Congrats Lindsay & BJ!!!!!!

The title says it all. Lindsay and BJ had their sweet baby girl after 22 hours of grueling labor. Poor thing! She's just beautiful, and you can see a picture of her if you click here. I can't wait to see her in person!!!

We've been doing well. We had our staff retreat/conference with our church at the beginning of last week. It was awesome!! We were in Vale at this beautiful home, and the conference speaker was Pastor Jack Hayford, which is always fantastic. It was really a great time of planning and bonding. The rest of our week flew by. This weekend we got to see my old boss and sweet friend, Marilyn. It was so good to see her again!! We were so busy this last week, I can hardly believe we are already at the beginning of another one! I know you all can relate. Tomorrow is the start of a new Beth Moore Bible Study that the women are doing at our church. I am so excited about it. Who knows, maybe I'll come up with some great insights that I'll have to relay here. Oh! Today we received our first big snow of the season! I think Cary was a little amazed. There is almost a foot of snow on the ground. It's beautiful, and we christened the moment with a sample of snow ice cream....yum!! Although we miss all of our wonderful, dear friends in TX, I can't say I'm minding this weather! :)

In all our busy-ness, I did manage to have a bit of a photo shoot with Carson. I must share!! :)

New Trick

Oh my gosh!! Look what Carson just did! I caught this right before he fell over, so he's leaning quite a bit, but I am such a proud mama!! :)

Johnny Jumper

Carson got his new toy yesterday. He just loves it! It's so funny to watch him bounce and spin and concentrate and laugh at himself. I think he would stay in there all day if I let him. Here are some pictures of his test run :)

Stats

Hello everyone! Not much new here, except that Carson had his 4 month appointment today. It went very well, and once again, he has been determined gifted. :) haha. He is doing all of the things he is supposed to be and a few more at that. At 4 months and two weeks, he is weighing 15 lbs and 13 ounces - that's 12 ounces up in just 2 weeks...wow! He is also 25 inches long, and the doc says we are likely going to have to buy him a big boy carseat before he is even 6 months...guess we had better start saving :) He measured 75th percentile for both height and weight, yep, he's a Buddha. Then we finished off the appointment with 4 more shots in his legs. Poor guy screamed and screamed. It was really sad! But, all for the good of the boy.

We have a busy week this week. Lots of meetings for youth and church. Also, some friends of ours from Waco are here this week, so we are hoping to get to see them at some point - yeah!! Cary's leading worship this Sunday at church, which is always fun, and then the three of us are heading to Vale for a church staff retreat/meeting thingy. I know...our lives are tough :)

We've been praying for all of our friends and family that have been dealing with Rita, and are so glad you all are safe and sound, especially the pregos. Take care everyone!

Fun with family

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been absent! I've been keeping up with all of your posts, especially Lindsay's, we're praying for you, Linds!! Anyway, we spent the weekend in Arkansas introducing Carson to his aunts, uncles, cousins and great grandparents on that side. It was lots of fun. Unfortunately, it was a short visit and now Cary and I feel like we need a vacation from our vacation. Oh well, I guess that's how it goes! :O) I hope you all are well! I hope to have new pictures of our sweet boy to update you all soon. Here is one of Carson and his cousins getting aquainted. They were quite taken with each other.

Congratulations

to my sister the homecoming queen and my brother, a member of the freshman court. Way to go guys!

Since I know it will be a while before any of you can visit...

welcome to our home via the web :) Would you like a tour?

The dining room:


The kitchen:


The living room:



And!! My very favorite room...the nursery!!





Hope you enjoyed your stay! :) Come back anytime!!!

Getting settled

Hi everyone! Well, we've been in Colorado a little over a week now, and we are finally starting to feel like we are at home instead of on vacation. It's amazing how that happens when you hang pictures on new walls. Carson's room is nearly finished as of today, and it is my absolute favorite room in our home. I'll post pictures of our home for you soon. I love it! :)

Cary is doing well with work and is loving youth pastoring. We had all of the kids and many of their folks over to our place tonight so that they could hang out and see where we live. It was a lot of fun - crazy, but lots of fun.

A new highlight, my sister and brother were nominated to their homecoming court this week. Way to go Kelsey and Austin!! Very exciting. Mom, Carson and I are going to go to their pep-rally Friday to see if they win. It is so awesome to be close enough to do normal things like that.

I hope you all are doing well. We miss you all!! Each and every one!

