L-U-B-B-O-C-K

Well, we are here safe and sound! We arrived at our new home yesterday aftenoon to find about 25 adults and children from our church awaiting to welcome us. We were greeted with hugs and smiles and led too a huge table full of food and cleaning supplies to help us get settled in. They all pitched in to get our truck unloaded in less than an hour and then proceeded to help us set up our beds, Suzie's crib, and other odd jobs. We then got to enjoy dinner together and had so much fun. The church all pitched in to help get our place looking so nice and we just love it! We are so thankful for their care for us and can't wait to get to know them more. Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Some of the church folks helping us unload.


This is our new front yard!

As we pulled up, we saw this sweet sign welcoming us.

This is our new house!

And the front of our new church.

And here is our pantry full of food!

We feel tremendously blessed that God would call us to serve with this loving group of believers. We praise God for a safe trip out here and look forward to getting settled in. We'll keep you posted!

Merry Christmas!

Here is a picture of our girl yesterday after getting into a packet of hot cocoa:)

And here is what our new hometown looked like the yesterday! Can't wait to experience the seasons! Kyle and my dad head out with the truck tomorrow morning and my mom, Suzie and I head out on Sunday. We are so excited!

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and remember the most precious gift ever given was Jesus Christ who gave up so much to reconcile us to His most loving Father. Praise God!

We've Been Busy!

Well, I realize it's been a while since I posted and it will probably be a while before I post again! Things have been very busy for us here. We spent five days in Kansas for Thanksgiving and had such a great time with Kyle's family. I don't have any pictures but hope to soon. We've been packing and doing double duty with Suzie's therapy to try to get in as much as we can before we move. Plus I have been sick the past few days which has slowed us down a little. But in the midst of all the craziness, life is good. Kyle officially finished Seminary on Tuesday afternoon. What a blessing the past four and half years have been for us and we are so excited for this new phase in our lives. Suzie is developing so much lately. she is pulling herself up to standing frequently on anything she can. She is repeating lots of words and seems to be learning more and more every day. Here is a little video of her progress as of late.



Hope you all are doing well and praising God for the gift of His precious Son this holiday season!

Too Funny

Tonight Suzie was just cracking up and I caught it on video. She is such a cutie!

I never did get around to posting her 15 month stats for her actual age, so here you go!

Length: 29.75 inches (24th percentile)
Weight: 18 lbs. 1 oz. (less than 3rd percentile)
Head Circumference: (49th percentile)

The doctor would have liked to see her put on a little more weight. She was on the charts in the 5th percentile but now has dropped off the chart. So we are reversing her meals so that she eats regular food before she gets her milk...because she is a picky eater:) Also, we're adding lots of avocado and full fat yogurt to her diet! Other than that she got a clean bill of health and her doctor was very encouraged with how she is developing.

This past weekend Suzie and I were able to go visit my good friend Kim in Redding! It was so much fun to spend time with her. They have such a cute home, a really neat church, and the area is just beautiful. Seeing them 6 months into their ministry made me more and more excited to begin our new venture! Here are a couple of pics from our weekend there.



On a another note, we have finalized our moving plans! We will pack up our truck and be out of the apartment on December 23. We will spend Christmas at my parents' house. Kyle and my dad will leave the day after Christmas to drive to Lubbock and my mom and I will fly there the next day. Here is the cute little house that the church is allowing us to live in! It is three bedrooms and one bath and is just steps away from our church. Our new church family are graciously getting it all ready for us and we can't wait to move in!

Three Years

Today is our three year anniversary! We celebrated on Monday night by going to the new California Pizza Kitchen and then played a game of bowling. I hadn't been bowling since college so I started off a little rusty. We both played fairly well and had a great time! Just as we were getting ready to head home we got a call that Suzie really missed us. We had a great time just the two of us but were glad to get home to our baby girl too:)

I praise God for giving me such a wonderful husband! He is my best friend, leader, counselor, encourager, and a model of Christ's love. I am so thankful for him!

We're Moving!!

The Lord has provided a full time ministry position for Kyle at First Baptist Church, Roosevelt in none other than Lubbock, Texas! Kyle lived in Lubbock for four years while he attended Texas Tech University. It's a town of about 200,000 located in West Texas. The church is actually out in the country, about 15 minutes from town. Kyle will be the Associate Pastor overseeing Youth and Childrens Ministries. We are SO excited that the Lord has allowed us to move to such an amazing church. The people there are so warm and generous and we can't wait to serve alongside them! Of course with the excitement also comes a little bit of sadness as we have to say goodbye to many friends and family who have played such a crucial role in our lives. We will miss them dearly, but trust that God will allow these relationships to grow despite the distance.

Here is a picture of our new church home:

A Few New Words

Things are trucking right along here in the Sanderson home. With three more trips scheduled in the next month, we are super busy and the time is just flying by. Suzie seems to have completely recovered from her ear infection (praise God!) and aside from not sleeping through the night quite yet, she's doing just great!

Physically, she is still very behind in her development. BUT, she is making progress and for that we are so thankful. She can stand with a lot of support but still doesn't make any effort to try to cruise. She can maintain the crawling posisiton for longer, which is good. Her physcial therapist thinks she actually could crawl on her hands and knees if she wanted too, but has no desire to since she's so good at army crawling. Boy is she fast! She still won't pull up to sitting, but again I think she could if she wanted to but she just really doesn't like sitting:)

The exciting thing is that her language skills seem to be developing very nicely! She loves to try to repeat us. She will just stare at our lips when we talk to her and you can tell she's often trying really hard to figure out how we're doing it. Here are some of her new words that she'll say when she hears us say them:

(Mama, dada, amen, and more are old words)
Love you (sounds more like Luh oooo)
Baby (sounds more like bay bay)
Bye Bye
Hi
Ball (she'll say ball ball)
Ba Ba (for bottle)
La la la (when we sing a song she'll sing along with her la la la)

My favorite is that she loves to say, "Uh oh" and will just travel around the house throwing a toy and saying, "Uh Oh," over and over and over again. It's so sweet!

Here are a few recent pictures of our little urchin.

She still makes this funny face when we take her picture:)





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