A Day at the Christmas Tree Farm

This morning we finally had the time to go and pick out our Christmas tree. Traditionally we go the weekend after Thanksgiving, but we were unable to this year.

Today was Leah's second year at the Christmas tree farm :) The weather was great...snow covered grounds, cold, yet very sunny. Leah was only 4 months old the first time so this year we were a little more excited since she can walk, but go figure, we still had to carry her most of the time since she didn't know what to make of the snow and walking in boots for the first time wasn't the easiest. Hopefully next year we won't have to carry her LOL :D

Since it's was so late in the season, we had a hard time finding that "perfect" tree, but after a bit of searching...we found it :)

Leah had fun in the snow, enjoyed the wagon ride to and from the tree farm, and checking out all the different varieties of goats in their petting zoo area.

Leah & Daddy just before I put on her snow gear

At the tree farm

Leah tasting snow for the first time...I guess she was a little thirsty

YES - We finally found that "perfect" tree!!

Leah taking a little breather before daddy cuts down the tree

While daddy was cutting the tree....I was RELAXING :)

TIMBER!!!

Waiting for the wagon to pick us up to go back to the barn

On the wagon - I'm getting seeeppyy (can you tell!)

Leah's first trip to the Zoo (11/15/09)

Believe it or not, we had a beautiful day in November and decided to take advantage of it. Chris mentioned the Zoo and I thought that was a great idea so off we went :)

Leah had a great time looking at all the different animals and practicing her new skills....walking and running. Here are some of the pictures that we took:

Thanks daddy for taking me to the zoo...I love it!!

It's been a while

I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated the blog...sorry!

Well a lot has been going on with us and I really don't even know where to start. Umm...I guess I'll start with lil Leah :)

Update on Leah:
Leah has just taken off since she started walking a couple of months ago. I can barely get stuff done around the house because I'm chasing her and making sure she's not getting into things that she shouldn't be into. She has learned a couple new words since the last time I posted...yuck, or as she says "uck", and "hot". She has also learned to shake her head no, but I'm not sure where she learned that. Anytime you ask her a question the answer is always with a head shake back and forth as to say "no", but sometimes she means "yes" (we will be working on that LOL).

Update on the land/house:
As you all know, we picked out a 5 acre lot out in Manlius, and was just waiting to close on the property. As of today, we are getting out of the contract and looking for new land. It's such a long and complicated story that I'll just hit some of the highlights and some God moments:

Highlights are that the seller's were suppose to fulfill all of our contingencies, which they tried to, however, one of the contingencies was done unadequately and the seller's were unwilling to do it properly or reimburse us the cost for us to get it done right....SO we are backing out.

Some awesome God moments:
Chris really started feeling unsettled about this lot in Manlius when the seller's were not cooperating and seemed to be dragging their feet. So we finally started to really pray about the situation and make sure that this is what God wants for us and that the location is really where we should be building and raising our family, and not just us wanting to live there for our own reasons. As we started praying about the situation, I now started questioning about the lot so Chris and I decided to just have our real estate agent look up some more lots for us in the event our original lot crumbles, and in that search we found a lot that was a lot less money, smaller lot (2 acres instead of the 5), in the area we originally wanted to stay within, and in a good school district (if homeschooling fails). We got out and decided to walk the lot and the neighbor came out and introduced his family to us. They have 4 or 5 children and just built on that lot about a year ago. In talking to them, we found out that they are also Christians (how absolutely AMAZING is that!) and that Chris and them had mutual friends.

That night we decided to pray more and felt God was leading us away from our original lot and leading us towards this one. At the time, we didn't know how we were going to get out of the original lot, but that's the absolute wonderful part about God. We knew that he'll lead us down the path we should be heading :)

A few days later, I get a call about the new lot having an approved septic design from the County (which will save us about $1500 or more) and that it's been approved for a 5 bedroom home, which is the number of bedrooms we will have. PRAISE GOD!!

Needless to say, God was making it very clear that we need to get out of the first contract :)
Now we will have to see if this second lot is where we are suppose to be. If it is, then it'll be sitting there waiting for us until we are released from the first contract and we are able to move forward with putting an offer in for this new lot.