Fight for Feuille

I realize that my blog has been full of prayer requests lately, but I fully believe in God's power to heal.  And, so I am asking you to ask God to heal another friend.  Robert Feuille was a student here at NMSU, then an intern here with Cru, and now a graphic designer/photographer in El Paso.  Lately, however, his full-time job has been fighting testicular cancer.

After a surgery in which part of his liver and many lymph nodes were removed, Robert and his wife Aimee got bad news tonight.  The surgery was a failure, and the doctors have given him a 10% chance with another round of chemo.  Robert and Aimee have two little girls and a baby boy, Egan, who was born just weeks ago.  Please, please pray for them.  You can read more about his fight here or here.

"Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens."   Psalm 68:19

Our Easter

I am just so excited to have a working camera and space on our computer...so there will be several postings of pretty much just pictures. :-) We celebrated Easter with good friends, good meals, an egg hunt, basketball games and egg-throwing contests. We love our team so much and had lots of fun with them on Sunday. Thank You, God, for making us alive with Christ...and for giving us good community. I am grateful.

Albuquerque

We have had a very busy few weeks, and I have been very bad at updating our blog.  A lot of that has to do with the "my little boy is not sleeping so I don't feel like uploading pictures...I just want to sleep" phase we have going through lately.  More on that later. 

Two weeks ago, Caleb and I joined the Washburns and headed up to Albuquerque to see the Hoppes in the hospital as well as the Christensens.  We had such a great time...and it was definitely not long enough, in my opinion.

 

Baby Izzy is amazing!  He looked great and is really among the cutest little boys in the world. His surgery went really well, and he was released from the hospital just a few days after our visit...weeks earlier than expected.  God answers prayers pretty well, doesn't He?  And that little boy is so blessed to have such great parents.

You'll see many more pictures of Izzy soon.  We had a fun photo shoot today, and I got to spend tons of time looking at that little cutie through my viewfinder.  Good times.  :-) 

 

Caleb and I got to spend some good time with Kyle and Chrissy and their six-month-old, Ina.  We miss them a lot since they moved up north.  Chrissy and I got up at four thirty in the morning and RODE BIKES to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.  It was pitch black...and such an adventure.  It was so good for me in every sense of the word.  

There is something about Albuquerque that makes it wonderful for hot air balloons.  Hundreds of balloonists from all over the world gather together there for the largest balloon invitational on the planet.  It should definitely be on everyone's life "to-do" list. 

Thanks, Kyle and Chrissy, for your unbelievable hospitality!!  

Finally...

We get to meet Baby Izzy!  Caleb and I will head up to Albuquerque in the morning to go see this precious little answer to so many prayers.  I am really excited to see him and his amazing parents.  We are going up with the Washburns, which will be fun.  And, we will be staying with Kyle, Chrissy and Ina...whom I haven't seen in what feels like ages.  So, I am very, very excited about the weekend ahead of us.  

Brandon will stay home because he was asked to speak at a leadership conference the university is hosting.  It is an awesome opportunity, and he is looking forward to it.  Please continue to pray that the Lord would provide more and more opportunities to serve the campus like this.  

Taylor Meets her Sister

As most of you know, the Washburns are some of our closest friends.  They are on our staff team, and it is pretty impossible to imagine life here without them. 

Liz gave birth to Aliana Grace seven weeks ago.  Their first daughter, Taylor, is two months older than Caleb and is his very best friend.  Because she had stayed with us when her new sister was born, we were there when Ali met her big sister.  Although Taylor had a pretty emotionally difficult time at first, she soon warmed up to the little person who was no longer in Mommy's belly.  It was such a sweet scene, and it was a blessing to be there. 

As I mentioned, this happened almost two months ago.  Today, I got to take some more pictures of that sweet little girl that I will post soon.  

Hopefully it won't be too long before we get to see similar pictures of Baby Israel Hoppe who was born this afternoon.  Please pray for him and the challenges he has ahead of him with the surgery for his omphalocele and other possible complications...and for Holly and Vince, our good friends.  For more info, check out Holly's blog.  Their faith is such an encouragement to me. 

My 30th Birthday

I was looking through some pictures and I realized that I never posted or even shared what my amazing husband did on my birthday.  

I turned thirty two weeks ago today.  The night before, Brandon decided he wanted to take me out to dinner.  He had found a babysitter and everything.  So, we went out to Chili's, which has been my favorite restaurant for years.  Our plan was to eat, go to Lowes and buy paint, and then go home and repaint the dining room/kitchen area because the beigeish color we had painted it was way too neutral for me.  :-)  

When we got home, the house seemed dark and empty except for some pretty party decorations I could faintly make out in the darkness.  We were then greeted with "happy birthdays" everywhere!  Brandon had planned a surprise party for me!

There were friends from church, from our staff team, and from Cru!  I felt so loved and blessed that night to have such wonderful friends and such a great husband.  Thanks, sweetheart!  

Holly H. and Holly W.  made the amazing cakes.  They were WoNDerFul!  And sadly, they were all eaten.  :-) 

Caleb helped me blow out the candles.   The blurriness in the pictures is because I hate using the flash on my camera.  

This beige paint is now blue...soon to be decorated with white paint.  I haven't decided on the design yet.  Needless to say, we didn't get any painting done that night. 

Doesn't Liz look amazing for just having had a baby a few weeks before?

Brandon gave me breakfast in bed...Cream of Wheat.  He makes something I would never have eaten before postively mouth-watering...with brown sugar and butter.  Not too healthy, but so good. 

Caleb also helped me eat my breakfast.  That's koala next to him...his favorite stuffed animal. 

The other Caleb had the idea to go hiking on the morning of my birthday up at the waterfall in Fillmore Canyon.  Living in the desert, this is an amazing novelty for all of us.  It is beautiful. 

Caleb took Caleb out to touch the waterfall. 

Then they threw some rocks for a while. 

And this is who greeted us on our way out.  A tarantula as big as my hand.  

Caleb's birthday is on Sunday with his party on Saturday.  So now we are getting ready for that. I am excited.  It is fun to have the space to have lots more people over than before.  Instead of having his party in the park, we can have it at our home.  So fun!

Our Cruces Family

Living thousands of miles from family can be pretty hard...especially with a little boy growing up so fast.   God, however, has given us the next best thing.  Our church family is wonderful, and it is hard to imagine life here without them.  

These are some pics from our Labor Day picnic on the land where we will eventually have our new building.  

Caleb spent the entire evening convincing other kids to play with him in the puddles.  The last picture is Caleb throwing rocks in the water right up until it was time to go home.  He is definitely all boy.