Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Some recent pictures


Our van full of teenagers on our way to Youth Conference 2008!


At Navy Pier in Chicago


At the Rain Forest Cafe in Chicago
L-R - Michelle (great pose Michelley!), Ariel, Cortney, Ames, me, Stephanie, and Dani


Michelle getting ready to play her bass clarinet w/the Youth Conference Orchestra!


Laynie's self-given pedicure - beautiful!


My future pianist!


Laynie, Jared, Kaitlin and Kinsey


She put it on herself - can you tell?


Grammy and Papa with Jared and Laynie


At the Chattanooga Zoo


At a museum on the Chickamawga Battlefield.


The two cutest kids ever! :)


VBS 2008


She decided to give herself a manicure to match her pedicure. Nice!

May, June and July happenings

Ok, so I totally knew this would happen when I started this blog. I knew that I'd do pretty good the first few days/weeks, but then it would taper off. My deepest apologies to the 2-3 people who actually read this!

We didn't have a lot that went on in May, aside from the girls' weekend I got to go on w/my pastor's wife, and a handful of other ladies from my church. That was WONDERFUL! One of the ladies in our church has a "cottage" in the mountains in North Carolina, so a bunch of us went out there for a "Jane Austin" marathon. It was sooooooooo beautiful (in spite of the snakes!) and I can't wait till we get to do it again!

Also in May, we went on a mini-vacation to Chattanooga, TN. Even though it was only about 24 hours, we really had a good time with the kids. We went to the zoo there, took them go-carting, and we also visited the Chickamauga Battle Site from the Civil War, which was very interesting.

Of course in May our little angel turned two. I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast. Oh, I don't think I've mentioned (or maybe I have and I just don't remember), but she is completely potty trained PRAISE THE LORD!! I started training right after we got back from Pastor's School in March, and she was almost trained in one week, and completely trained in 2 weeks. I am BEYOND thankful that she was so easy to train. I tell people that God knew I needed an easy one after training Jared (which was an 18 month process)!!

June was relatively uneventful other than our church's VBS. It was an incredible VBS with 32 children trusting Jesus as their Savior. Praise the Lord! We did a dinosaur detective theme and the kids just loved it!

This month has been exciting - Michael and I chaperoned our church's youth group on a trip up to Hammond, IN for First Baptist Church's annual Youth Conference. It was a looooooong drive but so well worth it! We had a fantastic trip and the kids were great! They made some awesome decisions for the Lord and we're so thankful that we made the long trek up there!

In case you're wondering what the kids did while we were in Indiana, my mom flew down here to Atlanta to stay here w/the kids the whole week. Is she great or what? :) She wouldn't even let me pay for part of her plane ticket. Of course the kids were THRILLED to see her and had a wonderful time playing, reading, and baking with Grammy all week!

Michael's sister, Angel, and our two nieces, Kaitlin and Kinsey came for a visit at the first of the month. We had a really good time, and needless to say, Jared was VERY sad to see them go! It was really a great time of visiting though and we can't wait to do it again!

Right now, my dad and Holly are here as well (they drove down the Monday after we got back from Youth Conference) and they'll be staying for about a week. When they drive back to Missouri, the kids and I will go back with them and we're going to stay for about 2 weeks. At that point, we will fly back here to Atlanta. Shew! It's gonna be a crazy few weeks! We're really looking forward to our visit though - I'm excited about seeing my brother and his wife, my other sister, my grandparents, and of course my best friend Bethany and her MOST adorable little baby girl Chloe!

So, that's my life for the last few weeks for those who are interested. :) I'll try to get some pictures posted soon. (As I know all 2 of you are just dying to see them!)