Thursday, November 26, 2009

This Is Only A Test

But this......



...is a life-changing test. Yes, my friends, you are seeing clearly. We are expecting a third bundle of joy! While we are certainly thrilled and totally excited to have another member of the Castleberry family, we were quite shocked when we discovered this blessed news. I'm sure God knows what He's doing, but we sure don't know what He's doing! We're just going to trust Him, and hang on for the ride!
This Thanksgiving, we are thanking God for all our blessings, and we are so happy to include little "Poppy" in that list of blessings.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

I WON SOMETHING!!!

**UPDATED** For a link to see the book I won, click HERE. There's even a place on this site where you can preview the book. Awesome!

Woohoo!!! I'm so very excited! I actually won a giveaway!!! I've NEVER won a giveaway!! A big thank you to Dana over at Thoughts on Life and Dirty Diapers for my prize: a charming book called "Along Came You".

Click over to her blog and scroll down to November 18th's blog post and you'll see MY NAME!!! Yippee!!!

Thank you Dana!!!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Here, There and Everywhere!

We've been so busy lately, I have a lot to catch up on! We were finally able to take a trip to the pumpkin patch. We made it on the last day. We went with Grammy, Aunt Alana, Peter, Isaac and Anna. It was extremely hot this day, but I still managed to get some cute pictures of the kids.




The following week, we took a short road trip to North Carolina to see a few friends. There was not nearly enough time to see everyone we wanted, but we'll be back. :)
We had dinner at Red Robin with our sweet friend, Shelley.
And Jerry and Ellen, of course.
Here's my favorite people, all konked out on the couch.
We enjoyed Jerry's world Brianna famous popcorn.
We squeezed in a short visit at the end of our trip with Arelys and her family. Love them!



This catches up a lot, but there's still more to come!

Friday, November 13, 2009

Bear With Me

I found a new site that has free blog backgrounds. I will be playing around with them today, so please just bear with me!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The Things He Says

*UPDATED! There's obviously several things that I forgot to put in here. He's constantly repeating us and trying to say new things. But this will just give you a general idea.
Thought I'd do the first-ever post about all the cute words Caleb is saying. I'll attempt to spell out the way he says it, but I promise it won't be as cute as how it sounds in real life. :)

Dada~(obvious what this is)
Mama~(another no-brainer)
Laura Anne~Ah-ee (we think he may be trying to say Lollie, her nickname)
Sadie~Sadie
Grammy~Gammy
Papa~Papa
Ellen~Eh-yen
Shannen~(I can't really spell this one. This is Laura Anne's friend from church)
More~moe
No~no
Yes~uh-huh!
Please~peas
Chicken~ticken....bock! (chicken sound effect thrown in there! It's adorable)
Turkey~(can't really spell this one either)
Pumpkin~puh-kane
Thank you~kay-koo
Milk~milk
Cheese~Tees (that's what he's doing in the picture above)
All Done~ah-dun
All gone~ah-gun
Plug~pug (pacifier)
Sock~sock
Shoe~soo
Dog~dock
Cat~meow
Phone~foe
Why~why?
Play~pay
Truck~kuck...voom!
Car~cah
Airplane~aypay (he gets very excited about this one)
Drink~gink
Up~up
Down~dow
Ming-Ming~Ming-Ming (Wonderpets)
Tuck~Kuck (Wonderpets)
Pooh~Pooh (Winnie)
Rainbow~ah-bow
Book~book
I love you~I luh loo
Flower~(can't really spell this one)
Baby~baby

*And these words he says and signs:

milk
drink
cat
dog
pumpkin
rainbow
more
thank you
please
all done
book
plug
Jesus

Caleb has made up a sign for "dip". Like, when he wants to dip his food in, say, ketchup, he will hold the food in his fingers and put his hand up to his forehead. It's the cutest thing and we think it's hilarious that he made it up himself. He does it all the time. He also made up his own sign for "plug".

He has started to count too. This is what it was like the other day:

ME: Caleb, let's count.
HIM: foe (four)
ME: One
HIM: two
ME: three
HIM: foe
ME: five
HIM: fie
ME: six
HIM: sick
ME: seven
HIM: (his own version of seven) :)
ME: eight
HIM: nine
ME: Good! Nine!
HIM: ten!

I was going to try to get a little video collage together of him saying and signing some words, but that's not going to happen today. Maybe I'll get it together eventually.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Crazy Jesus

**The title of this post is lovingly dedicated to my dear friend, Shelley D. It is not meant in a sacrilegious way. It's just a different way to describe the awesome work of God.**
Today was Chris' first day of work. Yep, another first day of work. Hopefully the last first day in a loooooooong time. I'm going to try to keep this brief, but I have to make sure you know how much God was a part of all this. He's always a part of everything, but sometimes we just don't acknowledge Him as much as we should. I want to acknowledge Him. :)
So, putting it lightly (very lightly), Chris' most recent job, you know, the one we moved to central Florida for, turned out to be.......dumb. There are lots of other words I could use, but I won't. Just trust me when I say it became very, very evident that our future was not in that company.
About 3 weeks ago-ish, a job opportunity came to Chris' attention. It was originally emailed to a friend of his from work, but this guy was not interested. When Chris first told me about it, I told him no way. We're not interested. You see, the position is in St. Petersburg. We are positive God had placed us here in central Florida, so why in the world would we pack up so soon to move to the west coast?! No way.
We prayed. We had family and friends praying. Chris' job situation got worse and we were clueless as to what would happen next. We prayed that God would show us what His plan for us was. Our ways are not God's ways. God's ways are not our ways. Slowly...or quickly, however you want to look at it, my heart changed and it became apparent that this job opportunity in St. Pete was a very possible job for Chris.
So he submitted his resume and the bid package ( I know you have no clue what that is, but it was basically a sample bid so the employer could see Chris' work). And we waited. 4 days later, Chris got a call. "We'd like you to come in for an interview on Monday."
"Okay, God. We know this doesn't mean he got the job, yet, but please guide us through this."
The interview went famously. Chris loved the company and the people. The people seemed to like him as well. It seemed like a dream. But nothing was determined yet. So we drove home and waited some more.
Thinking we wouldn't hear anything until Friday, we continued to pray for God's will, and we waited. Wednesday, Chris got another call. "We don't know what it is about you, Chris, but we want you to put your two weeks notice in, and come work for us as soon as possible."
If that's not an answer from God, I don't know what is! Praise the Lord! When Chris called me to tell me the news, I bursted (is that a word?) into tears. I just couldn't believe it. God proved Himself faithful. Oh so faithful.
His boss, however, didn't take it so well, and basically did not accept the 2 weeks notice from Chris. He told him not to come back. So last week, we took a mini vacation to North Carolina to see some pretty darn cool people, and then we returned, ready to begin our new lives....again.
We trusted (and still trust) that God would work out the details. There are still alot of things to work out. Mainly, our lease on this house doesn't end until next August. It's obviously not ideal for us to stay here that long. But we'll tackle that later.
For now, we are certainly blessed that my dear "little" brother in Tampa is allowing my sweet husband to bunk with him and his roommate during the week! I will get to see Chris Friday evening through Sunday night. Although I miss my hubby dearly already, we know this is what God has for us right now. He will put the rest of the pieces together in time.
We are just in awe of the power of God. My words are far too simple to describe the awesomeness of Him. It's crazy Jesus!!