Josh is almost 20 months old…hard to believe our “baby” boy will be two in December.  He is such a delight – learning new words every day, understanding most of what we tell him.  Nathan and I have really enjoyed having a newborn and a toddler.  Hannah is sweet and cuddly, and Josh provides the entertainment.  He does his fair share of cuddling, too, though.  Josh has begun telling us when he’s ready for bed.  We spent last week in Virginia with Nathan’s family, and Josh got to play with his older cousin Olivia.  They wore each other out, and one morning, upon hearing me say that Hannah needed a nap, Josh ran upstairs to his bed and asked to lay down.  Ever since then, he says “nap” or “bed” or “night night” when he’s tired.  Nap time and bed time have always been fairly easy with Josh, but now it’s a cinch!  Another sweet story about my boy – we’ve been trying to work on first time obedience with Josh – the idea that delayed obedience is disobedience.  Up until now I’ve not been sure how much he understands about cause and effect or about the language I use when correcting him.  I mean, I know he understands a ton, but I wasn’t sure how much information to hold him responsible for.  Anyways, tonight, before bath time I asked him to clean up his toys.  He shook his head no and tried to run to the bath room.  I walked him back to the living room and instructed him to put his toys in the toy basket.  This started a temper tantrum complete with screaming, etc.  I grabbed his hands and walked him to the first toy and picked it up with him and we “together” carried it to the basket and dropped it in.  More screaming, more crying.  I told him he needed to obey Mommy and clean up.  Screaming, crying, etc.  As I tried to lead him to the next toy, very loud screaming.  I knew he understood the command to “clean up” as he frequently sings the clean up song while picking up his toys.  So I carried him to his room and explained that he needed to obey Mommy, but since he’d refused, he could lay on his bed until he was ready to try again.  I closed the door and waited outside.  After a few minutes of screaming and him trying to open the door, he quieted down and started saying “bey, bey” which is his version of “obey.”  So I went in and asked if he was ready to obey Mommy.  He grabbed his lovey and blanket from his bed, I carried him upstairs, and he immediately picked up the remaining toys and cleaned up.  I cheered for him, hugged and kissed him, and then he had his bath before bed.  What a sweetie!  And how good of God to reassure this mommy that my efforts are worth it. Whew – that was a long story!  Hope you’re not bored.

Well, my baby girl just woke up, so this mama is going to run check on her girl.

Please pray for us that we will have wisdom from heaven as to where to plant a church. It is my fervent desire to serve the Lord with my life, and I want so desperately to go where He would desire me to. I’ll post an update about our meeting later, but please remember to keep us in your prayers. Our meeting is at 11:45 tomorrow. Thank you!

In brief, here are the 10 points of the document:

I. A Commitment to Christ’s Lordship.

II. A Commitment to Gospel-Centeredness.

III. A Commitment to the Great Commandments.

IV. A Commitment to Biblical Inerrancy and Sufficiency.

V. A Commitment to a Healthy Confessional Center.

VI. A Commitment to Biblically Healthy Churches.

VII. A Commitment to Sound Biblical Preaching.

VIII. A Commitment to a Methodological Diversity that is Biblically Informed.

IX. A Commitment to a More Effective Convention Structure.

X. A Commitment to Distinctively Christian Families.

Thank you all for your prayers! We are now back to the drawing board looking for our next step. The Lord has been leading us down an interesting journey, and we are looking forward to seeing where He will take us. Hopefully I can share some stories about our trip, but in the meantime, here are some photos. You can see them all and many more here.

Josh is at a really fun stage – chattering all the time. He’s so sharp – he understands so much although his vocabulary is still limited. It’s been amazing to watch him process things lately. We took him to the Aquarium yesterday with Mom and Dad (aka Grams and Pop Pop), and he LOVED it!
He continues to eat and sleep well, for which we are grateful, and we think he has grown a few inches and put on a little weight since his last doctor appointment. He has two molars now (in addition to 8 other teeth) with one more trying to come through. He is completely mobile now – up and down stairs, anywhere he wants to go. We enjoyed the warmer weather today and spent lots of outside time in the sandbox.

Daddy and Pop Pop are still his favorites, and when Daddy gets home from work, Josh doesn’t want anyone else.

In February we found out that Josh will have a little SISTER – Hannah Ruth. She looked very healthy on the ultrasound and is pretty active (though not quite as active as her brother was at this stage). We are very excited about her upcoming arrival. I’m 25 1/2 weeks, so we’ve still got a ways to go, but this pregnancy sure is flying by!

Nathan loves his job at FBCW, and we are so thankful for the opportunity he has to be mentored by Pastor Johnny this year. He’s traveling a lot, making me more and more grateful to be living with Mom and Dad.

Next week Josh and I are flying (a first) to Florida to spend time with Les and Robby (Mom, Dad, and Megan will be there, too), then Josh goes to spend a week with Nathan’s parents while Nathan and I fly to San Diego with a group of middle schoolers from church. We’re excited about our California trip as we’ll be working alongside some church plants.

That’s all for now. There are some new photos in the gallery if you’re interested.

New Blog: www.nathankmiller.com

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Florida with lots of family! Josh really enjoyed being in a new place with lots of yummy food, people to play with, and several dogs to chase. He was a trooper on the long car rides to and from Florida, but we are all happy to be home again. We are looking forward to going to Virginia for Christmas – it will be his first trip to Roanoke where Peepaw and Meemaw live. And he’ll get to see his cousins Olivia and Michael!

In other family news, Josh is going to be a big brother – SURPRISE!! Many of you may already know, but baby #2 is due June 26, and we are all excited. I’ve felt great so far, and this pregnancy seems to be flying by very quickly since I have someone to chase after all day.

Josh will go for his one-year check up on Monday, and we’ll try to post some stats and recent photos then (including birthday bash photos). I think I hear Josh shredding something in the next room, so I better end this post for now. I sure love being Mommy to Joshua David!!

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Yes, he opened the pantry doors himself and began rolling pickle jars around on the floor.

Don’t worry, Mommy washed his hands right after snapping this photo!

Josh LOVES to walk around this glass table and play with the magazines (which are a “no”).

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This is my favorite. He was crawling around the kitchen last night and found himself under this chair. He is so good at pulling himself up, so he decided to stand up – then realized he was trapped. Then Mommy insisted on leaving him there to catch it on the camera. Poor little boy!

I love this one, too. I’m not sure who/what he was looking at, but he was captivated.

This diaper box gave him more fun than I would have imagined!

Watching the Georgia game (the Gators had the week off) with Daddy.

We’ll be visiting Florida next weekend, then Raleigh the following weekend. If you’re in one of those places, we look forward to seeing you!