Love it!

Okay, I think I like this one now! I bought some polka dot blankets a while back and when I pulled them out again I realized how much I liked them. They're super cute and not too girlie. But with this one I can accent with a little pink and red to make it slightly more feminine but without going overboard. Plus, her room is very dark and has all wood floors, walls, and ceiling (feels kind of like a coffin, actually!). So this set will really brighten it up. Opinions?



Oh and its also at Target and got great reviews. Everyone says how it feels like the expensive stuff but isn't! Plus, since its from Target it won't be too expensive and it will be easy to accessorize. Am I over-analyzing this?? :)

Funny onesies

Thought y'all would enjoy these!

Colors

So I keep going back and forth with the color scheme for Libby's room. I'm not a big pink person but I love the soft yellows and blues of this one.



But then I think maybe I'll want pink. :) My mom and sister sent me some adorable little booties and a pink rubber ducky even! They are soo cute so who knows. :) We'll probably go to Babies R Us in the next few weeks and then I can feel the textures and see things in person. But until then, what do y'all think?

The original Libby

Name?

So we looove the name Liberty Ann "Libby". What do y'all think? And yes, its the same name as another little sweetie we had. Remember her?

GIRL!!!

We are having a little GIRL!!! We're very excited!! We were able to find out last Thursday and I have been floating ever since. Tim's family was all there waiting in the front room and before I came out I changed my shirt from black to pink! I also had a blue one and was going to use that to tell them. No one got it at first and then they realized I had changed my shirt! It was a lot of fun!
I had thought the baby was a boy for some reason and there are already three girls among Tim's two sisters so I thought the odds were with a boy. But she'll have fun with her cousins! We're used to a lot of girls, my parents had three before they had any boys and the first two in Tim's family are girls. It will be fun to have a girl as the first one to help out with the others, sorry sweetie! ;)
I'm now 19 1/2 weeks along, almost half-way! And have been able to feel her kick and roll around. Its so much fun!! But it just reminds me she's in there and I want her out! I'm also starting to show a lot more but I don't think strangers really realize I'm preggers. I was talking to a nice lady at the park the other day and she was completely shocked that I was pregnant, much less 4 months along! I guess people just think I have a round belly! Tim tells people I drink too much beer. :) I don't have a very recent picture but here's one from 17 weeks.

Updates!

I've got a lot to update everyone on so here goes...

1.) We had 7 members of Tim's family here for the past week and we had a fantastic time! We went into the city, two state parks, and out on the lake. It was awesome having them here and showing them around everywhere. Thanks for coming, guys!! I'll post some pictures as soon as I get some from them, I've gotten really lazy with taking pictures.

2.) Today I got a call and found out I do not have a job anymore. The little baby I was watching has taken a turn for the worse and the family thinks it will be best to have someone live with them. An aunt is going to come live there with them and it will help give him some consistency. I'm sure this is all in God's timing but as we all know, that isn't always our timing! Please pray for us and we figure out what our plans are. I was going to quit at the end of October but before then we had lofty plans to pay off my car and save up a little. Things don't always work out the way we want them to but I know God will take care of us and we'll be just fine.

3.) Tim's job is going great! He had an evaluation and they told him how happy and impressed they are with him. They also gave him a very generous "salary adjustment" which makes everyone concerned very happy. Tim is loving the work and the people and feels like he really made the right decision to move up here. Its really a blessing and the Lord has taken very good care of him. It has also allowed us to meet a couple of terrific new friends, Jonathan and Vanessa, who live in the city. They're a blast to hang out with and have come out to the country a few times with us.

4.) We have not found a church yet. :( We haven't been able to visit very many but have not been too impressed by the ones we have visited. The Northeast is certainly not like the Bible Belt!!! Please be praying that we can find one soon!

5.) I'm hoping to have the opportunity to visit Texas this fall at some time. My dear friend Katey has generously offered to throw me a Fort Worth shower and on the same weekend my family is also giving me one in San Antonio. I'm really excited about that and cannot wait to see all of my dear family and friends, I MISS Y'ALL!!!

