calvin matthew branch

Many of you have known or heard of Rebekah's sister, Kim and her husband Josh and their remarkable testimony that has transpired over the last 5 months.  It is a story of hope, faith, trust and incredible love.  To make a very long story short, they came to discover (at 21 weeks) as they were expecting their first child that their baby had a chromosomal abnormality called Trisomy 18.  This is typically a fatal syndrome.  Over the next 5 months something amazing happened. In this unfortunate and unimaginable circumstance they found themselves placed in, they chose to rejoice in the life God had created through them.  They chose to have unwavering faith and hope in Christ's good works.  They found peace and comfort in the storm.  

   

So, on October 15th, after carrying him 41 weeks and after 24 hours of labor, at 6:52 a.m. our sweet nephew, Calvin, was born still.  We, along with the rest our immediate family, were blessed to meet Calvin and to spend time with him, even though it was little.  We have been moved beyond words by this precious, God-breathed life, and have come to experience God's amazing glory through every circumstance.    

   

   

In his honor, they have created a website to share their story and the story of their sweet Calvin.  Please visit their site (www.calvinbranch.com) to learn more, read their personal testimony and to view the slideshow that was so beautifully put together of photographs taken on Calvin's birthday.  It will leave you speechless.  Please join us in lifting up Josh and Kim in prayer as they continue to seek refuge in God's amazing grace.  They have been so rooted in Christ's love during this whole time, that you can't help but see Christ living in and through them.  We'll leave you now with a beautiful verse that they've  so eloquently quoted time and time again:  

The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord. ~Job 1:21b

   

october

we love the month of october for two reasons, can you guess what they are? here are some picture clues: 

  

yep, if you guessed going to the pumpkin patch and visiting the fire station, your right!  there's just something about going to a pumpkin patch on a beautiful, autumn day that is so refreshing, not to mention the kids love it.  and since our boys love firetrucks, visiting the fire station and sitting in all the trucks is always a blast!  

CLICK HERE to see some pictures from these fun events!  

   

   

grandparents day

   

as explained the in previous post and after stealing some pictures from mom snavely, here are some pictures of grandparents day at hudson's preschool.  he LOVED showing them around his new school and he was such a proud little man.  

he showed them all around his new classroom and they got to meet his teachers, too. 

 

  

he even got to do a fun craft with them too, "my grandparent and I, hand in hand", where he traced their hands and his together.  so sweet!

 

oh, what a blessing it is to have grandparents!!!  thank you for making this such a special day for hudson, he still talks about it to this day!  we love you SO MUCH grandma, mimi, and great bumpa!

a long awaited update...

hey there!  long time no blog, right!?!  we have been MIA in blog-world for the last month because our lives have been a whirlwind.  as most know already, we sold our old house and moved into a new one.  during the buying/selling process we decided that there was NO way we were going to risk being stuck with 2 mortgages, so we waited to buy until we were completely sold.  for that reason, there was a 3 week overlap between the time we had to be out of our old house before we got the keys to our new house.  so, to make a long story short, we moved twice! now, you'd think that'd be a pain, but our awesome THRIVE group and family helped us and both times, we were done moving in less than 3 hours...it was AMAZING!!!  we moved our entire house into a storage unit and stayed with mom and dad snavely for almost 3 weeks and then moved again into our new house.  whew, that was whirlwind!  so here's the new place:

   

here are some updates from the last month:

*after having 10 ear infections, we finally pressured greyson's pediatrician enough to get her to budge and refer him to have tubes put in his ears.  he had the surgery at the hospital and did amazing!  and so far so good, no more ear infections yet!!!

   

*hudson is still loving preschool.  we get a weekly report each week and he loves playing in the art, science and math stations.  he loves story time and learning about numbers, colors and bible stories.  it's so cool to see him growing!  he also enjoyed having both grandmas and great grandpa in to preschool to celebrate "grandparents day".  he got to spend the whole morning with them at his school and he loved showing them all around his new school!  pictures of this will come soon (we have to steal them off our mom's cameras).   

*hudson also took his first trip to the dentist.  he was a little nervous at first about going, but ended up loving it!  he did perfectly and he loved holding the big toothbrush and teeth they showed him (see picture below).  he also especially loved getting a prize from the treasure box at the end of the visit.  now he loves going to the dentist! 

*at our new house we have a jacuzzi tub in our master bathroom and the boys LOVE to take baths in it...it's like a swimming pool to them.  well, hudson also thought that the backside of the tub would be a perfect slide and ended up having 5 stitches in his chin after taking quite a spill.  oh yes, the joys of parenthood, right?!?  actually, we can't complain, he barely cried when it happened (thanks to mommy's quick grab of the red towel, so he didn't realize he was bleeding!), he didn't make a peep the whole time we were at statcare getting the stitches and has been fine ever since.  the stitches come out in the next couple days or so.  

    

   

well, about sums up that last month for us.  CLICK HERE to see some snapshots of the boys from the past several weeks!  enjoy!

   

preschool

it's so hard to believe that today was hudson's very first day of preschool.  we've been talking and talking with him about this day in preparation and it finally happened.  he was SO excited to go to "RiverberTree", as it calls it (our church is actually "RiverTree", isn't that hilarious!?!?).  Here are a couple shots of our not-so-little boy's official first day of school.  

   

He did AMAZING and loved every minute of it!!  I think it really helps that it is at our church because he was familiar with the environment and went right in feeling confident and comfortable.  His teachers are so very nice and they said that he was wonderful and seemed to really enjoy himself.   When we picked him up, he gave us a play-by-play of all the fun things they did and he even named a couple "friends" he had made in his class.  we can already tell he's going to grow and learn so much!

