Oak Openings

Abby is drawing her name in the dirt.

This was the mile marker . . . Abby walked the whole way by herself!
Do you see the aligator head? I thought it was pretty neat!

Isn't she so cute?

Abby tried and tried to catch this butterfly.

Abby and her daddy were cutting open wal-nuts.

This is her ultra-sweet look.

She is getting so big!

I have another picture of Abby eating woodchips as well. This must be a baby thing!

Ever trying to get tha perfect picture of them together - this was not the one!

Although, this was pretty good!

Watch out! The crawling has begun!

Abby and her daddy!

I absolutely love this picture of Andrew!

he is getting so big . . . finally!

Abby is so much fun!

At the Zoo with my family

We went to the zoo with my family, It was a lot of fun! We did see animals as well, but they weren't nearly as interesting as the people!

Canninng!

I hope I spelled that right. I have been canninng. Yes, me! Some people gave me some tomatoes, actually lots of them, and I turned some into chili tomatoes, and some into salsa. I was hoping to get some more and turn them into spaghetti tomatoes. I also have some pears to turn into tart pears and other things. It has been fun! Andrew got tired of me canninng so he was crying holding onto my skirt trying to pull up as I walked around and I picked him up, put him on the sink, I love this sink, and gave him a spoon. He sat there for about 30 minutes beating that spoon, laughing, talking, etc. All he wanted was to be part of the action! some of these pictures are soooo cute, I don't miss going to the professionals, I like some of these so much and I know they dont' have the faded and all that jazzy stuff they have but they are so him and what we were doing and less stress of being just right. I love them . . . it may be a long time before I go to another professional!

When Andrew was on the sink I was canning salsa. I had added WAY toooooo much spice and so I had to had about 3 times as many tomatoes to calm them down. So instead of 3 or 4 quarts of salsa, I now have 10!

Old Friends and New Ones

For the month of September we had the pleasure of lots of visitors. My family, which unfortunately I didn't get any pictures, Friends from East Tennessee, my former youth pastor, notice I didn't say old youth pastor, even though his hair is not quite the same red it once was, not it's like salt and paprika. Anyways, we had two sets of missionaries and someone else, oh yeah some teens from Gospel Light. It was a lot of fun! We thorooughly enjoyed ourselves. Sorry I don't have pictures of all of you. (Ugh, I just looked at that picture of myself, I looked like quite the hag . . . sorry!)

Ladies Tea

We offered pictures to each lady and Joshua loves this tree so that's why I took mine here.

We did a ladies tea this year at a very dear lady's house in our church. I won't disclose her name because I'm not sure she wants to be published on the world wide web. But the tea was a huge success! We put an emphasis on being a lady and feminity and all that stuff that the Bible endores and encourages but the world likes to call dated and it trying to tear down. Talking to women in our own CHURCHES, and their ability to say to me as I talk about how we need to stay AT home to be keepers AT the home and be submissive to our husbands and live this way and then the lady, no woman says, oh that's dated. Like it doesn't apply today because we live in this wicked generation and obviously we're supposed to live like the world. Okay, thats enough of my rant, I'm done! Back to the tea, we did it partly because of the attack from the world on being a godly LADY but also partly because Joshua wants to put an emphasis on the differences and emphasize a man being a MAN, preferrably a manly one, and a woman being a lady. The whole thing went extremely well. I really enjoyed myself and the lady who hosted the tea did an excellent job!!!! The pictures at the top are of her garden, she has a beautiful garden and between courses, yes courses, we did a walk around the grounds. How grand does that sound? I don't have all the pictures because at that precise moment my camera batteries failed she has the rest on her camera!

Horsies, Chairs, and Rocky Top!

I don't have picture . . . I'm being too lazy to walk down and get my camera and upload my pictures and then wait two days for one picture to upload . . . I have to go to the church, it's faster! Anyways, back to the Title! We try to do devos with Abby every night, understanding of course there are days when you run helter skelter and because of that we dont' get home until 11 at night . . . thankfully that doesn't happen that often anymore! But a couple of nights ago we were doing devos. We get this little paper from her Sunday School and a different one on Wednesday evening. It's a take home paper that folds out and you reread the story with your child. There are extras they can do so we work on the paper each evening. It could be as simple as reading the Bible story from the Bible and talking about the picture or reading word for word what the paper says. It's a wonderful little tool. It's from the Joyful Life cirruculum published by Abeka. Now, anytime a 2 year old can repeat the story of Elijah and the woman and being fed by birds and praying for fire and rain, it's going to make me a believer. Wednesday's bible verse is Dueteronomy 7:9 "The Lord thy God, He is God." We have been working on this verse for the past month with her and she can say it word for word. "Lord" and "thy" come out with her tongue stuck way out but it's so cute. . . Well, we've also been working on her learning the books of the Bible. No we don't have a genius. She does not understand what she's saying but a 2 year old's ability to memorize astounds me and I think it's downright fun to hear a 2 year old saying "Genesis, Exidis, Le-vet-ti-cous, Nummers, and Deuteronomy." She is up to Ruth. Give her time she doesn't technically have to know this stuff until at least middle school! So we were working with her saying it over and over and having her repeat it and one time out of the blue she said the first four and then she looked at us with that oh-so-cute-grin, cocked her head and said, "No, deuterono-YOU!" She thought she was quite clever and it caused us to rethink how the word sounds to a little one! I don't know what she thinks deuterono does to a person but one day maybe she'll tell me. Now we can't get her to say it the right way. So back to devos a few nights ago. We were going over her verse and we got down to the reference and we said "Dueteronmy 7:9" and she said, "Dueterono-Dad, Dueterono-Mom, dueterono-Abby, Dueterono-brudder, Dueterono-EVERYBODY!" She was cracking herself up and acting so cute. I was laughing very hard. It could have been it was close to bedtime but right now during the day it still makes me smile. Then we told her it was time to pray and in sunday school we've been going over a pattern for prayer and how you thank God for things and then you ask him to pray and close in Jesus' name. She's getting the thanking and the asking part mixed up. So we ask her who do you want to pray for and usually it's Mamaw, Papaw, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Dannel, Uncle David, Ben, Lizzie, Momma, Daddy, Brudder, etc. This night it was Horsies Chair, and Rocky Top. We tried to explain you thank God for those things but you don't ask help for those things. Finally after thorough explaination, we thought we were on the same path we started to pray and we let her pray sometimes, repeating after us. Well, tonight she went right on ahead. Joshua said Dear God and before he could continue she jumped in with "Dear God, please help horsies, and chairs, and Rocky Top, In Jesus' name, Amen!" We were laughing so hard, that was the end of praying and being spiritual, but I think that's okay (ONCE IN AWHILE) We need to have fun and smile and make good memories with God! well, now that you've been spiritualized for the day . . . may you have a blessed and full day!