A lot to be thankful for.....

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 136:1

I just wanted to share all that I am thankful for and give God all the glory for it.

Thank you Lord for saving me, for making a way for us to know You. For my family and that I was raised in church. Thank you for Your word, that we have access to it and it is not forbidden in our country. Thank you for our warm home, more than enough food to eat, more than enough clothes to wear, for cars that run well. Thank you for aaron's job, that he finds fulfillment in it and that he can earn money for our family. Thank you that I am able to stay at home with Braelyn, that she is healthy and full of life. Thank you for our health, that we have access to doctors and medicines. Thank you for you Holy Spirit, our helper. Thank you for friends that encourage and push us closer to You. Thank you for allowing us to see you answer prayers. Thank you Lord for leading us to a church home here in Bristol. thank you for putting mature believers in our lives to show us how to live and encourage us when we struggle. thank you for prayer, that we can approach you with confidence, knowing you will give us grace to help us in our time of need. thank you Lord for pastors who are not afraid to preach your truth and who challenge us and teach us. thank you Lord for blessing us financially so that we can be a blessing to others for Your glory. Thank you Lord for the freedoms we have in our country, that we can worship you in freedom every Sunday without fear of persecution. thank you Lord for your unfailing, unconditional love for us. thank you Lord for caring about us, for being patient with us, for drawing us to Yourself. You are wonderful Lord. You are worthy of our praise. You are worthy of our lives.

"One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts."

More Fall Fun & Halloween

Still celebrating fall here in Bristol. I was so excited to get some pictures of Braelyn in the leaves. This is at the park beside our house. It was so beautiful. Most of the leaves are falling now :(. But hey, on my way home tonight I saw THREE houses with Christmas lights on!!!! I was shocked! Yes, today is November 7. And I was shopping today and there were people everywhere. It was like we just skipped November completely and it's Dec or something? Crazy. Braelyn had a good Halloween. She was a Pumpkin during the day and then we tried out the Tigger costume. I think she really enjoyed it. She enjoyed seeing the kids come to the door for candy all dressed up. And by the end she was wanting to help put candy in their buckets. Recently, her new favorite thing is to help me unload the dryer :), which actually makes doing laundry a lot more fun. I don't even have to bend over to unload the clean clothes anymore. We will have to try to put a video up of that. And I guess the tigger costume was appropriate because now she is trying to learn how to jump. It's so cute.....she bends down and then stands up real fast and gets excited! Oh, she is just cracking me up everyday with something new. We are so blessed.









Most of the time, she prefers to ride this sitting on it backwards :). And going backwards.

Happy Fall

Hello from Bristol! It is always fun watching the seasons change in a new place. The leaves are really starting to turn now and the park next to our house is beautiful. We are excited to say that we have found a church here in Bristol. Calvary Baptist Church. It is just down the road from us and we have been so blessed in just the short amount of time we have been there. I helped out with AWANA last week and plan to keep helping. It is a great ministry. They go and pick up kids from lower-income areas and then feed them at the church and do AWANA with them and then take them home. It reminds me of the summer program I use to work with with all the van schedules and bit of craziness at times. God is also helping us develop more relationships with people here, which is a blessing. I had a couple of moms and their kiddos over to our house this morning for a playdate. It was a lot of fun. They are both resident wives so we had a lot in common. Aaron is enjoying his new rotation. He is learning a lot and working hard. Hope you all are doing well. Come visit us anytime! Here are some random pics.....these are from a while back, but I just thought they were hilarious. She woke up from a nap with some major bed head!!






My cute new dress and shoes from my Great granddaddy Jones and Aunt Laura. Thanks!
Braelyn's hair is long enough now to pull up in a little rubberband. The only problem is she doesn't want anything in her hair!! Oh well, I guess we'll just keep trying.
Steele Creek Park in the fall



Just saying Hi to my Aunt Sarah!! She sticks out the tongue for you Sarah :)

More Braelyn Videos!!

Here's Braelyn Walking! It's just a matter of time until she takes off. Enjoy

Here she is playing and dancing to the toy she got from the Byrds for her birthday.

Braelyn's 1st Birthday!

