And Baby Makes Three...

Wheew... a ton of stuff has happened since our last post. We are so sorry it has taken us so long, but goodness, we have been crazy busy! Here is our life since September in highlighted form!

October 15, 2010: We're having a baby?! This was the day we found out that we were going to be welcoming a little Brock-li into our lives... Marcus will have to tell you the number of times and ways I had to tell him that we were expecting before it sunk in. It was pretty hilarious! Exactly 16 pregnancy tests later, we were for sure having a little one.

The rest seems like a blur really. We were wrapping our heads around the new addition and praising God for the blessing of course.

Thanksgiving and Christmas: Weeks 8-15 were the hardest for our household. Whoever said that morning sickness was just in the morning LIED.... I was sick all day everyday, couldn't walk from the couch to the bathroom. Couldn't eat, couldn't ride in the car without a specially designed Marcus Brock vomit catcher... No complaints over here, just telling it like it is. I thank my awesome husband and family for putting up with the comatose version of myself over the holidays. My mom was able to get some good ole East Texas love from the Brock family over thanksgiving and from what I can remember while fading in and out of sickly sleep, EVERYONE had a blast. We spent Christmas in East Texas as well and it appeared that Brock-li was starting to settle in to her new home, hence my settled tummy.

New Years: We ventured off to Atlanta for a week of eating and relaxing after Christmas. It was great to get out of our city and explore. And my tummy held up just enough to allow me to enjoy little tastes of the scrumptiousness that is Atlanta. We had a blast and just spending time together was the greatest part. We spent New Years eve at the house and I sipped non-alcoholic champagne from the couch, while Marcus enjoyed an assortment of beverages during his own private New Years party! LOL! Pretty funny.

Marcus' Birthday: We celebrated Marcus' birthday on January 8th by getting some hardwood floors and eating a marvelous dinner at Bailey's Prime. I am so blessed to have him as my husband and to be able to share him with the world for another year is amazing...

The Big Reveal: January 19th was the big reveal for Brock-li, girl or boy??? Marcus and I had hunches that we were having a girl. He had dreams even before we were pregnant about little bows and mini-me's running around. And sure enough, the tech said, :You are having a little princess" Marcus' heart melted and then his face filled with worry. The first thing he said was, "She will not be allowed to talk to BOYS"" Really?!?!? Ba ha ha ....

We are currently preparing the nursery and getting ready for Hayden Averi's arrival. God has blessed us so much and we just are in awe by His wonderful mercies. We are looking forward to some awesome friends getting married in March and in July!! The return of the Murry's from Japan in June. Finally selling this house! And of course Hayden's birth!

I still can't believe we have been chosen to be parents! Oh Hayden, please don't think we are weird.

We hope these updates have helped our family both far and near. We are so thankful that Grandma Brock is healing and that she is recovering well! God is sooo good!

Be blessed...

Marcus, Corrie, and Hayden!

Almost 6 months

Next week will mark 6 MONTHS of marriage! Whoa nelly. It seems like it has flown by, but tons has occurred in our short time of marriage. We are still working on selling the house, but thankfully two of the three houses that we have narrowed it down to are still available. I will be sure to post a better update shortly. Marcus and I are about to read the books, "The Power of the Praying Wife/Husband. I wanted to share a passage from the husband version that I snagged on the internet.

Back to life, back to reality

Sorry blog fans… Its been a while… The Brocks have been running around and we are finally able to sit and breathe for a spell. We are almost to our 5th month of marriage! Can you even believe it? Life has been happening so fast.

Life highlights from the Brocks:
1. We found a church!!! Our search has almost ended. God has been leading us to join and begin learning and growing at McKinney Fellowship Bible Church! We love it and invite you to join us if you are ever in the area.
2. Buddy is still lazy. See pic below!

3. Our house is STILL on the market, but we have been blessed with a wonderful new realtor and we know that it is all about Gods timing. See pics below of the top 3 houses that we have on our list for the Brock casa as of today!

4. We were featured in a Bridal Magazine! :) It’s on newsstands! Grab it! Brides of North Texas

5. I, Corrie, got to watch my sister birth 7 babies! She is the best OB/GYN in the country if you ask me (but I might be a little bias). See facebook for a pic!

