In a Rut

I can't believe how infrequently I have been posting lately, I'm almost disappointed in myself :) I had lots of people tell me, "You definitely won't have any time to blog after Ava is born " (which usually bugged me) and while it may seem like that is the case, my lack of blogging really isn't due to lack of time, instead it's more like lack of interest. I'm in a self-declared, blogging rut.

This isn't the first time it's happened to me and I'm sure it won't be the last. Really, my lack of blogging is quite indicative to the stress I am feeling. It's officially summer now and that means our schedule has ramped up like crazy. Summer is so busy in student ministry, not necessarily because of weekly stuff, but due to trips and camps, etc. In fact, Ava and I are in Iowa at the moment because Travis was gone last week from Thursday to Sunday on a camping trip near the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada. He got home last night and we'll go home tomorrow night, but this week is just as full. It's VBS at our church, which is a huge deal and will draw 1,000+ kids. Travis and his student ministries staff do all the games and I help with registration. It's always fun, we do love it, but we'll both be exhausted by the end of the week!

Ava and I came to Iowa to see my family and to spend time with my sister Stacie, who flew in from North Carolina for the week. We've been having a great time, but I am trying to catch up on some things that are hard for me to do when I'm home by myself with Ava, like thank you notes, and wedding stuff. And speaking of wedding stuff, that is where 90% of my stress is orginiating. I have 3 weddings in July and just now I am working on getting all my orders finalized, which means lots of phone calls, meetings, and paper work. It's all fun in the end, but I would bet that most people have no idea how much time it takes to pull off. In fact I've decided that I need to be charging much more than I am, due to the way these weddings take over my life.

Anyway, all that to say that I am here and I am reading most of your blogs, but I'm feeling a little apathetic about posting to my own. I do have lots of fun pictures from our time here and I need to write a 2 month update because Ava turned 8 weeks on Friday! I will get to all of that soon. For now, here are some pictures of the little girl you all want to see in the first place. I bought her an activity mat that I've always loved while nannying because I noticed she was really starting to look at things more intently. That was a good decision on my part because she LOVES it! Check out that growing tummy too...the girl likes to eat :)

Yep, we'll keep her :)