Chris' Graduation

I was trying to decide what events to talk about on this blog to get caught up for the past few months since I have not been blogging. I decided that I absolutely HAD to start with Chris's graduation from the University of Oklahoma. This was a huge moment in our lives, and he has been working so hard to reach this goal for the past four years. I am so proud of Chris, and I appreciate him so much for making the commitment to go back to school so that he could get a great job and support our family and so that I could stay home with Jayden. Here are a ton of pictures from May 13 & 14, 2011!

Chris in front of the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium-where the Commencement Ceremony took place.

Chris and I before Commencement. It was SO cold!

Grana and Chris

Chris and Jayden. Jayden was so excited to be inside of the stadium!

Such a cute picture of Jayden and Riley!

Yea! We have been looking forward to this for four years!

Chris walking into the Commencement Ceremony.

The stage. (I feel like all pictures need a caption!)

Jayden holding his glow stick at the end of the ceremony. An OU tradition-graduates hold red ones, and guests hold white ones. (Oh, and he has earplugs in his ears because the fireworks were about to start!)

Fireworks at the end of the ceremony. Still gives me goosebumps just remembering it!

Jayden and Nonni. Guess the earplugs didn't work well enough for him!

Chris and Jamie (Our fav waitress) at Sooner Legends for Chris' graduation lunch on May 14, 2011.

The three of us before Chris' graduation ceremony!

Chris and his parents before graduation.

Chris and his sister, Katie, before graduation.

Jayden and Chris. He was so excited that Daddy was about to graduate...and that he was going to Disney World the next day!

He totally deserved a kiss after all of his hard work. ;)

Yea! The moment that we have been waiting for!

Chris in line to get his degree.

Chris getting his degree.

So proud of him!

My graduate...I love this man so much! :)

Appetizers at Chris' graduation party at my parent's house after the ceremony!

More appetizers...

The cake table...

Mmmmm.....Crimson and Cream cake from Sooner Legends! The best cake ever!

I think Jayden enjoyed the cake! (It's red velvet in case you can't tell!)

The kids loved rolling down a hill in my parent's yard!

Some of our sweet friends who came to the party. Miss them so much!

And finally...I got to hold my sister's baby!

It's Been a Long, Long Time...

So the last time I blogged, it was May. Seriously...May!?! I cannot believe that it has been so long, but we have had about a million things going on! Let's see, since May, Chris has graduated from OU, we have been to Disney World, Chris started his job at National Instruments, and we have moved from Norman, Oklahoma to Round Rock, Texas. Do you see now why I haven't blogged since May? Oh, and when we moved into our new house, it was absolutely filthy, so I have completely repainted the downstairs, and we got all new flooring throughout the entire house! Jayden has been taking swimming lessons, we bought a puppy, we have gotten involved in our new church, my parents came to visit, and Jayden and I went back to Oklahoma to visit family. We have been SO busy! I do believe that life is slowing down though, and hopefully, I will have a chance to update the blog more than twice a year!

I have actually been dreading this post because so much has happened since the last time I blogged, and I knew it would take forever to post about everything that we have been doing. So...I am going to post some pictures for you of a few random moments over the last few months, and then I am going to do some posts in the next week to get caught up. So, for your viewing enjoyment, here are some pictures of our life since May!

Chris, Jayden, and I at Chris' graduation-May 14, 2011

Jayden's first airplane ride-he loved it! May 15, 2011

Jayden and I at the Magic Kingdom-May 16, 2011

Painting the new house-I am painting it the darker color-June 2011

Boomer-Our new puppy! He's an Australian Labradoodle-July 8, 2011

Nonni and Jayden during our visit to Oklahoma-August 18, 2011

Jayden and Papa John on our Oklahoma visit-August 18, 2011

Papa, Jayden, and Nana during our visit to Oklahoma-August 21, 2011

On a different note, our extended family has been plagued with so much illness in the past few months. We have had three family members diagnosed with cancer since February. They are continuing to get better, but please keep them in your prayers.

