Summer Fun!

Well we are finally updating our blog after two months of summer fun! We've had all kinds of festivities and celebrations, and we can't wait to share with you some pictures of these memorable times! One of my favorite parts of summer is the after-dinner play time in our neighborhood. Caleb is eager every night to get out and play with the "boys and kids" in our cul-de-sac. He wears his dad's helmet (yes, it's a little big but not too much- he has a big head!!) and rides the neighbor's scooter around (with Dad's help) as proud as can be. He also loves to joke and play with "Buce" and "Sheda" (Bruce and Shelia) our neighbors who love Caleb like their own. They have been such a blessing the last two years!

Here's Dad and Caleb cruising around!

Austin was in a dear friend's wedding this May. Chad and Austin grew up together and have lots of good memories from middle and high school. He was in our wedding 8 years ago! Here we are after the wedding which was outside at Cheekwood in Nashville. It was fun getting dressed up!!

Caleb enjoyed his first boat ride on Old Hickory lake this month! He wasn't too sure of the water, but he really enjoyed the ride and watching his uncles fly through the air on the tube that was pulling behind us! We were invited over to the home of some life long friends of my parents who happen to live right on the lake. What a view!

For Father's Day, Austin drove down to Birmingham,AL to visit his dad and play golf. They had a great time catching up and enjoying a game of golf.

While Austin was with his dad, Caleb and I took a day trip to the Chattanooga Aquarium with a bunch our friends for "little" Austin's 3rd birthday. We loved seeing the otter, penguins, sea horses, sharks, and all the other amazing fish God created!! We had a blast! Caleb's favorite were the sharks!

Cheese!

Caleb and Emily eating lunch at the Aquarium and enjoying their shades they received as a party favor.

One of the highlights of the summer so far has been my brother Hunter's wedding! It's been a much anticipated and celebrated event over the last several months. We love him and his new bride, Leslie, so very much! Caleb was a proud ring bearer. Here he is all dressed up with his dad.

We weren't sure how he'd do walking down the aisle. Watch this video and find out what he did at the rehearsal! This is what he did at the wedding as well! We thought, "Surely not at the wedding. He'll be more shy and scared once he sees all the people." Oh, no! Caleb was rearing to go saying "Here I come, Hunter; I've got something for you!"It was precious!

Lastly, on Father's Day we enjoyed an afternoon in the sprinkler! Caleb had a blast. So far it's been a wonderful few months. Not only have we been making some memories, but God has been at work in our home. We are studying the book of Ephesians with our church body, and Austin and I are actually attempting to memorizing the entire book! At first I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I've been surprised at how when you take small chunks it's actually doable! It's been life changing already to meditate on this amazing book and internalize its truths. We would love for prayers from you asking God to help us perservere and truly know this book inside and out. Caleb seems to be "internalizing" the story of Daniel and the Lions Den. The past few months it's been his favorite book to read. It's been precious to see him grasp at such a young age the importance of praying to the only true God and how to trust God when we are afraid. We hope all is well with you and would love to hear what's going on in your lives.

Blessing and grace to you,

Nicole

If you'd like to see more pictures click here to see our photo gallery!

Great News!

The news is good.... There is no change in Caleb's vision in the last six months! It was amazing how well Caleb handled himself with the exam too. He was such a trooper and did everything that was asked of him. We were so proud of him; he is growing up so quickly.

For our next steps we will go back for another MRI in September and then back to the eye doctor in December. If everything is good with the MRI then there is a good chance he won't have to have another for a year... This is what we are hoping and praying for.
Thanks for your prayers today... God has given us another good report!

Austin & Nicole

Hello Friends...

Hello friends,

Just a short note to let you all know that tomorrow morning (Tuesday) we will be attending the eye doctor with Caleb. We would appreciate your prayers for the doctors to have wisdom as they look him over. From all signs we can see he is healthy and his vision is intact. We for sure know he can spot a Cheerio from about twenty feet or so. : )

At any rate we very much appreciate your prayers for Caleb... we are fully convinced that God has sustained our little guy this far and that He has wonderful plans for his life. I will shoot out a message tomorrow once we have teh findings of the doctors.