Oh, and just for your viewing pleasure, pictures :)

Here is one I took yesterday of Cary and Carson - he is getting SO big! 17 weeks tomorrow.



And here is one from his bath on Monday. He is so funny in the tub. He'll stay in there as long as we'll let him...even when the water is cold. He just kicks and kicks and laughs at himself. I have a funny video of it, so Cary is going to see if we can upload it.



Happy Thursday everyone!

Last Day

Today is my last day at work! It's been quiet and unassuming, which is how I like it. I turned in my keys and my car tag and met with my HR rep, I'm in the process of packing up my few belongings, and as of 5 p.m. central time, I am officially a stay-at-home mom!! Yippee!! First order of business...PACK! Haha... Tomorrow, I am taking Carson to daycare and I am going to attempt to finish packing. Pray for me people, pray hard. I feel like there is soooo much left. I know it will get done, but it sure seems daunting.

So, tomorrow I pack, and Friday we are off to Colorado. I think we'll have internet fairly soon, so once we get sort of settled, I'll update, and maybe post a picture or too. We'll see. One thing is for sure, it will be a couple of days at least. I'll miss reading all of your blogs, but I'll check back soon! :)

Pray for us!! :)
Melissa

For DeAnne, Stephanie & Emily :)

It fits!!

Sleep, Glorious Sleep!!!

11 HOURS STRAIGHT!!!!! Yep, Carson went down at 8 last night for good and didn't wake up until 7 this morning, and that is only because I got him up so I could feed him. Then he went back to sleep until we had to leave at 7:40!!! Who knows how long he would have stayed down if he had been able too! I thought this sleeping through the night thing was a fluke, but the night before last, he slept for 9 hours, ate and then slept for another 3. Maybe we're on to something here.

I am so blessed! Today is a wonderful day!

In other news...we had to nearly shave our poor yorkie, Fisher. He's looking pretty pitiful right now, but is acting as proud as ever. He has beautiful soft gray hair, but it is extremely fine and the undercoat gets matted super easily. When we took him to get him groomed, they said we needed to trim him to 1/2" and start over. Poor Fisher. I should post before and after pictures - he doesn't even look like a yorkie right now.

We also finalized our moving plans. We are loading a moving truck Thursday night, and Friday morning Carson and I will fly out and Cary will hit the road. I'm super excited because when I get there, my mom and I are going to paint the nursery and hang a border - I'll be sure to post pics when it's done - I think it will be very cute!! Hopefully I'll get the paint on the walls before Cary arrives with the furniture! :)

Have a wonderful day everybody!!

Moving!!!

Yep, that's right! We're moving to Colorado. Cary has accepted a youth/college pastor position at Solid Life Christian Center in Castle Rock, CO, and I get to be a stay-at-home mom!! We are just thrilled! Our kids are just awesome and desire God's move in their lives so much! We can't wait to hit the ground running!

Now for the crazy part... We are hitting the road in 11 days. Yep. 11! We are loading the trucks and driving (well, Cary and some guys from the church are driving, I'm flying with Carson :)) on August 26th and 27th. I have only 12 boxes packed so far and so much more to go! I know it will all come together though. Oh, and today we are signing a lease for our 3-bedroom, 2-bath, almost 1300 sq. ft. apartment that we are only paying $800 a month for! God is so good!! All of the other apartments in the area were smaller and closer to $1300!

This move is bittersweet, because most of our friends are here, as well as Cary's family, but we are so excited for what God has in store for us. I am overwhelmed already with how He is working out the details.

Going to Colorado :)

Yeah!! It's finally Thursday, and that means that I get to see Cary tomorrow!! I cannot wait! I've missed you, babe!! :) Our house has been awfully quiet. Our week has gone well though, I must say. Carson has been so happy this week - which he usually is. He's gotten himself on a solid routine of going to bed around 7:30 which has helped me so much during my short-term single parenting. :) I have even managed to keep the house cleaned up, the dishes done, and all of the laundry done twice! I feel so accomplished, ha! Oh, and I even cooked myself real dinners! I know, this is totally boring and so not a big deal, but I'm feeling very proud! :) I even got half-way packed for our trip last night.

