Beach Pictures!

I figured the best way to share our beach pictures was in a slideshow...enjoy! Warning: there are a lot of pictures! :-)

16 Months

Ella is 16 months today. It has amazed me how much she has learned and changed in the past month. She understands pretty much everything we say now and has really started to say a lot of words and put words together into sentences. The latest thing we've taught her is to smile and nod her head when we ask "are you rotten?" So cute! :-)

Here's how she's changed in the last few months:

13 Months:

14 Months:

15 Months:

And here's another funny "cheese" smile:

One Great Day of Service

We participated in Frazer's One Great Day of Service today. The goal was to get as many people involved in some type of service project as possible to make an impact on our city. Our Sunday School participated in two ways: the boys and women who didn't have children to care for, did yard work for a woman in need and also worked on a project at one of our local schools. The other woman and children decorated cookies and cards and then delivered them to neighbors. We had so much fun working on the projects and spending time together. It was also a great opportunity to teach our children that serving other people is not only a blessing for those who are being served but for us as well.

What a difference a few days makes...

I'm still working on all those beach pictures, but here are two that I took. One on the first day and one on the day that we left. Initially the water was so calm it was like a lake...no waves at all. Then Monday morning when the weather started to move in, it totally changed the ocean. The water was all the way up to the steps and extremely rough. I'm glad we had a few days of nice weather to enjoy!

Cheese!

Oh boy...I've created a monster! Ella understands the camera very well now and when using the point and shoot (which shines a red light before taking the picture) she gives her very best "cheesy" smile. I'll never be able to catch a candid smile again! :-)

When I was about 2 years old we lived on Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC. I had a lot of little playmates, but my closest buddies were 2 boys around my age named Jason and Jeffrey. Well, we're all grown up now, married or engaged, with kids of our own. We had the opportunity to eat dinner and visit with Jason last night because he's in town with work. It's so much fun to see how we've all changed and reminisce about old times.

Our little artist

Ella is really into crayons right now. We've been letting her play with them at restaurants that offer them and the other day I bought her some of her very own. She thinks she's very big. :-)

Santa Rosa Beach

We just returned from a quick Labor Day weekend at the beach. We lucked out with two and a half really nice days at the beach and then saw the arrival of Hurricane Gustav weather. But, that didn't spoil our fun...just gave us a good excuse for shopping! :-) Love those Destin outlets!! I'll be working on pictures all this week and will try to post as I finish editing them. Here's a couple for now. We hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!