he passed!!!!

Tyson passed his CRNA boards!! He starts work February 1st at Doctor's Hospital, the 2nd largest burn hospital in the world. He has many challenges ahead, but for now we are grateful! Grateful that the Lord has provided in so many ways for our family, grateful that He is true to His promises and He uses us even in our imperfections. Grateful for our friends and family that have been so willing to help and who, more importantly, have been faithful in praying for us. Grateful for our daughter, who is pure joy; but most importantly, we are grateful that we serve a God who loves us dearly.

I finally got my computer back, so yay pictures!!

it has been way too long and there are quite a few things i want to post for me to remember.

first; however, i feel that it is important for me to mention that the reason i have been so behind is because of a terrible reality called postpartum depression. for those who are fortunate enough to have never experienced this please know that it is real and it's a beast!! thank the Lord i am a labor and delivery nurse, because if it were not for the drastic weight loss and my profession, i could have been lost in that terrible place for a lot longer than i was. i missed out on so many wonderful moments with my daughter (which is why you will notice there are no pictures from weeks 6-16) and that was the worst part of the whole deal. i will post something later about postpartum because i still would like to wrap my mind around it and i think that it is an important topic to discuss. but, for now, let me catch up on life with our precious little girl!

the pictures above are from pre and post delivery. the trip home. her first play date with millie johnson and mae turner (2 wks). first trip to the lake (3 - 4wks). first trip to the beach, where her umbilical cord finally fell off, which meant her first real bath and then we stopped by savannah to see the twins on our way home(5wks).

- the mushroom pic is one of mama's and i just loved it

- the cookies were given to us by friends during ella's first week home (delicious!)

our crazy, but functioning family

Life has been a little interesting, Tyson has graduated from C.R.N.A. school with a 4.o (hoorah!!) , but he has been studying like a champ for his boards. So... Ella and I have been at mama's. Our goal is to stay out of his way. He has worked entirely too hard and we have invested too much time and money to get in the way of this last hurdle!! Plus, it has been fun over here :)

Ella is growing so quickly, she started sleeping for 12 hours at night when she was 13 weeks, she now (almost 5 months) takes two, two hour naps and sometimes a third. she started rolling over on thanksgiving day, she is trying so hard to sit/stand/move any way she can!! Her feet are always moving, she is NEVER still, even while eating her left foot is kicking constantly. I have started making her food ... super easy and really fun! She loves bananas and pears and cereal, next week we are going to try squash, not sure how that will go.

other fun news: TODD and LINDSEY are preggers!! Ella has another cousin on the way!

(will post pics of the last few months when we get back home, looking forward to having some normalcy soon)