More to come soon but for now I am going to sign off. I'll write a baby update soon. :)

OK, nevermind!

So I love my mac and the blog utility but I also like my money and don't wish to part with $100 every year! So I'm going to switch back to using blogger. Got any ideas to fancy it up at all?

We've had a very busy past couple of weeks and I will write some updates today because I'm staying at home.

5 weeks!!

Still working on my mac site, sorry!!
Here is the first pic I took and the last flat belly one for a while!! I'm now 11 weeks and I'll post a new one soon. :)

Horrah!!!

http://web.mac.com/smerkin83/Site/Welcome.html

My new blog is finally up and running! I broke down and did the .Mac thing so it will be much better this time around.
Have a great day!

Hillary vs. the coffee maker

LOL!!!! Sorry y'all!! I just couldn't resist!!!

Friends are a blessing!!

We have some of the best friends in the world! And we have been so very blessed in the past couple of months to meet some great people. (yes, they do exist North of the Mason Dixon Line!) When we rented our house we didn't realize we were getting friends in the package! Our landlord, Vincent, has become a good buddy of ours along with his sweet girlfriend Christina, and his sister Christine and bro-in-law Rob. The whole group came over for cake and ice cream on Tim's birthday and we visited and had a great time.
So here are some fun pics of that event:




And this past weekend we also had our first company! Tim's cousin Kristin, aka 'Strongsome' came up from DC for the weekend. We all had a fantastic time! I didn't get a lot of pictures from her visit but we made dinner together, had Vincent over, worked in the yard, shopped at the outlet mall, and ate a ton!!! I love her so much and it was great to see her! Hopefully her visit opened a floodgate and we are ready for lots of company! So break our door down and come soon!!


Thanks for protecting the new grass seed from those pesky birds, Kristin!!!

Pictures!

An update!

Hello peoples!! Yes, I am finally writing an update! I'm going to get Tim to fix my real blog but for the time being this will have to work.
We've been here for five weeks now and are getting settled in just fine. First off, we love our little house! After I write this post I'm going to put up a bunch of pictures of it. It really has been a perfect fit for us, and it came with friends! Our landlord, Vincent (or Vinny to everyone else) is a doll and he's been so helpful. He's #9 of 13 kids and 11 of them live in this little town! His sister lives next door to us and she and her husband are awesome! In fact, they all came over yesterday to help celebrate Tim's 27th birthday! I made a carrot cake with a recipe from one of my new favorite blogs Pioneer Woman . It turned out really delish! They have a new little baby and he is just precious!! I know we are going to be great friends with them.
And on Saturday we went into the city for the day! It was so much fun!! It was a lot like what I imagined only with more people and more buildings! We walked around Central Park, went to a museum, shopped on 5th Avenue (well, at least I did), ate pizza, and went to a comedy show!! It was great! And our legs are very, very sore. If I lived in the city I would either get really skinny with all the walking around or really fat with all the yummy food available! The show was fantastic! It was an impromptu family-friendly show that made us laugh sooo hard! Highly recommended! We finally got home around 2 and were totally pooped! But it was a great day, so fun!
Tim is loving his job, I think he's really fitting in well (of course!). They recently put him in charge of something, a part of a part of a project. And he's doing a great job with it (again, of course!).
I found a great little part-time job watching a 5 month old baby three days a week. He's a really special little boy who was adopted at birth by this family. The family is fantastic and I'm really excited about it. And I start tomorrow! Hopefully it goes as well as I think it will! I'm not looking forward to waking up early (4:45 :( ) but I'll get over it. I'll post more about it later!
So in a nut shell, this is what we've been up to lately! We really, really miss everyone and I can't wait to have some company!!

Miss you!!

Hey guys! I miss you SOOO much!!!!

(I need those pictures y'all took on our last day of school!) I don't have any pics of Issy!

TAG!

Tag I'm it!

