These days Abigail is always smiling, just like her big sister! We are so blessed to be surrounded by such joy!!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Put On a Happy Face
These days Abigail is always smiling, just like her big sister! We are so blessed to be surrounded by such joy!!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Proud
Brian,
We are so unbelievably proud of you for how hard you have worked the last four years. Thank you for all you have gone through for our family. Thank you for following the Lord each step of the way and allowing Him to use you through the field of medicine. And thank you for allowing us to be a part of this journey; we cannot wait to begin the next phase with you. You are going to be an amazing doctor who touches the lives of so many people. You are now officially Dr. Hodges, and words cannot express how proud we are of you! We love you!!
Love, Autumn, Elisabeth, and Abigail
I'm so proud to be this man's wife!
Proud daughter, often referred to as Dr. Elisabeth!! She wants to be just like her daddy! When we ask her why she wants to be a doctor, she says that she wants to help people just like Daddy does!
Proud Mom!
And brother!
Proud parents!
Superman!! Aka, Dr. Hodges!!
And to our families: Thank you does not come close to saying how grateful we are to each of you for your love and support during this time. We could not have done this without you. We are beyond grateful for each one of you and thank the Lord for allowing us to be a part of your lives. We feel so safe and encouraged in knowing that you are still right there with us prepared to cheer us on through the next part of this journey. Our hearts are so heavy because we are moving so far from you all, but we are so excited to see what the Lord has in store for all of us. We will have many great memories to make with all of you in Oregon! We love you all beyond words!! The Lord has truly blessed us with each one of you!
We are so unbelievably proud of you for how hard you have worked the last four years. Thank you for all you have gone through for our family. Thank you for following the Lord each step of the way and allowing Him to use you through the field of medicine. And thank you for allowing us to be a part of this journey; we cannot wait to begin the next phase with you. You are going to be an amazing doctor who touches the lives of so many people. You are now officially Dr. Hodges, and words cannot express how proud we are of you! We love you!!
Love, Autumn, Elisabeth, and Abigail
I'm so proud to be this man's wife!
Proud daughter, often referred to as Dr. Elisabeth!! She wants to be just like her daddy! When we ask her why she wants to be a doctor, she says that she wants to help people just like Daddy does!
Proud Mom!
And brother!
Proud parents!
Superman!! Aka, Dr. Hodges!!
And to our families: Thank you does not come close to saying how grateful we are to each of you for your love and support during this time. We could not have done this without you. We are beyond grateful for each one of you and thank the Lord for allowing us to be a part of your lives. We feel so safe and encouraged in knowing that you are still right there with us prepared to cheer us on through the next part of this journey. Our hearts are so heavy because we are moving so far from you all, but we are so excited to see what the Lord has in store for all of us. We will have many great memories to make with all of you in Oregon! We love you all beyond words!! The Lord has truly blessed us with each one of you!Thursday, May 13, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
On the Move
We've been on the move as of late, in many ways. We just returned home from a wonderful five weeks with Brian's family to begin packing for our move to Oregon. We only have a little over a week left here in Fort Worth before we head to the Pacific Northwest. Just before we ended our time in Amarillo with Brian's family, he and Abigail and I went to Corvallis to look for a new home. Our time in Corvallis reminded us that we are not the only ones on the move. We saw God move in mighty ways as He unfolded more of His beautiful plan for our lives. We arrived in Corvallis with no plan on how we were going to find a house, which is more a doing of Brian's personality than mine...I love having a plan...and a list...OH, HOW I LOVE HAVING A LIST! Lists are a beautiful way for me to make sense of the mess in my head! But shouldn't I know by now that God has His own plan, making my orderly lists irrelevant? And shouldn't I expect that we would face spiritual warfare as we seek to follow God? They were just slight irritations, but after a while they were like a gnat that you just can't seem to swat away. They were just enough to mess with our concentration of why we were there, and remove our focus off of the move God was doing right before our very eyes. As frustrating as it was, it was all overshadowed by the amazing grace the Lord showed us while we were in Oregon. Our first full day, Sunday, we visited the church that we will be going to when we live there and the almighty God who made the heavens and the earth spoke straight to our hearts. The pastor shared his testimony, all that God has put on his heart, and it was so in line with ours that I felt God saying, "Here is your new home. This is where I want you to grow, to learn more about me and my precious Son. This is where I want you to become refreshed and renewed. This is where I want to remind you how much I love you." This wasn't audible, but just a sweet impression He left on my heart. And it was as real as my husband standing beside me. That morning Brian had asked me what he thought we were supposed to do that day, what I thought God wanted us to do. And though we had gone there to look for a home, I knew that He wanted us to do something different. And so did Brian. We spent our first full day in Oregon in Newport, at the beach.