Now, on to juicy details of the Brock world, well not really. Everyone keeps asking, “So, what’s different now that you are married?” So we present to you the Top 3 Things That We Have Noticed Since We’ve Been Married:

1. The bed is made. I, Corrie, have never ever made my bed, on purpose. My philosophy was that I was going to get right back in it in 12 or so hours so what is the point? Marcus, however, grew up making his bed. SO…. I make the bed on the days that I don’t have boot camp. (Yes, mom, it is true)

2. Marcus has a wife, and I have a husband. I know what you are saying, duh, y’all got married. But its totally deeper than that. There is a deep connection to each other that has grown so much in the past 5 months, that I am almost nervous to think about how it will be 80 years from now. God is shaping and molding and testing and growing us into the couple that He wants us to be and we are humbly up for the challenge.

3. Everyone wants us to have babies, like tomorrow. Can we get a few minutes please?? Little Brock-lis will come at some point in time. But really, be careful what you ask for. Carbon copies of Marcus and Corrie, though adorable, might be a lot to handle, and we will drop them off at your house! Oh yes, your house! Until then, we have Bud-bud the dud. (See above)

God is amazing. You all know that. But in the past 5 months, He has shown us some powerful things.
1. He is a Healer.
2. He always provides.
3. His plan is always perfect.
4. He uses different vessels to meet needs that you didn’t even know you had.

Now we won’t bore you with the details of how He has shown us these things. Instead we will challenge you to see how these things have become apparent in your lives. Remembering these powerful affirmations release all anxiety and fear in any situation that you are facing. We pray that God continues to bless you through the good, the bad, and the ugly.

We promise to update the blog on a more frequent basis and we hope that these updates were good enough to wet your appetite!

Joyfully,
The Brocks

1 Month, 18 inches, and 1300 pictures

Today marks the fact that we have been married for 1 month or 43829 minutes! Praise God for small victories, especially these days. We are blessed to be able to share our journey with our friends and family and continue to ask God to have His way with us while bending towards His will. So you might be wondering why we have titled our blog with all these random numbers and why I have calculated the number of moments within one month?? Let’s review some of the events that have occurred in the past week to people within our reach:

Monday: Our good friends Gianina and Gary Holik welcome a healthy and precious baby girl named Adalyn! New Life.
Wednesday: Sweet and dear friends of our family lose a courageous cancer fight. Leah McHenry was 32 with a husband and small children. Sweet Surrender.
Thursday: Our other dear friends (who happened to catch the bouquet at our wedding) got engaged!! New Beginnings.
Friday: Marcus’ sister suffers but survives a hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 30!Unanswered Questions.

Life can change in seconds… Like that, things are different, smells are different, priorities are adjusted, and questions are unanswered. How on earth would we be able to survive and comprehend these unimaginable obstacles, challenges, and opportunities without fully trusting in God for understanding and direction? One scripture that we dwell on is Philippians 4:6, that directs us “to be anxious for nothing but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God and let the peace of God that passes all understanding guide your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus.…”, but how do we do that? How difficult is it to just surrender all worries, fears, and anxiety? Difficult is not even the word, but I ask, how COULDN’T we do this! He is the only one who can right all wrongs and deliver us from whatever we need... He is the one that give us PEACE. What a word, peace to know that He will provide, that He will heal, that He will provide answers, confidence direction…

Mrs. McHenry, Leah's sweet mother-in-love, sent out an email message a couple of days before Leah passed away with this profound observation:

“Eighteen inches, one half yard stick, .46 meters, they seem like such a short
distance, and yet this is the longest distance in the history of humanity.
Approximately the distance from the head to the heart, the distance between
unrest and peace, and most importantly the difference between knowing about God
and knowing God, no distance ironically looms longer nor shorter.”

How could we let 18 inches separate us from the peace the God delivers. Life changes so quickly. We pray every day that God builds a hedge of protection around our loved ones and that those who need Him seek Him. As we learned of the stroke, prayer warriors have been at work and the prayers have been felt by our family and more and we are thankful.

As we close this entry, we are thankful for life, we are thankful for the peace that He delivers through both occasions, and we are blessed to be able to witness His will. Amidst all of the craziness that the past week afforded us, we received our wedding photos (about 1300 of them (Thanks Cristina)) and were reminded about what God intended marriage to do. We have had countless people who attended and who didn’t attend around the country and the world tell us that our marriage touched their hearts in some way. Whether it is the renewal of their love for the spouse or an impetus to make positive changes in their lives or their families lives. PTL! Our wedding was not for us... it was to set the stage for what God wants us to do together! God’s presence was felt in that chapel and in that reception and He continues to dwell in the hearts of those it has affected and we are humbled by His grace and His favor.

