Random Observation...

Yesterday I went to Newspring as I stated before and I wanted to share an observation I made. Someone in a small group I'm a part of made the comment in one of our sessions that part of being a Christian is doing the right thing. I think we can all agree with this...now it doesn't mean that doing the right thing and being a "good" person makes you a Christian, but as a Christian we do the right thing. Example...you see someone drop some money on the floor, you pick it up and give it back to them. Easy right? One would think so...if we love Jesus then we would do those small things that don't seem like a big deal! Anyway, I have heard people talk about how church people aren't any different from regular people, and I think we can all agree that there are people who go to church who act differently the other 6 days of the week. Now, not saying I'm perfect or anything...I know I don't always act like I should. However, as Christians we should act a certain way...and sometimes not only do we not act that way when we are in the world...but we also don't always act that way when we are in a Christian environment. I read a blog on someone's trip to a Christian conference and how they couldn't believe the way women acted at lunch time or on break when trying to get to the bathroom or to the book tables. Ever noticed that?? Ever been one of those women who got mad b/c another CHRISTIAN woman broke in front of you? WOW!! What an observation! Ok, back to NewSpring...yesterday they had baptism in all 4 services, and it was truly amazing! The baptismal pool is in the atrium, so they had it blocked off and had carpet down on the floor leading to the bathroom so when people came out of the pool there wouldn't be a huge wet mess on the floor. Jodi and Brad volunteered during the second service, so I waited on them in the lobby and watched the baptism for the second service. I love observing people...so I got to do a bit of this while waiting on them. Do you know what I noticed?? Several people would stumble on the rugs layed out for the baptism, and the rugs would roll up...and EVERY time it happened the person turned around and fixed it. Now, I know that seems like an incredibly small thing...but I was really impressed. How many times have we witnessed someone do something like that and just keep going? How many times have we done something like that?

No New Pictures :(

I would love to tell you that I took a bunch of awesome pictures this weekend and that I will be posting them soon, but that would be a lie. :( I mentioned that my new camera is MIA...I have a theory on that, but no need to go into detail. Anyway, in it's absence I have been using my old camera. Well, one night last week I got my camera out of my purse to take a few pics with it, and when I turned it on everything seemed fine until nothing showed up on the LCD...the lens is broken. So that means my backup camera is out of commission now as well. BOO! I am trying to make a decision about a new camera...but in the meantime there won't be any new pictures. Just wanted to let you all know...it's not just b/c I'm being slack!

On a different note, we had a great weekend. Friday night we stayed home and just tried to relax...and it was wonderful! Pop grilled burgers for us, and Mimi and I made green beans and macaroni salad. Then Saturday we got up and Pop worked on the house site for a good portion of the day. Mimi had a quilt class to go to, so Alexa and I spent a leisurely morning at home before we got ready to go shopping. After lunch we headed out with Mimi to find some new summer clothes. We went to Old Navy and then to Gaffney. We made some great discoveries, and Mimi got a few outfits for Pop and herself to take on their vacation next week. We are definitely going to miss them while they are gone! Then we came home and had take-out for supper...yummy Chinese! :)

I got up super early Sunday morning to get ready for church. I have made the decision to start attending NewSpringwith Jodi and Brad and as a result we had to be at their house at 8 to be in Anderson by 9:15. I can't wait for the Greenville campus to open in July so we won't have to drive quite as far, but it is totally worth it in the meantime! I can't wait to get involved and be a part of the great work God is doing in and through this church!

That's about it for our weekend. Thankfully I am on spring break from school this week...still have to work, but I am so thankful for a little break! I seem to be completely exhausted these days, so hopefully I can recooperate some this week, and spend some quality time with my precious little girl! I hope you all are having a great day on this Monday, don't forget to thank God for the many blessings in your life...I know I am!!

Isn't the weather BEAUTIFUL today!

For my Thursday Thirteen today I'm going to post 13 things I love!

1. Jesus, my Lord and Savior
2. Alexa Lynn...the light of my life!
3. spring days with the sun in my face
4. my amazing family
5. the best friends in the world
6. great pictures
7. trying new things
8. whatever time I get to leave on Friday
9. shopping
10. when Alexa puts her head on my shoulder and wraps her sweet little arms around me at bedtime
11. driving
12. anything that gives me butterflies in my stomach
13. new houses...I can't wait to build my own home one day!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Random Pictures

Here are some pictures I've taken over the last week or so...

