Caleb is Here!

It's been a little while since I've blogged, but with school starting back up, and the arrival of our newest nephew, we've been extremely busy!

Caleb is the cutest, sweetest, most precious, handsome baby I've seen! I'm in love. He was born Friday, August 27 at 10:30 pm. He weighed in at 8 lbs, and was 21 3/4 inches long! Big boy!!!

Jill (Caleb's mommy) was a trooper! Her water broke at about 4:30 Friday morning. Everything was going well, and when we were on our way to Indianapolis for the birth, we got a call at about 6pm that she was dilated to 9 1/2 centimeters, and they were going to start pushing as soon as she got to 10. Caleb got stuck though, and couldn't come out! Caleb didn't seem to be under any stress, and Jill was doing well (like a said, a trooper!) so the dr. decided to let the labor continue naturally. At 10:30, they took him out via c-section. We were SO relieved to have him here, finally! (None more so than Jill, I'm sure!)

Sweet, precious Caleb spent the first few days of his life in the NICU, and scared us all to death. He was apparently under more stress during the labor than they realized, and then he took a gulp of marchonium. When they were sucking all that out of his lungs, they nicked a spot on his lung. So our perfect Caleb was in pretty rough shape there for a while, and had quite the fight ahead of him.

Matt and Jill did GREAT! I watched in awe as my big brother became a daddy, and did what he needed to do to take care of his wife and child. He took shifts of immediate family to the NICU to see Caleb, but didn't let anyone stay too long, and let us know when they needed rest. What a proud little sister I was!

Caleb hit every milestone, and did great in the NICU! He was released on Monday morning, and stayed in the hospital until Tuesday when the doctor told Matt, "Jill and Caleb are too healthy to be in the hospital. Take them home!"

Will and I had to leave Indy Sunday afternoon, but we got to go back the next weekend for Caleb's dedication!



Caleb was WONDERFUL! He didn't cry once in church. The rest of us, however... ;)


I can't wait to get to know this little guy, and I'm thrilled to be his "Auntie M." He is such a good baby. He's just content, and goes with the flow. I expect more frequent visits to Indy in the future!

Good old golden rule days...

Tomorrow is the 1st day of school!!!!!!

I always get SO excited about everything- new students, new supplies, new organization ;), etc... I LOVE it! This year I am especially excited because it is the 1st year I've taught the same grade, in the same room, in the same state! I felt like I could really take the time to set up my room the way I want it, and it makes a HUGE difference when you actually know what you're going to need throughout the year.

I've been blessed with excellent assistants each year I've taught, and this year is no exception! I gave her a to-do list today that was forever long, thinking there was no way she could possibly accomplish it all, and within an hour she had about 3/4 of it done. Yes! LOVE you Natalie!!

Here's a few pictures of my room, from start to finish. Of course, it's never REALLY finished, but you get the idea. :)

This is what it looked like when I first walked in...

After a couple days of work....
Almost ready....


Finished and ready for the 1st day of school!

LOVE my little library area!Guided Reading... and supply bins that won't be there past the first couple days :)
Whole group area

Contentment

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." -Hebrews 13:5

Lately, I've really been struggling with being content in my life. I've been thinking about what life will be like when we finish school- we can buy a house, we can settle somewhere, instead of living in transition, Will will be able to start his career, we will be able to take vacations instead of using vacation time to take classes, etc. God has really convicted about my lack of contentment. He has given us this season of life for a reason, and that's all it is, a season that will be gone before we know it. Then, I'll be wishing for things to be like they are now.

One of the things I've really been struggling with lately is that we don't own a home, and the prospects of home ownership really aren't anywhere on the horizon. We have an 800 sq. foot two bedroom apartment. In order to become more content in our present circumstance, I've decided to make a list of things that I am thankful for about our apartment, so here goes:

1. It takes me less than two hours to clean the apartment from top to bottom.
2. I only have to clean 1 toilet!
3. If I use the right outlet, I can plug in the vaccuum cleaner 1 time, and vaccuum the whole apartment.
4. We have a dishwasher (our last apartment did not).
5. We have our own washer and dryer (many apartments don't).
6. We have real carpet, that makes those lines when I vaccuum (our last apt. had this office-style carpeting, and it was brown).
7. Our room is big enough now that our bed does not have to be pushed up against the wall ,and I don't have to climb over Will every time I get in or out of bed (we had a TINY bedroom in our last place!)
8. Our heating and cooling costs are very low.
9. We don't have room to hang on to a lot of junk, and I'm not the kind of person who hangs on to a lot of stuff.
10. Our rent is cheap, which allows both of us to take classes, and still be able to live comfortably!
11. We live right across the street from our church.
12. Our guest room is bigger here than at our last place.
13. Because most of our furniture is hand-me-downs, most of it has a story (this was your grandma's, dad made this, etc.)
14. If I need Will for something, he's never too far away. :)
15. A small apartment means that it didn't cost too much to decorate.
16. The next time we move,we won't have very much stuff to move.
17. We have friendly neighbors.
18. We live in a safe area of town.
19. We are closer to my school than we were before.
20. We have 2 bedrooms. It's nice to be able to have space for Will's office, for guests, and it's nice to know that if we get pregnant again, we'll have room for a baby.
21. We have more closet space here than we did in our last apartment.
22. We have an open floor plan, which makes the apartment seem bigger.
23. Our rooms are square! (again, something you learn to appreciate when you live in a place with weirdly angled rooms).
24. Our guest room is bigger here than the last place.
25. We live in a relatively quiet complex.
26. Our landlords are nice people.
27. We have the opportunity to minister to people outside of the seminary community.
28. We've got this great garden center/ fruit stand across the street that is the ONLY place in Louisville that I've been able to find good peaches. We've missed good peaches.
29. We can see God's hand at work in providing us with this place to live.
30. I was so overwhelmed after the miscarriage (miscarried on Tuesday, moved on Saturday) that I couldn't handle unpacking very many things at all. Thankfully, we didn't have very much to unpack anyway! I love that God takes care of us in the little things as well as the big things.
31. We don't have to do any maintaince, upkeep, or yard work.
32. We will appreciate our own home so much more one day.
33. Everyone should live in a place so that later, they can say, "remember when we lived...."

