We are having a....

Yes, you heard right. We found out today that we are going to have our hands full with another little boy! We are very excited and we are thrilled that our little one looks healthy and all is going well. Now we can start thinking of names...

Birthday Trip to Searcy

We took advantage of our last chance to fly to Arkansas before Griffin turned 2. Griffin and I flew to Arkansas on Tuesday, July 8th and returned a week later. We were very busy- seeing almost every family member on both sides of the family and having 2 birthday parties- but we had alot of fun as well. These are a few pictures from that week. To read the captions for the pictures, just touch the mouse to the bottom of the picture.

Happy Birthday and Anniversary

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary. It is also Griffin's second birthday. Kind-of strange, huh. It is even weirder that I was also born on my parents 2nd anniversary and Griffin came on his own on his due date. We have had the second of many busy July 17ths but we wouldn't have it any other way. Today was a really nice day. Nathan took off from work and made breakfast for all of us this morning. Then we went to storytime and then rode the train at the park and played on the playground. Griffin and Nathan were so tired that they took a 3 hour nap before going to our friend Cason's birthday party. After the party, our friends Megan and Tim offered to watch Griffin so we could go to a movie. Don't worry- Griffin has already had 2 birthday parties with Grandparents and is having another one on Saturday, so he is getting his turn! (picture to come from our trip to AR later).

I am tired and it is getting late, but I wanted to write a quick note about my 2 favorite boys. These last 4 years have been the best of my life and I owe it all to my wonderful husband. He understands me like no one else and I am so blessed to have him in my life. He is an amazing husband, a devoted father, and a Christian leader for our family. When I watch him as he puts Griffin to bed at night (as he is doing right now), I know that this is what he is meant to do.

When Griffin was born 2 years ago, he changed our lives forever. I have loved every minute of watching him grow and learn and cannot imagine my life without him. When he sings the church songs he has learned, my heart melts. He is all boy and busy all the time, which is challenging, but so much fun. I can;t wait to watch him as he grows up and to see what God has in store for his life.

Happy anniversary Nathan!

Happy birthday Griffin!

I love you both!

Griffin Singing

Ever since camp agape, Griffin has been singing up a storm all the time. This video is of Griffin singing "The Lord's Army". I could not get more than one video to download, so I will try the others later.

Camp Agape

Camp Agape is a week-long day camp for grades 1-6 hosted by Brentwood Oaks, the church we attend. It has been going on at Brentwood for many years and is a favorite camp among not only the members of Brentwood, but many friends and children from the neighborhood as well. Throughout the week, approximately 150 campers participate in Bible, sports, crafts, swimming, and many other theme-related activities. For the past 4 years, Nathan and I have co-directed this camp with another friend from church. While it has turned out to be a little bigger job then we originally realized, it has been an amazing and rewarding experience for us to watch each year as our ideas take shape and come to life and the stories from God's word are planted in the lives of these children. This year's theme was I AM. The setting was Egypt and the campers were given the chance to experience what it was like for the Israelite people as God delivered them from slavery. During the week the campers made bricks, built a pyramid, learned about life in Egypt for Christians today, and many other activities. The first few pictures are of our stage set and the pyramid the kids built (they put on the bricks they had made). Even thought there is a preschool and nursery for volunteers children, Griffin did not participate that much since my mom was in town that week. He did, however. come to some of the opening assemblies where he loved to dance and learned all the songs. He also played on the slip-n-slides one day as well. The last few pictures are of Griffin, of course.

Griffin Dancing

Sorry the video is sideways- couldn't get it to work when we put it in our video editing program and turned it around. This is at my friend Katie's wedding. They had a circle and people were going in the middle and dancing. Griffin kept running across to give Katie five and then run back- he was so proud of himself. He also "danced", but we didn't get a good shot of it on video- he doesn't stand still for long. We thought he was funny and he was definitely the life of the party.

Trip to St. Louis

This past May we took a week-long trip to St. Louis to go to my friend Katie's wedding. I ran cross country in high school with Katie and we have kept in touch ever since. Nathan's grandparents and several aunt's, uncle's, and cousin's live there as well-many had never met Griffin. It was a great vacation for us. We left on a Friday and drove to Fayetteville, AR, to see Nathan's brother Justin and his wife Julie. While there, we went on a float down the river. It was a lot of fun, though tiring for me- imagine what Julie felt like- she was 9 months pregnant! We left there on Sunday and went on to St. Louis. During the week we went to the zoo, the transportation museum, Grant's Farm, and had many other fun activities. We also got to visit with a lot of family and we had a great trip. At the end of the weekend, we went to the wedding. It was very nice and great to see Katie again. Griffin had a blast dancing at the reception- we have a little on video that we will post later. To top it all off, we got the call from Justin that Julie was having her baby that Sat. night. We made a slight detour on our way home and were able to arrive at the hospital only a few minutes after Shelby June was born. It was so special to see them and welcome our new niece into the world. All in all, it was a wonderful vacation.