On an unrelated topic I wanted to share some good news with you. A friend of ours (Jonathan Morrow) recently launched a new website (www.thinkchristianly.org). This site is packed with resources to help Christians engage their culture while making a reasonable defense for the gospel. Jonathan is a very talented brother to have defending the faith, and I encourage you to check out his site and blog.

Austin & Nicole

Prayers Needed!

Hey everyone,
A good friend of mine told me about a 22 month old boy who fell into a well at Mother's Day Out last week. You might have seen it on the news. He is at Vanderbilt Children's hospital in critical care. The family goes to my friend's church and would appreciate all of our prayers, I'm sure. Today's entry was amazing- the doctors are saying that even though he's not out of the woods, what happened today was nothing short of a miracle! My heart is hurting for this family so I thought I'd ask you friends to join us in prayer for this precious child named Erik. Click here to read their blog.

love to you all!
Nicole and Austin

Weekend at the Farm

The last weekend in April we took a weekend trip to my grandfather's farm in Dunlap, TN with some of our dearest friends. We were sad that the Thomas' couldn't join us at the last minute, but we hope they'll be able to join us next year. We prayed so hard for no rain, and the Lord was good to us! It only rained on Sunday morning, so we had plenty of time to enjoy the outdoors. We had a blast exploring the barn, the pond, and beautiful valley around us. We swung on the porch swing, rode in the back of a pickup truck, fished in the pond, shot guns in the field, walked up and down the long gravel lane, ate tons of yummy food, roasted marsh mellows, sang praise songs under the stars, watched our children discover new frontiers and enjoy the outdoors, laughed until our bellies hurt, and we made in the end a wealth of precious memories!



Here are the kidos in the back of the pickup truck ready to go see the cows and horses. It was surreal for me to watch these children enjoy the farm as much as I did as a child. I spent countless hours here at my grandparents farm growing up. I climbed these same fences, explored the same barn, walked the same lane, swung on the same porch, rang the same infamous door bell, ate in the same kitchen, and fell in love with the same thing I hope this next generation will fall in love with here on our farm- the breathtaking beauty of the valley around us. What a treasure to have my family and friends with me in this special place!

Caleb is learning how to skip rocks!!

The porch swing is by far my favorite spot on the farm. This is where I always find myself. The kids seemed to love it too! --Check out more pictures of the whole gang here.

March Madness!

Sorry it's taken so long to post- it's been a crazy few weeks! Caleb turned 2 on the 17th, and as many of you know, Caleb loves food. So, we had fun giving him a cooking-theme birthday party! Caleb's Mimi (my mother) made her famous cookie dough, and all 6 of his friends had fun rolling out the cookie dough, finding a fun cookie cutter, painting the baked cookies with colored icing, and eating their yummy creations!! I was amazed as little Caeden, Emily and the rest of the children enjoyed spending time painting their cookies; however, we laughed at Caleb as he could care less about the painting and wanted only to dive in and eat his cookie!! Thanks to all who joined us to celebrate. We feel very very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends who genuinely love Caleb and us so much. What a gift from the Lord!

Also, in March we celebrated Easter along side of many of you. This year our church performed its first drama, and I was honored to be apart of it. We reenacted the Lighthouse "Everything" skit you might have seen on Youtube. It is a powerful image of the love of Christ, the price He paid, and the freedom and peace that comes from a right relationship with Him. I had a blast working with the others in the cast and performing again on stage. It was a stretch for me to perform in front of a church audience, but it was really neat to be apart of such a moving message. The Lord did a work in my own heart, and I have walked away changed.

Lastly, at the end of the month Austin and I left Caleb with my parents for a week and joined Matt and Randi Lea on a Caribbean cruise!! It was absolutely fabulous!! We ate like kings, basked in the sun, snorkeled and rode a jet ski in Cozumel, Mexico, and drank in the beauty of God's creation. We couldn't have had more fun!

