I love Lucy, my Lucy...

Today, my baby turns two. This is a hard day for me, because it means Lucy is officially no longer a puppy. She is a DOG! But really, besides puppies being ridiculously cute, that is really all they have going for them. I do not miss the days of potty training, biting, chewing, or running across the apartment dragging the whole roll of toilet paper with her :)

Its amazing, one day all that craziness just stopped. All of a sudden, she knew our routines, she knew what bugs us, she knew what we like. All of a sudden...she just became a dog.

This puppy has walked with me through some very hard times over the past two years, and my life has been better because she's been in it. Forgive me for this cheesy post, but I just love my girl!

We are so lucky because we have gotten to see Lucy through every stage of her life. Her mom is Nick's brother's dog, so we knew she was coming before she was even conceived. We knew within the hour that she was born and got to immediately see pictures. She was the last of a litter of three...the smallest, and the only girl. (I have pictures from the day she was born, but I am too tired to find them and scan them in.)

Just as quickly as I could convince Nick to take me, we traveled to Arkansas to meet her. The picture above is the first time we saw Lucy, she was about three weeks old. Her eyes hadn't even opened yet. By the end of the weekend, just before we left, she started opening her eyes and scooting around for the first time. I was the first one to notice her eyes were opening, as I was holding her, so I like to think we had a special connection from the start.

For a while, we weren't sure if we would get one of the boys or the girl. We wanted the girl, but the owner of the dad dog got first dibs. It was a very tense few weeks waiting for her to decide if she wanted a puppy and if so, which one. My heart was set on that little girl :)

Little known fact: had we gotten one of the boys, it would have been named Jude.

One night, Bryan (Nick's brother) texted him, and asked: "Which song would you rather hear? Hey Jude or Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?" Lucy it was!

Happy birthday Lucy Loo Jones!

aka LL Cool J

aka Lukey

aka Luke

aka Lucy Lootle

aka Lucy Goosey

aka Luce Goose

aka Goose

aka Loo Loo

aka Juicy

aka Ju Ju

aka Ju Ju Bean

aka Juge (so I still can sing "Hey Juge!")

We've got sticks!

Today when we drove by our lot during lunch (like we always do), the surveyor was there! They put up sticks to mark where the house will be, which was cool to see, because we've tried to guess, but it is hard to figure it out amongst the forest of trees.

Sadly, it looks like we wont be able to save any trees for our front yard. :( But we are going to have lots of big, beautiful trees in the backyard. And I think we will have quite a few on the sides too. I think there will be a cluster of trees beside the house...maybe those will be considered in the front yard. Its so hard to visualize it right now!

So I believe the next step is that they will come out and clear out all the "junk trees," leaving just the nice big oaks. Then we will get to walk through with them and mark the ones we want to keep (as many as possible!). And thennnn...I think they are going to start building the foundation!! :)

In other news: as we were walking the lot today after they put up the house markers, I wasn't paying attention and my leg ran RIGHT into a low-to-the-ground cactus! Cactus needles are apparently of the devil. You can't PULL them out, because they just break. So now I have a million little remnants of cactus needles stuck in my skin. OUCH!

And on a happier note: tonight we went to a free concert on the Baylor campus and got to see one of my favorite bands, Tenth Avenue North. They were incrediable! I loved laying on the blanket and looking at the stars while listening to some great music. :)

Aren't we all just waiting for someday?

Nick keeps saying "When are they going to officially tell us 'you really are building a house'?"

Throughout this process it has felt like we've gone through so much meeting and planning and waiting, so its never really felt official.

Tonight we got the bill in the mail for our first installment of the down payment.

I think it just got official.

This is the first day of the rest of your life...

I feel very blessed.

After 2 and a half years of feeling like I was living in a fog of bad jobs, I now have the job that I dreamed would open up back in college. I don't think that I ever really truly thought it would happen.

For the past 2 and a half years, I have been searching for a certain feeling. Somewhere between settled and content and fulfilled. Its been amazing how quickly I have "settled" in this new role, a feeling I never could quite get to anywhere else. I never could see how any of the other jobs fit into my plan for the rest of my life.

Oh, the elusive plan.

I can't stand not having a plan. Even if I know it wont happen exactly the way I plan it, I just feel better thinking I know how the next 20 or so years are going to go. You don't know how much I have stressed out over what the middle name of my second daughter will be (that's the only missing piece of my "three-kids, two-girls-and-a-boy" plan that isn't figured out yet). Sadly, I am serious.

What can I say? I'm a girl who likes to have it all figured out.

With that said, I am very happy to say that the ball has been set rolling on a very important part of our plan!

We are building a house! In the neighborhood I've been dreaming of since the day I realized we would be staying in Belton. 5 minutes from campus.

We are just beside ourselves with excitement (well, okay, maybe me more than Nick).

Here's a picture to prove it is actually happening!

Its been a long road of many meetings and lots and lots of waiting, but I think they will finally start building soon. It will be nice to actually see some progress when we go look at the lot, rather than the same grouping of trees and dirt that we have "checked on" every day for the past month!

Stay tuned...