Hunter Turns Five!

Our awesome, baseball-obsessed little boy has turned FIVE on March 1st! We had a great birthday celebration with all of his closest friends at a bowling alley with pizza for lunch.

Cool baseball cake!

We're surprised the wooden floor wasn't dented by how hard Hunter would throw the ball AT the floor... luckily, it also traveled down the aisle a bit and hit the pins....

All the Happenings since January!

Hello dear family, friends and random readers!! I cannot even believe it has taken me THIS long to post again... as Matt posted in July, indeed it has rained and it has POURED. Our lives have changed so drastically in the last six months that it's been nearly impossible to get everything done without taking time to rest. Thus, our blog has been put on the back burner until now! I am hoping to begin updating our blog a couple of times a month again (well, that's my goal anyway... don't know if I've ever actually hit that mark!) now that life is settling into a routine... ok, well now that I am motivated to do so anyway, since our routine will be drastically altered come a week from tomorrow when our baby begins Kindergarten!
Let me just say that God is SO GOOD. In ways that we never expected, He has provided for us and been faithful in bringing together pieces of a puzzle He has been leading us to collect for quite awhile now. We'll provide more details in the posts I am about to provide with pictures.
There's an old proverb that says "The night is always darkest just before dawn." In our final hours of waiting (seemingly for everything), just before the Lord moved the mountains and everything seemed to fall into place, the night was indeed very dark to me. It was tempting to give up hope, to give up faith in the One whose promised great plans for us. Despair threatened. However, I clung to 1 Corinthians 2:9 which says "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." I asked if I could really trust the Lord. I know He is good, but would He really find favor with someone as little as myself and answer my prayers? Is He truly that concerned about and involved in the intricate details of my life? The answer was YES. I clung to this verse and sure enough, when dawn broke, it didn't just rain, it POURED. And every single detail fell into place. God asked us to wait for HIS perfect timing and when we did just that, He didn't let one small, insignificant detail escape His loving care. GOD IS SO GOOD!!!
Over the next few days, I plan to post pictures from the last six months. Please check back frequently to see how our family has grown over that time.

It Rained!

Last April (2007), I posted a blog talking about our long (even at that point) journey in trying to move. We had watched "Facing the Giants" and had been encouraged to move forward in faith with selling our house, simply waiting upon the Lord and quietly preparing it to sell; the metaphor being to "prepare for rain." Little did we know then that our time of preparation and waiting would extend for another 14 months. To be honest, there were times when the road seemed too daunting, too long, and sometimes like we'd never see the end. Little did we know that once the drops began to fall that a torrent would sweep us and our family along and that in 3 short weeks we'd go from no movement to selling a house, buying a house, and moving. And the rain has continued to fall.

Although we had spent a long time in preparation, we weren't prepared for all that the Lord has done and the gracious love that He has bestowed upon us. We could not have imagined being blessed with such a wonderful home, in such a wonderful community, close to work and friends.

Now, a little soaked, and definitely worn out from the journey, we turn our attention up to the Heavens and simply give thanks. Thanks for the rain and the provision.

Happy Birthday Baylie

Our Sweet Baylie has just turned three on January 18th! She had a very fun birthday, complete with a Princess Party where she and her friends dressed up in their prettiest dresses. Baylie is still "The Quiet One" of our family, much like Matt, and is very independent and sweet. She loves growing into a big girl.

Wearing a Birthday Dress from Grandma & Grandpa Hartmann

In this video, Baylie was wearing her purple monkey jammies and when she opened this pretty pink nightgown from Auntie Amy, she insisted on putting it on over her other jammies.

Opening a pretty dress from Kassidy

Opening a Sleeping Beauty Doll and wand from Abbie & Lydia

Happy New Year!

Hello friends, we are very sorry it's been so long since we have updated our site. Life got so busy around the holidays for us, and this was one thing we totally neglected. Now that we're in the new year, we hope to get this updated much more frequently!

HUNTER'S FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Believe it or not, our baby boy is starting school already. He will start Kindergarten next August at The Classical Academy here in Colorado Springs, but until then we have enrolled him in the Town & Country Preschool for Pre-K. He goes three days a week for three hours each and LOVES it! We had a feeling our bright, social butterfly would thrive in a school environment and we were right. He had his first day on January 7th and has been excited about this for a couple of months now!

You can see his excitement in this video:

October at our home!

It's amazing that it's the middle of October already! The weather is finally turning colder, and we are excited for the Holidays to be here. We're hoping for a lot of snow again this year, although maybe not quite the blizzard extravaganza from last year!
Meghan is now 3 months old - growing big and a very happy little girl when she feels good.

Hunter completed his first soccer season this last week! His team was really good and they actually went undefeated and won all six games. After the last game, they were given medals - as you can see, Hunter is VERY proud of his medal.

This last game was very special as Hunter scored FIVE goals! You can watch a video here of Hunter scoring one of them.

ROCKTOBER!

What an unexpected, wild "Rocktober" we've had this year! Our beloved Colorado Rockies baseball team has unexpectedly made it into the playoffs and has been the hottest team in all of baseball for the last six weeks. As of today's writing (October 15th), they have won 20 of their last 21 games. At the beginning of September, their playoff chances were pretty slim - but they defied all the odds and went 20-8 in September, to end the season with a tie for the Wild Card with the San Diego Padres. Therefore, on October 1st, there was a one game playoff between us and the Padres to determine who the Wild Card would go to.
Believe it or not, we managed to get tickets to that amazing game! After we heard about the game, Matt got online and kept hitting "refresh" for nearly 30 minutes to get into their site - and once he did, we were lucky enough to get incredibly cheap tickets to this game.
The tie-breaker was the most exhilarating, breathtaking, overwhelming thing we've experienced in our young lives thus far. I have never experienced anything like it. The game was, of course, sold out and we were on our feet nearly the entire game - all 13 innings of it! The Rockies came back to score three runs in the 13th inning to WIN the game! Yay!

At the Wild Card tie-breaker game on October 1st

That win put us into the NLDS (National League Division Series) against the Philadelphia Phillies, a best out of five series. We swept them, first winning both in Philadelphia then coming home and winning the final game at Coors Field.We were also privileged enough to get tickets to this last game as well! This game was also a blast to be at. Everyone was wearing Rockies gear, a lot of people brought brooms they would wave in the air, many people had signs for "MVP" for Matt Holliday, and "Rookie of the Year" for Troy Tulowitzki. Our great friends Nathan and Michelle joined us for a night to remember!
Nathan, Michelle and us at the Light Rail Station after our awesome win! And unbelievably, the Rockies are now playing The Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS (National League Championship Series) for a best out of seven series - and we are already up 3-0! One more win and we go to the World Series for the first time ever! They play tonight and we are hoping to clinch it here at Coors Field.
One really wild thing that happened at the NLDS was that all the lights in Coors Field went out! Evidently, the computer that controls the lights shorted out. It only took about 15 minutes for the ballgame to resume - but it was pretty crazy being a dark stadium with 50,000 other people. Here's a cool picture of it.

Lights out! Oops!

GO ROCKIES!!!!!!!!!!!