This week could be the week!!

So this Thursday I go for my 6 month check up! I am so excited to see how much our little one has grown. It is definitely kicking more than ever before. And what is even more exciting is that Casey got to feel it for the first time this past weekend! So we know that growth is definitely taking place in there :)

In addition to seeing the changes, we also really hope to find out the sex of the baby. My prayer is usually something along the lines of, " Lord, please let it flash us this week!" HAHA. Silly prayer, but we are really hoping to learn more about this little one's identity. Either way as I have said before, we will be super happy with a boy or a girl, but I am ready to start some planning with the 4 months we have left. I know that is still quite a bit of time, but I am already getting the itch to nest I think.

Hope everyone has a happy Monday!

Oh what a day... but thank God for Joy!

So today has been nuts! Well really all this week I should say. Between work, our new puppy and our sweet Ochie, waking up at 2am with a swollen face and hives all over his body, I am down right wore out. The Lord is definitely preparing me for children through our dogs. Just last week we started potty training Buster and then this week, we had to take Ochie on an emergency visit to the vet as well. It was so sad to see our little guy so helpless. I just know that as I venture into the land of motherhood, it will be hard for me to watch my children become sick too. But God has been growing Casey and I in our team work, especially in the middle of the night, when one doggy needs to potty and the other has thrown up and cannot stop scratching his swollen face.

The funny thing about God though is that despite the stress of these situations, I surprisingly have so much joy and have so much expectation for being a parent. In the world things like this deter people from wanting the responsibility of caring for a child. However, when God is leading you in it, you can approach the responsibility with little to no fear. It is such a secure and wonderful feeling.

So now after some Benadryl and an entire apt cleaning, Ochie is seeming back to normal. We think that he is having an allergic reaction to some sort of grass that is blooming. Apparently this is not uncommon for dogs and since he already is on a prescription diet for food allergies, it would not be surprising for him to have a seasonal allergy as well.

With all of this experience with allergies lately, Casey and I have been laboring in prayer for our child. "We rebuke allergies in Jesus name!"

Well with little sleep, this is all I have for today.

So we did it...Meet Buster!

Thank you to everyone who gave us advice. We really appreciate it! Although I must say that we got Buster before I was able to read all of your comments. However, the insight was helpful even after the fact .

Like Angel said, Ochie has a lot of energy and requires alot of attention, which is not his fault. That is just how he was created. So in efforts to ease the blow of less attention, once the baby comes we are trying an experiment. Casey and I have agreed if this experiment is not successful, then our second little puppy will have to go to a better home. But already, we think that this experiment is going to work. I must also say that we have a lot of faith and prayers that we are riding on, as I labored in prayer the day after we met "Buster" to make sure that we were making the right decision.

So now that I have explained our situation a little more, let me present to you are newest member of the Sheffield Clan....Buster!




Check out his sweet little face! Can you guess what type of mutt he is?




He is about 2 months old according to the animal shelter and apparently his dominant breed is German Shepherd.





They were not 100% sure what he was mixed with. They are guessing a lab or some other floppy eared dog. All I needed to know was that they didn't suspect Pit Bull! And they assured me that they didn't see that being the case at all.

Any guesses as to what he could be mixed with? I am interested to hear what you think!





Here are our little guys cuddling. While this is not the usual way you would see them. They play alot! But after playing for awhile, the two always need a little rest.














The fun thing about buster is that he won't put up with Ochie pushing him around too much. He may be small, but he can definitely hold his own for the most part, and I think that has been a bit of shock to Ochie...but a good one for sure!




Well, there you have it, the Sheffield family has grown once again. I assure you though, that we are going to keep the cap at 5 members for a little bit before we go adding any more!

Have a great weekend and Happy Easter!

Wierd Topic...

Casey and I are wondering what the deal is with people cutting their finger nails in public?!?!?! Over the last few days, both in Destin and here, we have seen I think 3 people cutting their nails out in the open for everyone to see. When I say out in the open I mean sitting on a bench at Silver Sands Outlet Mall or in the Pharmacy checkout line at Walmart. Is this wierd to anyone else?

Play Hard...Sleep Hard...

So after his weekend of fun with the Rios Fam, Ochie officially crashed for the whole day Monday. I have never seen him so worn out:



Home sick most of yesterday, Casey said that he remained in this same spot on the couch for hours...LOL. Once he finally came to last night, he seemed so bored without his friends. He literally paced the house looking for something to do. I think we might need to get him a little friend to play with...

What are your thoughts on this? Is this a bad idea with baby on the way? or good idea, because it could help lessen the blow of a new family member come July?

My Awesome Husband

Let me just say my husband is such a great man! As an early birthday present, he took me to Panama City and Destin for the weekend to shop and relax. Despite the non-sunny weather conditions, we had a blast. It was so nice to eat out and not have to cook or make our bed or do any of the other weekend chores we usually have. And it was so nice to just have some time to ourselves, without outside distractions. Like I said in the previous post, we even got to leave Ochie behind with the Rios Family. And boy, what blessing that was. (Although I must admit, I missed him terribly!) Here is a picture of him with Nico and Bebo, just chilling in their crate:

Ochie had a blast with the boys and we can tell because all he has done since we have been home is sleep! :) Also, I must mention that we came back to ochie having been trained. While we were gone, the Rios's realized that Ochie responded really well to being squirted with a water bottle when he was doing something he shouldn't. We have probably tried every tactic but that to discipline him and finally we have found something that works!!! Praise God and thank you Angel and Christina for taking the time to work with him :)

Finally, over the weekend we were also able to visit with family as well because Casey coordinated with them a suprise party for me :) What a blessing it is to have a suprise party even at the age of 24! And let me tell you the cake they got me was amazing. Here is a picture:

It was called the Chocolate Ganache Supreme Cake. Seriously, if you are a chocolate lover, this is where it is at!