Until next time...

I love my new niece!

Before:

After:
My sister had her baby last Monday, May 2 at 9:21 pm. They did not find out the sex of the baby, so it was a great surprise when Daniel came out and announced it was a girl! Her name is Addison Marie, and I love her! She was 19 inches long and weighed 6 lbs 14 oz.

New House!

We purchased a house in Round Rock this past weekend! Sorry that I don't have a better picture of it, but I don't have my camera with me to upload the pictures we took, and this was the picture online. This was taken back in January, so the grass is much greener now! We are so excited! This is a great house that is in a great neighborhood. We close on June 17! We'll post more pictures later. :)

Crazy, Hectic Life!

Oh my goodness! We close on our house in less than two weeks! I cannot believe it! I know I posted a few weeks ago saying that we had a contract on our house, but I have not wanted to say that it had definitely sold, just in case something fell through. Well...it looks like everything is clicking right along, and we will be closing on Friday, March 18th! We had some obstacles to overcome, (like getting a new roof-thank goodness we have great insurance, and had total replacement on our roof!), but we have now passed all inspections and the appraisal. (Insert sigh of relief...)

We are now in the process of boxing everything up, so every free moment we have is spent packing. Jayden is not very happy about this, as he does not understand what is going on. His little world is about to change drastically, and I feel so bad for him, as he is so upset all of the time. Please pray for our little guy, as this is so difficult for him.

We will be moving in with my parents in a week. This should be interesting! I haven't lived at home since I was 18 years old, so this is going to be a big adjustment for all of us! We truly appreciate them letting us move in with them though, as we don't know what we had done otherwise. We hope to go down to Austin in April/May and look for a house. We are so excited about this!

My blogging is going to be almost non-existent for the next few months, as my parents don't have wireless Internet like we are used to. I will try to keep everyone updated though as much as possible!

Great News!

I am happy to say that after only 12 days of our house being on the market, we received an offer, and are now under contract! We will now be going through the inspection process, but we should know for sure in the next couple of weeks if we have definitely sold our house! So far, everything has gone very smoothly, so we are hopeful that we will get to tell you that we have definitely sold our house very soon. We feel so blessed that we have a contract, as there are many people who have had their home on the market for many months, and have not had anything happen. Many prayers have been answered, and we feel certain that this is yet another step that God has allowed to happen so that we may continue on this new journey in our lives. If everything continues to progress, the buyer has asked to close on our house on March 18, so everything is going to move VERY quickly. Basically, that means that we have less than five weeks left to live here. It makes us sad, but this is really what needed to happen. We will be renting a storage unit for our possessions, and will be moving in with my parents until Chris graduates and we can close on a house in Austin. Please continue to pray that things go smoothly and that this contract will work out!

Snow Days

As most of you know, we had blizzard conditions in Oklahoma yesterday. They canceled classes for Chris, and my work was canceled as well. We got a lot of snow, and it has been very, very cold. Here are some pictures from the last two days!

Our snow covered backyard.

Beautiful!

Jayden wanted to go outside so badly yesterday, but it was just too cold. The wind chill was -20 degrees!

Jayden made Valentines all by himself! All I did was put the glue on the paper, and he did everything else!

Adding jewels to the Valentines.

They turned out so well!

We were finally able to get out of the house today, so we went to my parents house and went sledding. Jayden had a blast! Here are some pictures of our afternoon!

Jayden had so much fun sledding down Nana and Papa's hill!

The three of us. It was so bitterly cold!

Sweet boy...all bundled up!

Mommy going down the hill. It was so much fun!

Jayden and Daddy walking back up the hill.

Jayden walking back up the hill determined to sled down again.

He had so much fun and couldn't get enough even though he was freezing.

Jayden sledding down the hill all by himself! He was so brave.

Chris sledding down the hill.

All bundled up!

A very happy little boy after coming in from sledding. Look at those rosey cheeks!