Amelia's First Playgroup Experience

Today was truly an experience for, not only Amelia, but Mommy too! I took Amelia to her first REAL playgroup at our local library today. Every Thursday at 10:30 the library offers a "lap-sit" play group! When I heard about this, I jumped all over the opportunity to get her around some social interaction. She really isn't used to being around a bunch of other kiddos. All this moving around from place to place and instability in our lives has really created a social gap for our little one. I was a little nervous about how she would do, but fortunately, as soon as Mrs. Sheryl (the lap-sit teacher) started singing "twinkle, twinkle, little star", Amelia's attention was captivated!

The group was simply adorable! The age range of the class is birth-24 months, so there where many different ages and stages represented! Mrs. Sheryl started the class by gathering everybody in a circle and we all sang fun songs together! She even passed out these adorable foam shapes or animals that went along with each song we sang! Stars for "twinkle, twinkle", Monkeys for "10 little monkeys", Spiders for "itsy, bitsy spider" and I could go on and on! Amelia loved the group singing!

After sing time was over, Mrs. Sheryl pulled out books and toys! Just when Amelia thought things couldn't get any better!!

And after toy time and a little book reading... the bubble machine made a GRAND appearence!! Oh the joy that filled that little girls heart!! The bubbles were enough to keep us coming back week after week! What a fun day!

Words of the Week

Recently, our little Amelia has decided to start testing out a little fine motor skill we like to call, speech! As a first time momma, I often worried about her speech progression and if she would ever be able to say more than jibber jabber! Well look out world... this little girl has a lot to say! I thought it might be a good idea to start blogging about the new words she has been learning. I'm sure one day I will be grateful for writing about her new discoveries! So here are some of the new words she has learned to say this week...

"Apple" (this is her most favorite word this week)

"Cook"

"Milk"

"Cow"

"Cup"

"tweet tweet" (She says that when she sees a bird)

I am so proud of her! I also wanted to share with you a few things that she just simply cannot live without! Let's just say these are a few of her favorite things!

Amelia loves to organize the cans in Grandmama's pantry! She stacks them up and then puts them back on the shelf.

All girls know the most essential piece in an outfit are the
SHOES!! These are her favorite pair! I swear she would wear them to bed if I let her!

And of course, no little girl is complete without her... (eh hem) My Burt's Bee lip balm!

I brought Amelia to the Library for the first time a couple days ago and this is one of the 5 books she picked out! It's her favorite!

The ultimate snack! Goldfish!

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Webster's Dictionary defines the word "love": To hold dear, Cherish : To Thrive in : To feel affection or experience desire. The Bible describes love as patient, kind, it does not envy, it does not boast. It is not rude, or self-seeking. It is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrong. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. LOVE NEVER FAILS!

Today is Valentine's Day and as I reflect on the true meaning of love I can't help but think about the people in my life that I love the most! I thank God everyday for my precious family. I can look into the sweet face of my little girl and be held in the arms of my husband and experience the love of God in them and through all they do! After all, God IS love!
Here are some pictures of my "Loves" that we took today! Happy Valentine's Day!

Fall Fun!

I can't express how much I love the FALL! The cooler weather, the warm, cozy, comfort foods, jackets, and scarfs! These are a few of my favorite things! Not to mention the anticipation of the holidays right around the corner! =) This past weekend started out dreary but overnight turned out to be just perfect! We visited our former hometown of Gulf Shores this weekend and celebrated with Gulfway Assembly on the dedication of their new, FABULOUS, facility! So many mixed emotions but we are so excited about all that God has in store for that region! We couldn't dare drive through without a visit to one of my most favorite places...the OUTLET MALLS! We passed by all sorts of cuties in their Halloween costumes, however our little Amelia was the ultimate little cutie pie for halloween! (aka I forgot to buy a costume!) Ah well, life goes on! I did score some cat/hampster ears (you decide!) at a garage sale!! I thought it would do! The whole weekend Amelia carried around her tride and true little rubber duckies! She loves them in the bath and out! She kept them with her everywhere we went and did not want them out of her sight! So, the ducks participated in picture time with us!

