how do you REALLY feel?

Every day I ask my sweet little munchkin, "Do you want to have a baby at our house?". Every day, she emphatically answers, "NO". That's when I usually say under my breath, "Oh, well... too late.. we are having one anyway".

It's become somewhat of a joke around our house to ask her the question now. Since we always laugh at her response, she continues to say, "no" even if we insert other things/people in place of "baby". David likes to ask her, "Do you want a Baby Gunner at our house?" or "Do you want a Baby Mommy at our house?" and "Do you want a Baby Kitty at our house?". Each time her answer is... you guessed it...."NO!"

While David was goofing around on Avery's little play guitar the other day, he made up this silly song for her. We managed to get it on video. I think that I was laughing while filming it, so, sorry for the less than Speilberg-esque footage. I hope it makes you smile anyway!

just like her daddy!!!

Avery is in LOVE with ketchup. She can't get enough of that High Fructose Corn Syrup. This is some video of Avery creatively eating her favorite condiment.

having fun "owdide"

Avery loves to be "owdide". Since It's been so hot, I try to limit our outside time to the early morning or early evening hours. She loves throwing sticks to Gunner in the backyard ("two, two, GO!") and attempting to slide down her steeper-than-it-should-be-for-mommy-to-feel-comfortable slide. But her new obsession is anything she calls "A-ee" a.k.a "Avery". "A-ee" is coloring, drawing with chalk, painting, using her magic writing board, or writing with bathtub crayons. We discovered that the reason she calls drawing "Avery" is because mommy and daddy always write her name when we color with her. Pretty clever, huh? Anyway - she loves to go to our carport and color with chalk. She lies on her tummy and colors (thus causing more laundry for mommy right away) and then goes to lie on her back so that we will "tace" her outline. It is the funniest thing! She will make us do it like a million times in a row and never seems to tire of it! She cracks me up!

Translation Recap:
owdide - outside
lide - slide
tick - stick
A-ee - coloring
two, two, GO! - counting
tace - trace

Make a Smilebox slideshow

girl or boy?

So --- I've taken a few online quizzes that are supposed to "predict" the sex of your baby according to Old Wives Tales. The results have been pretty much useless. The last one I took online said that I have a 59% chance of having a boy and 40% chance of having a girl. I think that my doctor would say that those stats are probably right. I have about the same chance of having a boy as having a girl! Nice.

I guess we will have to wait for the official results after our ultrasound next week.

Anyway - According to the online quiz, here are the "reasons" for my results:

And Here's Why...
You are carrying the extra weight out front, so it's a boy.
The hair on your legs is not growing any faster during your preganacy, so it's a girl.
Boys are carried low. You are going to have a boy.
Sleeping in a bed with your pillow to the south indicates that you will be having a girl.
Your feet are not colder than they were before pregnancy. You are having a girl.
You refuse to eat the heel of a loaf of bread. You are having a girl.
Dad-to-be hasn't been gaining weight along with Mom-to-be, so it will be a girl.
The maternal grandmother has gray hair, so a boy will be born.
You had morning sickness early in pregnancy, so you are expecting a girl.
You are looking particularly good during pregnancy. Therefore, it must be a boy, because girls steal their mother's looks.
Your chest development has not been very dramatic during pregnancy. You should expect a boy.
Since the sum of the mother's age at conception and the number of the month of conception is even, it will be a boy.
A needle on a thread held over you belly moves from side-to-side, so it will be a girl.
Your urine is a bright neon yellow color, so you will have a boy.
You have a craving for salty or sour foods, which means that it is a boy.
Your nose hasn't changed during pregnancy, which indicates a girl.
You have been craving meats or cheeses, so it is a boy.
Your baby's heart rate is 140 or more beats per minute, so it's a girl.
You have no desire for orange juice, so it's a boy.
Your belly looks like a basketball, so it's a boy.
You show the back of your hand, so it's a boy.
You use the handle, so it's a boy.