And lastly I want to update you on our progress with adoption. We haven't made any major moves yet; however, we are on the verge of making a decision on an agency. Over the past month we feel like the Lord might be leading us to adopt from the Philippines. My brother Hunter's sweet fiance is half Filipino and has family in the Philippines she stays in touch with. We are thinking that this could be a great connection for an adopted child that hopefully will join our family. We are really excited and hope to take some bigger strides in that direction soon. We will keep you posted!-- Don't forget to check out our pictures from March and our cruise.

love to you all!
Nicole

Good News!

So there were two possible scenarios that we said would be excellent. We got our second best option!  Since Februrary 2007 there has been no change in his tumor!  We are certainly excited to hear this and really appreciate all of your prayers.  We are going to get another MRI in six months with the same process to follow.

So many of you have been praying and we are so thankful for this. God has been so good to sustain Caleb through all these months.

Austin & Nicole

MRI Over

We are back home in the boro and pleased to report that the MRI is over.  Caleb did such a good job... He was very brave and didn't complain once about the process (or missing breakfast for that matter).

The folks at Vanderbilt were wonderful as always and they took very good care of him.

We will go back to see the doctor for the results on Wednesday.  Thank you all for your prayers.

Austin & Nicole

Henderson Update

Hello friends,

As you can tell by now Nicole and I aren’t that good at posting regularly here. Things have been going well for us. We made it through most of the winter with little sickness, which we are very thankful for! Caleb continues to grow in so many ways and will be turning two in a few weeks (March 17)! We cannot believe that two years have passed us by so quickly; It seems like yesterday we brought him home from the hospital. God has blessed us so richly through that little guy and we are continually amazed as he learns and develops.

As for family news we have something exciting to share with you in this post. Many of you have known that Nicole and I have had a heart for adoption since before our marriage. We have truly always felt it would be something we would move into at some point in our life. The exciting news is that we feel God is leading us into this journey now! There is a lot of this to be worked of course and we have very little direction with it right now, but we are starting to get the process rolling, and we are very excited that it will now happen sooner than later. Please pray for wisdom for us as we process through agencies, paperwork, emotions and many more things we haven’t even thought of yet. We are sure that the future of this will be a wild ride and we would love your prayers and encouragement as we go through it.

Regarding Caleb’s health not much has changed. He continues to be a softhearted little boy with no apparent signs of health troubles… at least as far as we can tell. He is scheduled for his next MRI this Monday (3/3/08) morning at 8:00am. We will go back on Wednesday afternoon to talk through the results with his neurosurgeon. We will be sure to post the news as soon as we have something to share on Wednesday.

There have been so many of you have told us of your prayers for his healing and for our peace. We want you to know how much we truly appreciate them. God continues to give us peace in this storm and you have encouraged us greatly along the way. Please continue to pray for his healing. We know that God certainly is able to take this tumor from Caleb and we are praying to this end. Please pray for a good report on Wednesday and for our peace as we wait.

We also posted a few new pics of some fun things over the past few months. You can check them out here.

We love you all.


Austin & Nicole

My First Post!

Well, I'm finally posting my 1st entry to our blog after almost two years! Austin has been encouraging me for awhile; however, I just haven't gotten around to it. The past two months have been a whirlwind with Thanksgiving and Christmas; we've had lots of food, lots of fun with family, and definitely lots of laughs! There never seems to be a dull moment with Caleb these days! He is talking up a storm, putting three and some four word strings together to make sentences. In the last two months he has become a parrot, repeating what we say all the time! Just the other night I was upstairs checking my email and Austin called up to me and said, "Nicole!" Caleb ran to his daddy's side and yelled up, "Nah-tole, Nah-tole!!" We got the biggest kick out of it- and because we laughed, Caleb just kept on saying it!

