we got a house

Hey we heard this morning that that couple got a loan approved for us, using their house as collateral. The funny thing is that the owner or boss wanted to meet them and asked why they wanted the money. When he told them, Josiah, the owner said that he had grown up a missionary kid in Hawaii and was so excited about what we are doing. Crazy huh? so now we need to work out the details and go from there. So you guys can all come and visit!!! We want to put a bungalow on the property for guests and interns to use that will be separate from our house, that is somewhere down the line but fun to think about! that's it, we have the big one year for TS tonight! It's gonna be a good time!!!
Joel

How do you create a Blog?

Amy,
I have a friend whose family is spread out like ours. I was telling her what a wonderful idea you had with starting a Blog for our family. She wanted to know how to get started. Can you give me a few pointers to tell her?

TIRED

Sorry we haven't written in a while, honestly I had one with a few pics but never got around to writing anything. Matthew has been keeping Debbie awake most night with feedings every hour and a half. She has been great and letting me sleep most nights. We moved in a week and a half ago on friday the 16th. The 17th i ran a golf tournament to raise money for the students ($350). The 22nd we had 12 pallets of sod delivered to our back yard and 4 to the church. I laid sod in the morning at the church then came home and finished the 12 pallets with the help of two church friends and a new neighbor.

I have a neat story i will tell later. - - - Okay, Ben will have to finish tomorrow :) Matthew's fed and sleeping and I am VERY TIRED. (the computer is in our room now) Besides, Ben has made himself another big task for tomorrow. He is going to put us up a privacy fence. Hope everyone is doing great. Erin -- get your sleep now. . . Well, if your back isn't killing you and Noah isn't kicking you :) I can't wait to see him!

Not too much longer!!

Hey Jon & Erin...how's it going? Not too much longer and little Noah will be here! We can't wait! How are you feeling Erin? Are you still enjoying your pregnancy or ready to be done?

Will & Marie...what's new with you guys? How did the insurance go with the car. Any updates about that? Will...did you have any pain after the accident?

Ben & Debbie...how did your move go? Are you in and settled? How are the boys doing?

Okay...we're off to bed. I just checked in on the blog and realized no one has written in awhile and then saw that 8!! people were on at the same time. Who all was here??

Hope you hear from you all soon!
Love, Amy & Joel

Abigail eating apricots

Don't worry! I'm not going to go video crazy! Joel really liked this video and wanted to share it with you all! Enjoy!

Crawling

Here is a short video of Abigirl... I posted it on our other blog as well. She's been learning to crawl for a couple of weeks now and has now put it all together! So, so fun!

Any Ideas?

Ok ladies, Jon and I are looking at monitors and we don't know what to get. Amy, you said that we should be sure it has the light function so we know that. A lot of the reports aren't too good on the ones we've looked at. Do you all have any experience that might help us make a good decision?

Happy Birthday Marie!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIE!

Thought everyone would enjoy seeing you 30 years ago. Where have the years gone? We hope you have a wonderful day and that this year is extra special in many ways.

Our prayer for you is that God will continue to bless you and your family. You have been blessed already in many ways with a great husband and two beautiful daughters. You are a great daughter, wife, mother, teacher, and friend.

Do something out of the box today to celebrate this great occassion!

Love, Mom and Dad

i hate moving

Okay, so everything went smoothly for the closing. Now we get to finish packing tonight and move tomorrow. - notice- I am sitting at the computer and typing. Partly because I am feeding Matthew AGAIN, and mostly because I am dreading the inevitable. Having a newborn gets you out of a lot of things - Erin take this down.... Milk it for all its worth :) No, I'm kidding. Obviously we have a long night ahead of us. I just wanted to tell you we got the house, put up blinds today and move in tomorrow. Also, Matthew smiled at me for the first time on purpose today. He was cooing a little too. It's so exciting to finally get something back besides fussing and poopy diapers :) Oh, girls... I'm venturing out and planting a vegetable garden in my back yard. And, I know that y'all do some gardening - I never have. The only plant I haven't managed to kill is the plant you gave me Mom. It's still alive!! I thought it was dead atleast 10x but it keeps coming back. Anyway, any advice???

A place to call home

We've been in a hunt for a house to buy lately. We've looked at several now and the best one for our price range is the first one we've seen. Here's a picture for you. Yup...it's orangy-pink, but we looked at another one this morning that was really pink! Crazy, huh?! So the things we like about this house... it has 4 bedrooms, two that are really large on the top floor, a living room, new windows and 2 1/2 foot walls with extra insulation, an outside garage, car-port and storage room, two yards, and a large (maybe too large?) garden area.
A few more things we like about the house is that the garage/storage room could be transformed into a guest house type thing, the kitchen is old and outdated, but that's great because we could redo it to how we like it. Amy really likes this! : ) Most of the house has been updated (it was built in the 40's), but not the kitchen and that's great so we can do it how we like. The house also has a chimney that has been closed but could be re-opened if we wanted to get a fireplace and the kitchen has an old built in stove fireplace for baking breads or pizzas. It's also closed, but could be re-opened.
A few other things we would change about the house include putting in some glass doors off the dining room to the back yard, adding a second bathroom upstairs and changing out the staircase. The one there now is really, really narrow and steep.
So here is a link to a website if you want to see more: Sencur house-Pipanova

We looked at two others today and the first one we came out wondering how the people are ever going to sell their house. We thought it was just terrible. But it was good to see it so we could see the value in the other house. Then we saw another house here in Sencur for quite a bit more money, just to see the difference and it was nice, but was built in the 70's and really looks like it.
Here are some pictures of the bathroom and kitchen to give you an idea:They're nice, not at all in bad condition, but just not "us" and we'd want to change that out but this house is quite a bit more expensive than the other and we wouldn't have any funds afterward to make any changes like that.

