Look who loves spaghetti...and her mommy!

Lily is not typically a messy eater...except when it comes to spaghetti. For some reason it's just more fun for her to eat it with her fingers rather than with her fork!






We finally (!!) got Lily into the big bathtub. We have been usuing the little tub that goes in the sink for over a year. We have only 1 bathroom with an actual bathtub, and it had sliding shower doors. It was such a pain to get to with the way the bathroom is designed. The couple of times we tried it, I'd have Robert take the shower doors out of the tracks so I'd at least have full access. It was such a hassle and so much easier to just pull out the little blue tub and put it in the kitchen sink. We kept doing it even though her knees were practically in her face! Anyway, Robert finally ripped out the whole shower door and frame and we got a shower curtain. So. Much. Better. Lily loves the big tub, and her new Veggie Tales bath toy.:o)

So we are officially at our new church as of this last Sunday. Ever since our first visit Lily would randomly say, "Cry new church". Then I'd talk to her about how much fun she had and she would tell me about all of the toys she got to play with. This went on for 2 weeks! So we kept prepping her for the new church and reminding her how much fun she had. We took her to her new room (turns out she was in the wrong room the first time...since she is now 2 (!) she should no longer be in the nursery) and of course she screamed her head off. Ugh! I hated leaving her there like that, but I knew she would be okay once she was preoccupied. After the service we made the mad dash to get her. We saw her before she saw us. She was playing with something, then looked up , saw us there and started crying again! Apparently she cried a little bit off and on and became best friends with Ms. Beth who did her best to try to comfort her and keep her entertained. I am grateful to Ms. Beth! Anyway, Lily still says, "Cry new church.", but then she tells us about the microwave and oven she got to play with (a toy kithcen of course!) and how they played music...she said, "guitar" so I guess someone was playing one in her class, and she talks about the kids as well. I know she will be fine once she adjusts, I just hate putting her through such a big change. She is a tough cookie though and I know she'll be fine.

Robert had the day off today, so he got to go with Lily and I to her music class and then we went to the pumpkin patch. I'll have more pictures soon!

More Stamping Fun!

This first project I made for a woman at church who has been sick for over a year with no real diagnosis. She is a wonderful, Godly woman and I pray it's God's will that she be healed soon. I used a Stampin' Up tin, decorated it and placed a card and bookmark inside. The pictures came out a little bright...again, not the professional photographer in the family!

(Don't pay any attention to all of Lily's stuff in the background on this one!)

The following cards we made at my Stamp-a-Stack class on Friday night. Everyone got to make 10 cards for $10. We did two of each design...one birthday card and one thank you card. I love doing these classes. They are a ton of fun, and everyone walks away with a "stack" of cards to have on hand for a lot less than what they'd pay at the stores. These pictures came out a little better. It dawned on me that my husband has this great light tent out in the garage that's perfect for taking pictures!

Say Cheese!

I love how Lily smiles when we ask her to say cheese. Talk about a "cheesy" grin! One of her favorite games is to hold any inanimate object up to her eye and walk around saying, "Smile! Cheese! Good one!". She must be the daughter of a photographer or something.;o)

Cheesy smile at home.

We got to our gymnastics class a little early last week, so we played on the playground for a little while.

I'm Still Here...(and more projects!)

So apparently I took an unintentional (or maybe it was intentional) hiatus from blogging. The challenging thing for me about blogging is all of the pictures get uploaded onto our main computer. I rarely use this computer because during the day, I am a little preoccupied.;o) And if I even think about attempting to use it, Lily will quickly find me and proclaim, "Mommy check da email...no!" So my options are to do it during the very valuable nap time when there are many other things that need to get done, or in the evening. Fat chance there due to my husband being on it most of the time! So I am usually on my laptop, which has no pictures. I suppose another alternative would be for me to learn how to upload the pictures onto my laptop myself, I just have no interest in learning that. I suppose I should know, but I am a pretty simple person who really couldn't care less about these things, especially when I have Robert around to do it for me!;o) The fact that I have even managed to keep up a blog is pretty mind-boggling to me.

