Bible Study Thanksgiving Brunch

This fall, I have been blessed to be a part of my church's Women's Bible Study, which meets on Tuesday mornings. We've been studying Esther, a Beth Moore study - absolutely phenomenal! We had off this week, for Thanksgiving, but Susie opened her home to our small group for a little breakfast and girl time. It was great!

Here is our group, minus Ginger and Laura.
L to R: Becky, Susy (with Lauren), Me (with Adam), Ashleigh, Melanie, Janelle, Susie. What a great bunch! Adam loves Bible study, by the way. He gets to play with his friends in the nursery for two hours!

Janelle and me. I did not know Janelle before our study, and I am so glad to have met her.
She = awesome!

Susie and me. Finally, a good picture of us! We've only been trying for a year :) I continue to be overwhelmingly blessed by her friendship.

Susie had a cute Christmas card for us to make together. We love being crafty, you know!

Pioneer Woman Potluck

Ok, so the women in my small group are VERY into the Pioneer Woman. If you are not familiar, she is a super creative famous blogger. What we are all so excited about, though, is the portion of her blog devoted to cooking. So, we decided to have a Pioneer Woman Potluck - all dishes had to be out of either the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook or off her website. So much fun! Our husbands made fun of us, of course, but had no problem eating the food that we had made...funny how that works out.

Here is our Pioneer Woman spread! It was a Mexican theme. Notice her newly released cookbook in the background.

Of course, I had to have a close-up shot of my contribution: Bacon Onion Cheddar Biscuits. Yes, they are every bit as bad for you and every bit as delightful as they sound!

Adam had great fun playing with his friends after dinner...
Telling Clara what's up...

Having some fun with Ashleigh...

Here are three of my favorites. Christine, Susie, and Corrie.

Thanks, Mark and Susy, for a fun night with friends! You are awesome for opening your home to us every week!

Fall Family Photos

Did you enjoy the alliteration in that blog post title? I hope you did. If only the word "photo" started with the letter "F" it would be perfect. Anyway...Susie took our family's photos again this fall at a park near our house. We are SO blessed by her talent! I wanted to share some of my favorites with you. They all came out so beautifully, it was hard to choose...

The fam.

Adam and his daddy.

My baby and me.

Another great one of Adam by himself.

I'll leave you with my ABSOLUTE favorite. Oh, how this photo melts my heart!

Thank you, Susie!

Hello and Goodbye

We went over to Mike and Kelly's house the other night to bring them a meal and to enjoy some time with them and their new little daughter, Anna.  She is absolutely precious!  It's funny how we forget just how tiny babies are when they come into the world.  Was Adam ever this tiny???

Hello Miss Anna!

It was also a night of goodbyes, since Mike and Kelly are moving to their next assignment in California.  This is a hard goodbye for me, since Kelly took such good care of me after Adam was born and has been such a good friend.

Since they won't be here for Adam's birthday, they gave him his present while we were there.  I can't believe with all they have going on, they still remembered Adam's birthday!

Adam with his friends Ella, Abby, and his brand new friend Anna.  Thank you, Abby and Ella, for taking such great care of Adam and always choosing the best toys for him to play with when he was at your house!

Adam was so excited to play with his new toy from Mike, Kelly, and the girls - a little tool bench!  He figured out the hammer pretty quickly.

It was a bittersweet visit, saying hello to a precious new baby and goodbye to dear friends.

Newport Aquarium

My computer has been giving me loads of trouble, and Phil has been so great putting in a lot of work to fix it for me.  He was going to make ANOTHER pilgrimage to Cincinnati to bring the computer to the Apple store to get her looked at again, and I decided we should make it a family trip with some fun mixed in.  We started at the mall where my computer WAS fixed (thank you Phil and Apple Man!).  Adam and I walked around the mall, saw the sights, and ate some lunch.  

After the business part was taken care of, we visited the Newport Aquarium.  It was so cool, and the bonus was that Phil got in free since he's active duty military!  Here are a few shots - Adam was pretty much on cloud nine the entire time, and was exhausted by the time we left.

Playing a bongo drum in the rainforest.

He got to touch a Horseshoe Crab.

He loved all the tanks with the bright colors and lively fish.  He was in a constant state of excitement!  He only bumped his head on the tank once, while trying to get a closer look.

He especially liked the "tunnel tanks" where you could see fish swimming all around you.  He liked to see the underside of the sharks as they swam over us.

One of my favorite parts - the jellyfish exhibit.  It was so beautiful and very relaxing to watch them float in the water.

Another highlight was the bird exhibit.  You could buy nectar to feed the birds and they came right up to sit on your hand.  Adam loved them since there were so many flying free all around us and they were very bright and beautiful.  It was great, too, because we didn't even have to buy any nectar.  Everyone thought Adam was so cute they let him come right up to see the bird while it ate off of their nectar!  So sad I left my camera outside the exhibit with the stroller.  Sorry - no pictures!

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Adam got this horse from Grandma Ann a while ago, and he has recently learned how to get on and off of it himself. As you can see, he LOVES riding his horse!

The Countdown Has Begun!

This is a fantastic idea that I got from my friend Susie, and a really fun way to countdown to your kids' (or spouse's, or your own) birthday. Since we have a very exciting FIRST birthday coming up around here, I had to get my act together and create one for our family. I don't have as much time to be crafty anymore, so I get pretty excited when I have the chance to indulge my love for crafts.

Here it is - Adam's birthday countdown!
The name and the little airplane marker are magnetic, so you can switch them out to use the same countdown for multiple people.

Don't worry, Adam may be the star of the show around here, but here are the pieces all ready to go for Mom and Dad too.

If you'd like to make your own - here is Susie's Mini Tutorial from her blog. Only 24 days until Adam's big day!