Monday

Another week gone since I last posted. Where does the time go? I know I say that a lot, but it just gets away from me so much. Natalie turned 11 months last thursday. This means her 1 year birthday is just right around the corner. I'm having fun planning her party and deciding what we are going to get her.

The pictures in this layout are from last week. The prompt this week at OLW is the word pure. Pure silliness came to mind with these pics. She's so much fun to play with. She loves being silly and so do I!

Friday night was our monthly crop with the girls. Here are the other layouts I got done.



This past week has been tough emotionally for our family because John's grandmother passed away. She was a beautiful woman, both inside and out. This is one of the last pictures I took of her this past June. One thing this made me realize is that I need to take more pictures of the people in Natalie's life. I have tons and tons of pictures of Natalie, but capturing moments of the people that love her is so important. We love MeMaw and will miss her very much.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

My nephew celebrated the big 1-0 on Monday, so technically this is a little late, but I wanted to wish him a Happy Birthday here. Natalie loves her big cousin Tay! She loves to give him kisses and adores any attention she gets from him. I've always thought she favors him, especially when he was younger but just looking at these pictures of them side by side, there's no denying they are kin!
So in honor of birthdays, here's a fun meme I saw over at Cheryl's blog. She's having a week long celebration! That's the way birthdays are meant to be celebrated right?

IF TODAY WAS YOUR BIRTHDAY.
1. What kind of cake would you want to eat? I'm a simple gal. I love just some plain vanilla cake with white icing. Throw some sprinkles on top and I'll be that much happier. I also love strawberry shortcake. So either of these would suit me just fine.

2. How old would you be? I still haven't quite come to the grips that I'm not in my 20's anymore. My next birthday I will be 32.

3. And someone gave you $100 to spend just on yourself (no groceries! nothing for your kids! no exceptions!), what would you buy? Well Scrapbook supplies immediately come to mind, but aside from that I'd love to have a new outfit or two. I try to shop cheap, so I could probably find a few outfits with $100.

4. Where would you go to celebrate?I typically celebrate with my family. But it would be nice to leave the kiddo with the grandparents and do dinner and a movie with the hubby.

5. Would you make a wish when you blew out your candles? You know, I haven't done this is a long time. Maybe I need to make a point to make a wish next birthday!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Cheryl and her husband just recently celebrated an anniversary. She did a "Romantic Tuesday" post and shared some things about how they met, etc. and asked her readers to participate and answer some of the same questions if we felt so inclined. This put me in the mood to scan some of my older pictures of John and I and tell you a little bit about us.

* How did you and your husband meet?

I thank God often for the huge snow storm we had here in North Alabama in 1993. In March of all months! We just don't get snow down here, but that year we did. I was a junior in High School and I had a really good friend who was dating a guy that worked with John. My friend's boyfriend was so determined to play matchmaker and set John up with someone, so he gave John my number. If it hadn't of been for that snow storm he may have never called. He was such a shy guy and committed to his college studies 110%. Thank goodness he got snowed in and was sitting at home with nothing to do. My mother wouldn't let me go out on a date with him since I had never met him. So, I had a party and invited him to come, so that we could meet. We went out on our first date a week after that party.

* How were you proposed to?

Nothing very romantic about the proposal. I had gone with him to pick out a ring and I knew he had picked it up that day. We were standing in his front yard and he simply asked me to marry him.

* Was it love at first sight, or did it build slowly?
I definitely liked him at first sight, but falling in love with him happened over time.

* When did you get married? We got married Oct 2, 1999 after dating 6.5 years. This picture is the spring after we got married. March 2000.

* What is the most romantic gift you’ve received? I have 2. The first one is a swavorski rose that he gave during the first couple years we dated. A rose that would never die. He wrote the most beautiful poem along with it. Sadly I don't remember what year! But we dated 6 years before getting married, so hopefully that doesn't sound terrible that I don't remember what year. The other really romantic gift was on Valentine's Day of 1994. I had recently started collecting cherished teddy figurines and when I got home there was a dozen roses along with 8 cherished teddy figurines holding abc block letters spelling I Love You.

* Where did you go on your honeymoon? Gulf Shores, AL

* What words would you use to describe your marriage? Safe, loving, cherished, secure.

There you have it.. a little bit of our history. I am so grateful to God everyday that he is in my life and I thank God everyday for him and the beautiful daughter he has blessed us both with!

Happy Wednesday!

There's a new challenge blog called One Little Word. Here's the layout I did for their first challenge. The concept of this blog is to take the word they give us and use that word as our inspiration for a layout. The first word was GO.

And just a funny pic to share.. I've mentioned before John's love for the Online game World of Warcraft.. well I caught this picture of him the other day.. I'm assuming he was cold..but they do have some strange characters in that game, he could of also just been dressing the part. LOL

And also some cute pics of Natalie with her PaPa..

Family Matters - Picture Overload!

I've been trying to complete this layout for 4 days. I stamped the flowers and cut them out, and even though there aren't that many I was so ready to be finished cutting those things out! Plus the chipboard letters were bare, so I had to cover them with paper. So this probably wins the longest time spent on a layout award.

This week we've had some family in town from Florida. My granddad's first cousin was here to conduct a gospel meeting at my home congregation. We had a mini-reunion while he was here and got together with all the cousins that could attend. Now my family really keeps up with the family tree, all the first cousins at this get together were my Great-Grandfather and his siblings kids. You put a bunch a people in a room that grew up together in the 40's and 50's and you hear some interesting and funny stories. Back before TV's, Playstations, cell phones and computers, kids had to be a lot more creative on their own. The group picture is of all the first cousins and there were several that weren't there. Good times!








Here's Natalie today playing in the boppy. She is so close to sitting up on her own.