Craft Night

I've discovered that I'm not so great at sitting at home and just hanging out around the house. Avery and I love to be out-and-about. We get a little stir-crazy when we spend too much time at home. During the school year and most of the summer, I teach preschool a few days a week which really helps break the monotony. For the last couple of weeks, however, we have had a little break between summer preschool sessions which has caused me to be a little more creative in my use of time!

So - this week I hosted Craft Night at our house. A few of my friends and I like to get together around once a month to do fun little projects that we always want to try, but never seem to have the time to do unless we schedule specific time. This month we decoupaged wooden crosses. Generally, the first hour is spent talking and eating and the last 30 minutes is actually spent on the craft, but we have a lot of fun hanging out. Here is a picture of a couple of our finished crosses:

Da-Dahs!

There is this massive mural on the wall of our children's ministry area at church. Avery discovered it while we were working during VBS. She quickly became infatuated with it. She would say, "Dah-Dahs! (Jesus)" every time we walked in the room. We had to take a few pictures of her in front of the mural because it was just so sweet. Now when we pull up to the church Avery says, "Da-Dahs!" and then, "Bais! (play!)".

little picasso

Avery made her daddy's Father's Day present this year. She loved painting his picture frame. She loved it so much that when I told her it was time to stop so we could go, she screamed, "No! Lellow, lellow!!" like a million times.

Happy Father's Day, David!

Avery loves her daddy so much. We are so thankful for his godly influence in our lives. We think he is pretty terrific!

Piggy Tails!!!

I just had to take some pictures of Avery's hair in her little pig tails. How cute are they?!? Her hair is just now long enough for me to pull it back. She was obsessed with them after I put them in. She kept touching them and laughing. Having a little girl is so fun!

Sprinkler Park Fun

David gave me this really cool new Flip camcorder for our anniversary. It is really cute and tiny... and PINK! How fun is that? Here is my first try at recording anything with it. I took some video of Avery at the sprinkler park with some of our friends on Wednesday.

Our 8th Anniversary

David and I celebrated our 8th anniversary on Tuesday night. We went to Paulette's and enjoyed a fabulous meal there. It was a great treat!

baby update

We just got back from our 15 week doctor's appointment. The doctor was able to find the baby's nice, strong heartbeat (150 bpm) very quickly. Looks like we are doing well! We will find out the sex of the baby at our next ultrasound in 3 weeks. Here's a picture I found to show what our little peanut might look like right now...

Worship Central London

I had the opportunity to go to an incredible Worship Pastor's Retreat in London this past week. It was led by a group called worship central which is a group that trains worship pastors around the world and is headed by Tim Hughes. You would probably know some of his songs which include Here I am to Worship and Beautiful One. I found out about the retreat almost on accident as I was looking at their website. I applied, not thinking that I would be chosen to go since they only allow 20 worship pastors to come and people were applying from all over the world. Long story short, I was chosen and I headed off to London.
I left at 1:00pm last Friday and arrived in London at 9:35am on Saturday. Needless to say, I was about to pass out, but I had been warned by friends not to sleep when I got there or I would never get on the proper schedule. So, I went to my hotel--a trip that took about 3 hours by the time I claimed my luggage, found my train, caught a connecting train and walked to my hotel carrying my suitcase, carry on and my guitar. When I finally got to the hotel, I shut the door to my room and it was so quiet. In that moment I knew that it was going to be hard to be away from Jennifer and Avery for a whole week. So, to avoid thinking about it, I left and hopped on a double-decker tour bus to see the sights. Here are some of the things I saw that first day.









I had one more day to see the sights, so I took off on foot and wandered aimlessly all day. One thing that I knew I wanted to do was eat Fish and Chips, one of my favorite meals. I finally found an authentic pub and when the food came, it looked so good I had to take a picture to send to Jennifer. Here is a picture of the place and the food.




Ok, so one place that you should never go when you are in London is a place called Halfway to Heaven. I was about to go to the national art gallery and I had been walking for a while, so I stopped in at this pub to get a drink. Well, as I was standing there, I noticed that they had just played three George Micheal songs in a row and I know he's British and all, but I knew something was up. I started looking around and all of the pictures on the wall were of women, but they didn't look like women. That is when I realized my mistake and after I felt like I waited long enough, I bolted across the street and took this picture of the outside of my new favorite gay pub. Nice.