Alexa sitting on her block container and playing with her phone...she thinks it's so funny to sit on her bucket! Don't you love that dress?

Eating pizza...enough said!

Yummy applesauce!

Playing with Uncle Jerry at the house site

Learning how to operate the loader...she was lifting the bucket...with some help!

Cleaning up her mess! We had popcorn and she would get a piece and then crush it...so I got the dustbuster for her to clean it up! She thought it was fun, but I got most of it up!

This was Sunday morning at breakfast...is that not the sweetest face! And yes...she had juice and milk...and she takes a sip of one and then the other...silly girl!

Taking a look at her Easter "basket" LOL! We decided on something that would have a use later instead of a basket, but then nothing would really fit inside of it! :)

Know what hurts...

...hot cream cheese on the roof of your mouth!

This thought keeps coming into my mind today every time my tongue touches the raw spot on the roof of my mouth. I fried wontons last night, and they were super yummy...but the first one I ate was rather hot. The first bite wasn't bad b/c it was the outside, but the inside was AWFUL...ouch! So, just in case you weren't aware of this fact, now you are!

Yes I know you are thinking I'm a NUT! :)

GIVEAWAY

Jessica of Funky Finds is hosting a giveaway of children's goods this week. Head over to her blog and get all the info. You can enter up to 45 times, and 15 winners will receive three of the items up for grabs! Go check it out, you can't beat something free and it's so easy. All you have to do is check out the featured sites and link them in your comment. Then winners will be chosen randomly! Good luck!

THE BIG NEWS!!

Ok, this is what I have been wanting to post since last Tuesday when I wrote this. Wednesday afternoon I had an interview for a new job...and this job is exciting for several different reasons. The main reason is that with this job I would be a Spartanburg Regional employee...FINALLY! I have been in this office for a year and a half...and while my job is by no means temporary I am still a contract employee. Which means my benefits stink!

When I had my interview last week I thought it went really well, and I was mainly glad God allowed me the chance to have an interview for one of the open positions. I have never felt I was good at interviews, but I thought this one was pretty smooth! I was able to be perfectly honest with the three coordinators I met with and I never felt like they had a negative feeling. Even when I made a mistake with the adding machine...LOL! :) I don't ever use an adding machine...I use the calculator on my computer, so when they asked me to add a list of items I really didn't think I would have a problem. OOPS! The machine was set up that you either had to use a decimal or you had to put zeros after the number...so for instance if you typed in 98 and hit enter the machine added it as $0.98 instead of $98...see my point! We all laughed about it and they basically told me they were more interested to see how I would handle it if I made a mistake than making sure I got it exactly right. So, even though I got the wrong answer I still passed the test. LOL! :)

I finally got the call this morning, and after some negotiations I will start orientation on April 14th, and I couldn't be happier! I will only be moving to the office next door, but Alexa will be able to go to the daycare here when I get a spot for her and my benefits will be much better! God is so good to me!!! I know you have all been wondering what my exciting news was and this is it...I can't wait to start my new job!

Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, I hope everyone else did too! Yesterday Alexa and I went to a birthday party for Morgan, and Alexa loved it! I work with Morgan's mom Tia, so we have become friends that way, and although the girls are several years apart they love each other! The party was at a skating rink, so Alexa didn't get to do that, but she had a good time running around and dancing. After we left we headed to Anderson to NewSpring . That was possibly the best worship service I have EVER been to! I can't wait to go back!!

Jodi and Brad started going to NewSpring several months ago and have really enjoyed it...now I know why! After that we went to Logans to eat and as always Alexa ate a bunch! LOL! Then this morning we had our Easter service and Mimi and I sang a duet. The service was packed out, and it was nice to see some people we haven't seen in a while. Then we headed to my Aunt Marian's house for lunch with our whole family. We are pretty spread out these days, so it's really nice when everyone can get together!

Here are some pictures from the Easter egg hunt! All of the kids had a great time...and Alexa was surprisingly good at it! LOL!

Here we are in front of the cross at church...they do such a lovely job of putting it together every year! Here is Alexa pushing her new babydoll around in her stroller...definitely a hit!

