Meeting Rebekah

First, an update:
1. Joel's check ride - As you all know, last Wednesday Joel passed the oral part of his big final check ride to get his flight instructor's license. However, the weather did not allow him to take the flight portion of the exam. So, he needed to reschedule. Well, we believed that he had a full 60 more days to get it done, but this week were informed that he really only has until this Thursday to get it done. So, please keep this in prayer. The FAA people still have not gotten back with us about when they can schedule him, so Joel is just flying alot every day, getting his maneuvers down, so that he is ready at any minute they might call.
2. One of the big things going on right now is the potty training thing. :) In the common way of thinking, compared to the fact that we have no income, no health insurance, haven't been able to sell our house, and have absolutely no idea where we will go or where we will live if/when we do sell our house, potty training might seem like a trivial issue. But, basically if we don't do it now, we will not be doing it until this time next year due to a year full of huge transitions...a new baby, a big move to Brazil, and possibly lots of little moves in between. So basically here's where we are...Joel suggested we just get his check ride over with and then we will re-evaluate. We did the whole potty training thing for a couple of days this week and things went well, but we weren't full force with it or anything. Anyhow, it is on hold for right now. Although I SO appreciate all of the tips and advice you have all given...keep it up. :) Thanks. Now, on to today's post...

At one point before I was married, I lived with 3 other girls in a house...Sanja, Stephanie (and then when Steph moved, Leeana), and Lidia. Lidia is now married and just had a sweet baby girl in February. Some of Lidia's family lives in Longview, so Matt and Lidia come fairly often from Tulsa where they now live to visit. On May 5th they were in town and we were able to all go over to her sister's house for a little gathering to meet Rebekah. Here are some pictures from that.


Well, so this isn't from the night with the Brodine's, but I just think this is a cute picture of cuddly Hadley. We definitely think that her love language is physical touch. :)













The guys (and one girl)...Matt, Joel holding Hadley, and Jeff Anderson.



Me and my girl.












Lidia's sister and her family had some very new puppies at their house...so cute. Of course all of the kids there just loved holding them the whole time. Here, it's Grady's turn to hold one.












During that time before I was married, I was part of an incredible accountability group. Here are 3 of the 4 of us from that group...Carrie May, Lidia, and me...we missed you Nicole.







Lidia and her baby girl.
















Hadley regressing to her bouncy seat/rattle toy days. Actually she still needs that chew toy...she still only has 8 teeth at the age of almost 15 months. Grady had all of his teeth well before he was a year old. Very interesting, seeing the differences in your children...physical and otherwise. Addendum: when I wrote this post and saved it 3 days ago, Hadley had 8 teeth. She now has her 9th tooth poking through...a jaw tooth. Yay, Hadley.



Joel was holding Rebekah and Hadley decided she needed to be up there too...so she just crawled right on up, right on top of Rebekah. Rebekah seems to be pretty good-natured...she didn't mind it at all.












This is the crew...Jeff Anderson with his 3 kids (one of which is trying to escape on the right side of the picture; also Dena his wife was there, but had to leave due to a prior engagement), Joel, me, and the kids, Matt, Lidia, and Rebekah. It was great to hang out with them again.



The Brodine family.