Well, whatdoyaknow?  A couple more months have (yet again) passed me by, and I haven’t written anything.  I’ve had SO much to say… a thousand little things I wanted to get off my chest or write down for posterity’s sake, but possessed neither the time nor the energy to do it.  So here’s a short recap.

Moving #1: Ryder’s arm is still slowly moving in the right direction.  Our occupational therapist reports noticing trace amounts of extension in his wrist, and even some increase in the strength of his biceps/triceps and shoulder complex.  As usual, it’s all relative, and not really noticeable in everyday activity, but when gravity and friction are eliminated, we can see that those muscles are working.  We have also noticed that he can extend his thumb a bit more… well enough to smoke most opponents at Mario Bros. on the Wii.  🙂  This is all great news!

Moving #2:  In case you missed it… WE MOVED!  One day we were casually talking about how awesome it would be to live in a home with a huge yard, and a layout that was more conducive to entertaining large groups of people without having to send the children into the master bedroom to play or watch a movie.  Before we knew it, we were touring open houses and scouring Zillow for anything that fit our very lengthy must-have list… and praying like crazy that God would be extremely clear about where/when/IF He wanted us to move.  We’ve been in our new-to-us (old) home for three weeks, and we’re sorta/kinda beginning to maybe feel a little settled.  🙂  It has been an exhausting roller coaster of an experience, and if you’d like our new address, please let me know.

NOT Moving: Did I mention how exhausting moving is?  As soon as we got the keys, we literally didn’t sit down from the moment we peeled our eyelids open till the moment we fell into bed for about a week and a half.  Then one Saturday we had an early Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, and it was all I could do to keep from dozing off in my mashed potatoes.  As soon as our time together ended, I crawled into bed and slept for approximately 30 of the following 36 hours.  True story.  Thankfully this ain’t Ryan’s first Megan’s-sleeping-for-days rodeo.  He took care of the boys and the dog, checked on me every once in awhile to make sure I wasn’t dead, and then just let me keep sleeping.  And luckily for him, it didn’t last five days this time!

Coming out of the Thanksgiving season, we are so thankful for God’s provision and protection throughout the moving process.  We saw very clear answers to specific prayers, and even when things didn’t go our way we could look back afterwards and see that God’s plan was better than ours to begin with.  The boys handled the move very smoothly, which was a huge blessing to us.  As we continue to settle in, our biggest prayer is that this place would be used by God to do great things in His name.

We are also still praying for Ryder.  It’s December now, and I’ll admit I’m walking into this month with a great deal of apprehension.  December has always been a busy month for us, with Christmas/New Year’s, our anniversary, and Evan’s birthday.  But it will take a while before the sting of last year’s bombshell wears off.  I’ve already warned my husband about the tears that are sure to flow at incredibly random and inopportune times… so consider yourselves warned as well.  Not only am I still a zombie with a moving hangover, but also a heartbroken mama who desperately wants to see her baby whole again.  Thank you to all of you who remain on your knees in prayer for our family.

I’m hoping to write more often now that things are a little more “normal” (whatever that means), and hopefully that will include more details about the house, the move, and life in general.  But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this precious, mundane moment between two brothers… :P