.dinner with friends.

Last Friday night we had some friends over for dinner. It has been so neat the people that we have been able to build friendships with since moving to NC. We have made friends with many people who are now or in the near future going to be serving overseas where it is dangerous to be. The Barleys who came over the night are moving next year to Denver, CO to plant a church. Find out more about there move here.

:chillin':

The other night I was cooking dinner so HattieJo was playing and watching her movie, when I went in to check on her this is how I found her: She was relaxin' and not interested in being moved! haha

.banana pop anyone?.

Someone gave me these little mesh things at a shower and so I used them for the first time the today by putting a chunk of banana inside then freezing it. I gave it to HattieJo to eat/play with while I was cooking dinner. She LOVED it, BUT there was definitely a bath after she finished! I am looking forward to putting some apples in there too!

:8months:

*this picture TOTALLY captures her awesome personality!*

Wow. I feel like it was just the other day that I was writing the 7month post.. time is FLYING by!.
HattieJo,
You are 8mths old today! CRAZY, your daddy and I were just talking today about how we remember the day we went for the ultrasound to find out if you were a boy or girl and you had your legs crossed the whole time, so we left not knowing! What is funny is that you still will sit with your legs crossed in the floor, the stroller, or when you are laying down! You are really enjoying eating food these days. You have eaten applesauce, oatmeal, carrots, sweet peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, and bananas. You are "talking" all the time too! Its so funny to listen to you. You are saying "dadada" all the time as well. Although you did say,"mamama" first! You are enjoying being on your tummy more. However, when you are not in the mood for it you will quickly flip yourself back over. You like to rock on your booty when you are sitting up and you will even bend over in half to reach something.. maybe it won't be long and you will start to crawl. You like to stand up holding on to the toys on your exersaucer too. You reach for EVERYTHING! You love to chew on my cell phone and the remote control. You have moved up to the "big girl" carseat and you ride in the jogging stroller like a big girl now too! You have been given the name of the "social butterfly" and "smiley girl" from the nursery workers at church. You have 4 teeth on the bottom, your top 2 are half way in and then another one is breaking through on the side up top! Its so neat to see how you are changing each and everyday. You are so special. One day last week you came up to my school and one of my students said, "man, look at those thighs." You are one healthy, chunky girl! Mommy and daddy LOVE you so much HattieJo!

:HattieJo's first 5k:

Last Sunday our church sponsored a 5k/10k race to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. They called it the Spring Saunter. It was so much fun! There were so many people from all the different campuses there running. HattieJo and I did the 5k.. and.. we got 1st place in my age division! YAY! Our time was 25:38 which I was very pleased with considering I was pushing a stroller. Our campus (Brier Creek PM Campus) won the campus challenge and received a trophy for having the most participants! Here are a few pics:This is the production pastor's little boy Max, he is super cute!And we are off:Coming into the finish... Andrew said this made him nervous because I was going so fast! hahaWe made it:Here we are with Aunt D and her little one(yes..she is pregnant and due in Oct!!!):

Wordless Wednesday: open mouth insert foot....

:girl meets boy:

Several weeks ago one of my sweet friends Jen had a baby boy! Jen and I started hanging out a couple of years ago. Her husband is one of the pastors at the Summit. Jen has an amazing heart and is so thoughtful and an incredible mom that I just wanted to learn from her. So during my trackouts we always made a point to get together. So this past trackout I was able to go to her home and hang out with her and the newest addition to their family (#4).. Mr. Cole. He is precious. I was excited for HattieJo to meet him as well. She was more interested in touching him than anything! When we tried to take their picture, HattieJo kept rolling over so that she could touch him. Look at their size difference! She is a big ole girl, but he was only a couple weeks old too!
I love Cole's expression in this one... He is thinking girl you are too loud and would you please be still and HattieJo is all grins and talking up a storm! haha...

..our small group..

At the Summit we do not have Sunday School, but we have small groups that meet in the area where you live throughout the week. I LOVE this model of truly sharing life together. It is so neat to think back to almost 3 years ago when we visited the Summit and then decided to go visit a small group in the area. We were the first couple to arrive at a house of an awesome couple that little did we know we would become great friends with. Then we quickly felt connected! It is such a great model. Once that group grew too large, we planted a new group, which then planted 2 new groups, which planted another new group, which just recently planted another new group! So almost 3 years later, Andrew and I are the only ones in our small group now from the originally small group. Our group meets on Wednesday nights at different group members houses, we have a time of fellowship with some desserts, someone then guides a discussion about the previous weeks sermon, then we have a time of prayer. It truly is a great time. So the other week we hosted "at the farm." We had pizza, chips, strawberries, cupcakes, and cheesecake! Then everyone played all sorts of games outside before we migrated into the living room to hang out. Then someone got a hold of HattieJo's ring toss game and made it into an adult game! haha. So fun! What a great time of fellowship and sharing life alongside these people.
Here is HattieJo observing everything. She is a party girl who LOVES a crowd of people!

.sleepy girl.

The other day I went to check on HattieJo while she was napping and this is how I found hersame position as her monkey, funny thing is when she wakes up she plays with it and snuggles it. It is so cute!

Happy Birthday Aunt Bec!

