A new chapter getting ready to unfold...

As most of our friends and family should know by now, John and I are both in school full-time on a mission to finish school and not waste any time getting our Bachelor's degree's. We sort of did things backwards, got married, had kids, then got degrees. Still we feel that it was all apart of our Lord's glorious and unforeseen plan that continues to enrich our lives. Our current path certainly isn't easy but each semester that passes reminds us that we are that much closer to our goals and that it is all certainly worth the effort, long nights, and missed time apart.

Our original plans for school involved both John and I obtaining our Bachelor's degrees through OU collaborative programs being offered through Tulsa programs once we were ready to transfer. I had planned on a TCC-OU collaborative through TCC for Nursing and John planned to transfer to OU when he was finished with his pre-engineering. A few weeks ago we found out that OU had severed ties with TCC for whatever reason, not a clue as to why, and not only was there no collaborative program for Nursing but TCC has no degree plan to transfer to OU for Engineering. We decided that it was necessary to look at all our options before making a decision since our options consisted of staying in Tulsa (which we love) and attending other schools like OSU and NSU or moving to the Norman/OKC area to attend OU.

After some prayer and discussions with both OSU and OU we have decided that we still prefer getting our degrees through OU much more then any of the other Oklahoma options we looked into over the last few months, I suppose we are becoming Sooners at heart. So, we have decided to make the move to OKC this Summer before the baby is born for a few reasons but mainly being that I am due August 28 and the Fall semester starts August 23. We have to be down there between now and then and I would prefer changing my OB now rather then later on in Aug. Another reason is so that we can both apply and start our desired programs on time. We have a busy Summer ahead for sure! I will do my very best to update frequently since we are expecting our nephew little Nehemiah in early May. My grandparents are coming out for a lonngggg visit late July/early August. And then our second child (girl! fingers crossed, we find out for sure this coming Friday!) will arrive in August sometime as well :). The decision was hard knowing that we would be leaving such a wonderful church and such amazing friends but we will certainly be seeing everyone still as Tulsa and OKC are not very far from one another :) We love you all and have appreciated and will continue to treasure all our memories together, as well as future memories too!

Blessings & Love

Happy Easter!

This last Saturday marked 19 weeks! Almost halfway there :D

Putting the heart inside Mr. Monkey

Looking at Mr. Monkey's heart

Johnny choosing his monkey at Build-A-Bear

Johnny is getting ready for Summer! Bring on the pool!

Our Easter family picture outside Fish Daddy's after church.


Buddy loves to sun bathe

We had a restful Easter Sunday. I am used to having more family around for Easter but it was restful and special without a ton of family around too. Johnny did the Easter egg hunt at the church the weekend prior to Easter and we figured he got his "fix" then for this year. Next year we'll do something bigger, he'll have a younger sibling too and a little cousin to share a hunt with!

It's a.....

GIRL! We think at least :) Dr J took us into his clinic this evening and baby was in a very odd position making an absolute answer hard but it definitely didn't look like boy parts. We are going to have to wait until we get into our OB for the ultrasound with them to confirm but a HUGE thank you to Dr J for taking time out of his busy day to look for us :) We are so blessed to have such great friends here in Tulsa and we are so thankful for all of them!!

Family Portraits!

We recently hired a fabulous photographer to do our Spring Family Pictures. They all turned out so beautiful and I cant wait to put them up on my wall! The hardest part is going to be choosing which will go up since I cant possibly put all 56 wonderful shots on my walls :). Can't wait until Baby Ryan comes so we can have our whole little family in the shots!

17 Weeks...

Well another 2-3 weeks and we should know whether or not we are giving Johnny a little brother or sister! For now we are making due with insane anticipation!! I thought I'd post the first belly picture of this pregnancy. So far I have only felt the baby a small handful of times but John was able to feel a kick or rub of the butt earlier this morning so I'm sure it won't be long before the baby and myself will be having daily discussions about how often I should or shouldn't be kicked ;) Enjoy!

