Our sweet little guy!

Well, I guess I never got enough motivation (or time) to post the pregnancy pictures of myself before I had our newest little guy. Yes, it was a boy, and he is amazing. To make a long story short, I prayed and prayed that God would allow me to go into labor with this pregnancy because I knew that it was my last chance. We had planned to get my tubes tied during my planned c-section with this baby. We decided not to find out what the gender of the baby was. I was scheduled for a c-section on November 4th, but to my great surprise, I went into labor on October 21st. I called my mom around 5pm and told her that I thought that "this was it". I'm sure glad that I decided to call her because I ended up going into the hospital around 8pm with contractions only 2 minutes apart and getting pretty painful, and she had an 8 hour drive in order to come see me have this little one. I had all back labor; I could feel my stomach tightening quite a bit, but I was more concentrated on the fact that my back felt like it could brake with every contraction. I was very relieved when they told me around 11pm that they were going to go ahead and continue with a c-section immediately since it was obvious that the baby was definitely coming soon. At 11:42 pm Declan Joel Emerick was born. He weighed 6 lbs, 4.5 oz., and was 20 1/2" long. My mother finally arrived at 1 am; just after I had been taken to my recovery room. It was all magical and amazing. I felt so glad that God had heard my prayer, and that He was gracious to allow me to go into labor for my final baby. That's pretty much got us all caught up, so without further ado...... here he is!
Declan is now 3 months, and getting so big. His siblings adore him. He is rarely left alone long enough to be on the floor for more than a few minutes. Now we are just working on getting his older brother Weston potty trained. Wes just turned 2 in December, and we are soooooo ready for him to be a "big boy". I'm gonna try to keep a blog updating our potty training success, but with 4 kids and all, who know's how often I'll be able to have a free moment to update. We shall see.

It's been too long!

I can't believe that it has been over a year since our last update on this blog. I guess you all would like to know if we ever got our house, huh? And what we’re up to lately?

Well, we were asked to turn the house over to the bank before even making a single payment. We were trying not to be too disappointed, but felt very defeated. Just before we signed the final papers giving it all up, we received a call from the owner of the company that built our house. He offered to write off $20,000 of the money that we owed him so that the house would appraise for more than we owed. All in all, it took 8 months from the time the house was finished in February for the permanent loan to close in October, but God worked it all out. I look back and wonder if all that time what we perceived as hassle and heart ache was actually God trying to help us with that extra $20,000 that we just didn't have, and maybe teach us a little about patience.

We didn’t have the money for any landscaping, or even a sprinkler system for the house, but we were finally in it. We were going to wait until next tax year to put in a backyard, but our church family surprised Ryan with a $500 gift card to the Home Depot as a Graduation/Ordination present. Then we were blessed by one of our church members with free sod. God provided our entire backyard at no cost to us. We added some drain rock around the back of the house, and some bark all around the edges of the grass, and our yard is looking beautiful. And now we are excited to save for a fence! Hopefully that will come in the next 2 years.

Now, on to the family update. Ryan graduated from Nazarene Bible College this past May with a double major; a Bachelors in Bible and Theology, and also in Pastoral Ministry. I couldn't help but tear up as he walked across the stage; the first in his immediate family to graduate with a 4 year degree. I was so proud of all he had accomplished. He had worked as a full time pastor, husband, and father, while doing almost full time college for 6 whole years. 1 week prior to Ryan's graduation was his ordination service. He was a licensed minister, but wanted to confirm that his call to be a pastor was a lifetime call. First we stood together before the ordained elders and were asked a lot of questions. Thankfully, I only had a few to answer. Ryan, on the other hand, answered a lot of very tough questions, and did a great job defending God's call on his life. When it was all over, the group of elders agreed with us that this call on both of our lives was definitely a lifetime call. We stood in front of about 600 people and formally accepted God's call for Ryan and our family. It was an amazing experience; one we will treasure for the rest of our ministry.

Last, but not least, we were also blessed earlier this year with the news of the impending arrival of our 4th (and final) baby this coming November. We decided to be surprised on the gender because it is our last baby. We'll find out in about 12 weeks or so whether or not we'll have an even number, or if it'll be 3 against 1 for Hannah. Either way, we feel so grateful that God has blessed us with all 4 of our miracle babies.

I'm hoping to update soon with house pictures, and pictures of my expanding belly, so check back soon!

A bump in the road, er...well, mountain.

So... the house is finished, and has been for the past 3 weeks. That was the good news. Now for the not so good news... we are still not cleared to move in, and have no idea of when it may be POSSIBLE. Here are some of the finished pictures to share with you all:My beautiful kitchen with gorgeous cranberry maple cabinetry, black appliances, and a black sink that looks like stone. The floor is all dusty from the construction process, but we'll clean it up...someday.

The view of the kitchen/dining/living rooms complete with carpet.

Our HUMONGOUS master bathroom. I think it's technically called a powder room, because the toilet and shower are in another room off of this one.

This is the kids' bathroom. It won't seem very big when they're older and fighting over time, but it's the perfect size now.

