16 months

My tiny little girl is now 16 months old. Wow. I have to say, she is one amazing kid. She makes me laugh out loud all the time. I totally love this age! She is doing all kinds of fun things and saying tons. "Oh no" is a word we hear at least 100 times a day. But true to her southern roots, it is more like "ooooohh nooo" so drawn out and southern!

What else are you doing, my sugar plum?

• You weigh in at 23 pounds and are 32 inches long.
• You are in a size 4 diaper.
• You eat salad. and love it. Your favorite part is the tomatoes!





Lucy at the Peanut Festival. The girl loves her roasted corn. She ate two ears!



• You carry a purse. OMG. how I love this. It is so funny!
• You wear a size 18 month clothing. True to size, kiddo!
• My favorite thing you do is when you see a crucifix, cross, or a picture of Jesus. You point and say "Jesus?" I love this. At night when we pray, you almost have the sign of the cross down. You can do "The Father and Son" part. We are working on "and the Holy Spirit." Lately after we pray, when I tell you to tell Jesus you love Him, you look up at your crucifix and blow it a kiss. Love.
• Speaking of praying, we have the ultimate bedtime routine down! You take a bath, get your jammies on, brush your teeth, and then we get a blanket and a stuffed animal and sit on your floor. You pick out a book and we read it together. Then we say our prayers and off to bed you go! You just get right in your crib and go right to sleep. You will either wake up around 6:30 or I have to wake you up for Gammy camp. You sleep from about 8:30 to 6:30.
• You have started to "throw fits" oh, my. This is serious! You will throw your head back and say "oh, no" over and over. They can be pretty rough!
• Fresh Beat Band is your favorite show. Of course, the show mommy hates would be your favorite. I go around singing "it was a great day...." all the time (here it goes again!)
• We got your ears pierced last week. It looks so cute and you have done so well with it!
  
  Why, hello, mini Rachel Zoe in your fur jacket. I would have so bought this for you if I didn't think your daddy would have had a fit! And yes, we did do a photo shoot in the middle of babyGap. Yes. and we would do it again. totally. babyGap? do you want to offer her a modeling contract?
  
• You are growing too fast little girl! I love you so much. I love your dramatic personality (where did that come from? ha!) and I love your love for Jesus already. I love being needed by you and I can't imagine what Daddy and I would be doing without you!

Halloween butterfly. I loved this costume. and we only spent $9.88 on it! Whoo!

How I love these sweet kisses! Even after I traumatized you with piercing your ears! ha! I love you!

"God has given me cause to laugh, and all who hear it will laugh with me!"

Genesis 21:6

Something exciting!

I am super excited about something my class and I did

What a fall!

Whew! It's been a busy time in our household (inserting an Amazing Word from our first grade lesson last week) We have celebrated my birthday, a fall break from school, and tons of good quality time with friends and family. Lucy also turned 15 months old on the 16th. Where has time gone? I need to update some stats about her, so while I wait for my pictures to upload to my computer I'll write about her...
What can I say about that giggly little girl? I honestly looked at her the other day and thought...where did this "kid" come from? She is funny, she is inquesitive and smart, she is busy...so busy. She can eat like a champ, she loves most all food, but is very picky about her vegetables and most meat. She LOVES salad, which cracks me up. She runs when she wants to get somewhere and has a mouth full of teeth. She can say tons of animal sounds, and says a lot of words. She calls me "mom" ha! She can say Daddy, Sissy, Ta-Ta (for Papa), Jesus, pumpkin, JoJo (our neighbors dog), hi, bye, oh no, oh wow, uh-oh, "what's that?" and will mimic anything if you help her. She can climb on the couch. I finally moved her carseat to forward. She is putting herself to sleep at night. She loves to read. She tries to count and can hold a pencil or crayon like a first grader!
Here is our life in pictures this Fall:

This is Lucy before her school one day. She goes once a week. She has to carry a lunchbox!

Lucy and I at the Atlanta Zoo. Lucy at the Georgia Aquarium. She loved counting the fish and watching them swim by.We went to BabyLand General Hospital in Helen, Georgia on our trip. Lucy got her first Cabbage Patch Kid! Gammy, Sissy, and Lucy went on a playdate with some friends to a fun pumpkin patch! Lucy on the front porch. Last year when I took these pictures she had to sit in her Bumbo because she couldn't sit up! Fun times at the park with mom! Got to wear our shades! Well that about sums up our Fall so far! Bye Ya'll!

Happy day!