In His Name,
The Brocks

PS. If you would like to view our photos, please visit http://www.pictage.com/. Search for the Lockhart-Brock Wedding under events. The event key is brocks

Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Brock

Yes, we did it, we got married!!! God has blessed us so incredibly much; we just couldn't keep it to ourselves. From the moment we got engaged, God has been directing our hearts to ministry. Maybe not the ministry in the most traditional sense, rather one that displays all the anointing all the blessings, and all the favor that God has shown us as a couple. He has proclaimed that our marriage is to be a ministry to all whom we encounter... Wow, that's a pretty challenging statement. It is even more challenging as it grants us with tremendous responsibility as a family unit. This blog is dedicated to that ministry and the lives that we may touch through it. Now, let’s get down to the fun stuff: the wedding, the honeymoon, married life!

The Wedding: April 2-3, 2010 we some of the most amazing days, hours, and minutes of our lives. We were surrounded by family and friends who traveled from as far as Japan to be with us on our special day. Whether they drove two minutes or 23hours to get there, we hope and pray that everyone had a wonderful time and felt God's presence the entire weekend. We began the weekend with a rehearsal, this after rushing around in McKinney and packing the car with every wedding thing possible and praying that we didn’t leave anything. The rehearsal went very smoothly. It was great to see EVERYONE there ready to have a great time and get us married. After the rehearsal, we proceeded to Joe T. Garcia’s, home of the best margaritas and fajitas anyone has ever tasted. We had the entire converted church of Joe T.’s to ourselves and it was wonderful. Everyone celebrated and prepped for the big day, by sipping and dinning the night away. What TCU wedding weekend would be complete without the wedding party and siblings swinging by Snookies for old times’ sake? We all had the place to ourselves and we danced the night away until we realized that we had some big plans in the morning!

Wedding Day was amazing... we both felt like we were just floating around that day? I got my hair and makeup done in our hotel suite at the Worthington and Marcus and his buddies went golfing. When 5pm got here, we were both in our own emotional worlds. Tears flowed, prayers were prayed, and it actually set in, that 18 months of planning, 7 years of friendship, and 4 total years of dating were all for this one day, the day that we were to become one! J Marcus said he was nervous when he walked in and heard the string quartet began, but my sister and I were talking in the back of the chapel to help keep me calm. Then when it was her turn to go down the aisle and I was alone waiting to make my entrance, I couldn’t do anything but pray and thank God for this moment. Then it was time, Becca (our amazing coordinator) escorted me to Mr. Brock and I grabbed his hand… The doors opened so fast and we were off… We were all crying, Marcus, me (of course, wheezing actually), and Mr. Brock. When I saw Marcus through my blurry tears, I just got this happiness, peace, and calmness and I realized that THIS is what this is for. All the flowers, the money, the decorations, the time, the effort, the planning, this moment were what God intended to create. He had prepared us for this moment so that we knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that we were standing up there together as a team, for life… Throughout the entire ceremony, Marcus just kept telling me how much he loved me and how beautiful I was and I just kept staring at him and listening to Mr. Paris amazing ceremony. From there, the party began, we practiced our surprise first dance in the car as we drove to the reception and when we arrived, it took our breath away. We danced, we hugged everyone that came to share this special time with us, and we tried our best to capture every moment in our heads. We are so grateful for everyone’s prayers, generosity, love, support, and presence at the wedding! The night was over so fast. We headed to our hotel room after a quick photo shoot around downtown with Cristina (our awesome friend and photographer) while people cheered, honked, clapped, and gazed at us while we wandered around downtown. By the time we got back to our hotel room we kicked our shoes off and laid on the floor in our wedding gear and looked at each other and said,

“Wow, we actually did it! We’re married! J It was by far the greatest weekend of our lives and our family and friends are what made it that and we are soooo appreciative.

Shout out to all of our friends, family, and amazing wedding party and wedding friendors (I have renamed our vendors friendors, because they are our friends, who just happen to be in the wedding industry) for making our wedding weekend fabulous!

P.S. Pictures will be out soon. We will send the link to all of our wedding pictures as soon as we get them. We are just as eager as you all so we will definetly let you all know when they are available. The top pic was a sneak peak from Cristina!