Christmas was very fun this year with Caleb being a little older. He loved all his toys from his rocking horses (yes- two!), his Thomas the Train set, to his "Little People" Barn set; he has definitely entered the pretend play stage of childhood! It is precious to see him play. Caleb also got an early Christmas gift, a "Little People" Nativity Scene. We were excited to share with him this year the true meaning of Christmas, and even though we new he wouldn't fully grasp the meaning of Christmas, we were hoping for him to talk a bit more about Jesus after we played several times with his figurines. However this was not the case. Instead, he took interest in only the camel figurine, carrying it around everywhere and making the camel "spit" sound! We weren't too surprised though since it seems to be his main interest in his toddler Bible as well! Whenever we try to sit down to read him a story from his picture Bible, the only thing we hear is Caleb saying over and over, " find pamels, find pamels, find pamels!" So, we inevitably spend our time looking for the pictures that have camels in them! He is a delight; however, and we thank the Lord for the rich blessings He has given us through our son!

Also, we truly enjoyed our visits with friends who have moved away this past year. One of my best friends in the whole world, Meghan, moved to London, England! If you don't know her, she and I danced together for years growing up and have stayed close friends ever since. And, our very dear friends who just moved to California 6 months ago also came in for Christmas, Kevin and Virginia! They have been a close part of our lives for the last 7 years in Murfreesboro. It was very hard to let them go. So, Christmas was that much sweeter to have these three visit!

Lastly, we want to update you on Caleb's condition. We had another eye exam at the end of November with Dr. Donahue. He said his eyes looked great! There had been no change over the previous three months. We were relived and praised the Lord again! We don't have any other appointments until March 3rd for Caleb's next MRI. Thank you all so very much for your continually concern and prayers for our son. We are humbled that you remember him and us. The verse that keeps coming to mind for me is this, "I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me." Psalm 13:6 - grace and peace to all of you; we love you!

Be sure to check out our new photo gallery here.

October Update...

Just a quick note to say hello to our friends...
The fall seems to be passing us by very quickly. Between a few family trips and some business travelling it seems like we have been out of pocket a bit so perhaps that has added to the pace.

We were fortunate enough to take two fun family outings in the past few weeks.

• We went on a weekend outing with the Tenpenny family. We had a blast with them travelling around from Crossville over to Fall Creek Falls and finally ending up in Orme, TN to hear Ma tell us stories of her youth. We really enjoyed this time with our family.
• We also had the chance to go to New York for a weekend. As many of you may know Nicole and I were hooked on the Grease television show back six months or so ago, and we promised each other we would go to New York to see the show this fall. We made good on the promise! This trip was one we will remember for the rest of our lives. It was our first experience in such a large city. We loved it but we think we will stay with Murfreesboro for now.

We just finished off Halloween... Caleb was a Giraffe, and even though I am partial he was quite cute. I don't think he understood very much of what was going on because at most of the houses he saw the open door as a chance to go inside and see what was happening. We had to pull him a way a few times with tears as he cried for "toyz N'er" which translates "toys... in there." He is a curious little fellow with little reservation in some situations.

Recently we visited the Gentry Farm with a few of our friends for a fun day. The kids had a blast playing with toys, seeing animals, taking a tractor ride and most of all playing with corn. I was amazed at how enthralled large numbers of kids can be with the simplest of items, corn. Overall this was a great day catching up with some friends we don't get to see as often as we might like and just generally relaxing. We are fortunate to have these folks in our lives.

A few have recently asked me how Caleb is doing... He is doing GREAT! He is growing faster than we can get new clothes for him it seems like, and every day his vocabulary gets larger. Nicole is doing an awesome job caring for and nurturing him, and I am amazed all the time to see them interact. He has no symptoms or complications from his tumor to date and we praise God for this blessing.

You may recall that we are all eating in some new ways over the past few months... less sugar, more grains, more greens and veggies, very little meat and dairy and generally speaking more "whole foods." This has been a tough transition for us, but God has been good to us and we are seeing positive results in our bodies and attitudes. We truly think this is the right course for our family, and we are intentionally working this direction... Nicole has worked very very hard to make new dishes and find new ways to make flavorful things for us to eat. It has been a tough process, but she has covered a huge amount of ground for us with the help of Ginny Harper and some other dear friends.