Are these outfits not just the cutest?! Mimi made Alexa's dress and Walker's JonJon and then Jodi appliqued the chick and bunny on the front...we were super pleased with how they turned out. Oh, and amazingly enough Alexa wore her hat the majority of the time!

Let the egg hunt begin!

I was really surprised at how well Alexa did finding eggs. Now, don't get me wrong they weren't really hidden...but still for an 18 month old she did a great job, and we didn't point them out to her either! The big boys also did a good job of leaving eggs for the babies to find!

Then she wanted to look inside all of them! We didn't put anything inside because they don't need any candy! LOL

Then she dumped her basket out!

She sat with mommy long enough for one picture...then she ran away to find more eggs. We hid them twice!

This is her second basket full...and then she decided to eat the eggs!

Then she would hand them to Uncle Jerry...he ended up with the entire basket in his lap!

Alexa thought it would be fun to play in the dump truck...it was slightly smaller than her hiney! :)

Then we picked all of the eggs up and put them away

I think everyone really enjoyed the day!

Where did it go?

My creativity that is...I seem to have lost it somewhere and I can't figure out when it happened. To be perfectly honest I'm starting to wonder if I've ever REALLY was creative at all, or if that was all in my head. Do you ever have that feeling? I'm going to try and find it really soon!

Look what I'm getting!

I just ordered these from Inka! I can't wait to get them along with my silhouette! She is having a contest on her blog, you should head over there and check it out! She has added some really cute new stuff to her Etsy! Love my earrings Inka, thanks!

Well, it's Tuesday

Not much going on here today...pretty boring as usual! We walked down to the house site last night, and the brush pile is almost gone. It was pretty messy because of the rain over the weekend, but they should be able to get some more work done soon. In other exciting news, Alexa's room was painted on Saturday!! This is exciting for lots of reasons...number one because she will finally have her own room instead of sleeping in the living room. The second reason this is exciting is because along with a room comes a closet! That's right, I will no longer have to share my closet with Alexa. Trust me whenI say we both have way too many clothes for that itty bitty closet! Hopefully in another week or so the tile will be down, and then I will be able to put Alexa's room back together! I can't wait...all the disorganization in my room is making me crazy, but for the most part I can't help it for lack of space!

On a related note...I am getting ready to sell some of Alexa's old clothes on ebay. So far what I'm working on is all of her dresses from last summer, which are all 6-9 months. If anyone knows of someone who might be interested in these dresses please let me know. I'm not trying to make a lot of money on them, and they are all in excellent condition!

I also have some other potentially exciting news, but unfortunately I can't share it at this point. I am busting at the seams, but it's much too early when I don't know for sure. I'll let you know something as soon as I know!! :)

I hope you all are having a great week...I'm ready for Friday!! :)

Etsy Sale

One of the Freckled Nest Chicks, Inka, is having a sale in her Etsy shop...head over there and take a look at the cute handmade items she has for sale. The silhouettes aren't included, but they are super cool! I LOVE the one she did for me...you can see it on the sidebar of my blog! She is so talented!

Forward Progress

Just a few pictures tonight to show you the progress on the new house!!

This is what the site of the house looked like before...

This is the driveway...looking towards the road

This is the right side of the house site...the end of the brush pile is approximately where the garage will be

This is the pile of brush Jerry cleared off the house site

Pop showing me where the house is going to sit

Alexa having a look around

Alexa playing on Jerry's Loader...LOL! :)

So FUNNY!

Ok, I have to tell you guys something funny that Alexa did last night. After her bath she was playing in her kitchen and I kept trying to get her to come over to me so we could start our goodnight routine. Well, I would say 'Alexa it's time for bed'...'Alexa can you come get Mommy'..."Alexa Lynn, you need to come here'...and on and on the story goes. Clearly she was not listening to Mommy...so after a few minutes I walked over to her kitchen. She started giggling as I got there and tried to run away from me like she always does. I snatched her up and gave her a kiss and said 'Alexa did you hear Mommy talking to you' she exageratedly shakes her head yes, 'were you ignoring Mommy' and she does it again. I had to turn my head to keep her from seeing me laugh. It was absolutely hysterical because she was dead serious! We then discussed that it wasn't nice to ignore Mommy and she said she understood and that she would not ignore me anymore. Now we all know that is a long shot...LOL...but it was still really sweet at the end. I am sure this will be the beginning of many heart to heart we have...she is so funny!

