A Simple Friday

So, we did not have much going on Friday. The princess and I just hung out at the house most of the day and mid/late afternoon we ran over to a friends house for a quick surprise that I had for her. The princess had fun playing with her kids while she and I got to chat and she gave the princess a ton of books that she had after cleaning out her kids bookcases! The princess loves, loves, loves her books lately. I actually tried to get a picture of her where she had taken the pillows from the couch and put them in the living room floor and was laying on them looking at her book...it was too cute! By the time I got my camera out she had already moved and then wanted me to pick her up instead of taking a picture!! I decided to play around with my camera a little. I used a different setting with no flash, edited one of these a little and this is what I got. 

Friday was also Mom's Night out.  We went for coffee and had a great time! The Princess and Hubby hung out together for the evening. They actually went and bought a movie that just came out for the Princess and watched that or I guess I should say Hubby watched it. He said that she only watched part of it.  The Princess was already in bed when I got home.  I am sure they had a blast together!

These are more of my favorite pictures of her as is the first one on this post! I am thinking we are going to have to have one of these from this day blown up and framed!  Wow, picking which one will be really hard because we took so many that day and I like so many of them!!!

Hope you all have a Super Saturday!!!

We Have Molars!!!

Thursday we met a friend for lunch. She has a little girl that is just 1 1/2 weeks older than the Princess. We went and the girls sat across from each other and both were so cute!! At the end of our meal the Princess and I were sharing an ice cream cone - yes, I let her have sugar sometimes, I am sure that surprises some people!! She does not eat sweets everyday but every once in a while I think is ok:). Anyway, she opened her mouth really wide for the ice cream and I saw a little part of the molars have broken through!! Yay!!! Her hands are still in her mouth alot so I know that we are probably not done with all the pain until they come completely through but at least they are coming. Just last week at her 15 month appointment her doctor said her gums were bulging so that has happened just this past week! She does not normally open her mouth very wide for me so we may have to go for ice cream again in a few days so I can see if they have come through anymore!!

I was so excited that she still took about a 2 hour nap when we got home!! She fell asleep on our way to lunch so I figured there would not be an afternoon nap but she went down pretty easily when we got home.

I told y'all yesterday we took alot of pictures and I would be posting more of them. There are so many that I like - at least I can keep posting these until Thanksgiving:). We normally shoot our pictures in RAW Format so this is also making me sit down and convert them over to JPG. The only thing is she really did not smile alot that day - I think those MOLARS have been bothering her for a while now!!! Here is a picture with a smile though!!

Have a Fabulous Friday!!!

Our Little Pumpkin

My friends hear me say way too often "isn't she the cutest thing". Ok, I know I am her mommy and I am probably a little biased but I can be - just like every other mom out there:)  But I am still amazed that she is mine - or I guess I should say ours!  We just love this little girl to pieces.  She is such a blessing!!  I try and treasure every moment - when she is happy, when she is crying, and just when I am trying to figure out what she is wanting.  I never want to take any of it for granted.  I really feel like our parenting is totally different than what it would have been had Kate lived.  Some of you know there have been times I would be so tired and would love to be able to sleep but the Princess did not want to sleep but I never want to complain about my lack of sleep or anything else when it comes to this little one because I am just happy to be able to have a little girl causing me to lose sleep or whatever it might be that day!

We have so many cute pictures from the day we took these so I will probably be putting quite a few of these in different post. This was when we first started and she was not too sure about standing around all the pumpkins and hay so I gave her some goldfish to eat and then she was happy! Actually, we had just started eating goldfish earlier that week I believe it was so it was like a whole new snack to her!!

Sweet little baby is working on her 1 year molars and I think they are bothering her a little. She seems to be a little fussier than normal lately. Actually, she is normally not that fussy but the past few weeks she has been at times. I will be glad when those teeth come through and quit bothering her!

I have a busy day tomorrow so I probably should get off my computer and go to bed! I have had a busy evening between going to a MOPS steering meeting and working on some Women's Ministry stuff so it is time for me to call it a night....

Hope you all have a Terrific Thursday!!!

A Little of This & A Little of That!

What a busy day. I can't really even say I have done much today but it has been busy! One thing I did do today was cook....last night I put a roast, potatoes and carrots in the crockpot for Hubby and the Princess to have for dinner tonight. I was amazed this morning when I was transferring it to another dish how much it made...looks like we will be eating on it for a few days. The upside to that is I will not have to cook tomorrow night!! I also made a pot of taco soup today to take to Bible Study tonight and then this afternoon I baked potatoes to take to Bible Study also. So that is one thing I have done today...COOK!! I really do enjoy cooking though so I did not mind.

The picture above is a comparison picture of Hubby and The Princess.  The picture on the left side was taken on October 18, 2009 and the picture on the right side was taken October 8, 2010.  So, almost a year apart.  Wow, I love the picture that we took this year.  I may have to put that one in a frame for Hubby's office!!

The little Princess has become Little Miss Independent lately. One thing she really enjoys is feeding herself.  So, this is something we see often around here.  I have got to go get forks for her this week.  I think that might actually be a little easier for her for some of her foods than her spoons.

As I mentioned above tonight was Bible Study. I just love the ladies in our Bible Study group and each one of them has so much to offer to our group.  We started a new study several weeks ago and it is turning out to be an AWESOME study! We are doing Beth Moore's, "A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place". If you have never done this study you should check it out. 

Hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday!!! 

Free Gift Cards....

Ok, I am feeling like a copy cat kind of but I really did think about doing this earlier today and now that the Princess has gone down for her nap I have time to do this. I actually was looking at my blog list right before doing this post and saw another person did a post on this too! I really am not copying Geaux2Girl I had really thought about posting this too!!!