Happy Birthday to my sweet husband! He is an amazing husband and I am so glad my life plan led me right to him! I am so glad I found him in a bar...yep! I was singing karaoke and came down off the stage and ran into him. I fell in love with his teeth. He had a beautiful smile and gorgeous white teeth! We went on a date...had many more dates and 2 years later were married. 4 months after getting married we found out we were pregnant and then the greatest accomplishment of our lives was born! He is a super father to Lucy and I love seeing how they interact with each other. I love you Scott and I am glad the Father put you in my life and I look forward to the rest of our lives!
Pre baby! Those were the days of spontaneous travels and late night dinners! Scott and Lucy at the beach when she was 6 months.. and then at the beach at 14 months old! He was explaining the water filling the hole they dug!

Oh memories!

Last year for Labor Day we went down to the "Redneck Riviera" (a.k.a the beach) for Labor Day. Since we live so close, this is something we do all the time, but last year, we carted our new baby down with us. She was 2 months old when she first visited the beach. This is my girl last year. We will be making the trip again this year with my family (Happy Birthday Gammy!) and I can't wait to see how different this trip will be! Walking on the beach, playing in the pool....this year is going to be so much fun! I leave you with some of my favorite pictures from her first beach trip! Ya'll have a fabulous Labor Day!
Really...my kid is so stylish! And then she must have a beach themed outfit! :)

please excuse my ginormous header. I am working on it. now I am tired and off to bed. Please forgive the cuteness on my page..tinypic and I are having some words right now.

Like a child

I was blog reading the other day and Angie Smith over at Bring the Rain was discussing prayer (and speaking of her blog, if you haven't visited her site run over there....really, don't walk or skip...get your hiney over there and read her amazing story and love for our Father!) I digress. So she was talking about how she prays and how we sometimes have crazy ideas for how we think Jesus thinks of us as we pray and it got me a'thinkin. How do I pray? Well for starters I pretty much just pray whenever I think about praying, whether it be in the grocery store line or driving down the road. When something hits me, I'll just pray. If you ask me to pray for you, by goodness, I'll just do it right then. No sense in waiting! But my real praying (as if the other is fake) is most often at night when I crawl into bed. I have always wanted to be the kind of
pray-er who gets on my knees, but by the end of the day, I don't do it. So I lay my head on my pillow and pray.

And I thought about what I think when I pray. I pray like I am a child. I envision myself just plopping down right in front of God. You know, He's on His throne, all big, with a white beard and fully robed in bright garb. I sit "criss-cross-applesauce" in front of His throne and just start talking. No bother if He's busy doing something else.

And it really reminded me of my school children. I sit in that big blue chair while they are on the carpet and they have to look up to me. I am teaching, they are listening, I am trying not to laugh at their silly stories, or their interesting questions, or the fact that I wore eyeshadow today and they are all discussing how different I look. And I have power. I can calm the class, or continue to let them talk, or I do the teaching. God is the same way. And I need to open myself up to the fact that sometimes I do need to close my mouth and just listen. I do a lot of talking. I need to listen more to Him. What is His plan for my prayer? I just have so many prayer requests and needs!

We as Catholics are never really "taught" how to pray. We have memorized prayers...which I love because they make it really easy. Our mass is one big long prayer from beginning to end. But ask a Catholic to "spontaneously" pray at a meeting and you'll get no hands for the pickin. I attribute my quick prayers to Methodist school. I was taught to pray there. I am grateful that I did.

I also do a lot of praying through song. I love to sing and praise and worship music make it wonderful. I am teaching Lucy to sing "Our God is greater" and it just makes my heart melt when she tries to sing with me.

I wish I was a devotional person. I want her to see me spending time with the Lord. I want her to know it's okay to pray whenever and that we have times spent each day reflecting on our behavior and fostering our love for our Lord. That is one of my goals this year. To find something she and I can do together and also find something I can do as a mom to quiet myself in front of Him.

Something I love this year in school is that we stand for the pledge as a whole school in our classroom and then we have a moment of silence. I tell my kids they can pray, think about the day or just be still, but that we are taking a moment to prepare ourselves for the day. I can't tell you how wonderful our day goes when I can stand before my class with my eyes closed and pray right over those kids. I do think this is one reason why I am having such a good year. I start the day off with Jesus.

Oh, I have rambled on this post. I want one day when Lucy reads her blog that she knows that I am a lover of Jesus, a full-on Christian. That when I leave this world that I am going to meet the One who loves us, created us, thought of us long before we were born, who Abraham saw stars for long ago.

How do you pray?

"I always thank my God for you as I remember you in my prayers"

-Philemon 1:4