I get to play a fun game of tag


Five fav movies:
1. Pride & Prejudice (the loong one!)
2. Love Actually
3. Robin Hood (the Disney Cartoon)
4. The Rare Breed
5. Charades

Five fav Tv shows:
1. Friends
2. Law and Order
3. American Idol
4. Hogan's Heroes
5. 24


Five places I would like to be:
1. New Zealand
2. Anywhere with family
3. Camping with my family
4. Lying on the beach in Florida
5. Tim's family's ranch

Five fav foods:
1. Pizza
2. Mexican food
3. Italian
4. Ice cream
5. ice cream nachos/ El Gabacho

Five fav songs:
1. Bubbly/ Colbie Caillet
2. Look at your girl "Chris LeDoux"
3. Anything by Brad Paisley
4. Carrie Underwood songs
5. Mr. Policeman!!!


five Things I like to do:
1. Visit NZ with Tim
2. Move back to Texas
3. Run another half and break my old times
4. Travel with Tim all over the place
5. Hang out with friends



Poeple I'm tagging
1. Catherine
2. Susan (do you still blog?)
3. Not really sure about anyone else...
4. Tim!

This is how I feel

This is how I feel. This is how I've felt since yesterday when Tim made the decision that it will be the best thing for him to take a job in NY. Yep, two born-and-raised Texans are heading off to "Yankee-land". He got offered a terrific job up north of NYC in Tarrytown, NY, and we'll be leaving in a little less than two weeks. Its exciting and terrifying at the same time. I'm going to miss everyone here like crazy, especially my favorite family (you know who you are)! Life will go on and I know that the Lord will take care of us and protect and provide for us, but it's kind of hard to accept that right now. I usually love change and look forward to something different, but this one is very different!! So for the next while I'm sure I'll have many days when I feel like the poor little OU boy when Texas slaughtered them a couple of years back. You know we'll be representing our state up there!!
We'll miss you and we love you all and thank goodness for the internet!!

PS and I'll soon have my new website up and running again. Apparently it "broke" and Tim said, "This is why you PAY someone to host your site!" :) Poor Tim. ;)

Time to move!

Hello!!
I'm making use of all the features of my new macbook and am creating a new website!
Here is the link smerkin please check it out and let me know what you think!
**Tim says: only 10 people at a time please, no thanks to Windows XP. (He's hosting it on his PC) :)

My day job

I have the pleasure of assisting in the homeschooling of these three awesome kids and this is a video of them reciting James 1 completely from memory. From left to right: Avery, Wick, and Hill. They've been working on it since we started school in August and they reached our goal to be done by Thanksgiving! It's a little long but listen to each of the verses, they're so full of meaning that I feel like I learn something every time I hear it.

Memories...

Last weekend we spent several days throwing our things in boxes and hauling them across the parking lot to our new apartment. I'll post some pictures soon but it made me think about the first place Tim and I lived in. It's really the coolest story, too! Tim, his mom, and I drove up May '04 up to Arlington to check out UTA and some apartments up here. We found one and decided to move in the weekend before we got married. So in August, my dad and youngest sister and I drove up from Magnolia and Tim and his parents came up from Wimberley. So we had a U-Haul truck, a car, Tim's dad's truck and trailer all full of our stuff! When we got to our new home our parents were not too impressed and the apartment people didn't even have a place ready for us! So Tim and I went to get our marriage license and the parents hung out across the street from the complex. While they were there a couple of cops pulled up so the dads went to talk with them. These two kind men proceeded to tell our dads to not let us move in here and we would really regret it if we did!!! So when we returned our parents strongly advised us to find another place. At 2:00, on Friday afternoon, when we had to return the U-Haul truck by 6:00!! We tried not to freak out and did the only thing we could think of, we prayed. And then went driving around Arlington looking for apartments. And to make this long story a little shorter, we ended up finding an apartment about as close to UTA as you can get, and they let us move in that very afternoon!! It was truly an amazing blessing from God!! We stayed there for a year before moving to a bigger place and Tim and I have so many happy memories from our little first home. And here's a few pictures so you can see our first little home as a married couple.
And I'll post some pics of our current home when I get some decor and pictures hung.