Jonnelle's esty shop

My good friend Jonnelle just opened a shop at esty. Here is her sight go look at her super cute aprons!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=8110314

Bedtime kisses

My little guy has got to be just the best. He is one that has to be rocked before he goes to bed. You can't just lay him in bed. But I never rock him to sleep he just has to be rocked a little bit. So, tonight I was rocking him and I kissed him on the forehead. He giggles and pulls back so that he can see me. He then proceeds to push his forehead at me. I kiss it again. He giggles and does it again. I can't tell you how many times I must have kissed his forehead before he was done but it just made me feel full. Thank you God for such an amazing little guy to fill my empty cup today. :)

New pictures

I can tell that school is in full swing. I took some time this evening to edit some pictures and realized that not only had a not posted any pictures from September but I had not even looked at them. So here is September in a nutshell.
Charlie has come a long way since the first day of school. Here drawings sure show how much she has learned. She drew this for Natalie. I tried really hard to get her to give it to me instead but she wouldn't budge so I snapped a picture of it before she took it to school.
Here is Charlie helping Brantley in the farmers market at the fair. This is the must do thing for us. Charlie just loves it. She gets to pretend to harvest apples, potatoes, and eggs and then sell them at market. She is always saying how she is going to be a farmer when she grows up. Only God knows.
I was so excited when Charlie asked when Emily's birthday was. Last year she wouldn't let me have a party b/c Emily wasn't real. This year she couldn't wait. We had fun picking out her small cake and lighting the candle. Charlie even let her have a small taste of her yummy cake.
Can you tell that B LOVES spaghetti? He always needs a bath when he is done.
I love everything about this photo. It shows that Dusty is trying his hardest to make Charlie as anal as he is. They are counting the circles on the quilt to make sure that it is laying the correct way on the bed. No this is not a math lesson...It is an organizational lesson.
And here is Charlie working on writing her name. I am such a mean mommy. She has homework every night. We read a book and have table work. Here are just a few things we have done for "homework": writing her name, drawing in her journal, writing a shopping list, sorting pattern blocks, building flowers w/ pattern blocks, play dough, lacing, and even gluing stuff to the paper. I want her to know that she has homework every day regardless of what school says. Maybe I do teach AP pre-k.

Inside ourselves

My great Aunt Becky died yesterday. She wasn't someone I was real close to but it was my Grandmother's sister. She had been sick for some time. She had just given up. When I spoke with my grandmother this evening she talked about how many people had shown up to pay their respects. She talked about how people kept calling and bringing food and stopping by all to say how much they loved Aunt Becky and what a lovely lady she was. "My sister would have just been touched to know that she had this many people who truly liked her." She spoke of one such woman who stopped by and gave Becky's daughter a "trinket" that made her think of Becky. I was just touched by the whole experience in a different way. I just wonder how many of us are so inside ourselves that we can't even see the few people who might feel this way about us. Are we so inside our own special place that we can't see how much we touch other's lives. What an incredible way for God to remind me that he has provided for me and that I so need to get over myself.

Family Pictures

We got our pictures taken the first week in August. Things have been so crazy I have not had a chance to even get with my friend Kristin to get them back until today. AND, I AM IN LOVE! She did a fantastic job. Here are just a few of my favorite from the 176 shots she gave me to choose from... How will I ever choose?

A lot has happened....

I need to "catch up" but I'm not going to.. I may come back one day and post a few of the pictures that I need to post and then again...I may not.

I just need to say I actually scrapbooked this evening and It was so GREAT!

Here is my layout. It sat on my scrap table for two weeks. I would go look at it and just couldn't decided on a title. During this time Charlie had her "surgery" to remove the butterfly. After that time every time I looked at this girls face I did not think about these pictures from a birthday party this summer. Instead I thought about what she said sitting on the "table" in her surgery room. Then when I was cleaning up after a prayer card meeting w/ some ladies from my church I threw a stack of bible verses on my table. Isaiah 41:10 landed on the layout and I knew I needed to use it. I kept the layout. Added the title Have courage, the bible verse, and some journaling that has nothing to do with these pictures and I LOVE how it turned out.

The journaling: I have been working on this page for days and each time I see it I do not see the little girl in a bathing suit at Gant's birthday party. Instead I see the little girl sitting on an operating table. I try to help you be brave and you say, "Mommy, remember God is with me. He gave me doctors to make everything better. He gave them the knowledge to make me better. He will be with me even when you and Daddy are not to make me brave."

Bug, you continue to show me each and every day how incredible my God truly is. Always have courage. God is always with you. love mommy

It blows me away how God uses my own words repeated by my four-year old to comfort both of us. At least I know she is listening.

Charlie

I walked into the living room this morning and found Charlie staring at a blank TV screen. I asked her what she was doing. Here is the conversation that followed.

"Oh, I am just dreaming."

"You are dreaming?"

"Yes, I am dreaming. I just closed my eyes and I thinked of it. I made the pictures in my head and I just imagined and it poofs into my head and I just imagined that I was playing with pink toys. And when I was playing with pink toys I got lost. It was okay though because God told me to be brave and I told the man that was a woman my name and she found my mommy for me."

"You are dreaming this in the living room."

"yes, cause you know I can't watch TV. I am grounded so I just imagined it with pictures in my head and I wasn't afraid because I had God."

She so keeps me on my toes. I love how it takes her forever to tell a story and the story is a complete run-on sentence. I have no idea where she might have gotten that from.