The pictures are kinda backwards. They always upload on top of each other so the first are last and the last are first! I'm sure I should be able to fix it, but I'm not sure how. So just enjoy the pics and thanks everyone for helping us celebrate Braelyn's 1st birthday! It was a lot of fun! And thank you everyone for all her presents. She is enjoying all of them.


Braelyn's crazy cousins! Colton, Caryss, and Gavin.




"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward." Psalm 127:3


Braelyn and cousin Mattie. So glad they could all come and celebrate with us!

Don't forget baby Hayden! So cute and smiley all the time.

Great-granddaddy Jones and Aunt Laura. So glad they could come too.






Here are some pics from Braelyn's first bday party last Friday night, the 18th. We had it at a park close to our house and we had a great time. Most of our family was able to come. We missed Sarah and Martin and Daniel and Joanna though. I made Braelyn's little cake for her and some cupcakes for everyone else. She wasn't sure what to do with her cake at first. She played in it for a few minutes and then finally started eating some.

Braelyn had her one year check up Wednesday. She weighed 20 lbs and 15 oz and was 29 inches long. They said she is in the 50th percentile for both height and weight. She also got her chicken pox vaccine and did really well. She cried more while the doctor was examining her than when the nurse gave her the shot! We are SO thankful for a healthy baby and praise God for such a wonderful blessing.

We are thinking that we might have found a church. We aren't making a decision for sure yet, but we are going to keep going there for a while and stop visiting other places. Please continue to pray that God will confirm for us that this is where He wants us. Thank you for your prayers. We really appreciate them. I did find a MOPS group, but they only meet once a month. So I am planning on going to the next meeting in Oct. I am in a women's bible study that meets once a week and I am SO thankful for it. I really needed that. God has answered several prayers through that. It is a Kay Arthur study focusing on God's covenant. I have never studied God's covenants through the bible and I am learning a lot already. Maybe I'll try to post later some of what I am learning. Have a good weekend.

"if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you BE RENEWED in the spirit of your mind, and PUT ON the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:21-24

"So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, PUT ON a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another.......Beyond all these things, PUT ON love, which is the perfect bond of unity." Colossians 3: 12-14

Countdown to the big ONE !!

Yes, believe it or not, Braelyn will be turning ONE next Friday!!! I still can't comprehend it, but I am looking forward to celebrating a GREAT first year full of precious memories and amazing blessings. She is so much fun. She has really started trying to talk a lot more lately. I can tell that sometimes she is really trying to repeat what I tell her.....for example she has tried to say "hairbrush", yellow, blue, ball. she CAN say "uh oh", ma ma, da da, and of course, she can bark like a dog. she is starting to understand phrases like "close the door". She loves the Itsy bitsy spider and patty cake. She still loves to sit and look at books and to empty my tupperware cabinet in the kitchen. She is also fascinated with the refrigerator and crawls as fast as she can every time she hears it open! Oh, and SHE HAS A TOOTH!! woohoo! yes, finally, it has arrived. She hasn't really tried taking any steps toward walking by herself yet, but that's fine with me. I know it will happen soon. She likes to walk with us holding her hands. Ok, well, that's a quick update on Braelyn. Aaron and I are doing well also. We are still looking for a church home. We have found a couple that we are interested in visiting more, but still aren't settled yet. I have found a womens bible study at a church down the street that meets once a week during the morning. We are doing a Kay Arthur Precepts study calling Knowing God's Covenant. I have never done a Kay Arthur study before, but I am excited and looking forward to the challenge. It is 11 weeks long, and the first meeting was really good last week. However, I am the only "young" lady there. I am still looking for some young Christian moms to hang out with and fellowship with. That is a prayer request for me. Aaron is enjoying his residency and is learning a lot. He actually delivered a baby ALL BY HIMSELF last week! The lady's doctor got stuck in traffic and the baby was coming out, so Aaron just stepped right up and delivered that baby like a pro. This usually NEVER happens. Ask him about it and he can give you the full story. We thank God for providing the knowledge and skill for him to be able to do that successfully. He is doing OB/GYN and Peds this month and will start MTS(medical teaching service) in Oct for 6 weeks, which is Internal Medicine. ok, I'm going to try and upload a few pics. Enjoy.

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