An Awesome Weekend!!!

What a GREAT weekend we had! Seriously, it has been a while since we have had an all around great weekend...so obviously we must tell you about it... :)

Friday we got to leave Eden with Carissa's parents while we went to the worship team small group at our church. They all meet once a month to eat dinner, fellowship and have bible study. Its always a great time! We dont get very many times to go out without Eden so when we do they are always very special.

Saturday morning we headed to College Station to see our good friends the Mosiers. They just recently had their precious little boy, Cade Matthew Mosier. We have been anxiously anticipating the visit and were so excited to see dear friends. Its such a joyous occasion to see such an awesome Godly family be blessed with a child. We love them and are so excited for this next chapter in their lives. Check out the pictures of the hansome little guy...




After hanging out with the Mosiers we made another very necessary college station stop at the Bacaks. It was so great to visit with friends and to see how big their kids have gotten. We miss them and their kids so much, especially our God son Treston, check out the little man..


Eden did great on the trip to College station, we were very proud of her!

The BEST part of the weekend came Sunday morning. We woke up Sunday morning and realized that Eden slept all the way through the night without getting up... HALLELUJAH!!! Seriously, this has been a HUGE prayer of ours. She is known to get up a minimum of two times a night (on a good night). Carissa was beginning to think that she would never get a full nights sleep. God is so good! We were so thankful for that full nights rest. Lets hope this has becomes a trend!! Naturally we celebrated that morning with shipleys and a photo shoot... check our beautiful baby girl out... (4 teeth and all)

A long time coming!

Ok, it has been a little crazy around the Vann home this past month! We have been going non-stop and blogging is the last thing I do if I have time and frankly, I just haven't had the time! Life is in the fast lane around here for sure! This blog is for sure in need of some Eden pictures - who by the way is alrealy a little over 9 months!! I can't believe she is that old already. Wow. Pictures of my cutie will be posted soon, I promise! Anywho, here are some pictures of my SWEET and adorable nephew Cayden who was born on January 6th!!
Isn't he PRECIOUS??
I think he looks like a little man!

I will update soon on our lives but I just wanted you to see how cute this boy is!! I miss him so much!

Ps...Congratulations to our good friends Matt and Erin Mosier on their sweet boy born Feb. 1! Can't wait to see you soon sweet Cade :)





I wish I could hold him forever - he's so sweet!!


Cousins!!

Ever have a Route 44 kind of day??

This past week has been extra stressful. Little Eden has been teething big time and not taking it so well. She started last Saturday night waking up in the middle of the night and wanting to play. Now, this is not unusual as every once in a while she does this, but will go back to sleep within 30 minutes. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights she woke up wanting to play - now THAT is unusual. She is a pretty good sleeper normally sleeping from 7pm - 7am and waking 2-3 times to eat (she will nurse for about 20 min. then go back to bed, so not bad). Waking up that many nights in a row is so rare for her. The worst night was Tuesday night. She went to bed as usual at 7 and woke up at 9 wanting to play. I tried to let her just play it out thinking she would wear out soon, but then it was 10, then 11, then 12 - finally 12:30 she goes back to sleep. But, she went to sleep in our bed so Nick moved to the couch. Then she woke up AGAIN at 2:30 played until 4:30 and slept until 7:30. So if you want to add that up - that's 5 hours of intermittent sleep for me and about 7 interrupted hours for Nick. NOT GOOD!!!! She was a BEAR all day yesterday and absolutely did NOT want to take a nap. I finally went to my last resort and put her in the car and drove around. She fell asleep but kept waking up crying, then went back to sleep. I just drove around for an hour just so she would have some time to rest her body even if she wasn't sleeping. While I was out I decided to stop by Sonic because I was dying of thirst. I wasn't really wanting soda so I just opted for water with lime but I got a Route 44 size. When Nick got home he saw my Sonic drink and he thought it was soda and says "Oh Mama got the route 44 - it was a bad day!!!!" I got tickled at his comment and wonder, do you ever have "Route 44" kind of days?? I want to hear your route 44 day stories! :)

and PS... Eden did MUCH better last night and we are praying she will continue to do well. Her front tooth came in a little more today and she was a lot better and also took 2 naps! PTL!!!

-Carissa

December Reflections

Phew...finally a chance to sit down and blog about our crazy, fun-filled December.

Our December:

- I hit and killed a deer and caused a lot of damage to our car (see post below).
Great start to December right?? LOL.

- It snowed!!!
I couldn't believe that it snowed here. A few Christmas's ago it snowed here and it was the one year my family went out of town. When it started snowing I think I acted like a kid in a candy store. I ran around getting everyone's jackets and bundling Eden up so we wouldn't miss the snow. Very exciting.

