New

Some new things have been happening here lately, and I'm doing one big blog post about all of them!

Way back in April, Bill's mom and dad came for the weekend to help install NEW doors at our house.  We had french doors in our living room that were leaking through to the basement... and our door in the kitchen wasn't the best either.  here are some pictures, courtesy of Bill's mom, of the installing:

kitchen door install

hey look, there's a huge hole in our house!

like father, like son... :)

Another NEW thing is baby food!  Connor loves trying new fruits and veggetables.  As of todat, he is eating applesauce, squash, carrots, and peas in addition to rice cereal.  Our stockpile of baby food has been waiting since before Connor was born, and he seems to be trying to make up for lost time!  Uncle Paul and Aunt Sandy have provided us with enough baby food to last a long time! :) 

thumbs up for carrots!

Our fiddler crab was missing for a few days about 2 months ago.  He reappeared, without his "fiddle" - the large claw on the left that is his defense against the 'preditors' in our tank.  Since then, we've been watching what we thought was a very slow growth of the new claw.  Well... the other day, there he was in the corner, not really moving,... I thought he was dead.  We came down the next morning to discover:

A NEW claw had fully developed under his exoskeleton (is that what it is called?) and he had to shed that layer for the claw to have room.

who you lookin' at???

Here he is taking a look at himself at the back of the tank.  You can kind of see the full sized claw.  I was slightly grossed out by the whole thing, but I'm glad he has made a full recovery.

The last NEW thing to happen lately is my job situation.  In case you don't already know, I put a leave of absence in at my school for a year.  I am currently becoming licensed to teach Kindermusik and will start teaching in the fall with a lady named Gretchen.  She runs the business end of it, and I will be responsible for teaching the lessons.  I will be working two nights a week.  God is so good to our family.  I met with Gretchen the last day of school this year - I didn't have to wait for something to come along, no worrying, no stress. 

I've also decided, with Bill's encouragement, to become more serious about selling cards.  For about two months now I've been selling cards to people at our church - taking orders a few at a time, not a big deal, just a little spending money.  Now that I won't be working in the fall full time, I felt like I could make more of a business out of it, instead of just small things.  So... I signed up to do the Dutch Festival Craft Show here in Hanover.  In order to better market myself, I've been working on a name for the business and making some business cards to have available for the craft fair.  The name for this NEW business is Castle Bay Cards.  Bill and I spent a car trip trying to come up with something - it was hard.  Then, I looked up the meanings of my first and last name on the internet.  Hoffman means Castle, and Laura can mean Bay. ... so I made that the name of the card business. :)  We covet your prayers about this process as we figure out all there is to know about business stuff - we're working through it and know that God will lead the way!

one example of many cards ready for the craft fair!

that's all the NEW stuff I can think of for now ~ which is plenty! :)