Hot, Hot, Hot!

I'm sure that many of you were hoping this update would annouce the birth of our son...not quite yet! We're sure hoping we'll be doing that soon though. This is the 8th day in a row that we have logged temperatures over 100 degrees and Meredith is definitely ready to not be pregnant any more - with back aches and foot aches and all over aches...pregnancy is starting to take it's toll! We know it will all be worth it though and we can't wait to meet our baby boy.

The heat hasn't slowed Amos down a bit; he just finished repairing and staining our deck. The deck has been in need of some serious TLC since we moved in and Amos made it look 100% better! Check out the before, in-progress, and after pictures.

Meredith logged her last week of full-time work at the church and will be staying home from now on. It's a bitter-sweet goodbye, but she knows all the free time she currently has on her hands will come to an abrupt halt when baby arrives. She enjoyed working at the church but feels so blessed to be able to be a stay-at-home mom!

Please keep us in your prayers as the birth of our son draws near. We'll keep you posted!

Blessings Galore!

It's hard to believe that the Fourth of July has come and gone. That seems to be the unofficial heart of summer and it's flown by! Things in our household continue to be steadily busy as we prepare for the arrival of our new family member.

We have been so incredibly blessed by the generosity of our church family, GYR family, and blood family in regards to receiving gifts for Gus (as we've affectionately womb-named the little guy). We would like to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has helped us prepare our nursery - especially, most recently, to the Tucker-clan in the U.P. We feel like we need to post a sign in our nursery that says, "Furnished by the Tuckers"...your generosity was truly overwhelming! The Nursery is basically finished, minus a few touches, and ready for baby's arrival. Meredith's belly continues to grow everyday and she is more than ready for the baby to be in her arms rather than in her belly. We're hoping Gus may decide to come a little early.

We enjoyed a wonderful visit with Amos' brother, Peter, last week. The guys had a great time fishing, four-wheeling, skeet shooting, and canoeing. We took Pete out for a truly southern meal of barbeque and just enjoyed having him around!

We're putting finishing touches on the house and preparing for an open-house next Sunday, which we've invited our church family, friends, and neighbors to. It will be a fun time of opening up our home, which we feel is such a huge blessing from the Lord. If anyone is in the area, feel free to drop in and join us!

We hope that you're enjoying summer and staying cool!

Summer Days

Life in the Anderson household continues to fly by at a frenzied pace. We can hardly believe that the month of June is more than half way over.

Amos spent last week in Tahlequah, Oklahoma with 7 youth and one other chaperon on a mission trip to Cherokee Nation. The team had a great week and was able to accomplish much in the way of service projects during their time. Overall, the trip proved to be a great bonding experience for the youth group and we're excited to see how it will continue to impact the teens over the coming weeks and months. For most of the youth, this was their first time ever on a mission trip.

While Amos was gone, the women of the church threw Meredith a baby shower and truly showered her with gifts. We've been so blessed by the generosity of friends and family alike as we prepare for Gus (as we've affectionately "womb named" him) to arrive. We have nearly everything we need now and are working on getting the nursery ready. Meredith wanted to put up white beadboard on the bottom half of the walls and that is our current project - a project it has been!

In other news, we continue to stay busy with projects around the house and keeping the 3 acres of lawn we owned, mowed! In the Arkansas heat, it grows like weeds! We're still expecting baby to arrive sometime around August 6th and are eagerly anticipating his birthday. Meredith will be working at the church office through the end of July and then will take a maternity leave before beginning to do some work from home. The Lord has provided a wonderful lady to take her place at church and she will be trained in the coming weeks. We're also really looking forward to a visit from Amos' brother, Peter, in just a few short weeks! We're excited to introduce him to life in Arkansas.

We hope that this post finds you and yours well and staying cool in the summer heat! We love you all.

Getaways, Showers, and Our New Place

Life has brought plenty of activity our way in the past 3 weeks.

Here are a few of the highlights...

Last weekend we were able to take a mini-vacation and getaway from Friday through Monday to northwest Arkansas. We were blessed to stay at a beautiful cottage free-of-charge at a Christian Conference and Retreat Facility. We caught some of an air show in Fort Smith and enjoyed a day out at Devil's Den State Park. We hiked about 1.5 miles...which was about all the very-pregnant Meredith could take in the 95 degree heat. Overall, it was a wonderful weekend of physical and spiritual renewal.

This weekend brought Meredith's first baby shower hosted by her mom and sister (thanks, guys!) and attended by all the ladies of Glenhaven Youth Ranch. It was a sweet time of fellowship, fun, and gifts! The women were most generous and Baby Anderson received lots of cute new outfits, bedding, and accessories.

And finally...here are a few pictures of the new house - there will be more to come; stay tuned!

Baby & Flood

We'll soon have pictures of our new home to post. In the meantime, here are some more baby belly pics and some pics from the flooding that we experienced at our old home just a few weeks ago. Arkansas has had some devastating weather over the past two months with flooding and tornadoes ripping through the state. Thankfully, the Lord has protected us through it all. Enjoy the pictures!

Oh Boy!

We had our ultrasound yesterday afternoon and are happy to announce that Baby Anderson is healthy and...A BOY! They finalized Meredith's due date as August 13th, although according to the ultrasound, the baby may arrive as early as August 6th...we all know, of course, that the baby will arrive on God's due date. We're thrilled to start thinking blue and are continually amazed at the blessing of this new little joy!

Here's baby from the ribs up with a profile shot. Unfortunately, the pics didn't scan as clearly as the original. Can you see his head and face? His head is on the right hand side looking upwards.

This one is the baby in the same position (laying on his back), however, he is facing straight at you.

On another happy note, we will be closing on our home on Monday, April 14th! Everything went beautifully with the inspection and we're so excited to add some finishing touches, make the home our own, and move on in! We're hoping to be settled in by the end of the month. We'll send an e-mail soon with our new contact information.

Thank you all for your loving support and continued prayers as we delve into being first time homebuyers and first time parents...what an exciting chapter of our lives we're beginning! Thanks for being a part of the journey!!

Much Love,
Amos, Meredith & Baby Boy Anderson

March Madness

Happy Spring! Here in Arkansas Spring has brought blossoms on the trees and beautiful flowers and...tons of rain! In fact, it's been falling in 5'' increments and flooding the lakes and rivers. Thankfully, it seems to have slowed down for the meantime, but not without flood damage to many peoples' homes. Hopefully all of this rain will make for a beautiful summer!

Here in the Anderson household, we've been very busy. Meredith's belly is growing everyday (check out the pictures!) and we're anxiously awaiting our April 7th ultrasound. We will be given our due date and, if the little on cooperates, find out the gender of the baby...let the shopping begin!

On another note, we've been looking for a house to purchase for a few months now, and it seems the Lord has dropped the perfect one in our lap. The whole purchase process has been remarkably smooth, with many blessings from the Lord among the way, and pending a satisfactory inspection on Wednesday, we will be closing on the house in the near future! :)

God is so good and so faithful and this Easter we praise our risen Lord and King - for we do not serve a dead man in a grave, we serve a resurrected and powerful Lord!

We hope that your family is happy and well. We love hearing from you, so please leave a comment or shoot us an e-mail.

Much Love,

Amos & Meredith