So...all that to say we just wanted to fill y'all in so you won't be too surprised when you hear that we're buying a house! If we do end up buying that first house...it won't even be available until August, so we wouldn't even be moving until September or so. It's nice to have that extra time to think and pray and make sure that is where the Lord would want us for the next chunk of time.

Some new additions to the room !

Our neighbor, Donna, made the picture for us out of pieces of paper and Erin's mom did the calligraphy on it. Another one of our friends made the cover for the toy chest.

pics of the boys :)

What day is it?

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mom, happy birthday to you!"

"Haappy birthday, happy, happy birthday, haappy birthday, happy, happy day!!"

"This is your birthday song...it isn't very long."

Happy Birthday, Mom! We all hope you have a wonderful day and feel loved, appreciated and cared for because you are! We wish we could be with you today to celebrate you in person, instead we're celebrating you from across the ocean! We'll send some extra big waves your way!! : )

Love you so much!
Joel, Amy & Abigail

Update from Jon...

Hey Everybody,

Wanted to post a few more updated pictures of the nursery. It's almost done! We got the windows and door trimmed out last weekend and I have one more piece of the rocking chair left to refinish. It will be nice to have one more room in the house completed. We are refinancing next month so we have a goal to get the loose ends finished up around the house before the appraisal. Anyways, that is what has been taking up alot of my time. Erin is doing well under the circumstances. I'll take a picture of the belly soon so you all can see. She looks great and the belly is huge :) The extra picture of a kitchen is the latest project for work. It will be finished this week. Thought you might like to see what a $130,000 kitchen looks like :) And the client provided all the appliances. Crazy!

Some random highlights of our past week.... Got a card in the mail from our pastor just thanking us for helping out in junior high and being a part of the church, it was great. Had snow on Wed. and school was cancelled on thur. due to weather. Sunday was DRY! It was the first day since Feb. 5th that we had a day without rain and today was 65! Spring is definately in the air Amy. Well, that's the skinny here just can't wait for blueberry season.

family pew

Tonight was awesome. For some reason Ryan just didn't want to go to nursery, so we decided to try church. He did so good, too! I still waiting for his fever to start - or something! He never sits still unless he is sick, so for him to sit perfectly still and be silent for an hour was a huge accomplishment. I'll let you know if he spikes a temp :) Matthew was with us too, so for the first time ever, we Woodards sat together in church. It was really nice! Oh, and it's titled family 'pew' for more than one reason. Ryan passed gas in the middle of the service - it was loud! It didn't even phase him, but I heard some snickers from the pew behind us. Then during the altar call, Matthew decided to squinch up and let it fly too. His had more to it. Once again, snickers from understanding parents behind us :) Oh, Matthew's hospital pictures are online to view. Go to www.growingfamily.com/webnursery then put woo in for mom's last name and pick florida. The date is February 16th and pick Matthew W at Baptist Hospital. I'm not too excited about the pictures. The lady wasn't very good, but that morning I was so exhausted I so didn't care :) We have some good ones that we took ourselves. SOMETIME I am going to get out birth announcements. Hopefully before I send out 1st birthday photos :) Erin, you might beat me :) Also, you can look at my myspace page. I update it all the time. I just figured out how to shrink pics enough to upload them to my page :) So there will be a lot and soon as I get time! You have to be my 'friend' to see the whole thing, but you can see the pics. My profile pic is Matthew - I'll try to change it so you can figure out which 'debbie' is me. Okay, one more thing to share.... Ryan has been going potty by himself! He won't touch it if it is our idea, but the past couple of days he's been getting up running to the potty, going, flushing it, and washing his hands! I hope he keeps it up :) That would be so nice. Good night, I'm going to bed, well, sort of :)

Debbie

Spring is in the air...

...hopefully! It sure felt like it this afternoon. We woke up to a beautifully sunny and warm day. So we came home from church and Joel grilled some chicken and then we ate lunch outside in the warm sun. Aaahhh...so nice!

Jesus picture

Hey guys check out this link when you have a few minutes. It is pretty fasinating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M4_IlbaZHA. I think you'll enjoy it.

My Turn!

I want to write a book like Ben! I just won't make it a picture book. :) Willliam should get his check on Monday for the car. We should get back about $4,000. What a blessing! We will be looking for a car to buy with cash. Just pray it runs and has air conditioning. I went to a training seminar on working with students who speak other languages. It was very interesting. Maybe I'll be an ESOL teacher in my next career. :) I've also applied to Lexingto school districts 1,2, and 5. We are planning on moving to Columbia this summer so William will not have to drive so far. We also just joined our church on Sunday. The girls are all healthy and playing an xbox game with William right now. Freedom! There mom, I posted my life.
Jon and Erin- I have seasons 1,4, and5 (Thanks to you two)
Oh! one more- We had to cut Morgan out of her seatbelt today. She somehow twisted her self in it and it kept tightening and we couldn't get her out. Any idea how much that will cost to fix? Leave it to Morgan.