A Special Day!

If you know Micah and I at all then you will know that we are huge celebrants of "Special Days"! We celebrate our wedding anniversary monthly, the day we bought our first home, and before we were married we celebrated everything monthly - 1st date, 1st kiss, the day we "officially" started dating, the day we got engaged... trust us the list really does go on!
Today brings us to a very different day of celebrating. Again as most of you know we have been hoping to start our family for quite some time now, and we have been through the adoption process and have anxiously been awaiting the day when we could welcome our first son or daughter into our family, into our home!
Well on Mother's Day, May 11, 2008, that dream sprang into reality for us as we found out that I AM PREGNANT! We are going to have our first baby! Today is our 12 week mark! Our due date is January 8, 2009. When that test came back positive we were so excited we could barely hold it all in! It was a Sunday morning and our church didn't start until 3:30pm and here it was 6AM and we couldn't sleep a wink! Since it was Mother's Day we decided it would be the perfect time to tell our Mothers, as that would be the perfect Mother's Day gift for them. Both of our mom's have been so supportive of us and have been anxiously waiting to become grandmothers AGAIN!
I went to the doctor the next week and I thought my pregnancy would be confirmed then, but apparently they don't do that anymore. So of course after I went home I had to buy 2 more tests. I figure if I had to be the one to prove it, then I was not going to mess this one up, for sure!! And the next 2 tests were also positive! We were ecstatic, and have been ever since for the most part, at least when my nauseousness subsided for a moment!
Our next doctor's appointment will be on Monday July 11th and we will get to hear and see our little baby's heartbeat! That will be so exciting!!
That is our exciting news for the month!! We will definitely keep you "posted" on the events of our growing family as they happen! Here are some of our moments captured "on film."

Celebrating in the Baby's Room!

A picture that Melts My heart when I see it! We are going to have a Baby!
Having a Blast with these Pictures!

Happy Birthday Dooders!

Yesterday was Dooders' birthday! Where did the name Dooders come from you might ask? And the answer is quite simple....I don't really know. All I know that it was a name that came up a few years back and for whatever reason it has just stuck. So these days Keith is known (at least to Micah and I) as "Dooders." Anyway back to the real story......
His big day was yesterday, the day he turned the Big 56! I was priveledged to be able to take him out for his birthday lunch (and I even paid, can you believe it?). Then mom put together a nice family birthday bash for him last night! All 5 of his kids were there, which was a nice treat for him....the only immediate family members we were missing were Ellie, Emma and Luke, but I know they were thinking of him back home in Fairfax, VA!
Dinner was good....Dooders choice.......Hotdogs, homemade chili, chips, fruit, mac and cheese and a delicious brownie made into hot fudge sundaes! My mom makes the BEST hot fudge sundaes! Everyone was able to visit, snap a few photos and watch him open his birthday gifts. Among his favorites were some fishing supplies, yummy chocolates and a pistol which all of my other brothers and sisters pitched in to buy for him. I thought and thought about it and just couldn't buy my dad a gun, not even when that is what he REALLY wanted! At times I feel a little bad about it, but I just couldn't do it ~ guns make me really nervous! Anyway we had a nice time and here are some pictures from the event!

The Birthday Boy Grilling the "Dogs" ~ and sportin' his tool belt that Jessie and Tanner got him for Father's Day!

Blowing out his ONE candle on his own personalized Hot Fudge Brownie
Some of the Action on the front porch before the party started! I love pictures of people taking pictures of people!
Dooders Loves to Have his picture taken ~ and He LOVES presents too!
But Mainly what he loves is getting to spend time with his family. Here we are for a family shot out by the weeping willow tree!
Glad you had a nice birthday Dooders! Know that we love you with all of our hearts and are so grateful for who you are. We really appreciate all that you do for us ~ but especially your unconditional love and unending support! You are the BEST!! Truth is Truth!

The Grays Have a DISHWASHER!!

We have talked about it, dreamed about it, fantasized about it and the day has FINALLY arrived! As of today, Thursday June 19, 2008, we have a working dishwasher in our kitchen! We are so excited about it too! (As you can tell by the pictures we took of the dishwashing process). It worked beautifully! We loaded the dishwasher, although we decided in the future we will definitely wait for a full load before we run it - but you know it was our first night with our newest toy so we had to try it out - filled it with dishwashing liquid and hit the start button. It was AWESOME! We were able to begin the cycle and take our showers and get ready for bed and we did it all while the dishes were washing in the dishwasher! Ha! It was the coolest thing ~ I definitely felt like a giddy high school girl tonight! But it is like my dad has always said, it's all about the simple pleasures of life! Hopefully this feeling of gratitude will last for a while and I will get an excited feeling in my heart each time I run the dishwasher ~ at least for a month or so!
Here are a few pictures of our first round with the dishwasher tonight! Micah thought it was appropriate to take the pictures of me since I am definitely getting the most excitement right now, since I no longer have to wash EVERY one of our dishes by hand! So we hope you enjoy!

