Playing catch up again

I have been horrible about blogging. Our little world has gone through a lot of changes in the past month and more to come soon.
Todd got a job offer in Orlando, Fl. at the University of Central Florida. So the beginning of August we packed up and headed back to Florida. We are renting a house in Oviedo. It is a great place to live, we are only 45 minutes from Disney, 45 minutes from the ocean, and from the Kennedy Space Center. Chloe and I are already making plans to see a shuttle launch soon. I am still working from home until the end of October. My company decided to revamp some things and the department I am in has been downsized and I am one of the casualties. After many days of crying, ranting, and raving, God in his infinite wisdom has given me such a blessing. I will be able to work out of the house 3 days a week but they will be days when Todd is home with Chloe. I also will have uninterrupted Chloe time, no dividing my time with her and work. Woohoo. I am so excited for this time! Chloe is wonderful but I will blog about her later this week after our birthdays. We have found a great church family and are settling in and getting to work. God is good all the time and I am so thankful for that. Hope you all have a blessed week. Lots of love to everyone.

Springtime!!!!

Well, finally we are done with all the white cold stuff!! The weather here has been gorgeous. Flowers are in full bloom, so I was able to get some good pics of Chloe in her Easter dress


We spent a week in Pennsylvania with Todd's family. Chloe had a great time with her cousins. They are a little bit older than her but boy was she able to hold her own with them. It was very funny to watch. Chloe is growing by leaps and bounds. She is speaking in full phrases now and is just so much fun to watch. She is absolutely in love with Elmo. She watches Elmo's world every day and can't get enough of it.
Todd is still searching for a teaching position and I am still working. Nothing new going on there with either of us. I will try to be better about updating the blog. There are tons of more pictures of the Chloe bug on facebook.
Ta ta for now!!!!!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone. A white Christmas in Oklahoma. Todd and I haven't had a white Christmas in over 5 years and Chloe has never had one. It was so beautiful and lots of fun. Chloe enjoyed opening presents this year and when she got to Elmo she was done. All she wanted was to play with Elmo :-) This girl loves her Elmo!!!!




More pictures posted on facebook if you want to see them.
Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!!!!

Playing Catch-up

Well, I am going to try to catch up on some blogging. Our last few months in Tallahassee flew by. The beginning of November, Chloe and I spent a wonderful weekend in Panama City at the beach with Melanie, Sabrina, and Annie. I think Chloe wore them out :-). Chloe didn't really know what to think of the beach. She wasn't completely crazy about the sand. We had a great time together! I love spending time with the girls! Todd spent his weekend in Canada at a conference and he had an interview with Dartmouth while he was there.


We spent Thanksgiving with our dear friends, Jeff and Valerie and girls, Carlin and Janay and kiddos, and our new friends, Jared and Rebecca and their girls. We have gotten together with our friends for several years and have always had a great time. This year was no exception! We will really miss these get togethers.
Moving on to December.
In the midst of having a 14 month old running around the house and working full time, we were also packing up the apartment. That was fun. (NOT) December 11th, Todd's mom and dad came in for a week, then on Dec. 12, Todd graduated from FSU!!!!!! We are so proud of him.

Just a couple of days after graduation we had everything packed up in both vehicles, including the dogs, Chloe and the in-laws and we headed out for Oklahoma. Thanks to portable DVD players and Elmo's World the trip was uneventful. After we get to Oklahoma Chloe gets a cold and gives it to me so we have been pretty miserable for a few days. Hopefully we will be feeling better soon.
On the job hunt front, Todd has had interviews with Dartmouth, Valdosta State and University of South Carolina-Upstate. He won't hear anything else until sometime after the holidays.
Well that catches everyone up for now. I will blog about Christmas soon. Hope everyone has a great Christmas!!! Love you all.

Chloe is 1!!!!!!

It is a little late but Chloe is ONE! I just can't believe it. She is changing every day. She is walking now, talking like crazy, feeding herself, etc. She has such a wonderful sweet personality. Her face just lights up when ever daddy or I enter the room. It is so hard to believe that it has only been a year. We can't even remember her not being in our lives. As I look back over the past year, I have loved every single minute of it. I have even loved the sleepless nights, and lets be completely honest, we still have some sleepless nights :-). I would not trade one single minute of the past year. She has been such a blessing in our lives and it is so much fun to see the world through her eyes and to teach her things. I thank the Good Lord every day for bringing her into our lives and for giving us the privelege to raise her. I pray that she will grow up loving life and loving the Lord with all her heart. I pray she grows to be a strong Christian woman with a quiet and gentle spirit. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first year and look forward to each year to come.
I love you Chloe Elizabeth and you are so very special to Mommy and Daddy.

The Un-Amazing Race

We were traveling back from our exile from civilization--I mean our time in Oklahoma--and were near Brilliant, Alabama when Jenn and I started gazing at clouds (not a safe thing to do while driving) and seeing shapes:

"That one is a belly-flopping reindeer"
"That looks like an elephant"
"That looks like a belly-flopping elephant. There beside the belly-flopping reindeer."
"There's E.T."

Jenn then said (in a comment that is truly demonstrative of the power of branding on our culture): "There's the Travelocity gnome!"
I said, "Grab it! Oh, wait we're not on the Amazing Race. Maybe this is the un-Amazing Race."
Jenn responded, "Yeah, I would like to see some of those people travel with a baby and two dogs."

Where does the time go?????

I know this is the first of many, many times I will say this in my new life as a mommy but it is so very true. This little bundle of joy that we brought home 10 months ago is now a precious little girl, not baby, of immense personality. She is just changing everyday. She is so much fun to watch. I love seeing the world through her eyes. It is impossible to have a bad day when I see her face light up when I enter the room. She is slowly turning into a Papa's girl but she still loves to cuddle with Mama. God has blessed our lives so richly. Something that to me looked so bleak and heartbreaking, God has turned into something more than I could imagine. Here is just a short list of the things she is doing now.
1. Crawling all over the place.
2. Pulling to a standing position
3. Standing unassisted sometimes
4. Walking with the help of Mama or Papa
5. Eating, eating, eating. She loves finger foods
6. She has three teeth and a fourth on the way
7. She talks up a storm, her favorite words right now are bible and doggie. Go figure. She says mama and dada and poppy (my dad).
8. She recognizes and does the sign for eat, bottle, and more
9. Practically perfect in every way :-)