So have you all checked out SwagBucks? I love using SwagBucks for my search engine because you can earn SwagBucks on some of your searches which is like points. Then you can trade in your points for giftcards. I am loving the $5 Ama*on Gift Cards that I can get everytime I earn 450 SwagBucks. Check it out today! Today they are giving extra points for signing up and if you click on banner below you can sign up from there. I get extra points to if you start using SwagBucks by clicking on the banner below....hey, but it is a free search engine and you can earn great gift cards...especially those of you that do lots of internet searching!! Check it out today!!

13 Months 1 Day (August 7)

August 7th, The Princess was 13 months and 1 day old. I went to a MOPS retreat that weekend. At the retreat someone ask me if the Princess was walking yet. My response was she walks up to about 5 steps and then falls. After falling, she would normally start crawling. The girls around me assured me that was normal.

We really thought she would be walking by her birthday. She had been pulling up for quite some time and she was able to stand on her on and would really try to take a step and sometimes succeed at a step or two before falling.

After my retreat ended on the 7th I met up with the Princess and Hubby as they were visiting his sister and her family that were in town for the weekend. When we would let the Princess down on the floor at my brother-in-laws sisters house she started walking. We were like wow! It must be the different floor. When we came home that night she was doing the same thing here and now she walks 99.9% of the time and crawls very little.

So, the Princess was officially a full time walker at 13 months 1 day!!

Yesterday, she was standing in the doorway to her bedroom and walked backwards a few steps. I don't know if she even realized she was doing that.

Right now, she has 8 teeth still. I think we are working on our one year molars. I will be so glad when they come in because right now she has a runny nose and is coughing. I talked to the nurse at the doctors office and she said it all sounded like teething and not a sickness. That seems to be one of the symptoms for her when she is teething.

Well, I need to get busy while she is still asleep this morning and get a few things done around my house. She will be waking up anytime.

Have a great Friday!!!

One Tough Sunday!

Anyone that attends the same church as I do probably already knows what this post is about. I have to say I think this past Sunday was a very hard Sunday for many people. You see, two weeks ago this past Sunday we found out that God had called our pastor to another church. This came as a big shock! What is strange though is the week before that during his sermon he said something and like I have told several people I don't remember what it even was but I remember thinking to myself that Sunday morning sitting in my pew if he was leaving. The sermon ended that day and he was still there.

Fast forward a week. Sunday, August 15th. I am sitting in my BFG (aka Sunday School Class) and got a text from my sweet friend Jen. She said if I was home for some reason and not at church to make sure I watched service online that day there was going to be a big announcement. She knew hubby was out of town but the Princess and I had actually made it to church on time! See, up until this past Sunday our church had service three different hours and she went to second service and we went to third service. I knew what it was....I texted her back and she said I was right...I went to service already knowing and sat there and listened to him make the announcement but I don't think it totally hit me that day.

Hubby and I love our pastor and his family. When hubby and I got married and I moved to a state that I really did not know anyone we went to a church on Sunday mornings but never got involved. You ask why, well, we knew that was not the church we were going to be at forever. When we built our house outside the city we found the church we call our church home. So really, this was our first church together, as a married couple that we really considered our church. Not a church we just went to but a church we are involved in. I was really glad to find a church to be involved in as I was very involved in my church back home.

When we lost Kate, our sweet pastor came to visit at the hospital. He came to our house to plan her funeral and he spoke at her funeral. Around her first birthday he sent us a card to let us know he was praying for us. We ran into him in the hall on a Wednesday night around her birthday and he stopped again and talked to us. It meant so much to both of us to have a pastor who cared enough to remember our little girl and walk through that time with us.

In 2008 when we miscarried our second little girl we came home from the hospital and there was a message on our answering machine from our pastor calling to let us know we were being prayed for and thought about. Again, we were so touched. Some of you may not know, we go to a rather large church. I believe around 6,000...someone correct me if I am wrong. Well, then the next night after our DNC our pastor called us again since he had only gotten the answering machine the day before. We were so touched again that he would take time to call and let us know that he and his wife were praying for us and thinking of us.

Fast forward...July 6, 2009, I am prepped and just waiting to be wheeled to the operating room for my C-section. Hubby's phone rings, he answers. Guess who it is. Yes, it is our pastor, who is out of town but heard that the Princess was going to be born that day and called to pray with us over the phone.

So, just from the little bit I have told you about our pastor, I could go on and on and on you can see why this is so hard. We are only one family of many in our church. Can you imagine all the stories that could be shared of what a great pastor we have.

Sunday the 22nd our pastor went in view of a call at the church he was going to. All we could hope for was they would change their mind and not vote for him:) although we knew that would not be the case we could still hope, right?

Then Sunday, August 29th had arrived. I knew it would be hard but I just did not realize how hard. As I have told several of my friends that service was almost like a funeral because we knew when he got up and spoke that would be the last time. From the moment they started the video the tears began...not just for me but for many of the people packed in the service shoulder to shoulder. We have three venues going at the same time each hour. Normally, our pastor speaks in the sanctuary which is the venue we attend and then the other two venues watch him on a screen. This Sunday was different, as he went to each venue and spoke. The sanctuary was the last venue he came in and we were the last service. From where we sit in the balcony I saw him and his sweet wife walk in and I lost it again although I am pretty sure I was not the only one.

Sunday afternoon there was a reception for them and we each waited in line to chat with them one more time before they left. I am sad. I know that God has called them to the other church. The other church is a very blessed church to be getting a wonderful pastor. We know that God has big plans for our church as well. "W" family we love you all and we will miss you so much.