Happy Anniversary to Us!

Happy 3rd Anniversary to my best friend and lover! It's been 3 wonderful years and I wouldn't trade a single moment. I love you so much and look forward to what the Lord has in store for us in the years to come!

Memorial Day

On Monday, Tim and I had our friends Joel and Cynetta and Tim and Lori and their kids over for Memorial Day. It ended up being like a 12 hour party! It was fun! I wish we could do that every day. Of course, I took lots of pictures of the kids, but none of the adults...oops! :) Timmy, Tim and Lori's oldest, turns 2 on Sunday so Lori wanted me to try to get some two year old pictures. (thats why there are mostly pictures of him) It didn't work out as well as I would have hoped but here's some of the pictures of the fun we had!

Noah and Timmy played for quite awhile in the sprinkler...



Tim would pinch the hose off therefore making the water go away and then we would tell them to go touch it to turn it back on and of course, they were gullible enough to do it :)

"where'd the water go?"

"Would you stop taking pictures already?!"

pure boy!

And of course, you can't NOT take pictures of this precious guy!

Baby Luke

he loves holding his hands together like this and looking at them...its so cute because he goes cross-eyed!

I guess I did get ONE picture of an adult...this is what Tim did all day after eating TWO massive hamburgers AND a fully loaded brat. He didn't move for quite some time... :)

Our friends Jesse and Ashley were on vacation but we hope to have another one of these get togethers soon and have EVERYONE come!

Working on the house...

Tim and I have absolutely LOVED living in our house and have enjoyed working on some landscaping in the past couple weeks.

From hideous tree and ivy...

to this!

Hopefully in a few years, this will look even more pretty. There will be a big rhododendron in the back to give it some definition.
I came home from work one day to this...

Tim had decorated our septic tank!

We have some cool trees around our yard. At least I think they are cool.

This is a locust tree. They are all over and so beautiful this time of year with these pretty white flowers on them.

Honeysuckle...actually, this is more of a weed that is growing EVERYWHERE in our wooded area, but its very pretty and even a bit fragrant this time of year.

These are blooms from a tulip poplar tree, one of several we have in our yard. The petals are starting to fall off now, but there were pretty yellow flowers everywhere there for awhile.

Tim and I love our home and are so thankful the Lord has given it to us! We got a GREAT deal on it, and the more we are looking into the value of houses around here, the more we realize just how great of a deal we got! It's amazing to me how in the past few months the Lord has both blessed us and brought us through the loss of a baby. "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Quick Trip to Florida

I know its been awhile since I last updated, so now I have a lot to post about. Almost two weeks ago on May 15th, I took a quick trip to Florida to visit with my sister Stephanie and her husband Zach. She had entered this contest for the Florida Governor's Awards and was a finalist and they had a big awards ceremony thing at Sea World with free admission afterwards. Since we have free flight benefits, I thought I should go since none of my other family would be able to be there. Not to mention, Stephanie is almost 23 weeks pregnant with my second nephew!! :) It turns out, Stephanie won FIRST place in her category of teaching kids economics! So that was exciting. She won a total of $800! Here's a few pictures...

Receiving her award

Her pretty trophy

Stephanie and Zach


It was actually really cool there at Sea World for this thing. We had a really good sit down meal including DELICIOUS steak and they also brought this seal for us to meet. We could touch him and everything. He was such a character! It would be so fun to work with him! Also, as you will see in a couple pictures below, they brought a parrot too! :)

Here's some other fun animals...

super cool fish!!

super scary fish! Look at those teeth!!

And of course you can't forget the dolphins! :) They were so funny! I got to touch one of them too! Kind of gross!

Its amazing to me to think about how people can honestly believe that all of these amazing creatures just evolved from slime. I love the fact that I believe in a creative Creator!

So, it was a fun trip, but very short...I think I spent a total of 36 hours there or something...not long at all. But I also got to relax in Stephanie and Zach's pool for a little bit and hang out with their massive cat!

Mother's Day

It's interesting how much Mother's Day has changed for me over the years. 5 years ago, I was only 19 and wasn't even beginning to think about how someday I would be a mom. I gave cards and gifts to my mom and grandmothers, but the thought never crossed my mind that I would someday be a mom. 2 years ago, I was close to celebrating my first year of marriage and there still was no glimmer of children, but I knew that someday, I wanted to be a mom, and I couldn't wait until my new husband and I would start our family. Just a little over 3 months ago on February 4th, my husband of almost 3 years and I celebrated the fact that I was pregnant. We had been trying for over 6 months and were completely overjoyed about the start of our little family. I remember talking with Cynetta, one of my close friends about it, and I remember her saying "do I need to remind Tim that this will be your first mother's day?" I laughed at the time and never really thought more about it, until this past Sunday. As I have written on here before and as most of you know, Tim and I lost our precious baby to an ectopic pregnancy, diagnosed February 26th. It has been the most challenging 3 months of my life physically, emotionally, and most of all spiritually. I have questioned God, been mad at Him, and felt like I had no purpose in life. On Sunday, I gave my mom a hug and said "one day I will give you grandchildren" to which she said "you already have." My heart wrenched at the thought as I had spent so much time focused on myself and the fact that I wasn't pregnant anymore, having a "woe is me" attitude, that I had not thanked God and rejoiced about the fact that I did in fact have a baby. If I truly believe that life begins at conception (which I do) I have a little child in heaven with Jesus. My child will never have to experience pain or heartache. My child will never skin their knee or break a bone. My child will never know sin and failures. My child will only know Jesus and the glory of heaven. I rejoice in that fact. And I rejoice in the fact that even though Mother's Day was not as happy as I wish it could have been for myself (selfish, I know), I still was able to celebrate the fact that I was a mother...just not yet a mommy.
I also got to rejoice with my sister, Joanna, who after 4 years, finally was able to be a mommy. She and her husband were blessed back in September when a young girl decided to give up her baby. Little Andrew Bryce is now almost 8 months old and so stinking cute!! Here are some pictures I took in our visit to West Virginia this past weekend!


Look at those skinny little legs!! :) There's not even cute little rolls to pinch!

Garage Sale Saturday

Garage Sale Saturday...one of the most anticipated days of the year for the Schramm household. It ranks right up there with Christmas and Birthdays. A day filled with literally 100's of garage sales in one city. Someone else's trash being my treasure for just a few dollars. A day that we ask off work for weeks in advance. A day that we tell our entire family about in hopes that they too will come and take part. A day in which, rain or shine, we will be out walking and then walking some more in high hopes of finding that perfect trinkit or thingamabob. That day was today. May 3, 2008 from approximately 9am-3pm. Our hopes were high as we headed out this morning. We didn't let the rain slow us down or keep us inside. We were determined to find those good deals. Last year we went to over 100 garage sales in one single day and came out with picture frames, shelves, tonka trucks, tools, and the list goes on. This year, we walked away from the long dreay day with....nothing....thats right, NOTHING! An entire year anticipating this day for NOTHING! We are in utter amazment. We are at home now, recovering. Cards and flowers are appreciated.

No, in reality, we did buy one thing which was a shelf to hold collectibles (for my boyds bears). But still, it was a disappointing day. We couldn't believe we didn't find one thing that we felt like we needed or could use. But at the same time, it made us realize how blessed we are to have what we do have and realize that we don't have a need unmet. Our Lord has provided for us over and above what we deserve and we are so thankful for that. I am currently looking out the window of our new house into my 1.2 acre backyard with the sun peaking through the rain clouds and can't help but think about what a great God we serve. I don't know how that is connected to garage sale saturday, but its true and I wanted to share it!

So, Tim fertilized our yard with some of the leftover stuff from last year...he was trying to do it real fast and knew he wasn't going to have enough for the whole yard, but wanted to fertilize what he could, not thinking that would be a problem....here is the result...


the fertilizer definately works!!!

So, we have refertilized it and it does look a lot better...but yeah...I'm sure our new neighbors had a good laugh about that. I know I did!