Well I think that is all for now... I posted a few new photo galleries here for you to catch a few pics of these recent events.

Sincerely,

Austin & Nicole

Hello There

Well I didn't get to the post last night.. sorry about that. As you can tell from my previous post the news is good! The doctor states there is no change in his tumor... it is holding steady. This is of course a relief for us. He told us that the longer Caleb can go with no change the better the chances are that it will remain like this over the course of his life and that he will not have complications from it. He said that Caleb's condition is good and that he is pleased with where Caleb is. He also said that the Radiologist that reviewed the scan still saw the other small areas in Caleb's brain but commented that there was no change in them and qualified them as "insignificant."

All of this was music to our ears and we were delighted to hear that his next MRI will be on a 6 month schedule as opposed to the last few which were every three months. He told us that the symptoms we are to look for are basically all visual. If he does have complications the first place they will show up will be in his vision. So far, as best we can tell, he does not have any visual impairment.. at least we know he can spot a "tacker" (aka cracker) a mile away and a grain of wiiiiice (aka rice) as he speeds by the kitchen table at 50 mph... so based on that and of course his doctor's reviews all seems pretty good so far.

Thank you all so much for thinking of us yesterday. We will continue to keep you posted. Our next appointment is at the end of November and is to review his eyes again. Please continue to pray for his healing... we so much appreciate all of you and your prayers. We fully believe that God is active in this process and we are thankful to Him for sustaining Caleb in this process.

Sincerely

Austin & Nicole

No Change!

We are walking out the door now with good news!!!!  The doctor confirms that in this last scan there is still no change.  Praise God for this because according to the doctor the longer we go with no change the better!

I will post more details tonight.... Thank you for your prayers.

Austin and Nicole

MRI

Today Caleb had another MRI and things went great. It was an early morning, but he handled it like a champ. For those of you that know Caleb well you know that going without food for long periods isn't his favorite thing to do... :)

Thanks to you all for your prayers.... Please continue to lift him up!  We will post as soon as we have more info... We will go to see the Dr on Wed. afternoon, and will know more at that time.

Austin & Nicole

Monday MRI...

Hey guys,

Just a quick note of reminder that Monday morning we will be taking Caleb for another scheduled MRI. We are anxious to see what is found and we are hopeful that we will hear good news. Please continue to pray for healing. We believe that God can take this from him, and we ask you to pray diligently to this end.

Unfortunately we won't know anything on Monday because of the way that things work... we have an appointment on Wednesday to see the Neurosurgeon and he will review the MRI with us at that time. Pray for peace as we tend to get anxious about these things.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers... we will update you soon.

Sincerly

Austin & Nicole

Henderson Update

Nicole and I just returned from vacation on Amelia Island in Florida. We had such a great time and really enjoyed some time with our dear friends (the Morrows) who just moved back to town. It was wonderful to take a break from our daily tasks and relax away from it all. Our parents watched Caleb for us and he too had a great break from the norm. I put a few pictures up here of the vacation and some of Caleb.

Caleb is doing great. He is learning all sorts of new things and seems to amaze us somehow every day. We are so blessed by him and he brings joy to us in so many ways. He latest interest is cooking (pretend of course) ... there are a few photos in the gallery of him doing this task. It is quite the treat to see him stirring a big pot of something and then walk over to give you a taste!

As some of you may already know today we went to see Caleb's Ophthalmologist for his routine visit. Dr. Donahue took a good look at Caleb and his final word is that there is "no change." In the process of reviewing him though he thought that he may have seen an issue that was very subtle which he said would indicate one eye being weaker than the other. His concern over this issue is that if he did in fact see this that it could be caused by growth of the tumor.

Thankfully, being the thorough doctor that he is, he had a second doctor come in and take a look at him. The second doctor did not have the same conclusion, and when Dr. Donahue came back in for a second review he could not confirm the findings either.

