Happy Thanksgiving!

As we look back at life the past few months, many things have come up that we could feel uncertain about. However, when it all comes down to it, we realize we have a lot to be thankful for.

We spent one meal with our friends, the Willis' and Parks, and another meal at our church, with anyone who wanted to come. Our meal at the church was special because it was such a diverse group of people, a real picture of the Kingdom. Young, old, families, singles, grandparents, children, rich, poor.

Click on the Flickr link to see some new photos and videos posted. I was going to insert them here, but I can't figure out how. I'll leave that to Jeff. The pictures include Micah playing play-do with his buddies Zac and Hannah and Micah and Hannah rolling around in the laundry basket.

Micah loves it when we have "family hugs." Jeff and I can't hug each other any more without Micah running up and saying "fam-eee hugs, fam-eee hugs!!" So we pick him up and he puts an arm around each of us and grins really big. So cute.

Gramma sent some books about Thanksgiving that Micah loves. One is a scratch-n-sniff book in which Micah has found all of the smelly circles. However, we have to wipe it off after every time Micah reads it because he hasn't figured out that sniffing means breathing IN. He's turned it into scratch-n-blow. When he's done with Thanksgiving books, he moves on to Easter books, and his favorite, "Peter Cocktail" (a.k.a. Peter Cottontail).

The other day, I was eating my breakfast cereal and Micah wanted "uppah" on my lap, so I was trying to eat it with him on my lap. He decided to help me by reaching his hand in my bowl and putting cereal on my spoon for me when I put it back in the bowl to get more. Thanks for the help, Micah.

I realized the other day that we haven't posted anything about our housing situation, for anyone that might be interested. So, I'll give the nutshell, up-until-now version. Jeff and I had a dream of adding on to our 900 sq. ft., 1927 home to make it our dream home. Our criteria were a large dining area, a living area to host large group of people, an office area for Jeff, a guest room, and more bedrooms. So, in August, we hired an architect to draw up plans for our dream home, and after a few drafts, she came up with a terrific design. So, we proceeded with getting contractors to come up with bids, a survey, and some other things, but after meeting with a loan officer, reality slapped us in the face and we realized that there was no way we could afford it. So then, we could (1) wait on the remodel, but for how long until we need space for a larger family? (2) Add on a smaller addition, but it's a lot of effort for still not enough house, (3) sell our house and buy a large house (the "home run," as Jeff calls it), or (4) rent out our house and buy a "tweener," a slightly larger house that meets some of our goals. A few different people that we trust advised us that adding on would be less cost-effective to add on as opposed to buying a new house. So, we feel like we've been on an emotional, financial, housing roller coaster since August. Today was significant because Jeff looked at some houses with a realtor today. It now feels like we've actually claimed a decision and are moving toward it. We grieve the loss of our dream home, but trust that God was protecting us from something and that He has something amazing in store for us. We'll keep you posted. (Neither of the homes Jeff went in today will work, by the way.)