Congratulations, Brandie

A few weeks ago I was, once again, on our amazing women's retreat with some church friends. We had a wonderful time of spiritual renewal and fellowship. I came home early on Saturday night so we could drive to Port Aransas on Sunday morning for Brandie's wedding. She and Clint were getting married on the beach. So perfect for the two of them. Brandie is an old AOII sorority sister.
Most of their family is here in TX but they live in Maui. Nathan and I are trying to figure out when we can go and visit them!

Here's the happy couple.

Becki, Shannon and I with the beautiful bride....

Amelia and mommy...

We had a great time celebrating the start of their new life together!

What a Stinker!

A few weeks ago my dad came in for a visit. He stayed the night and had a good time playing with Amelia. He hasn't stayed over since Zeta's knee surgery in June so it was a good time for him to baby the baby and the dog all at the same time. Zeta seems to be doing well but every now and then, after a few good runs, she'll start limping again. My dad was so eager to feed Zeta, take her out to potty, brush her coat, and rub her belly. He asked what time he could let her out in the morning. I told him not to worry about it. We normally let her out when we leave the house, around 8am. Well, Dad just couldn't help himself from "mothering" the dog so he let her out around 6am. Pitch dark outside and the perfect time for little critters to be out and about. Well, Zeta got sprayed by a skunk! That's not even the worst of it. He let her back in the house before he realized what had happened. She ran in and started rubbing her face all over the carpet. Nathan and I woke up to a strong and pungent smell of skunk. Nathan opened our bedroom door and walked down the hall and immediately came back to share the news with me. It was horrid! We kicked the pooch out and started spraying air fresheners. Nothing helped. I got dressed and got Amelia dressed and we headed out for our day. I dropped her off to Ms. Kini and explained that they might smell a little skunk smell b/c our dog had just been sprayed. Her teachers kind of giggled and went on about their business. About an hour later Ms. Kini comes up to the Admin office with Amelia in her arms. Amelia is in a new outfit. No shoes. No socks. Hair a little damp and she's squeaky clean. They had to give her a bath at school with V-8 juice because she smelled like SKUNK! Poor baby!

Guess what Amelia was for Halloween?
Now that's inspiration!

Girl Talk

Happy Birthday, Amelia!

Nope you didn't miss it! Amelia really did turn ONE on Tuesday, August 24th. Momma has just been a really busy lady and a really lazy blogger. Enough about that......let's get back to the little one we're celebrating.

Amelia was due on August 16th, 2009 but that day came and went. So did the next and the next. I was a week late and soooo uncomfortable! Sleeping was a mean joke and my ankles were beyond swollen. Trying to hide pregnant ankles during THE HOTTEST summer on record was no easy task. I was going to be induced on Tuesday the 26th but I finally went into labor on Sunday morning around 5 am. Long story-longer (Auntie Jo Jo) I got my epidural around 2pm and by midnight, when still no baby, we accepted the fact that this baby was a happy little bun that didn't want to come out of the oven. We decided to cut around 4am and she arrived at 5:49am and now look at her 12 MONTHS later....The day of her birthday we celebrated with a family dinner at Alamo Cafe. Uncle Daniel couldn't join us because he was visiting Kelsey. We missed them both! Here's Amelia all smiles at dinner.

Mommy and Daddy's gift to Amelia. Daddy is so handsome and handy.

Amelia and Jayla aboard the birthday wagon.

Family pic just before the cake and ice cream!

Amelia had a great day celebrating turning ONE. The following Saturday we had a little party for her at our house and invited some of her closest gal pals...
As you can see from previous posts, the last few milestone month celebrations have been getting tougher and tougher. This one was by far the hardest to capture. I had to use cheerios to get her close to her number "12" to take her picture.