Daddy and Eden in the snow (yes I know you can't see it in the picture but I promise it was snowing!)

Me and baby!


My neighbor, Heather, and I catching snow!


- My best friend, Hayley had her baby 3 weeks early on December 15th. Hayley was a trooper and did a fantastic job delivering a beautiful, healthy baby boy! They are doing great and Alex and Hayley are wonderful parents!!

Meet Weston Williams Adarmes...

At the hospital!


A beautiful mommy and beautiful baby!


Pictures I took a few days ago...





- Nick and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary on December 16th!
Amidst all the eventfulness of having Eden, being the middle of the week and Hayley just having her baby, we didn't have a whole lot of time to celebrate. But, we did and had a great time. After Eden went down for bed my wonderful mom came over to watch her and Nick and I went to Benihana's. It was a blast and so nice to get away with JUST Nick. I can't believe it has already been 2 years since we got married, but I am so blessed to have such and amazing husband and wonderul father to our sweet baby girl! I love you babe!

(Images by Lynsey Kramer)






- We celebrated Christmas!
This year Christmas felt a little different. For one, we had Eden with us which was so fun and exciting. She was so cute opening her gifts although I'm pretty sure she enjoyed the wrapping paper more than the actual gifts themselves. I think Christmas felt different because my family decided not to give gifts to each other this year and just let it be about the babies (my brother's baby being the other baby but more to come on that - keep reading). We realized that with the economic issues etc and lots of our family saving for houses, moving, saving money etc we thought we would just use this Christmas to refocus on the TRUE meaning and forego gifts to each other. We watched the movie "The Nativity" on Christmas Eve and it was so neat to see the story portrayed in that way - it really made it special and a little different from just reading the Christmas story together like we usually do. Happy Birthday Jesus!!!

Eden ready to open her gifts!

Little reindeer!

Is that for me??

Whatcha got Mom?

Kissing her new babydoll.

Finally my own cell phone I can chew on all I want!!!

These are cool!



- We went to Utah!!That was the view from our room at sunset!

The day after Christmas we headed to Park City, Utah with Nick's family. It was a blast and so much fun to see snow at Christmas time! Nick's parents treated us to an amazing trip full of skiing, snow tubing, hot rock massages at Sundance, and relaxation at an AMAZING house! Our bedroom had it's own flat screen tv and a fireplace with a gorgeous view! It was so nice to get away and do something fun like this. We definitely needed it :) Here is a slide show from the trip.

- My brother's wife delivered their baby!!
I have a nephew!!! Cayden Glenn is here!
This actually happened on January 6th but I just thought I would mention it. We are going to visit them this weekend so I will post pictures of sweet Cayden when we get back!

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

-Carissa

I Killed Rudolph

I'm sorry to say that this year Santa will not be coming as his red-nosed guide was killed on Friday night. That's right I (Carissa) killed Rudolph on Friday night.
Well, not really Rudolph but I did kill an 8 point buck with our Camry!! Nick and I were coming home from a Christmas party and I was driving in a wooded, secluded neighborhood. All of the sudden I hear Nick scream "WATCH OUT!!!!!!" I slammed on my breaks and screamed, then....BAM!!! It was all over in a matter of seconds. I sat there in disbelief with my hands gripping the wheel. "Nick, did I just hit a deer?" "Yeah, I think you just killed a big buck!" "I just hit a deer...oh my word, I just hit a deer"(Me screaming in terror) We had to pull up a little ways to get out of the way of other cars. I was glad for this reason because I did NOT want to see it!! Nick got out and checked out the car. It was for sure damaged but we didn't realize how much until we got home. We didn't go back to see the deer because it was dark and I just wanted to be home at this point. We could tell it was not in the road so we weren't worried about it being a danger to other drivers. The deer just ran out in front of the car and I'm not sure what I would have done if Nick would not have seen it coming or if I was alone! When we got home we saw that the front grill was pretty much ripped off and the front of the car on the passenger side was dented in pretty badly. The next day Nick went to get it checked out to see how much it would cost to fix it and the estimate was $2600!!! Ooops!

God was definitely watching out for us that night. I have heard so many stories of deer coming through the windshield, totaling cars etc. I made myself sick that night thinking about all the things that could have happened to us. We are so blessed and thankful God had his angels protecting us!

The next day Nick's parents took a picture of the poor deer as they live in the area. That's when we realized that I hit an 8 point buck! Nick was joking that he drove 3 1/2 hours on Thanksgiving weekend to go hunting and didn't kill anything and I drive our Camry at night and get a huge deer!!! HAHA.