Cary says his trip is going well so far, I can't wait for Carson and I to join him! We have my cousins wedding (whom I haven't seen since 1999). It's going to be so fun! And then because of General Counsel, we will be spending several days next week catching up with a bunch of my aunts, uncles and cousins at a timeshare in the mountains. It is going to be so much fun! Cary hasn't met most of them, and he is so in for it because when we all get together it's kind of a mix between the partridge family and the brady bunch. We even sing! I know it's corny, but we have so much fun! :) And I'm really excited to introduce them all to Carson. He is the first of his generation for our family. I cannot wait!!! :)

Be praying that our flights go as well as last time! He slept the whole way before, so maybe he will again... Oh, and please pray that we get further in our quest to move to Colorado! We may try and work out some details while we are there. Thanks everyone!!!

Have a great day and a wonderful weekend!!
Melissa and Carson :)

What does your birthdate mean?

Wow...this is pretty accurate... Is it for you???

Your Birthdate: August 13

Being born on the 13th day of the month should help make you a better manager and organizer, but it may also give you a tendency to dominate people a bit. You may be more responsible and self-disciplined than you realize. Sincere and honest, you are a serious, hard working individual. Your feeling are likely to seem somewhat repressed at times. You are apt to be much more practical, rational, and conscious of details. Your intolerance and insistence on complete accuracy can be irritating to some.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Chatting it up.

Carson has been quite the chatterbox this week. :) I think he's found his voice. If you look at him and grin or talk, he just talks right back, and I've even caught him chatting with his stuffed bear. We're doing pretty good while Cary is gone. Just hanging out and doing fun things like grocery shopping. :) I've even started to learn how to crochet this weekend. How susie-homemaker of me, I know. I was spurred on by my friend Doris who crocheted edging around receiving blankets for Carson - they are really nice, so useful, and get fun compliments from people everywhere. SOOO if I can master the technique, I might have to make some for my friends to have too. No promises, but we'll see how it goes.

Here are some new pictures...











Happy Monday everyone!!

sleep

Yeah!! Carson only woke up one time last night!! He went down between 8:30 and 9, slept until 2, was back down after eating AND a diaper change by 2:15 and slept until 7:20!!! How great is that! Granted, I had to be up at 6:30 for work, but still!! What a great start to the day!!

Cary leaves tomorrow evening for Colorado. He's helping my parent's church while my Aunt Jessie (their worship leader) is gone on vacation. He'll be there for two weeks. Carson and I plan on joining him next Friday. That's a whole week without Cary!! Whatever will we do?? My house sure is going to be quiet. I think this is the longest time we have spent apart since we got married. I'm really bummed. Of course, with Carson and work, I'm sure the week will fly by. I won't have much time to sit around and ponder his absence, that's for sure...

So, does anyone have great plans for the weekend?

The Yocum Family - professional photos!! :)

Here are the pictures of Cary, Carson and I from the same photographer.

Whew...that's a lot of pictures!!! :)

Cary is a genious...

He figured out how to post some of these pictures of my family...so for those of you who wanted to see them, here they are :)

my family

dad and the girls

mom and the boys

5 generations

sisters

brothers

mom and the girls

great grandma

the grandmas

and for good measure, my papa :)

Beauty

I have a truly beautiful family. Before you think me vain, I am not speaking of Cary and I (although Cary is handsome), or Carson - who is the most handsome baby ever!! I am talking about my siblings, my parents, my grandparents. When we were in Colorado, we took 5-generation family pictures with my mom's parents and grandma. I just got to view the proofs and was stunned at the beauty of my family. It is not just their physical beauty, but the light that shines through their eyes. All of them are serving the Lord, and the joy they have emanates from them in a way that I cannot express. I don't get to say this often enough. Oh, and as far as physical beauty goes, my Papa is the most handsome man alive, I believe. He will be 75 in August, and if he weren't my Papa, he would make me swoon. :)

I would love to post the pictures here, but they are copywritten and uncopyable (is that a word??) from the web proofs. I would also post the link to the pictures here, but don't want some random person from bloggerland happening upon them. SO, if you are interested in seeing the pictures, feel free to email me and I will give you the link. They are just gorgeous, and Kendra, the photographer has such a good eye. Oh, and there are some awesome pictures of Carson on there as well! :)

What do you think of the new background??

I didn't know what to call this post, so I figured I'd ask that question. I think it's a better background for all of our pictures. What do you think? Better or worse??

