9/24/2011

A moment of sweetness

The Washington, D.C. area had its share of run-ins with natural disturbances-an earthquake, a brush with Hurricane Irene, and days of relentless rain from tropical storm Lee-within a pretty short period of time. Thankfully, our house and family were spared from serious loss and damage, but we were all a bit worn out by the weather. On the Thursday afternoon that Lee made his force be known, and it rained and rained and rained, and it was a hard rain. Truly, I have never seen that much rain fall from the sky, and it seemed like it would never end. Eventually it did stop, but I have a new appreciation for Noah and his family. Toward the end of the worst of it, a few rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightning accomapanied the rain. Of course, the thunder and lightning started right at bedtime. Pierce was very nervous and refused to stay in his room. Madelyn decided she needed to come out of her room, too. The kids stayed downstairs with us until the worst of the storm was over. Pierce panicked when we told him he needed to go back to bed. Madelyn, in a sweet moment of sympathy, told Pierce that she would stay with him. We agreed to this, and when we went upstairs to bed, this is what we found:


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9/22/2011

So behind

A lot has been going on around here, and I'm so behind on blogging about it. I'll make this post quick because Isabel is waking up and dinner is in the oven.


Pierce started school last week and loves it. He's in the blue room and was happy to see many friends back in his class this year. A big change for him, though, is eating lunch at school. He didn't do this last year, and he's really having trouble getting a lot of his lunch eaten. He's been so cranky when I pick him up, and the first day, I looked in his lunch box. He'd hardly eaten anything. So, he's been finishing his lunch on the way home. Hopefully, he'll figure this out, or he'll be in real trouble next year.


Madelyn lost two more teeth over a 4 day span. She's so excited about that!


Okay, that's it for now.
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9/18/2011

Happy Birthday, Isabel!

Isabel is two today! She is so full of energy and determination (read: she is very strong willed!). I think God gave me Madelyn (who is also strong-willed) to prepare me for Isabel (even more strong-willed). On the flip-side, she is also so sweet and definitely loves to snuggle. She wants one of us to rock her every night before bed, but what that really means is she wants us to sit in the glider and sing "Jesus loves Isabel" (same tune as Jesus Loves Me) twice before we put her in her crib. She loves Pierce and Madelyn, too, and she insists on hugging and kissing them before bed. She is talking so much and picks up new words and strings more sentences together everyday.

We had her birthday celebration last weekend because that's when most of the family could get together. Isabel will be competing with the Virginia Tech football schedule her entire childhood when it comes to planning her birthday parties.

Some of the decorations and the flower cake:








Some fun outside:
Isabel opening one of her presents (Aunt Cindy gave her a stuffed bunny that her mom (JD's grandmother) made for her when she was a little girl.))

Lunch time:
Cake time:


More presents:

Granddaddy with his grands:
Nana joined in with a "Show me how old you are!" photo:

9/13/2011

End of summer fun

At the end of the summer, JD took a week off and we had a staycation. We went to a couple of water parks, to the zoo, and then headed to his folks house for a long weekend. Below are a couple of albums. The first contains pictures from our zoo trip and the other has a few shots of fun on the farm.

Click on the photos to see the entire albums.

Zoo Summer 2011


Staycation 2011

9/11/2011

Remembering 10 years ago


(http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=wrapup-1-americans-mark-10th-anniversary-of-sept.-11-attacks-2011-09-11)

The following is an excerpt from an article about a pastor at our church who was in the Pentagon when the plane hit on Sept. 11, 2001. You can click on the link to read the entire article.
www.risenmagazine.com
An atomic bomb explosion—a fatal gunshot fired—a shattering earthquake – for many people these events trigger an instant recall of where they were at the time it happened. Tom Joyce was at his desk the fateful day in September 2001 when terrorists attacked the United States. A hijacked Boeing 757 ...