Milestones all around!

Here they are , as promised, recent pictures!Can you believe our little Chloe Paige is already 5.5 months old! She's all smiles, and giggles too. Her favorite person to laugh at is her big sister, it just warms my heart to see how much they have grown to love each other.

Chloe in her "happy baby" position, as they call it in Nana's yoga class.

After taking most of her nap in the car, Emma decided to finish her nap on Nana. She must have remembered sleeping on Nana's chest all those times in her infancy.

Two year old bums are cosher, aren't they? Cousin Tayden and Emma are like peas and carrots these days. They can cause quite a tiddle wave in the bath tub.

Cousins, and the best of friends. Tayden and Emma's new favorite thing to do together is throw themselves on the floor in uncontrollable giggles while in their jammies, nearly missing each other each time.

Miss Biddle, as we call her, loving her swing time. She's almost to the weight limit, but Chloe still loves her swing.

After a nice visit with Great Grandma Betty on a blizzardy day, we took this priceless photo. Four generations of women, what a beautiful legacy Grandma Betty has started! We love you "G.G."!

"Sisters...Sisters...there were never such devoted sisters"
It's amazing to me how, already, Emma and Chloe know there's something special about each other. It's almost as if they know that some day, they will be best friends, and rely on each other like honey to the bee as they go through all of life's trials and blessings together. At least, that's what I pray for them.

Putting her best smile forward in Grammy's arms!

Biddle Peep's idea of a perfect bed, Nana's arms! With a little sleep training, Chloe is sleeping so well these days, at least 8 hours for the first stretch, and has even pulled an eleven hour night of solid sleep. We feel like we are among the living again, praise the Lord!

That's right, our baby girl is eating rice cereal already! She'll be 6 months old in just two weeks, after which we'll be adding fruits and veggies to her diet as well. Where did these first 6 months go? Dare I say I'm already catching the baby bug again! But don't worry, we're hoping for about a three year space between Chloe and the next one.

My cup runeth over, what more can I say?!

Emma holding her sister, something she frequently asks to do. Only as she would say it, "I wanna holg my sister". As you can see, "Oh bla di, oh bla da, life goes on..." As we settle into our new home, we look forward to digging our roots in, not just as we settle in to this house, but as we seek the Lord to see how He might shape and mold our family to know and love Him more deeply and to see how He might use us in the lives of others. So as we hunker down for this last stretch of winter, we are everso thankful! God is good, whether our lives are abounding in blessing or laden with hardship. He is worthy of our praise because it is by Him and in Him and for Him that we were created.
Love, Sarah

As the Dust Settles

Before I write anything else, let me first appologize for my long haetis from the world of blogging. While we were living with Travis's parents it was very difficult to find time to blog as their computer was in the room where Emma slept. When the girls are asleep, that's my time to do emails, blog, and anything else I may need/want to do, so it was really hard to find a moment to do either. But now, we are finally back online in our new home and the computer is at the kitchen built-in desk, ahh..., I'm back. So first, let me give you a recap of the past three months or so. After much thought and consideration, we felt that we needed to stop paying rent on top of the mortgage we were paying on the house in Utah. After two different contracts on the townhome fell through, we knew we couldn't just assume it was going to sell quickly. So, we packed up our things once again and moved out of our rental and into Travis's parent's basement. They so graciously agreed to let us live there until our future unfolded. It wasn't easy sharing the space, especially with two bull dogs under foot that Emma gets some devious pleasure from harrassing, but what great lessons in patience, humility, kindness, and trusting the Lord. So then as a huge answer to the prayers of many, our townhome finally sold! To our good friend and realtor nonetheless, so on the 8th of January, "it was finished!" We recieved the wire of money from the sale of the townhome and then officially closed on our new house here that very night. I tell you, the look and jingle of those six shining silver keys was oh so sweet! My mom was able to come up for a few days to help us with the girls while we moved, unpacked, and hung blinds. And now, exactly three weeks later, we are finally feeling more settled and moved in than not. God is so good, I just don't know any other way to sum it up! We are so excited to have many of your over for dinner very soon to celebrate all the blessings this new home brings. And believe it or not, amidst all the caos, we have found/made time to plug in to our new church family, Mountain View Community Church. I've joined the Saturday night worship team and Travis and the girls and I all have an awesome small group (called flocks) that meets every other Sunday night. As we build relationships and study God's Word together, we just know this is right where the Lord wants us. We're just about ready to get plugged in to some accountability groups, Travis with some guys and me with some ladies, so please be praying that this is a time of great growth for us as we sink our roots down deeper with our brothers and sisters here. And I know many of you are anxious to see recent pictures of the house and the girls and hear updates on their growth and development, and I promise, I will be making such posts this week after I retrieve the necessary cable to download pictures from Travis's parents house. It just feels so good to be able to connect to you all again through cyberspace! I also am able to check email at least once a day now, so I hope to catch up with you personally very soon. I'm a big fan of personal emails, I'm not really fond of forwards because I don't have time to read them, but keep those personal letters coming please! I hope to hear from each of you soon with updates from your own lives and ways that we can be praying for and encouraging each of you.
Love always, Sarah