Saturday night we went to a fall festival and Matt and I played all the carnival games for Amelia in hopes to win her some candy! All she cared about were the dum-dum suckers! She loves them! So, unfortunately, I was stuck eating all the chocolate! So much fun! We had a great weekend!!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I just had to share this video with all of you! As I was getting dressed one morning I found Amelia in my closet trying on all my shoes! Naturally, she fell in love with my high heels! She is a true girly girl and I love it! Fortunatly, I had the camera close at hand and was able to catch her attempting to walk in her mommy's shoes!

Amelia just turned 17 mo. and she is growing like a weed!! She is so smart and I just love her to pieces! Everyday is a new adventure with her and I can't wait to see what she will discover next!

Lil' Miss Priss

Those three little words are most certainly the best way to describe our dainty beauty! She is 100% GIRL! But I love every bit of her! A couple days ago we decided to take Amelia to the park. The weather outside was finally starting to feel a bit more like fall and we quickly came up with a way to take advantage of it! I made several attempts to swing on the swing-set with Amelia but she was not too fond of that idea. It seemed a little too daring for her I guess! She mostly enjoyed walking around and staring at all the other "big" kids playing! Here are a few pictures and a video that I managed to snap while we were out!

Amelia spotted her daddy sitting on the park bench! Oh the excitment! Listen for her sweet chatter!

What's New With Us!

Hey everyone! I know many of my friends and family have felt kept in the dark this summer! My daily blogging came to a screeching hault after our big move from Alabama to Louisiana! I am so sorry to leave everyone hanging! We have been without internet access and to be perfectly honest, BUSY!! But, I am determined to catch everyone up on our lives and share the latest pictures of our little sweet pea!

Our summer has been crazy, to say the least! But we are hanging in there! We have been living in Hammond praying and trying to figure out what we are supposed to be doing! This summer has flown by it seems and throughout it all, we really feel that God is calling us to step it up and plant a church!! Scary, exciting, overwhelmed....were just a few of the emotions I had about this idea at first! But now I'm full of anticipation and am fully confident that "We can do ALL things through Christ who gives us strength!" God is usually really good about just opening the perfect doors for us and telling us exactly where to go, but this time He has really been stretching our faith and everything has not been "handed down to us on a silver platter" if you will. However, GOD HAS PROVIDED EVERYTHING WE HAVE NEEDED!!! He sold our house in Alabama and exactly the perfect time! He has provided unexpected checks just when we thought we couldn't pay the bills! He has given us perfect health and with no insurance coverage at hand, that really is a blessing!! So I share all this with you to simply say that God is in control! Even though we can't see Him in front of us, we know that He is right beside us! So now our biggest life question is not what we are going to do but where does He want us to do it? We have been praying about several areas in South Louisiana and we are waiting to see where Matt can land a job! I will start teaching music lessons at the first of October again but Matt has applied for several different bank positions and has not heard back from any of them! Please pray we hear something soon! The game plan is to work a job with good hours and have the weekends free so we can work on our church stuff. We have to raise $30,000 before we can launch our church! We plan to launch in Aug. or Sep. of 2010. So please keep us in your prayers!!

So enough about us! I'm sure you are all dying to hear about what Amelia is up to these days! She is 16 months old now and walking...or should I say running... all over the place!! She has a mouth full of teeth and chatter!! This girl could talk to a wall! She has developed a unique little language we like to call Amelese! Some of her latest tricks are counting to 3, she can point to her nose and say "nouse" aka nose, she can give a high five, and she knows all the hand motions to "Itsy, bitsy, spider"!!! She just discovered zippers and is fascinated with them! Luggage, purses, make-up bags...anything that has a zipper she could sit and play with for hours!! I can't believe how fast they grow! She has been our comic relief through much of this stressful time of transition! Here are some recent pictures of her! We will be posting some video of her soon so check back often!