That's right, we flew all the way to Oregon to find a home and spent the day at the beach instead. And it was a glorious day! We love being at the beach and relished every minute as we sat there watching the ocean, feeling the peace of God wash over us. The next morning Brian took me for a hike to a spot that he frequented while he was there during his rotation last year. I was getting more anxious to find a home on day two, so a hike was not what I had in mind. But as I voiced the anxiety stirring within me, I was suddenly silenced by one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. We sat quietly on a bench atop a mountain overlooking a nearby valley, drinking in the beauty around us. As the rain began we made our way back to the car to begin our search for a place for our family. We quickly began to see that it would be almost impossible to find a house that we could afford to even rent, so we toured some apartment complexes anticipating that this would be our best short term option. Maybe the dreariness of the rain added to it a bit, but the thought of trying to contain Elisabeth, and soon Abigail, in a tiny apartment was almost more than I could bear. Have you met Elisabeth?
Always a vibrant joy, I had no desire to suppress her for fear of disturbing the neighbors or restraining her within walls because we had no outdoor space for her to dance freely about. As a mother, I wanted to give her more. But it seemed I had no choice...until Brian received a random phone call from a friend the next morning. The Lord had placed Brian on his friend's heart to call and see how he was doing. Brian told him that we were in Oregon looking for a home, and he told Brian that his aunt, who we knew lived a few hours from where we were, was a real estate agent, which we did not know. He insisted on calling her up on our behalf and told her our situation. She called an agent in Corvallis within her company, who in turn called us to give us information on rental properties in the area. It was through her help that we found a HOUSE,
a HOUSE that we never would have found without Brian's friend calling him at the time he did. And it's perfect. No one for Elisabeth's vibrancy to bother but her sleeping sister.
A yard for her to run about to her heart's desire, a yard that backs up to a huge park.
There is room to hold all of our belongings. And less than a 10 minute drive for Brian to go to work and for us to go to church. Trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. We have space to have a school room. I've always wanted to have a school room. We have lots of windows. I love natural light. We have a fireplace.
I love having a fireplace. We have a backyard without a pool.
I love that our girls can run safely all around our yard. We have windows overlooking the backyard from the kitchen. I love that I can watch them play while I cook. I love that the Lord loves me enough to give me things that seem so simple to you but mean the world to me. So the Lord gave us a house. That seems like such a simple thing to write, but it's not. THE LORD GAVE US A HOUSE!!!! There, that more accurately shows how I feel about it. And days after we made it back to Fort Worth, we found ourselves wondering what we were going to do with our house here. We have felt for months that we are just supposed to WAIT, which means no real estate agent, no for sale by owner, no for rent sign in the yard. So we have waited, for months. We have waited to know what we are supposed to do with this house that is thousands of miles from our new home. We waited until we found clarity. Yesterday. We live next door to a family of 6 that live in a two bedroom house. The dad had told us that he had hopes of someday adding on to the house and maybe someday adding a pool. Just so happens that we have the same floor plan that happens to have been added on to and has a pool.
Just so happens that the Lord has put it on our hearts to rent to this family until they can buy it from us. And just so happens that they've been praying for this. The Lord is ever so faithful. So while we have been here and there, it has really been God who is the one on the move. We are just here to follow, and to marvel at how He is always on the move.
That's right, we flew all the way to Oregon to find a home and spent the day at the beach instead. And it was a glorious day! We love being at the beach and relished every minute as we sat there watching the ocean, feeling the peace of God wash over us. The next morning Brian took me for a hike to a spot that he frequented while he was there during his rotation last year. I was getting more anxious to find a home on day two, so a hike was not what I had in mind. But as I voiced the anxiety stirring within me, I was suddenly silenced by one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. We sat quietly on a bench atop a mountain overlooking a nearby valley, drinking in the beauty around us. As the rain began we made our way back to the car to begin our search for a place for our family. We quickly began to see that it would be almost impossible to find a house that we could afford to even rent, so we toured some apartment complexes anticipating that this would be our best short term option. Maybe the dreariness of the rain added to it a bit, but the thought of trying to contain Elisabeth, and soon Abigail, in a tiny apartment was almost more than I could bear. Have you met Elisabeth?