So all in all, we had a wonderful relaxing weekend and I was so blessed by my honey, my family and friends!

Have a great day!

Strength in Joy

So I must repent for my complaining. After being reminded about Sunday's message "Strength in Joy," I realized that yesterday I should have been choosing to have joy at work despite the boring conditions. In fact, I should be thankful that I still get paid regardless of whether there is work for me to do or not. Once this week is over, work will be busier than ever. So I need to choose to see the blessing in this time and rejoice in the fact that I have a chance to rest and have a break from my usual 8-5 life. Joy is a choice, and today I choose joy. It is also my mission to discover what God's will for me today is.

In preparing for our life group tomorrow, I came upon a great paragraph in the lesson that really stuck out to me.

" Joy is a spiritual force inside of you. It is from God and is a part of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Satan wants to steal your joy. He wants you to lose strength for the fight. He will attack us and steal our joy when we choose to let him. The bottom line is he is after your joy. He wins if he can take it. Don’t let him take it! Choose joy!"

I am not going to allow Satan to steal my joy, not even in the small things. He can't have any of it! As I prepare for my great transition, I want to know that I fought the good fight of faith the whole way through and never surrendered my joy to the Devil.

Another great point the lesson makes, that stuck out to me as well was:

"Pure joy is not happiness. "Happiness" comes from the word "happen." Happiness, therefore, is based on what is happening. If something good is happening, then you are happy!"

God desires us to seek pure joy, not happiness. Happiness is not something that endures eternally and is easily forgotten with every change in circumstance. Pure joy however is everlasting and a much more steady compass for us to use as we walk through this life. Whether it is times of trials or times of blessings, if we choose to have joy in the midst- we will be able to see God's will for our situation/life much more clearly. And out of that it will be much more able to stay in his will with our faith, prayer and attitudes.

So as I said earlier, today I command my soul to choose joy regardless of how I feel.

Have a happy Tuesday!

Spring Break Begins

Ok so today is not such an interesting day for the Sheffield Family. It is the first day of Spring Break and there is not a student in sight that i need to advise....So why am I getting paid to sit at my desk, just to have nothing to do??? I am trying to be excellent, but seriously there is nothing to do, but some minor filing- which I will probably end up saving for later on in the week...Oh well. I just pray that these first few days go by fast because Casey and are taking a long weekend to PC and Destin! YAY :) That is when the Sheffield Family Spring Break will begin. The way we see it, we probably want to go ahead and take a few trips before the baby comes, because once "it" is here and I say "it" because still have no clue as to what the gender is, we will probably be on lock down for a while. So all that to say i am looking foward to a weekend of just us with out Ochie. I love him, but thanks to the lovely Rios family, we will get a nice little break from him as well :) I just pray that he behaves and continues to get along with their boys!

In more exciting news, Cheryl Brown is now officially MRS. CHERYL LILLY!!! YAY :) This weekend Cheryl and John were married and it was an amazing event!!! God was so present in their ceremony and just seeing two people faithful to wait on God's timing for so long was so special. They even wrote their own vows, which were incredible. Talk about a happy tear fest! So in honor of them i leave you a few fun pics from the weekend:)

Here is the beautiful bride!

Here is Cheryl, I and baby Sheff :)

And here is Mr. and Mrs. John Lilly!!!

Well I think that is all for today! Happy Monday everyone :)

A letter of welcome to Caroline Grace Bell!

The last couple days I have been overjoyed knowing that our prayers have been answered. It is such an amazing experience to stand and believe for something as a group and watch God's blessing unfold...

Dear Caroline,

We are so excited that you are here! You are truly a testimony to God's faithfulness. You have forever changed our church and have been a catalyst of faith for so many of us. We look foward to meeting you and cannot wait to see in person what a beautiful young lady you are and how you will continue to change the world in the years to come as you grace it with your your presence and beauty.

Love,

The Sheffield Family

P.S We look foward to play dates with you when our little one get's here!

Here we go!

So I am officially back on the band wagon of blogging now. After reading so many other inspiring blogs I have decided it's time that join in on the fun. For my first blog I just want to share with you my exciting update regarding Baby Sheff. We are now 20 weeks along (half way there...woo hoo!). And while the gender remains a mystery, we were still excited to find out that our baby is healthy and that no complications are in sight. Praise God! Also this month I only gained 2 lbs. Which was also great news considering last month I put on a whopping 10...talk about feeling a little insecure. Which brings me to something funny. I never thought that I would be insecure about my size while pregnant. I mean shoot you are pregnant..aren't you supposed to gain weight??? And while yes you are suppose to, not everyone put's it on the same. Some people however don't realize that and all it took was a few people asking me if I was carrying twins or guessing that I was farther along than I am to start the insecurity rolling. However, thankfully at the same time God also has been using other great friends in my life to encourage me about my ever growing belly. So as for lessons learned from this story. Never try and guess how far along someone is, it really is awkward for both you and them when you are wrong.

Well that's all I got for today. I hope you enjoyed my stream of conciousness :)