Dear Aunt Bec,
I hope that you have a happy birthday. Sorry I am not able to post a picture, I just haven't quite figured out how to do that yet... I will get my mom to help me do it tonight. I hope your day is extra special, because you deserve the best! Thank you for spending your spring break with me. I love how you love to play with all my toys and me. Thank you for all the awesome clothes that you buy me too! You are the best! I love you!
Love,
HattieJo

Here we are:

*headed to Moe's on your spring break
*snuggling in TN

:photo shoot:

The other night it was GORGEOUS outside and HattieJo had on an adorable little dress, so we went out for a photo shoot. The dress she is wearing is the same patterened dress as the one that she wore home from the hospital! The one she wore home from the hospital was a NB size and this one is 9mths! She is growing like a weed.

.daffodils.

Here is a picture of me from when I was 7 months old in the daffodils at my parents house:So when my parents came up the other week, my mom brought some daffodils from their house and wanted to do the same picture with HattieJo, so here she is in our front yard posing with her daffodils:

Wordless Wednesday: ROCK STAR!

.easter eggs.

Aunt D asked one day last week if she could dye easter eggs with HattieJo, so she came over on Thursday after HJ's morning nap! It was so fun. I made some banana chocolate chip muffins for us to enjoy after we dyed our eggs. HattieJo wanted to grab at EVERYTHING, so she watched from her highchair. We did dye an egg with an "HJ" on it!

:POPPA:

Last weekend Poppa came in town to help Andrew get all the dogs moved from the old house here to the farm. Boy was it a job! They worked all day Sunday and half a day on Monday and finished! They were exhausted by the end of the day on Sunday. But the kennels look great and the dogs love it. Here they are:Before he left on Monday, we had a picnic on the front porch. HattieJo loved getting to see her Poppa for a couple of days!

::Happy Easter::

Happy Easter from our family to yours:
Daddy's girls:
PRECIOUS:(she was still all smiles after being at church for 6hours!)

We had a great service at SummitRDU. Pastor JD preached from Acts where Phillip encounters the Ethiopian eunich and shares the gospel with him and they immediately stop the chariot for the Ethiopian to be baptized. So after JD presented the gospel we had baptisms right after each service for those that had made decisions to follow Christ, or those who had a relationship and had never been baptized could be! It was awesome under the setting sun to see peoples lives transformed as they followed through with baptism.
Here are the lyrics to one of the songs that we sang. I LOVE this song. It is the COMPLETE Gospel.

"The power of death swallowed up in the hope of the Savior
All fear overcome in the light of Him
All of our sin covered up in the love of our Savior
Set free by Your grace made alive in Your righteousness.
At the cross where You took my place.
In Your power You abandoned the grave."

.the easter bunny came early.

On Friday my family came up to bring me this:My dad made this pantry for me! I LOVE it, he is awesome! What a special thing. He told me it "had to stay in the family"..oh no worries there, its going where we go!!
So they brought up LOTS of good Easter surprises for HattieJo; stuffed animals, cookies, clothes, and books. Andrew and I got a basket of candy as well!Then we, really I should say HattieJo, got a package from Florida on Friday too. It was FULL of great things from Gigi and Poppa. She got a bathing suit, a cover up, sunglasses, a sun hat, and a cute dress. I think they sent all the things she needs to go on a visit to Florida!! Then the "Collins 5" sent her a CUTE dress and Auntie Erin made her 3 bibs that are AWESOME. She got a sewing machine for her birthday and she is good at what she makes.
HattieJo says, "THANK YOU for all my Easter goodies."
We love you all and are so thankful for our families.

:little blue dress:

This blue dress was my mom's.. she wore it when she was 1 year old.. then I wore it when I was 6months old... Now HattieJo wore it at 7months old.. I had a hard time getting it on HJ.. She was only able to wear it for the picture, because it wouldn't button in the back and it was tight on her arms!

:our new house:

Here are pictures of our new house. A little back story about why we moved. Andrew graduated in December from SEBTS with his Masters. Back in the fall we really didn't know what the Lord had in store for us after graduation. We weren't sure if we would be staying around and continuing to serve at the Summit or moving on to serve somewhere else. So we began to pray... We decided to put our house on the market and in the terrible market time, we weren't sure how long it would take to sale, well the Lord totally worked and we had a contract on it within 2 weeks! The girl who bought it needed us to rent it back from her up until May because she couldn't break the lease that she was in! WOW.. the Lord totally knew and provided once again! So Andrew was offered a full time position at the Summit that began in January. We were SO THANKFUL for this awesome opportunity for us to continue to serve there. He is the Saturday Evening Campus Pastor/Young Professionals Pastor. So... since our house sold and we had until May to figure out where to go, we began the search! It was actually discouraging as we weren't finding anything, but once again I was reminded to just pray and trust the Lord; He has always taken care of us! So about a month ago we found "the farm" and came to look and I was in love- I LOVED the house and Andrew loved the fact that it was on 60acres. So we decided to let the guy know we would like to rent it...And we moved in about a week ago! It is a perfect place for our dogs as well!Thank you Lord for your faithfulness to Your children and how You provide! Thank you Father for the beauty of your creation and how it speaks of Your glory.
"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds."Ps9:1
So here are some pictures: Here is the outside from the front and then the side standing in the driveway
Here is the kitchen and the HUGE laundry room:The dining room:The one and only bathroom..and the foyer(from the front door):Living room:Master bedroom:This is the little nook upstairs and the extra bedroom:HattieJo's Room: