Hello From Nebraska!

Well, here we are in front of our new house in Norfolk, NE. We are using the church parsonage which is right next to the church and it is so nice to be able to walk to and from church/work for Ryan. We have been doing tons and tons of unpacking, organizing, painting and decorating and already the house feels like home to us! We are really thankful to have this house to be able to use as we get settled here. I will try to post some pics soon of the inside of the house. Ryan is enjoying jumping right in to the ministry here. He has already traveled with the students at the school to the Nebraska Association of Christian Schools Bible Quizzing and Fine Arts Competition overnight and will be preaching all day this Sunday as Pastor Hess is out of town. He is keeping busy setting up his office as well. I will say it is still strange for me to hear folks call him Pastor Ryan! The people at the church are so sweet, bringing us meals and housewarming gifts. I can't believe we have been here two weeks already! It has been so tiring, but God is good and is giving us the energy we need to get the necessary things done.
Alex is finally paying more attention to Sam--both a good and bad thing. Good because it shows he is coming to grips with reality! Bad because he now wants to give Sam "kisses" all the time. The problem with this is to Alex "giving a kiss" means to stick your forhead out to be kissed. This means that when he "gives a kiss" to poor Sam they just end up bonking heads. We are trying to put a stop to this and encouraging him to kiss Sam's arm, toes, hand, whatever, just not his poor little head!!
This is Sam's new smile! As many of you know we have been struggling with the poor babe, trying to get to the bottom of the severe congestion problem he has been dealing with, on top of the colic. Well, we have switched him to a hypoallergenic formula and started him on some gripe water and things have gotten a lot better. We still have a bad night of walking the floors and crying here and there, but things are much better than they were. And the best part is that we have been able to see the happy side of our baby! We have seen some smiles and enjoyed watching him breathe a little easier!
This is Alex's cheesey grin! He is really enjoying our little trips over to the church and especially the gym. He loves how his voice echoes in the gym and he will just run, run, run while he is yelling out gibber-jabbers and laughing! I gave him a haircut today and he looks so grown! He sure is a fun handful!