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.

Go, Send, or Disobey

101 Posts! 3 new videos

Here's Braelyn playing in her new hippo pool on our back deck!

Welcome to our 101st post! I can't believe it. I was telling Sonya the other day how excited I was and thankful that she started this thing almost 4 years ago. It's fun to look back and see all the wonderful things God has done and how we've grown as a family and as a couple and as Children of God. Thanks for reading!


Here's the other videos finally. They were too big to upload on our blog so we had to post them to youtube and put a link here. this is about the extent of my electronical abilities! Here she is feeding herself. She misses a lot but does pretty good.

Here's Braelyn climbing up the stairs. She usually goes faster but was distracted by the video camera.

Almost 11 months old

Ok, so these pics are a little out of order, but just enjoy!
I love to play in the pool!
Braelyn and Addie

The JoDANna Wedding...August 1
Braelyn went all day without a nap until about 3:00 on the way home....she was a little tired, but was a great baby all day!

Cutie pie!


The beautiful couple! It was a beautiful wedding outside at Joanna's parent's house.

Bath time!

Thanks to my wonderful aunts who give me such pretty dresses!!!!





Braelyn is growing so quickly now. We have some really cute videos to post, but the blog is not cooperating right now, so I'm just going to update and post a few pics. She discovered our stairs about a week ago. The first time she started climbing them she went ALL THE WAY UP without stopping. She climbed them four times that day, with Mommy right behind her of course. So now we have to buy a gate. She has also figured out how to bark like a dog. She says "woof, woof" anytime she hears the neighbors dog or sees a dog, or bird, or squirrel......apparently all animals bark :). It's really cute. She loves animals, especially dogs. She also started saying "uh oh" a few days ago when she would drop her sippy cup in the floor. Sometimes I think she tries to say "ball". We bought her a little baby pool and she loves to play in it. She is doing a better job sleeping through the night now. Praise the Lord. She likes to explore the whole house. We have to watch her constantly. She also likes to point at things now and claps her hands a lot more. If we are watching a TV show and people clap, she will start clapping too. She has a hippo toy that she can walk behind and she does really well with it, but no first steps yet by herself. She is starting to eat more finger food and some table food. Still no teeth, we keep thinking that she is "teething", but we've thought that for about 6 months now. She still takes two naps a day and goes to bed around 8:30 and wakes up around 8. She is such a GOOD sleeper! Like her Mommy :)

We are still looking for a church home. I am still looking for some other Moms to hang out with. We have really nice neighbors that we hope to have over for dinner and get to know better. It is nice being closer to our families. We have been home a lot more in the last few months. Aaron is really enjoying his residency so far. He is learning so much and I can tell it is really rewarding for him to work and bring home a paycheck again. He has a different schedule every month, but so far it has been very manageable. I know that he is doing what God has called him to do and I am so thankful for that.

Oh, and I included a picture of our first vegetables from our own garden, which is VERY small. We (actually Aaron) planted one green pepper, one cucumber, one squash, one zuchinni, and one tomato. The tomato died fairly quickly, but the others are looking pretty good. We planted really late, so we just got our first zuchinni and cucumber about a week ago. They were really good. We don't have any squash or peppers yet....who knows we might not get any. But it is fun to see what happens.

Braelyn's First Real Crawl!

Here's Braelyn showing off her crawling skills. She was a little shy at first but now she's all over the place (mostly pulling up the old carpet fibers!)

Sour Blueberries!

Here's Braelyn eating fresh blueberries for the first time. We missed the first few faces which were of course the best but there was still plenty of sour left! Enjoy!

Update on Our Adventure and Exhausted Little Braelyn

This is from today July 14th. Sonya said Braelyn was having a hard time falling asleep and cried and cried then all the sudden she went to check on her and this is what she found! She had fallen asleep sitting up! It was so funny. She's such a good baby. We are so blessed to get to be her parents.

So here's some pics of what we've been up to the last few months!

I graduated medical school!
We moved to TN (this has nothing to do with moving just a cute baby)
Braelyn's first dip in the swimming pool at her cousin Mattie's 1st birthday party!
Our baby is SO adorable!
Braelyn finally began turning over to her stomach to sleep. She now sleeps with her butt in the air sometimes too!

Braelyn learned to go backwards but not forward yet!
Mom, Sarah, Laura, Caryss and Gavin came to visit us in Bristol, TN
My 1st Father's Day!!!
Sonya's family came to visit us in Bristol
Sonya and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary by going to The House on Main in Abingdon, VA then to the Barter Theater to see The Wizard of Oz! It was a great surprise from my Wonderful wife! Thanks to mom and dad for coming up to keep Braelyn!

We celebrated the 4th of July with our favorite little girl and Sonya's parents. Actually it was the 3rd because I was taking my 1st call at the hospital all day and night of the 4th
Sonya got to go visit with her 3 best friends from college. They all have baby girls within a year of age! Braelyn, Avery, Addie, and Charin. I understand that a good time was had by all.
And here we are back where we started. Sonya said she had to figure out what body part was where when she

Sorry I forgot to turn this one but it actually looks really weird from this angle!

So what's next? Daniel (my younger brother) is getting married Aug. 1st in Murfreesboro, Tn to Joanna. They are calling it the JoDANna wedding. They wanted to beat US Weekly magazine in coming up with a clever name. Braelyn will have her 1st birthday Sept. 18th! And anything else God leads us to do! Please pray we find a church home soon. We are ready to jump in and serve!

Celebrating Five Years of Husband and Wife

Ok, so I'm sorry there are no pics of Braelyn on here. I will get to that soon. I just wanted to say that Aaron and I will be celebrating our 5 year anniversary tomorrow! We are going out tomorrow night and Aaron's parents are going to watch Braelyn for us. I am very excited because Aaron has no idea what we are doing or where we are going and I'm going to get to surprise him for once. I'll share about it later, but I'm pretty sure he will enjoy it. The last five years have been great. It seems like every year brings new challenges and new blessings. I am so thankful that God brought Aaron and I together. He is definitely a gift from the Lord. When Aaron and I got married we decided to write our own vows.......

I, Aaron, take you Sonya to be my wife forever
You are my good and perfect gift from God
Today I vow to be your earthly protector and provider
I will lead you with a servant's heart, just as Jesus leads His Church
I will strive to love you with the love of God,
Regardless of my feelings and our circumstances
These things I vow to you before God and these witnesses

I, Sonya, take you Aaron to be my husband forever
You are my good and perfect gift from God
Today I vow to by your life-long helper and encourager
I will submit to your leadership as the head of our home
I will trust you and follow you wherever God leads us
I will seek to love you with the love of God,
Regardless of my feelings and our circumstances
These things I vow to you before God and these witnesses

I feel so blessed to call Aaron my husband. Thank you Lord for creating marriage. I pray that our marriage will point others toward You.

What Do You Treasure