So over the past few weeks in my absence from the bloggoshpere, we have been getting back into our regular routine since summer has ended. Lily is back in her music and gymnastics classes. She is doing so well and is getting much more involved and participating a lot more on her own rather than with my prompting. I'm going to put on my proud mommy hat for a second: Lily's music teacher told me today that she wants to put her in the next age group level as she is more mature than the other kids in her class and she doesn't want Lily to get behind. Wow. Now I can't really take much credit for that as I think a lot of it is just her personality. However I do take credit for the fact that I do discipline her and correct her when she is not doing what she is supposed to be doing. A lot of other parents let their kids run around and make no attempt to keep them on task. Anyway, enough ranting about that. We've also been keeping up with the political season and are very excited about the turn of events with John McCain choosing Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. I like her, and not just because she is from my home state!

In other news, we are in the process of switching churches. We love, love, love our current church and are very sad to leave. But the distance is getting to be a bit much for us...40 minutes is a long way to go for church, especially when I am there 3 days a week for various things. We are one of the last families from our town to finally leave due to the distance. Our new church is only 5 minutes away and we already know several families there. We went to the service there this last Sunday. We were warmly greeted by many people as we walked in the door...refreshing. The nursery director saw me walking in with Lily. She came over to introduce herself and show me where to go and got us all settled in. We loved the pastor who preached that day...they are currently studying the book of Ephesians, which is one of my favorites and has one of my all-time favorite verses: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. It is a gift of God, not as a result of works, that no man should boast." Eph 2: 8-9. What an amazing gift God has given us. Yes....salvation is free! There is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our way in to Heaven...we will never be good enough, and we don't have to be! God sent His Son to pay the price for our sins. All we have to do is completely turn our lives over to Him and give Him control...therein lies the hard part. But once you do, you will know no freedom like the freedom in Christ. Praise the Lord!

As promised, here are some more pictures of projects I've done over the summer. I hope you enjoy. I promise I'll get back to more Lily stories and pictures next time!

This is the birthday invitation and banner I made for Lily's party.
I just love the panda stamp I found.

The following projects I made at the Stampin' Up convention in Utah.
An adorable little box for cards.

A cute little scrapbook page. I added the picture of Lily after we got home. The original sample had the word "you" instead of Lily, but since they gave us a whole set of chipboard letters, I put her name instead.

I am not an "orange" person. I normally don't care much for the color except at sunset, but this bag we made is beautiful. It made me like the color a little more.

The following are bookmarks. The one on the right is the one we made at convention.
The other two I made after I got home.

I am really loving altering items. (See the info on the box I used for my sister-in-laws birthday gift in my previous post!). This was just a plain white tin. I would still like to add a little something to the top, but I'm not sure what yet...some sort of saying or scripture maybe.

This little box is perfect for 3x3 sized gift cards. I am loving this new Bella Rose designer paper.

This is another altered tin...a band-aid tin! I decorated it and filled it with little gift tags.

A birthday card we did at a class at my house several weeks ago. Cute and very simple.

A pocket card...another of my favorites. I may use this style for our Christmas cards this year. I'm still working on some ideas. It's never to early to start planning!

I love this new stamp set as well. It's called Eastern Blooms and was one of the sets
we got for "free" at convention.

I love the popped up butterfly on this card. This card uses 3 new stamp sets from the new catalog. The butterfly and the flowers in the grass are from the Flight of the Butterfly set. The grass is from the Inspired by Nature set and the saying is from the Upsy Daisy set.

This is the Inspired by Nature set. I didn't like it at first, but now that I have used it and have
seen several other ideas, I love it!

See...I can't stop using it! On this one, I embossed the flower in white on designer paper. So pretty.

Another popped up butterfly, I wasn't crazy about the way this card came out, but it's still cute.

This card I actually made a long time ago with a set that is now retired called By Ones and by Twos. I was trying to get myself out of the box of my usual color combos. I don't love this combo, but I don't hate it either, although I do love the actual design of it. This would be a good gender-neutral card I think. I actually got this stamp set as a gift from my friend Jenny before I signed up as a demonstrator. She bought it for me because it has a stamp that says, " adoption is when a child grows in its mommy's heart instead of her tummy". How sweet is that?! It's a great set for someone having twins as well.

That's it for now. I am working on a little scrapbook gift for Lily's friend (though I won't mention who as she may read about it here!). I will post pictures of it when I'm done. I saw the idea and thought it would be a great gift for said friend.;o)