We're leaving for Houston for the weekend as soon as work is done. Should be fun, but I'm dreading the drive. Carson does really well for about an hour, and then we are bending over backwards trying to keep him from crying. Flying is soooo much better!! Maybe we should just by a plane and use that for our travels. :) The purpose of the trip is to meet Stephanie's fiance's family. They've planned a dinner. Hopefully we'll get to see some friends on our short trip as well. Should be fun. Oh, and I think we'll get to see the proofs from when we took the pictures with Carson - YEAH!! :)

Hope you all have a blessed weekend!!

The Yocums

This is one of the few pictures we have that we are all in since the hospital. Most of them are Cary and Carson, me and Carson, or just Carson. When there are only three of you, someone has to take the picture! :)

Not much is going on with us. We're having fun parenting and catching up with friends. Basically just living and enjoying life, so I'm afraid I don't have a lot of interesting stuff to post. This is unfortunate, because I am bored at work and would really like to use this blog to occupy my time. Oh well. I can say though that as we are trying to find a way for us to move to Colorado, I am having a great desire to pack in faith. You know, just the stuff that we don't use that often. Do you think that will work? Maybe by the time I pack us out of house and home we'll have some place to go. :)

Patty Cake

Carson has found his hands and loves any game where you play with them. It's funny how much you can look forward to playing and hanging out with someone who can't talk back :)







This is Carson "talking," which he has started to do recently.


Being a mom is so much fun!! :)

75th percentile!!!!????

Yep, that's Carson. He is in the 75th percentile for his weight. We had his 8 week check up with Dr. Mike - who is wonderful, by the way. Carson is 12 lbs. 6 oz. at 2 months and a day. He is 22 1/2 inches tall/long/whatever. Oh, and we were right, he is gifted. He is considered 3 1/2 months along as far as his development - but what else would we expect, right?? ha ha...

Oh, and we had to end the appointment with the dreaded shots :( 4!! all in his thighs with a needle that was at least 3 inches - I don't even think his thighs are that thick, so I'm not sure where that needle disappeared to! He cried and cried (and that was just Cary - just kidding :))and turned purple and then did the silent cry...it was horrible, torture!! But then I got to cuddle him and comfort him, and all was well, and he even smiled after a bit, so I guess all is forgotten. Poor kid. And Mommy and Daddy aren't doing to badly from the ordeal either.

All Smiles

This is the first time I have caught Carson smiling on camera, and I just had to share it with you all!

Another Day

I kind of feel like I could be getting into the groove of things again, and that at least is good. My mom is going to be here tomorrow...so excited! She'll be with us again this weekend after her meetings in Dallas. My house is a wreck though, so I'm going to have to figure something out about that. For all of you who know how obsessed I was about my house before - it is driving me crazy right now, and there is not much I can do about it. Oh well, I'll figure out a balance eventually! :) I'm having a lot of fun catching up on all of your blogs, and am glad to be back in touch with the world, and that at least makes this somewhat fun again. Thanks to all of you who make my day better :)

Here is a picture of Carson after his first long day at daycare:



I just love him!!

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Actually, it hasn't been as bad as all that, but today was Carson's first day in daycare and my first day back at work, and he has taken it much better than I. Thankfully, it looks like it will be very temporary, so be praying with us as we try and make this move to Colorado work!!

On a happier note, we had so much fun in Colorado. It was great to be with everyone, and we enjoyed dinner on the patio almost every night! So not possible in hot and humid Texas!

Oh, and as promised, here are some updated pictures of our sweet Carson. He is getting so big!!




Aunt Natalie & Carson


pre-poop


and post poop


Those last two were too funny to pass up! That was the messiest diaper I think I have ever changed!! I'm sure there is worse to come! :)

Hello again.

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Although I have had some free time, my computer access has been limited to balancing our checkbook. Thus is life...

We are doing well and are having so much fun with Carson. He is learning new things everyday and has begun to smile in response to us instead of just gas. So fun!!

It looks like I will be returning to work, unfortunately, but hopefully it will just be for the short term. Also, we are considering a move to Colorado to be near my parents. If it works out, I may be able to only work part-time, which would be awesome. I'm having a hard time with the whole work thing, but I'm dealing. I'm taking two extra weeks of vacation starting yesterday, and today, Carson and I are off on an adventure :) We are boarding a plane, alone, and heading to Colorado. I'm so excited!! We are going to be staying with my parents until the 9th. Anyway, there is the quick update, and I hope to update with pictures soon. I hope you all are well and I promise to resume my regular posts soon!!

:) Melissa and Carson.