A walk down memory lane...

I was going through the closet in preparation for our move next weekend and I stumbled across my art portfolio and decided it was time for a trip down memory lane. Here is some of my artwork from the past. Enjoy!

I painted this pink flower for a friend

I painted this orange flower for another friend

This was a still life in a drawing class

This was a morphing project, I had to find and object and morph it into an animal

This was a charcoal still life, took a long time.

These were white objects, also done in charcoal.

This is a stippling still life project. Its made up of dots from a fine point Sharpie, this was by far the most time consuming of all my projects from this class. I think I spent an estimated 39 hours or so on it. The basic outlines were pencil but all the shading was from staring at the still life.

The time has come...

It's time to start blogging again. A lot has happened since my last blog, ahem, in Oct 09! Wow, I need to get back into the blogging shape here! I will just catch y'all up :)

November- This was a stressful month. I lost my job as another result to the failing economy. Going through my last week was rough to say the least and I do believe that I saw the company's true colors in that time and was VERY happy to have left! So it was Goodbye Mpower Entertainment 8am-5pm M-F and Hello Stay at Home Mommy!

December- Within a couple weeks of leaving Mpower Johnny and I boarded our California bound plane for a LONG Christmas vacation. We would meet up with Daddy in a week after his semester ended. We spent the month visiting family and friends. We learned some hard lessons on that trip, one being that people and things change when you leave. The old saying "You can never go home" hit home for us on that trip. Though it was an emotionally hard trip we did enjoy those we had the time to see. We were all eager to be home but the January air was certainly not clear.

January- We had a busy month with the Homecoming of my brother from his year long tour in Iraq. The Army is reliable on absolutely no level so our plans were constantly changing as his arrival date kept changing. My sister-in-law Shannon came out to stay with us the first couple weeks of Jan in anticipation of Keith's arrival. In mid Jan Shannon and I hit the road early ahead of the family to pick up their car in San Antonio so that it was ready for their traveling when he came home. This was a LONG drive! We stayed in Kileen (this is where Fort Hood is). On our third day there it was official that he was in the US and on his way to us. The family met us in Kileen and all waited impatiently for the hours to pass by for his ceremony. It was an exciting time. We arrived at the field with a half our to spare and there were already so many waiting families there too. We set camp on a corner bleacher and waited for instructions. At close to 4:30 pm we heard someone say over the loud speaker, "The troops have landed in Kileen and are boarding the buses, 10 minutes!" Oh the nerves and emotions started flying, and so did the tears! Especially for mom, sob! They explained that when the word "Charge" was said, that meant we were to Charge our troops and find our soldier. So exciting! There were over 300 soldiers to be sure! There are pictures and video, it took forever to find him! Afterwards we met at a yummy oriental buffet restaurant and then proceeded the 5 hours to Paris, TX where we would all stay for the weekend. Dad was unable to brake away from work to be at the ceremony but he was waiting in Paris for us! We had a good weekend and then saw them all again in a few weeks for Tiffany's baby shower and Keith's Birthday celebration in Tulsa :)

February- This was also a busy month. I started having complications with this second pregnancy and was put on bed rest in late Jan. It wasn't until the end of Feb that they discovered the true problem and I was diagnosed with a Hematoma of the Gestational Sack. It just means that the sack isn't completely attached to the uterine wall at some place. Bed rest was lifted at the end of Feb, Thank God! Just in time to enjoy JBF and my brothers birthday at Dave & Busters! A week prior was my sisters shower and that was such a success and a lot of fun!

March- So far it has been an eventful month but a lot more calm. No more traveling until my sister goes into labor in early May, we'll see when little Nehemiah decides to make his grand entrance! I started 3 online 8-week courses, ruff but going good so far! John is still ruffing his 15 units as we approach Spring Break! Johnny is growing like a weed and recently broke a moller, poor kid! Can't wait for Spring and Summer and the arrival of our new addition!