Happy Birthday, Amelia! You have made life so much sweeter and we love you so much. You are the most precious gift from heaven and on your first birthday we pray that you continue to grow healthy and strong. Most of all, we give thanks for the fact that you are a beautiful child of God. This parenting thing has your mommy in knots sometimes. Thinking of all I can worry about over your lifetime is almost too much to handle! Thankfully, your mommy and daddy know that Jesus loves you even more than we do! Wow! That's A LOT! So, for now, we'll just love you and pray for you everyday. Have fun being ONE, little angel.

11 Months Old

Amelia is now 11 months old and we're having so much fun! She's such a big girl and she's doing so many new things.

*Starting to walk. She's taking about 5 steps at a time and then she realizes what she's doing and plops down. She does GREAT when you give her a finger to hold on to.

*Still nursing but starting to cut back. About 3-4 times a day. She's one good bite away from being DONE!

*She loves the BEACH! The water and the sand, for that matter. She eats sand by the handful! (Gross!)

*She eats a good, hearty breakfast each day. Usually grapes and blueberries or strawberries and bananas. Yogurt is still a favorite, too.

*When she sees Nathan she says, "Da!". It just melts his heart.

*When I sing she holds a note. A long note. I don't have perfect pitch but I'm pretty sure it's always the same note. I think all those solfege scales we practice every day are starting to pay off. This girl will make Texas All-State choir, for sure!

*Claps when she's happy

*Give a super duper pout when she's sad. That bottom lip is just too precious

*Goes to sleep at 8 and wakes about 6:30 or 7.

*Points to birds and butterflies and says, "Dat. Dat!"

*Eating a lot of table food. Her all time favorite is green beans. She really like brown rice, too.

*Drinking well out of her sippy cup and always gives a good "ahhhhhh" after a sip.

*Sleeps with her baby booty in the air.

*Gives kisses to loved ones. She gave Aunt Kelly a real kiss on the cheeck. Smack sound and all!

*Loves her cousins. She thinks they're so cool!

Ameila, Happy 11 Months! We are so in love with you and we're blessed beyond words to have you as our little girl! Out of all the little girls in the world, God knew you were the perfect one for us. Next stop.....1st Birthday!!! Can't wait. Well, maybe I can!

Summer fun

I have been so busy even though VBS is over. Yay! Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love VBS but it's so consuming. It's nice to have my life back.

As soon as VBS was over I started an online class, Variety of Beliefs. Very interesting- studying religions around the world. I love it! It's keeping me very busy. I stared the Colloquy program a few years ago but then stopped to get married and have a baby. Now, I figured I'd finish before life gets any crazier. I should be done by end of the year.

Colloguy is basically an addition to your bachelor's degree when you attended a secular university and now want to complete the theology course work to be in church work. Not mandatory, obviously since I've been working at the church for 10 years. I've taken 5 of the 8 classes and they're all on line. I'll have a final paper to write in the fall and then I'll have my final interview. I'm already scared!

Now lets talk about the fun stuff!

A couple of weekends ago we went to Gruene with the Hamann's and McIntosh's. We had a great time in spite of the outrageous HEAT! Nothing a little mint chocolate chip ice cream can't fix.
This was Amelia's first taste of ice cream. She loved it! Can't you tell?
We ate lunch at the gristmill. It was yummy as always. I highly recommend the steak salad. Juicy cuts of steak on a beautiful plate of greens. Amelia eats all of my avacado, though. Good thing she's so cute.
Fourth of July was a great day! Amelia had a fun day of celebrating. We went over to see grandma for a quick pic in her July 4th t-shirt...Then at night we tried to meet the Hamann's and Wenthe's out at Randolph AFBbut I think everyone from the panhandle down to the border was there! It was insane. We just pulled over into a field off of 1604 to watch fire works and they were beautiful. We sat out on the hood of the car and enjoyed the moment and the festive atmosphere. Amelia slept the night away in the car. Maybe she'll stay up for it next year.

On the 2nd we celebrated Ashley's 8th birthday. She's getting so big. I can't believe how fast she's growing. Happy Birthday, Ash!Here's Amelia and Boops!

I'll close with some cute pictures of Amelia and Jayla playing. They're such cute little friends!

Beary Sweet