as well. Now that we've moved in to the 'plant', I can start marketing the facility for concerts and events. It has always been a desire of mine to bring more Christian talent to the Fresno area. Once the event center is complete, I plan on bringing some full-on concerts in. Until that's complete, I have our smaller worship center that seats an estimated 800 people.

I just have to continue to be patient and prayerful on what God wants me to do in our new building.

The Future is Looking Bright!

2 months

My baby is 8 weeks old today. In my eyes, it's been 2 months eventhough he doesn't technically turn 2 months until the 18th. Went to the doctor the other day and he is now weighing 11 lbs, 3.5 oz. Ironically, that is how much I weighed when I was born and I was a month late.

We are looking forward to Tyler's first Christmas. Eventhough he won't remember it, this Christmas will be very memorable because we thank God every day for our precious baby.
Grandma Judy has already went nuts on presents... and Troy and I have even gotten him a few things already. :-)

He's beginning to smile, which is so cute when we talk to him. We can see when he reacts to us now. He also is almost sleeping through the night. He's sleeping about 6 hours at night and taking short naps during the day. This makes us VERY happy!!!!

We can't help but say again that we are so blessed with this child!!! He is sooo good.
He hardly cries, he sleeps REALLY well, he is a healthy eater and can sit still and be content by just staring at the ceiling or looking at lights.

We love our precious one!!!