Okay, we've always heard that it's really hard to leave your child in the "hands" of someone else (especially like this for the very first day of school), and that is VERY true, but I must say that when we saw this beautiful prayer come home in his backpack, oh my, it made all the world of a difference!  This is a prayer that the his teachers wrote in the newsletter that was sent home: 

"Dear Lord, We dedicate this room to you.  May You bless the children, families, and teachers and all who enter.  May your love, mercy, faithfulness and joy anoint this place and fill our hearts.  We bring these children to You, watch over them and protect them and may they grow in knowing You as their personal Lord and Savior.  Thank you for each and every child and their family and may this be a year of increase knowledge, growth and faith.  Amen"

Wow!  That puts into into perspective, doesn't it?!?  Now, we did good all day and there were no tears shed on hudson or on our part, but that about put us over the edge!  This will certainly be a great year for hudson and we can't wait to share more with about how he's learning and growing!

myrtle beach vacation

Getting away from everyday life is wonderful, isn’t it?!?  Don't get us wrong, everyday life is good and all, but man, a break from the norm is sure nice!  We just returned home from a wonderful, relaxing vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  We stayed in the quiet, family-friendly area of Surfside Beach.  This was the first real trip to the beach with the boys and they did AMAZING!!!  The road trips went very smoothly (we drove through the night, and yes, they slept!), the ocean was absolutely breathtaking, as usual, and we couldn’t have asked for more beautiful weather! 

Our daily routine consisted of getting the beach early each morning until noon, then we’d head back to the condo for lunch and then off the pools for the afternoon.  Naptime gave us a chance to regroup and clean up and then, after naptime we’d get ready for the evening. 

   

Each night, we did something fun and different.  We explored downtown shops and entertainment, went out to dinner, went to the pier at sunset, and more, but the boys most favorite thing was to go to Family Kingdom.  This was a fun, little family amusement park by the beach.  Hudson had an absolute ball!  He’s never really been on amusement park rides before so we weren’t sure if he’d be a big fan or not, but he was such a little boy and LOVED it!  He rode all the rides all by himself, even a roller coaster, and had a BLAST!  It was so cool to see him smiling and laughing on the rides.  Can’t wait till he’s old enough to go on the big ones so we can go on them with him, too. 

Now, lets talk about the beach!  Oh my goodness gracious, we can’t even begin to tell you how much fun we had at the beach!  It’s so hard to put it into words, but hopefully you can get a sense of the boys’ genuine excitement and happiness in the photographs that were taken there.  They absolutely lit up with joy every time we’d hang out there.  The salt water and sand didn’t phase them a bit, they were all about the ocean!  We’re thinking a summer beach vacation will need to be planned from now on…it was just too much fun!!! 

     

Hudson was our tan little beach bum, never getting a hint of sunburn, not even once.  He even went boogie-boarding and wave jumping.  He had no fear whatsoever!  He also enjoyed exploring the water (quickly discovering it was salty!), experimenting with the sand, and searching for seashells.

Greyson loved to play in the sand and run around in the shallow water.  It was hilarious to see him in the water, he would play a game as if the water was chasing him – each time a wave would come, he run and try to get away from it.  The waves would retract and out he’d go and then back again.  The waves would go back and forth and so would he! 

    

Since Mimi and Papa Snavely were with us, we even got a date night where we had a nice dinner and walked in a really cool area called Broadway at the Beach.  It was so nice to get a little break and just be together.  Those times are few and far between and so very much appreciated, not to mention, the boys absolutely loved having Mimi and Papa there.  Grandma and Grandpa Smith happened to be down in Myrtle for a couple days overlapping our trip so we also enjoyed having some beach time with them too as did the boys.  They loved it…it was just like being at home! 

So, after taking way too many over 1,030 pictures, go figure, we’ve tried to narrow it down (which is hard to do because we love them all!) into a slideshow.  We ended up choosing a total of 173 photos, so  CLICK HERE to take a look at the rest of our vacation pictures!

july wrap-up...

since it's the end of the month, we were going through all of our pictures (and boy, there are A LOT of them, as usual!) and realized we forgot to share quite a few miscellaneous july pictures.  so some of the odds-n-end things we did in july that we've not yet shared are: 

• having a bonfire with our wonderful thrive group.  one of the couples in our group own a large piece of land nearby and we all got together and had a hotdog roast on the campfire.  it was great!  they even had a big treehouse, corn-hole, and dirt-bikes.  the boys loved it!  they especially loved (as always!) hanging out and playing with all the other awesome kids in the group...we could have stayed there all night!  

  

• having our snavely "family day" - this is a day once a month that we set aside to intentionally get together as a family (to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or just because). not that we don't see them at other times throughout the months, but we started doing this a few years ago because as we all got older, our lives got more busy and so this was a day, set aside, where we could catch up, hang out and just be together.  we always look forward to them.

  

• hanging outside and swimming.  we've gone over to friends and family's homes to play in the water and hudson and greyson love every minute of it.  definitely a favorite of theirs, especially going down the slide in to the water!

   

• going to atwood lake, boating and swimming at the "boater's beach".  this is, by far, the boys most favorite thing to do.  hudson loves to camp out (he even spent the night with mimi and papa, all by himself), drive the boat, swim at the beach and sit around, what hudson calls the "fireplace" (aka, the campfire).  we'll certainly be making many more trips down there!

CLICK HERE to see some of our miscellaneous july pictures!

and, don't forget to read our 100th post below!  we have a request of you!!! :-)