Date Night to the "Love Ran Red" Tour

For this past Christmas Eric's parents gave Eric and I tickets to the Love Ran Red tour in Johnson City. Chris Tomlin is a favorite singer of mine and Eric's, so we were both so excited to go see him in concert. We were even more thrilled when we found out that Rend Collective and Tenth Avenue North were the bands that would be playing in this tour as well. Eric's parents came over earlier on that Saturday to watch the kids, so we even got to go out to dinner just the two of us!

Freedom Hall in Johnson City is a smaller venue, so even though we were on the second level, our seats were fantastic. Rend Collective started the concert out, and I fell even more in love with their songs.

Next playing was Tenth Avenue North, and they were amazing! One of my favorite songs that they sing is "Worn."

We were surprised that during the song "You Are More" that the lead singer left the stage and not only went out into the audience, but he also climbed a ladder and came to the second level where he stood and finished out the song while shaking audience members hands the whole time. (Sorry for the poor filming- I was too busy trying to figure out where he went for a second or two- ha!). 

Chris Tomlin then came out and sang many of his classic songs as well as some new songs off of his new album. He did a question and answer session during the middle of his concert (he had audience members tweet questions in before he went on stage and then they gave him some to answer during this time), and that was wonderful. The passion and love he has for God is so obvious in his songs and it was an amazing night of worship to be there singing along worshiping our Savior with so many others. Here are a few clips from when he took the stage:

                                                   Jesus Messiah                                                     

I Will Follow

"The Table"

At the end of the concert all three groups came out and sang "10,000 Reasons" together. 

Also, as part of our Christmas present, David and Winkie bought us meet and greet tickets for after the concert to meet Chris Tomlin. So exciting!!!

What an amazing and memorable night it was!

Surprise! We're expecting Baby #5!

Back in November I started not feeling very well. I was so tired all the time and one morning when I woke up and was so nauseous and was throwing up, Eric looked at me and said..... "Ummm- Wendy?" I didn't take a pregnancy test, but it was pretty obvious not too many days after that, that I was in fact pregnant with baby #5. We didn't tell anyone for a while. One night in January my Papaw Nulan was in the ICU and was very sick. Many of our family members were there because he had a very rough day, and the ICU waiting room was full of our family. My mom decided to go back to his room, and since she had a broken knee cap, I decided to walk back there with her. Both of my mom's sisters were back there and as soon as my mom and I walked into his room, the surgeon walked in with the results of some test they did earlier that day. As she was talking to us I remember thinking how hot it was getting in there. Then I thought that I needed to walk down to the waiting room to get my Mamaw so she could hear what the surgeon was saying, but I just couldn't right then because the room was starting to spin around. Then I remember looking at the surgeon and thinking, I can't hear anything she is saying right now. I started to get even more dizzy so I thought I would just lean against my mom (who was in a walker with her broken knee cap) and that is the last thing I remember for a little bit. The next thing I know I'm leaned back in a recliner and a nurse is checking my blood pressure, my heart beat, poking my finger and I keep hearing people ask me, "Is there any way you could possibly be pregnant." I didn't respond for a while and then I hear them asking Eric, who was now back in the room, too. I think he just ignored them for a while, which made the answer a bit obvious. The next day while sitting in my mom's living room floor, she asked me again, even though she obviously knew the answer, and then reminded me how much our family (all our family- immediate and extended!) loves babies, and how blessed we are to be getting another one. I was at this point very excited about our new baby, and was glad to hear that my mom was thrilled, too. My first doctor's appointment was still several weeks away (even though I was at 13 weeks at this point), so I was kind of nervous to tell the kids just yet. A few days later my cousin Cindy brought home a doppler to see if we could hear a heartbeat, and while the kids were taking a bath we did a quick check to see if we could hear a baby heartbeat, and thankfully we did. Such an amazing sound when you hear that precious heartbeat for the first time! When the kids got out of the bath we decided to let them figure out what that noise was. As you can see, some were definitely more excited than others:

Jackson has been praying for a baby brother for quite a while now, so he was so excited thinking that he might actually get his prayers answered, Ansley was excited (which is no surprise since she is a little mama), Elsie was just so worried  about being away from me while I was in the hospital, and Vada Belle was just grumpy from not having a nap and it was bedtime. Once we explained to Elsie that it would just be a day or two, she was super excited about becoming a big sister again. This video was taken on January 19, 2015, but my first ultrasound wasn't scheduled until February 25th. Eric and I decided to go to Hope Pregnancy Center to get an ultrasound, and the super sweet nurse told us she was 85% sure she knew the sex if we wanted to know. We asked if she could put it in an envelope and then we would let Jackson open it later that night when we were all home together. Here is a video of that sweet moment:

Here are a few pics from that ultrasound, which was on February 2nd (and the baby was measuring at 15 weeks and 6 days.  

We took this picture just a few days later to make our announcement that another precious baby boy would be joining our family:

I finally got to go to my first doctor's appointment on February 11th (at 17 weeks) and the heartbeat sounded great, and then I had my first ultrasound at the doctor's office on February 25th. I was right at 19 weeks, but the baby was measuring 20 weeks. We got some super cute shots of the baby, and we are now 100% sure that we will be welcoming another baby boy to our family in July!

All 6 of us are so excited to meet you, little one!

February 2015

February was full of snow days for the kids (10 to be exact, along with an early dismissal, too), so we got to spend a lot of time sleeping in, spending too long in our jammies, and playing outside in the snow. The kids were excited for the few days that they got to go to school in February that one of those days they got to dress up for 50's day. How adorable did they look??

We celebrated Valentine's Day with writing Valentine's to one another and enjoying a nice dinner at home. The people that Eric has been remodeling their kitchen for actually sent him home with the most amazing lasagna, salad, and red velvet cupcakes, and we loved that we didn't have to do any cooking or wait in line to get a table at a restaurant. I say that is one fantastic Valentine's Day!

 A couple of pics of the kids enjoying a bubble bath (another thing they loved doing on our cold snow days). February 10th was an exciting day for Vada Belle and Jackson. Jackson wanted to do some acting classes through Barter Youth Academy, and they started on this day. They are one day a week and he is loving them so far. Vada Belle also started her first day of dance on that day. She has cried many times before when her sisters go into dance class and I wouldn't let her go in with them, and when they started a new preschool dance class the owner of the studio came and told me about it. Thankfully they happened to be right after Elsie's class and it just worked out that we were able to let her sign up to take them. As you can see, she loves it!

Chick-Fil-A had a daddy/daughter date night this month, and the girls were excited to go out on a date with their daddy. Jackson and I decided to do a mom/son date night while they were gone, and he chose to go eat at Primo's and then go to the game store at the mall.

 We celebrated our sweet Mamaw Ollie's birthday and enjoyed lots of time playing outside in the snow.

 A few more random pics from the month:
-We got our first chicken egg from our chickens!
-Sleepover fun with Caleb, Lyla, Abigail and Amelia.
-Ansley Kate at her watch day at dance. We ended up getting there late because I got not one, but two cars stuck in the snow. Thankfully my cousin Jennifer came to my rescue again and let me borrow hers to get Ansley to dance practice and back. After that day I decided that I was fine if we have no more snow for this winter. :)