The retreat itself started the next day and lasted for five days. It was a great experience as there were worship leaders from all over the world who came together to learn how to better lead our congregations and just relax and be refreshed in an amazing environment. The house where we stayed was built by Archbishop Barham as his personal residence during the time when Henry VIII was married to Catherine of Aragon. It was exactly what I would picture the English countryside looking like complete with rolling hills covered with sheep.







We had some great times of worship at the retreat and it was fun to be around worship leaders who came from countries all over the world including Rwanda, Norway, Holland, and England. Tim Hughes and the team from Worship Central were so humble and unassuming. They were the experts, but you got the sense that they came to learn as well. Here is a picture of Tim Hughes and his baby, Phoebe.



Just in case you are in England any time soon, here are some words that I picked up whilst I was there.

Proper- real, good
Brilliant- awesome
Flip!- Crap!
Tube- Subway
Pants- Underwear
Trousers- Pants

posted by Dave

what in the world????

What do you do about this?


This is a picture of Avery's severely abused thumb. She is an avid thumb-sucker these days and has managed to beat her little thumb to a pulp. The picture doesn't do it justice. Her poor thumb is as red as a tomato, blistered, and cracked. It looks really painful, but she doesn't act like it bothers her a bit. It makes Mommy VERY sad to look at. I'm thinking that we need to go to the doctor, but I have this fear that he will tell me that I need to try to break her from thumb-sucking. That is one of her biggest pleasures in life. I just don't know if I have the heart to do that just yet.

Such a Happy Girl...

Avery is much like her Mommy and Daddy in the fact that she is a VERY grumpy girl when she wakes up from more than a few minutes of sleeping. The pictures may look like we were torturing her, but we really just wanted to get a few shots of her CRAZY hair when she woke up. I think that you can tell how she felt about having her picture taken...

David is home!

I promised David that while he was away last week that I wouldn't post anything about his absence. He is always thinking about safety. I love that about him. I guess the obsession with safety comes from his days as a cop and growing up with a dad who was in law enforcement. He made me promise while I was gone to make sure every door was locked and all of the exterior lights were on during the night. I dutifully complied with all his wishes while he was away. I even gave the dog a bath and took the trash to the street all by myself.

Sow now that he is home, let me just say that I have a new-found respect for single moms and all the work they do. Happily, the nausea from my first trimester is now waning, but the beginning of my week without Dave was really rough. Nausea and a toddler DO NOT mix. Thankfully, I had lots of friends and family to help me out while he was gone. I am glad that David was able to go on such an amazing trip, but I am really, really glad that he is back.

David spent last week in London, England at a worship pastor's retreat led by Tim Hughes and the team at Worship Central. He was one of just 20 people chosen out of many applicants from all over the world. He met a lot of really great people, ate some crazy food, and played a "proper game of football" while he was there.

I am trying to get him to post some info about his trip for all who care to read about it. He's loaded the pictures into the computer --- so that's half the battle. He just promised me that he will do it tomorrow. We have that on record... so... there you have it, folks.

oh no!!!

Avery and I went with the Malahy family last night to the zoo for Member's Night. We had such a fun time. The Butterfly Exhibit opened this weekend and Avery loved seeing the butterflies. There was a live band and all of the kiddie rides were free. Usually, kids aren't allowed to swim in the replica of the Nile River, but on Member's Night they allow it. Kids were everywhere. It was pretty crazy, but really fun.

We got home way past Avery's bedtime, but since it was so hot and sticky last night, she just had to have a bath. I think that I've mentioned a few times how much Avery loves her baths. At one point during her bath, she stood up in the tub and started doing a little dance. After laughing at my silly naked goof-ball, I had her sit right back down in the tub. A few minutes later, she became really relaxed... so relaxed that she relieved herself in the tub. Unfortunately - and I'll try to say this as tactfully as possible - it wasn't pee...