Loading the Dishwasher

All loaded and ready to hit the Start Button (Since Micah has had dishwashers in the past he was able to give me a mini-lesson on which buttons to use ~ of course he also reminded me that it would be good to glance through the manual too!)Here I am with my Happy Face of a Successful start to our first load in the dishwasher! Washing dishes has never felt so good!

Father's Are So Special!!

Here is our "post" from Father's Day weekend! First of all, I just want to brag about how wonderful my husband is! He is so talented when it comes to visualizing things and then building them with his hands! As some of you may know, we are getting a DISHWASHER in the very near future! This is something that is super exciting for the Gray family, as we have never had one in the 2 1/2 years that we have been married! Well we did have one at our first apartment, but we used it as a drying rack instead of a dishwasher, as we were limited on space!
So, Saturday we went out and purchased our very own dishwasher! However in order to have it installed it requires the extinction of two of our main cabinets. That is when Micah got the brilliant idea to build the beautiful shelf for us to store most of our pots and pans on! It took him a week to build it, but it sure is beautiful and makes a world of difference in our kitchen!!! I am so grateful to be married to someone who tries to be so frugile and truly enjoys making new things!! Just one more reason why I love you so much, Micah Cordon!

Our New Shelf, Pots & Pans Included:)

Here's a side view to give the full picture!!

On Sunday we got the opportunity to celebrate Father's Day! So, this year we decided to attend church with my parents and then they had us over for a yummy Sunday dinner! Then Dooders got to open his gifts and we spent some time just relaxing and chit chatting! A perfect way to spend a Father's Day afternoon! So here are some pictures from our day!

2 of My Favorite Men TRYING to look serious!



Okay, enough of that, now for their Happy Faces!


Here's Keith with his excited look as he holds his newest book on Constellations!

Here I am with 2 of the Greatest Men I am fortunate to Know! What a priveledge it is for me to be associated with them on a regular basis! I love you both with all of my heart!! Happy Father's Day!
One last picture of Dooders and I together! I am so grateful to have two dads in my life. One, my biological father, who I am grateful for as he helped to bring me into this world and Keith, a dad and true friend who I can always count on ~ who is there for me no matter what the occassion! I love you so much. Thanks for helping me to become the person I am today!

Our Tomato & Pepper Plants are Growing!

We haven't done a post in a while, so we wanted to "touch base" and let everyone know that we are still alive and well! We also wanted to update you on our little vegetable garden. Remember the pictures of our new garden back in April? Well we wanted to share a few "Then and Now" shots to show everyone how we are being blessed in our gardening efforts this year. We are grateful for all of the rain we have been receiving and know that our plants REALLY appreciate it!
And another really cool thing that we noticed one night as we were out watering our plants was that apparently some tomato seedlings from our plants last year dropped and found a nice home in the soil, because we noticed at least 3 extra tomato plants that have recently started sprouting and one in particular had a "sketchy" root system, but with a few days of Tender Loving Care it is perky and looks excited about the upcoming summer! Enjoy the pictures! And Happy Gardening to all of our Fellow Gardeners this Summer!

Our Tiny Cherry Tomato Plant THEN

Our HUGE Cherry Tomato Plant (and others) TODAY!
The Day we planted our Tomatoes, Peppers and Basil
Today, About a Month and a Half Later
We have Baby Tomatoes!! How exciting!
We could hardly believe it the other day when we came outside and saw our first Pepper!!!

Micah the Keyboard Player!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Micah is now a member of a band! He is very excited about all the new and exciting opportunities that are coming his way! He gets to be the keyboard player, and I get to be his "groupie"! You know, pretty much the "proud wife in the crowd". Their first gig is going to be the last Saturday of June. They are playing for a Sock Hop at our church building. Right now they are practicing a ton of 60's songs! As you can see he is really getting into his music! The band decided not to order sheet music, so they are learning all of the songs by ear! Micah is so talented that at the same time he is listening to the song on his MP3 player he is also writing the music for it! Genius I tell you! I just wanted to end this post marathon for the night, by giving everyone a little glimpse of what the other half of the Gray household is doing tonight!

Jammin' to "The Jailhouse Rock"

He obliged me by stopping for a quick photo!
The Keyboard Player in Action!

Happy Birthday Grandma Louise!

One more post for the night! I think this is definitely a record for the Grays, 3 posts in 1 night! Here are some pictures from Grandma Louise's birthday celebration on May 30th!
It was a little bit of a bummer that Micah wasn't able to be there, but he was having fun anyway! He just joined a band with several members from church! They are practicing oldies right now as they are going to be playing for a Church Sock Hop at the end of June! I can't wait to be his "groupie"!
My parents made a yummy dinner and my mom made a great cake for the birthday girl! And of course we had opportunities to take lots of fun pictures! That is one great thing about our family is that we absolutely LOVE to celebrate, especially birthdays!

Getting ready to blow out her candles, and Jessie is so excited!

Jacob & Jessie posing for a picture~ They are all grown up now!
Louise and her Beau, Charlie ~ What a Cute Couple they are!
Family Picture in Front of the Weeping Willow Tree ~ this one's for you Micah, I set the self-timer all by myself!!