For those of you worried about Eden in the car, no worries! She was sound asleep at home with her GG watching her! :)

Poor Rudolph!!


Poor Car!

Check us out!

My friend Katy had this on her blog and I just had to see what we would look like.
Check us out!!!

*Be sure to pause the music at the bottom of the page before you start the video!

-Carissa

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Giving Thanks!!

God has done many amazing things for us this year and we have lots to be thankful for. Last night Nick and I exchanged what we are thankful for this year and this is what we came up with. We are thankful for our beautiful daughter Eden - for her health, her safety, and all the JOY she brings us!! I am personally thankful for my incredibly amazing husband and I know he is thankful for me. We are also grateful for good health. We are thankful for food on the table everyday, for a roof over our heads, for cars that take us where we need to go, and for our jobs. We are also thankful for family and friends!
The thing we have come to realize more than ever this year is that not only do we have these things, but they are not just the bare minimum. We don't have things that are top of the line, but we don't have clunker cars and we don't just have a place to live - we have a home, and we have AMAZING families and incredible friends. They are all nice things and for that we are so grateful. What we remember this time of year is that there are people out there who don't have even half of what we have and it's time to be grateful each day, not just Thanksgiving, for the abundant blessings God has given us and to share those things with others!! Nick and I like to look at Thanksgiving as a preparation for the holiday season because it puts things into perspective for us. It's a day to remember what God has done for us and to get us refocused so we can celebrate Christmas with Christ as our focus and not gifts!

Thanksgiving 2008
To start off how our Thanksgiving went, I first have to share about the night before Thanksgiving. Every year everyone in my family brings an item for the Thanksgiving feast. This year I was to bring homemade yeast rolls, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, and chocolate pie (which I actually was making 2 chocolate pies - 1 for my family and the other for Nick's family). I realize now how much that is to accomplish - but I was up for the challenge and I love cooking!! I was a little concerned about how I was going to do all of this with Eden around. She loves it when I put her in the front carrier and cook dinner, but I wasn't sure how long that would last and I had a lot to do in the kitchen that day. Thankfully, Nick got off work super early - like around 2 so he took Eden to run some errands and then played with her while I cooked. Before it was time for me to put her down for bed, I had finished the pumpkin pie, rolls, and the sweet potato casserole. All I had left was the chocolate pies, which on paper didn't seem too hard. After I put her down, I started on the pies. I had made the pie crusts from scratch earlier in the day, so I rolled them out and put them in the oven to pre-bake. I got the chocolate pie filling going on the stove and realized that I needed to get the crusts out of the oven. The filling for the crusts have to be continually stirred and watched and I couldn't do both. I asked Nick to come stir while I got the crusts out. As I pulled them out of the oven he was saying - "oh those crusts look good etc, etc" and not paying attention to the pie filling. About that time I looked over and the pot was overflowing with chocolate pie filling all over the stove. It mush have gotten too hot and just bubbled up and out. We got the mess pretty well cleaned up and continued with the stirring. Thankfully, we didn't loose too much mixture so we didn't have to start over. The next step said to add 5 egg yolks and stir until thick. Now, if I wouldn't have had so many things on my mind I would have realized that it's important to temper the eggs before putting into a hot mixture, but through all the commotion, my brain just wasn't working as well! Soon enough the eggs started to cook in the chocolate pie mixture and we ended up with scrambled chocolate pie filling! In an attempt to save our pies, I drained out the eggs and put the mixture into the homemade pie crusts. Right before I put them in the oven I realized I had missed 2 ingredients!!! I sighed out loud and told Nick this and he says, "Oh yeah, the Sisco!!!" I busted out laughing because I knew what he meant - the Crisco!! We decided to melt the Crisco and pour it and the vanilla into the filling. We immediately saw the Crisco form little oil balls all over the top of the pies! What a mess. I ended up calling my mom and we decided to pour the mixture back into the pot and stir it up and let it thicken again. We did this and then put it back in the pies, but they ended up not working out because there were not enough eggs left to hold it together which caused them to be all runny!!! Lesson here - temper your eggs and watch the pot!!!!! HAHA!

Thanksgiving day we did our annual Turkey Trot! This year we did the 2.8 mile family walk because you can't take strollers on the 5 mile run. This year it was my mom, Nick, myself, Eden, and my little brother Connor. It was a lot of fun. Eden stayed in the stroller about half of the walk and then slept in the front carrier on Nick the rest of the way.
After the trot, we got cleaned up and went to my grandparent's house for the yummy meal!! It was delicious! After Eden's nap we went to Nick's family's house for pie! Yumm-o!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Here is a cute slideshow of our Thanksgiving.

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