I think I yelled, "oh no!" and quickly pulled her out of the contaminated tub. Sadly, this experience with my sweet little girl was NOT my first. She only seems to do it when David isn't around to help me with clean-up duties. Let me just tell you how hard it was not to puke while cleaning that yucky tub last night. Thanks, Aves!

The irony of the situation is that I wouldn't let Avery wade around in the "Nile" at the zoo that night because I thought that it was nasty...all those kiddos swimming around in each other's... well... you know. Oh, well!

Little Sassy Thing

Today Avery started randomly adding an "ah" at the end of words that end in "y". My name is now Mommy-ah, Daddy is Daddy-ah, and her baby doll is Baby-ah. We aren't quite sure why she's started doing this... David thinks it is adorable and encourages her bysaying, "Where's the baby-ah?" and "How's my little Avery-ah?". Maybe we have some Italian roots somewhere in the family tree, or maybe she is learning a little Pig Latin at school. Who knows?
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Here are some pictures of Avery showing the sassy little personality that has just started to reveal itself to us. Sometimes sassy can be a really fun thing. Sometimes, not-so-much. The following pictures provide an example of each type of sassy:

Exhibit A: This picture is from our recent shopping outing to a local boutique. Avery found the perfect sized chair and was VERY sad when Daddy and I said that it was time to go. She proceeded to show her displeasure by throwing a monumental fit (didn't get pics of that precious moment. By the way - did you happen to notice all of the parenting books we have been reading lately?)

Exhibit B: These pictures are from tonight. We had VBS music practice at church and Avery was hanging out being a goof-ball. So cute. I like cute sassy a lot better than stinky sassy.


My mom used to lovingly/jokingly recite this nursery rhyme to my sister Katharine when she was around Avery's age. I think it's pretty funny. I remembered it today when our little angel was being a little less than angelic!

There once was a girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
She was very, very good.
But when she was bad
she was HORRID.

Of course, our Avery is never horrid, just a little bit of a stinker sometimes...but the nursery rhyme made me smile when I thought of it. Mother Goose must have had a toddler or two.

Deep Thoughts...

Going to sleep has become quite an ordeal for me. Pregnancy has this strange way of totally exhausting me, yet making it nearly impossible for me to fall asleep easily. As a result, I have put David through a myriad of random tasks in an effort to help me fall sleep... my happiest discovery is the miracle of Breathe Right Nasal strips. My precious husband... although incredibly handsome and wonderfully brilliant (how do you like that not-so-subtle attempt at keeping him from being mad at me for posting this???) has a bit of a snoring problem. Unfortunately, HE has no problem going right to sleep the moment his head hits the pillow -- which leaves me sitting in the darkness (sighing loudly and poking him every 5 minutes) getting more and more frustrated by the second. Since our Breathe Right discovery, David's snoring has subsided. Now I sit in the darkness and sigh and fume over my 80 pound boxer and HIS snoring problem. Which led me to the deep thought that I have been having every night since the onset of this pregnancy: Why don't they make Breathe Right Strips for dogs????

A Visit With The Doyles

Our sweet friends Sean, Kim, and Ethan Doyle visited our church last night to speak with a few of our small groups about their upcoming assignment with Team Missions to Zimbabwe, Africa.

David and I met Sean and Kim about 7 years ago (?) while we were both in seminary at Mid-America. After they left Memphis to continue Sean's seminary schooling at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, we weren't able to see them often but we kept in contact through letters and email. They are such sweet friends; The kind of friends you find yourself falling into conversation with after years apart as easily as if you talked every single day. We just love them and are so excited about the work that God has for them in Africa.

As I was listening to Sean speak about the horrible conditions in Zimbabwe and the desperation that the people live in there, I realized how little I know about Global conditions and what a blessed life I have. The Doyles will leave to serve as career missionaries in July. Currently, they are praying that their Visa will arrive safely so that they can actually get into the country.

God has done some amazing things as the Doyles have prepared for this move - things that only He can do. You can read more about who they are, what they will be doing in Zimbabwe, and how you can help them by checking out their website: www.seankimethan.com. I have a link for it listed on our blog.