God has been so good to us. I am thankful for the experiences He is giving us. My prayer is that in my anticipation for the future, I don't miss out on His blessings now. I want to be content in all circumstances.

Caleb Matthew Meighan

I only have 1 brother. He's 2 years older than me, and we've always been very close. We never really fought growing up, and he always looked out for me. He's a great big brother! What could be better than that? Then, Jill came into the picture. We all immediately fell in love with her too! She has become like a big sister to me in the 4 years they dated, and the 5 they've been married. Life was grand, and then, we got the BIG news! On Christmas Eve 2009, Matt and Jill found out they were pregnant! (Christmas Eve is a big day for our family- in 2007, Will proposed, and then this news in 2009!) Since that moment, preparations and excitement has been high as we await the arrival of Caleb Matthew Meighan. Caleb is the first grandchild/nephew on my side of the family. He's also the 1st in Jill's family. It is possible he might be slightly spoiled. ;) He's due September 3, 2010.

A few weeks ago, Matt and Jill's church gave them a baby shower. Mom and dad were in town, and I drove up to Indy for the shower. Here are some pics!


In the picture above, we played a game where we had to drink milk out of a bottle. It was HARD and it took forever! Seriously, I have no idea how babies actually figure out how to drink. They must have some powerful jaw muscles!
Time for presents! I just posted a few pictures here. Caleb got a LOT of loot!

An explanation of the picture below: My grandparents (mom's parents) died in a tragic car accident about 12 years ago. Grandma loved to sew and had tons of fabric, etc. Right after they died, mom pieced together 2 quilts from grandma's fabric- one quilt for Matt's children, and one for my children. She gave Jill the quilt at the shower.


Releasing balloons from the shower. Yes, it's possible to be this pregnant, and still this cute, but only if you are Jill Meighan. :)
Matt and Jill's other "child," Sammy. They got Sammy about 6 weeks after they got married. I think he'll adjust well to Caleb, but he has no idea what's about to happen to his happy, predictable routine! It was a great shower, and a wonderful day! Now we're just anxiously awaiting the arrival of Caleb! We can't wait to meet him!

2 Down, Many, Many More to Go!

Last year, we got each other a new washing machine for our anniversary (not intentionally, it just happened to go out right around the time of our anniversary, and we weren't expecting that at all, so... guess where the $ we had saved for our anniversary went?)

When we celebrated our 2nd anniversary last week, we new we needed to do a little better than that! Between classes, my parents coming in town and need to go to Indianapolis for my sister-in-law's baby shower, we had 2 nights, and we knew we needed to stay in Louisville.

So we got a hotel. We checked in Friday night after Will got off work.


We tried a new restaurant- BD's Mongolian Grill. DELICIOUS!
This is us waiting outside the restaurant.

...and Will enjoying his food!

Then, we went to Half Price Books (yes, we're nerds). We got there about 20 minutes before they closed. Here is the damage.


The next morning, we went to Lynn's Paradise Cafe (if you're ever in Louisville, you MUST go here!) and split their Bourbon Ball French Toast- yummy!!!

After our bellies were stuffed, it was off to Churchill Downs, and the Kentucky Derby Museum. It flooded last year, so they've recently renovated and updated the museum. It was really neat to see! Here's some pictures.





Last but not least, we headed to The Melting Pot for our anniversary dinner (have you noticed a theme to our weekend yet?- eating!). We had never eaten there before, but it's at the top of my "favorite places to eat" list now! Delicious!
This one was my favorite! Dark chocolate with passion fruit infused white chocolate- scrumptious!



The next morning, it was off to Indy for the shower, and that's another blog post! But for now, Happy Anniversary to my best friend, and the man that I am proud to call my husband! It's hard to believe that I love you now more than I did when we got married, but I do. I'm excited to see where God leads us in the future. It's certainly been an adventure so far!