Some of you have been asking us when we are going to move in, and the short answer is "not sure", so I thought I'd take a moment to share the longer, more detailed answer.

There were rules made in the last 2 months that effect the speed and efficiency of the appraisal process. All homes have to appraised before the bank will loan you the money to purchase the home. The new rules specifically state that a mortgage broker can no longer contract their own appraiser, the appraiser is now chosen from a master pool of appraisers that can be located as far away as 4 hours from us here in Bend. In lieu of specific, boring details, I will say that the appraiser who was contracted failed to show up for 2 weeks in a row. After much complaining on the part of our mortgage broker, the appraiser went out last Monday to view the house so he could do the job. Finally, on Thursday our mortgage broker received the WRONG papers from the appraiser. Supposedly that was fixed and we would be getting the appraisal on Monday. Wrong! Then Today arrived with not so good news. The appraisal finally made it's way into our mortgage brokers hands, and was listed approximately $20,000 below our building cost. As of now, the bank that is supposed to give us a permanent loan to pay off our construction loan will not finance us for a house that is "worth" less than it cost us to build and we currently owe. We cannot move into our house until the permanent loan is complete and has paid off the construction loan. We are awaiting an appeal and hopefully a new appraisal before we find out if the construction loan company is going to foreclose on our house before we even get a chance to move in. We are hoping and praying that this is not the case, but there is nothing more that can be done on our part. The only bump, er... mountain in the way is the appraisal. Our mortgage broker seems to think that we have good grounds for an appeal and a new appraisal given the fact that the appraiser only used foreclosed/bank owned, and short sale properties to determine the value of our brand new home. He did not, however, compare our home to ANY non-foreclosed home sales which make up 60% of all the homes sold this month here in Bend. So now we wait.... and wait.... and probably wait some more, until we find out what to do with this problem. Either we will be denied the appeal process and the construction loan company will foreclose, or the appeal will go through and we are looking at probably another 3 weeks or more until we can sign the final papers and move in. We shall see! We could use your prayers.

Weston updates

We haven't blogged new pictures of West lately, so here's just a few of his sweet little face.

Hannah was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz last Halloween, and this day she thought it would be cute to put her Toto purse on Weston's head. She was right. It was pretty cute! I wish you could hear Hannah's laugh every time West would put his head back and knock the purse off. He would giggle and smile when his sissy laughed. What a great memory.

This is our children's pastor Cathy holding Weston. He turned 6 months on the 2nd of June. He looks so big in this picture.

In the middle of a laugh with daddy. This is one of my favorites.

I walked into the bedroom one day to see that Hannah had shared her Sophie bunny with Weston. She told me she thought that he would like to sleep with an animal too like she and Riley do. It was one of those moments where I just had to smile for a second before I explained the importance of NEVER putting anything in the bed with Weston unless she asks mom and dad first so we can make sure it's safe for him. Lesson learned and memory made; it was a good day.

Random pictures of Hannah & Riley

I call this one ANNOYED!

I love this picture! Hannah looks so pleased with the job that she did on Riley's hair, while Riley does not look QUITE as pleased. I think they both wish that Hannah had a baby sister to play with. "Look mom, Riley looks pretty". Hilarious!!!

Hannah & Riley Easter 2009. Posting a little late I know, but we have been pretty busy with all the new house stuff. And speaking of the new house...

This about sums it up for Hannah & Riley for the last 4 months; watching movies while mom and dad work on the new house.

Pillars, front porch, and cabinetry

Ryan's dad came over from Newport, Oregon to help him build our front porch railing. He was a big help and Ryan enjoyed being able to share one of our house projects with his dad. Overall it was a great experience and it turned out BEAUTIFUL, just as I imagined it would look. Here are a few pictures of the journey:
Framing around the columns

Using the nail gun to secure the framing

Column framing completed

Porch railing finished (picture complete with Hannah posing like a "fairy")

A very proud father and son. Good job Honey. I LOVE it!


At the same time that Ryan and Roy were working hard on our front porch, the finish carpenter was working on installing our cabinetry, baseboard molding, and doors. I did not get to take a picture of the baseboard molding or the doors, but I did get a picture of our kitchen cabinets as they were being installed. They are such a beautiful, rich color.

The estimated move-in time we have been given is the end of May. We still have quite a bit of stuff that we have agreed to do before we can get permanent occupancy. We have to putty all the nail holes in the baseboards, paint the baseboards, doors, door casings, and interior window moldings, and continue to clean up the mess from construction. We're in the home stretch now (no pun intended).

Front porch, pillars, & yard, er...well...rocks

View off the front porch

close-up of the front door and porch

This is the front of the house, complete with the deck, pillars, and the dirt filled up to near the bottom of the deck. It looks a lot more normal now, instead of massively tall. We have an estimated move in date of the end of May. It's coming so fast now. We are excited.

One day this weekend while Ryan was working on the house, 5 deer wandered into the neighbors house behind our backyard and he got this shot of them.