It's OVER!

As you know if you read this post back in February I decided to give up dairy products. After talking to Lindsey I thought it might not be a bad idea to see if it helped with my allergies. Well...for the better part of 6 weeks I was strong and didn't eat any dairy. Even when we all brought food to work (and I even brought something with dairy) I didn't eat any of it. I am officially finished!

There were several things that didn't bother me about not eating dairy...for instance, I really haven't missed milk except when I baked chocolate chip cookies. I haven't missed butter or sour cream. Even though I used to bring yogurt to work that hasn't been a problem either. My only problem has been CHEESE! Yes I know they make veggie slices, and I'm just not willing to go there!

I really didn't even miss cheese until I realized how many things I LOVE have cheese in them. For instance, my favorite sushi roll has cream cheese in it...so I knew instantly I wouldn't be giving that up. I even gave up eating cheese on my favorite dish when we went to eat Mexican. Then this past Sunday Mimi made her famous cheeseball, and that was the kicker. I grew up LOVING this cheeseball and the thought that I couldn't eat it anymore was just too much for me! It was at that point that I decided I just wasn't going to do it anymore.

I did think there was a slight improvement in my allergies, but honestly not enough to make it worth it. So folks while I'm not going to completely go back to dairy, I'm also no longer dairy free. I gave it my best shot, and I don't think it's the best thing for me! Just wanted to let you all know!

Happy Friday!! :)

HELP!!

I changed my template and now it won't let me add page elements...what happened??

**UPDATE**
I am no longer trying to fix this...my mind doesn't want to think about it right now. So, I'm going to leave it alone for now and I might fix it tomorrow or the next day...sorry for any inconvenience!

Ok, somehow it started allowing me to add page elements when I got home...who knows!!

New Chick on the Block

It's official...I have been invited to join the Freckled Nest Design Team! LaLa and I have been emailing back and forth for a while now, and this week she asked me if I would be interested in joining the DT, and obviously I said YES!! I am really excited about having the opportunity to get to know all of these ladies better! I also hope all of you will hop on over to LA's blog and learn a little bit more about FN! She is super creative, and has some of the cutest designs in her shop. To all of my DT chicks, I just want to say I can't wait to get to know all of you!!

Terrific Tuesday

Isn't it beautiful outside today? Sure it's a bit chilly, but it's still a beautiful day. I really don't have much to blog about...we have been pretty uneventful lately. I do have some cute pictures to post, so I'll do that now! Besides...it's not like you care what I have to say...most of you only come for the pictures anyway!! :)

Playing peek-a-boo with Pop Pop

and patty cake!

Trying to climb up in the chair with Pop...I'm a big girl, I don't need any help!

Almost there...

Yeah Pop I made it!! :)

She was giving Pop kisses in the floor...unfortunately I'm not fast enough to capture that!

Pop reading Lexa a story

Eating chicken wings with Uncle Jerry

She loves her Uncle Jerry!!

She loves to feed us what she has cooked in her kitchen!
This is my FAVORITE Alexa face...her daddy calls it her skunky face...I guess it looks like she has smelled something bad...LOL! I LOVE IT! We all just laugh and laugh when she does it...and nobody else can do it like she can...I promise if you try you won't be able to do it! LOL

Eating with her fork...notice the two sippy cups! She wants her water and milk!

There's that face again!

YUMMY!

Bubbles!! Last night when I made Alexa's bath water I decided to make it a bubble bath...well, she loved it...unfortunately she thought they looked like they were good to eat!

As you can see here w/ bubbles all over her face! LOL!

Eating ice cream with Uncle Jerry...yes after my bath! LOL!!

I always want to share!

Messy face...

...and hands! LOL!

Alexa had a great time playing last night...and she was super tired! When I picked her up to get her settled down for bed time I wanted to wait a few minutes before putting her down to Mimi would get home first. No such luck! She was sacked out within 2 minutes and didn't even more when I put her down! She was still dead to the world when I went to get her this morning! She sure played hard!! :) Have a great day!