Always a vibrant joy, I had no desire to suppress her for fear of disturbing the neighbors or restraining her within walls because we had no outdoor space for her to dance freely about. As a mother, I wanted to give her more. But it seemed I had no choice...until Brian received a random phone call from a friend the next morning. The Lord had placed Brian on his friend's heart to call and see how he was doing. Brian told him that we were in Oregon looking for a home, and he told Brian that his aunt, who we knew lived a few hours from where we were, was a real estate agent, which we did not know. He insisted on calling her up on our behalf and told her our situation. She called an agent in Corvallis within her company, who in turn called us to give us information on rental properties in the area. It was through her help that we found a HOUSE,
a HOUSE that we never would have found without Brian's friend calling him at the time he did. And it's perfect. No one for Elisabeth's vibrancy to bother but her sleeping sister.
A yard for her to run about to her heart's desire, a yard that backs up to a huge park.
There is room to hold all of our belongings. And less than a 10 minute drive for Brian to go to work and for us to go to church. Trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. We have space to have a school room. I've always wanted to have a school room. We have lots of windows. I love natural light. We have a fireplace.
I love having a fireplace. We have a backyard without a pool.
I love that our girls can run safely all around our yard. We have windows overlooking the backyard from the kitchen. I love that I can watch them play while I cook. I love that the Lord loves me enough to give me things that seem so simple to you but mean the world to me. So the Lord gave us a house. That seems like such a simple thing to write, but it's not. THE LORD GAVE US A HOUSE!!!! There, that more accurately shows how I feel about it. And days after we made it back to Fort Worth, we found ourselves wondering what we were going to do with our house here. We have felt for months that we are just supposed to WAIT, which means no real estate agent, no for sale by owner, no for rent sign in the yard. So we have waited, for months. We have waited to know what we are supposed to do with this house that is thousands of miles from our new home. We waited until we found clarity. Yesterday. We live next door to a family of 6 that live in a two bedroom house. The dad had told us that he had hopes of someday adding on to the house and maybe someday adding a pool. Just so happens that we have the same floor plan that happens to have been added on to and has a pool.
Just so happens that the Lord has put it on our hearts to rent to this family until they can buy it from us. And just so happens that they've been praying for this. The Lord is ever so faithful. So while we have been here and there, it has really been God who is the one on the move. We are just here to follow, and to marvel at how He is always on the move.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Happy 3rd Birthday Elisabeth!!!
Happy 3rd Birthday Elisabeth!!!
Today we celebrate your birthday, and we are amazed that we have been blessed with three wonderful years with you. Thank you for filling our hearts with such joy and a love we had never known before you. You have blessed us beyond words to be your parents, and we can already see what an amazing work God is doing in your life. You are already such a sweet big sister to Abigail, and we are grateful for the wonderful example she has in you. We are in awe of how smart, creative, helpful, loving, and joyful you are. We cherish every day with you and praise God for each special moment. We love you more than you'll ever know.
Happy Birthday sweet girl!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
So In Love
For five years I have been blessed to be married to this man.
He is a man after God's own heart. A man who continually points me to Jesus.
A man who encourages me and helps me to be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. He is a man who makes me laugh and melts my heart.
He is a man who has honored every word he spoke on our wedding day. He is my best friend and faithful husband.
He is the loving father of our two beautiful daughters;
An amazing example of the men they will someday look to marry.
He is a man who has worked so hard to follow the will of God. A man who did not give up on his calling and dream of medicine,to now find himself stepping foot onto the next path of residency the Lord has for him. He is a man who trusts the Lord with all of his heart, not leaning on his own understanding, acknowledging Him in all his ways, allowing Him to direct his paths. And now He is leading our family to Oregon as he begins his pursuit of Orthopedic Surgery.
He is a man who makes my heart swell with pride.
He is a blessing beyond measure.
He is a man after God's own heart. A man who continually points me to Jesus.
A man who encourages me and helps me to be a better wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend. He is a man who makes me laugh and melts my heart.
He is a man who has honored every word he spoke on our wedding day. He is my best friend and faithful husband.
He is the loving father of our two beautiful daughters;
An amazing example of the men they will someday look to marry.
He is a man who has worked so hard to follow the will of God. A man who did not give up on his calling and dream of medicine,to now find himself stepping foot onto the next path of residency the Lord has for him. He is a man who trusts the Lord with all of his heart, not leaning on his own understanding, acknowledging Him in all his ways, allowing Him to direct his paths. And now He is leading our family to Oregon as he begins his pursuit of Orthopedic Surgery.
He is a man who makes my heart swell with pride.
He is a blessing beyond measure.
And I am so in love with him.
Happy Anniversary Brian.
Happy Anniversary Brian.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
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