Dr. Donahue said that his final summary would be that Caleb's vision is intact and there is no change. He also gave him a good review for the "spots" that could indicate Neurofibromatosis, he was not able to locate any at this time but also stated that it may be years before those appeared.

Honestly this visit was harder than previous visits because there is more uncertainty about what is going on. We talked more with Dr. Donahue about what a diagnosis of Neurofibromatosis would mean and in some ways it might actually be a good thing (if it is a mild case) because there are some "knowns" about the disorder.

We are still pleading for your prayers for Caleb's healing. We believe that God certainly has the power to remove this tumor from him if He so desires. We would love it if you would join us in praying to this end. We would also like for you to pray for our spirits. We do not want to dwell on that which we cannot change, and we want to trust that God is at work and He does have a plan in this.

Thank you all so very much for your calls and emails. We love hearing from you.

Austin & Nicole

Just an update...

Hey guys.. just a quick update. Things have been fast and furious for us. It seems the summer is just flying by. We have had a great time with friends and family and as you can see from the latest photo gallery Caleb is growing like a weed. He is saying all sort of things and it seems learning something new almost every day. He is such a blessing to us and we are so fortunate to have him in our life.

Thank you all for your continued prayers.. it seems that Caleb's health is holding up quite nicely. We have no signs or symptoms that his tumor is even there. Please continue to pray for his next MRI which is scheduled for some time in mid September. We are hopeful for a good reading this time to space out his next one.

Another One Down...

Today we met with Dr. Pearson (the neuro-doc). The news is good.... The Radiologist says the official news is "no change" in the tumor. This is of course a good thing. The Radiologist also noted that he saw a small change in another portion of his brain that could be consistent with neurofibromatosis.

Dr. Pearson states he does not see the change and is not concerned with this because he does not see other signs of this on his body.

Regardless he says to be safe he wants Caleb to have another MRI in three months. We were of course hoping for a 6 month timeline for his next MRI, but we are thrilled that the tumor has not changed. God continues to work in this process and we are confident He will do a big work through Caleb.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers.... Please keep it up!!!
Austin & Nicole

Short Note...

Just a quick note on Caleb's MRI. Everything went super... Caleb was a very brave little boy and he did such a good job for us. Our appointment was very early in the morning which made it easier for him to go without eating, and the doctors were very good at managing his anxiety.

As far as information we don't really have any yet... we will go back to the doctor on Wednesday afternoon to hear what he has to say about the test. We are praying that he will tell us there is no change... no change it a good thing because it means that the growth (if any at all) is slow. Obviously we are most hopeful that we will at some point be told "hey look at this, it is gone..!" and we will continue to pray to this end.

Thank you all for your concern. I will update you on Wednesday evening.

Austin & Nicole

Caleb Update...

It has been a while now since I have posted to update you on Caleb's progress. It seems like he is growing in every way almost every day. He is jabbering all over the place and frequently has pretend conversations on the phone. He is trying very hard to mimic so much of what we do... which in itself can be a scary thought. He it truly a joy for Nicole and I to watch.

As for his health he is strong as an ox as far as we can tell. He apears to be developing on a normal pace in every way we can see. The tumor appears, as far as we can tell, to not be causing any trouble with his vision, balance or any other possible negative influence.

On May the 31st (Thursday) we will be taking him back to Vanderbilt for his third MRI. This process is not an enjoyable one of course because he has to be sedated and it is just hard to watch. We are confident that he is in teh best of care, but it is still a tough process. The MRI will be given on Thursay and then the following Wednesday we will meet with his doctor to review the findings.

We continue to pray and are hopeful that God will work on his behalf and heal him of this tumor. We are confident that God can and does act in this way, when He wills such. We thank you all for your diligence in prayer to this end. I cannot properly express how thankful we are to hear from so many of you the frequency with which you bring Caleb to God in prayer. This is the greatest expression of your concern you can possibly demonstrate and we are grateful for you all.

For those of you interested in checking out the latest pics click here to see the gallery.

Thank you all again.

Austin & Nicole