Pumpkin patch time!

The three of us went to the pumpkin patch the other night and had such a great time. The holidays are already proving to be WAY more fun with a little one. We can't wait until Christmas is here! The weather is finally changing, the leaves are starting to fall, it is a fun season right now and even more fun with Aubrey Rose!

Our new home!!

Here are some way overdue pictures of the house. I have some before and after shots. Hope you enjoy!! We hope you can visit really, really soon!

Before:

During:


After:


Before:


After:


I think the sunroom is my favorite room in the house. We have our dining room table in there. I LOVE sitting at the table for any reason, whether we are eating, reading, feeding Aubrey, working on a project, or whatever else it definitely is distracting to look out to our backyard. Here is a view of it on the inside:








Here are some fun memories of the work days around our new house. Thankfully, the work days that felt as though it was 24/7 are behind us, now we are just settling in more and more with the little projects.

This picture was taken the night before the big move. Aubrey Rose was a little trooper through it all.

We are so very thankful for ALL of Blake and Christina's help! We could not have done it without them! They have been apart of so many hours and hours of our house projects. Thank you guys so much for making us feel so special. Here they are starting the painting project in the bathroom. Notice the mirror...that is no longer in there. A prettier mirror has taken its place. :-)

This was Christina's safety outfit for taking down the mirror. I will have to take an after picture of the bathroom. Thanks Christina for the beautiful mirror and the laughs!

Oh this is a wonderful memory too! For everyone out there....a good rule of thumb is to hold on VERY tightly to the paint can as you are shaking it. If you don't there is a possibility of it slipping out of your hands and splattering EVERYWHERE!! Don't worry, NOTHING was hurt in the process. Just some leftover paint on the canvas we had covered the carpets with. I just love you Christina!!

Here is Blake's brother Bradley and his girlfriend, Michelle, with Aubrey Rose.

Blake and his dad getting ready to get their tape on!

I love this picture of Linda (Blake's mom), Blair and her boyfriend Shawn.

Here is Rob, Blake P. and my Blake painting away in our master bedroom.

Here is my mom, my sister, Christina and I working on the laundry room. It used to be like a mint green. We painted it a metallic brown. It turned out really good. Thanks girls!

Here is Blake, Aubrey Rose and I in our new kitchen.

I know....I know....

Way too much time has passed since my last post! Don't think you are the only one who has noticed! It feels as though Blake and I have been sprinting through our days this past month or so. Life has been crazy! If you didn't hear yet, WE MOVED!!! So exciting, so much fun, so much work, little nerve-racking, little scary, lots of feelings as though we don't even deserve our beautiful home, but all in all we are soooooooooooo very happy. We love our new home!! New home means new responsibilities, which brings on new worries, but the benefits far outweigh the down sides.

So you might think....I didn't know they were looking to move. Yeah, neither did we. It all happened so quickly. We closed escrow in 5 days. We decided on a Friday, yes let's do this. That Monday we began all of our inspections, one after another after another, by Thursday we closed escrow. It took us about 2 weeks to get things ready to move in. We worked day and late, late nights painting, cleaning, packing, more packing, removing light fixtures, adding fixtures, more, and more painting, and then finally we had the big move.

We can not thank everyone enough for your help. Both of our families, on Blake's side and mine, were awesome!! Every one of you helped us so much. I can not express to you how much each thing you did, meant so much to us and helped relieve so much stress. Thank you for hanging in there with me even through the tears of being overwhelmed. Our family helped so much with the fun and the not so fun stuff with moving. Josh and Meg, Garrett and Ash, Rob Donnelly, Chelsey, Bradley, Paco....the list goes on and on, thank you so much for helping move us. Meg, my closet still looks beautiful! Thank you. I would have to say that my mom has put in the most hours at our new and old house, which I am so grateful for everything she did. Thank you Mom!! REALLY close behind her hours are our wonderful friends Blake and Christina. I look around the house and almost everything that has been painted or hung you either had your hand upon it or helped talk through ideas for it. From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank you for every hour you two spent and for taking on the projects as though it was your own house. WE are so grateful for your hard work and for helping make it so much fun throughout the process! Blake and I can not thank you all enough.

We are finally to the point that we can enjoy each room. By no means are we done, but we are very settled and settling in more and more each day. Aubrey loves her new home too. She loves sitting at the patio door looking outside. Yesterday I had to come check on her because she had been way too quiet for way too long that I thought she had gotten into something and I come around the corner and see she is still where I left her just soaking up the view of the backyard, sitting so cute on her knees. I took a picture and I will add some later. We actually don't have internet yet. We still need to hook up our computer. But in the meantime, I had to at least get some kind of post in to share how sorry I am for my absence. I will be back. I have missed the blogging world!!

Aubrey Rose's dedication

Our sweet little Aubrey Rose was dedicated to the Lord this past Sunday morning. It was such a special day. Wonderful friends and family were there to help celebrate with us. Thank you to everyone who helped make our memories of this special day such a blessing. We are so thankful for Aubrey Rose and for the joy she already has been. Our prayer is that she will continue to let her little light shine and that some day, hopefully at a young, young age, she will make Jesus her Lord and personal Savior. We are so thankful for you Aubrey Rose! You make us smile every day!




We almost make the rainbow in this Smittcamp family picture! Love it!!





Here is a picture of the Penner family. We missed my sister's husband, Aaron, at the celebration. He had a study course out of town this weekend for a HUGE engineering test he is taking in October. He is almost done! Hang in there, Aaron! We are so proud of you!



Aubrey Rose loves her Opa! Opa shared some special words about Aubrey Rose and what this day means to us and to her. These moments are precious memories for me because Aubrey Rose kept looking over at Opa and smiling. (It sure helped that she had just woke up from her nap.) She was definitely all smiles!



These were our table decorations. Linda (Blake's mom) made the flower centerpieces. She is so good at it! She was such a huge help for this party! Thank you so much, Linda, for all you did to help this day be so special!! We could not have done it without you and Bill!



She even made this centerpiece!!! I know...she should be a professional! If peaches ever disappear maybe we will have to open up a floral shop. :-)

Avery Ruth is born!

God brought a new little girl into this world on Friday, Sept. 12. Her name is Avery Ruth Scalzo. Her parents, Dave and Katie, are wonderful friends of ours that we have been friends with for many years. Katie and I met in high school our freshman year. She is such a special friend to me. I would be lost without her!Congratulations to Dave, Katie and Avery's big sister, Grace!




Here is a better picture of Avery's sweet face.

Memories in the peach orchards...

A last minute idea turned out to create such wonderful memories. The other night Blake and I took Aubrey Rose into the peach orchards to snap some pictures of our little sunshine. They turned out so cute. I asked my brother's wife, Allie, if she could come take some pictures for us. I told her she should start a new business. Thanks Allie for taking these awesome shots!!

Happy Birthday Auntie Allie!

We celebrated Auntie Allie's birthday this past week. We are so very thankful for her! We are so fortunate and blessed to have her be such a wonderful friend and also to be family! Allie we hope you know how special you are to us. We love you soooooooooo much!!






This was Jesse's "do I have to be in the picture" smile. I still think the picture is so cute!