Contest

I was shopping today and found this cute little magnet canvas pocket! Isn't it cute?? I stuck all my take-out menus in it and I put it right on the fridge. And, believe it or not, I was thinking of you guys and so I bought an extra one!

This is the extra one I bought! And one lucky blog reader can win it! To enter my little contest all you have to do is leave a comment (that includes your name - anonymous comments with no names won't count for obvious reasons). So leave a comment sometime in the next 48 hours. The contest ends on Saturday evening at 8pm. Then I will randomly draw a number and the person who left that number comment wins this cute little fridge pocket! I'll let you know who the winner is on Saturday night! Isn't this fun? I think so :) It was time to do a little something different with this blog! Anybody can enter. I don't have to know you and you don't have to necessarily be a fan of this blog. Please only enter once!

*Since everyone has been asking....I bought the pocket at Target. I found it in the scrapbooking/stationary section. I'm regretting that I didn't buy a few more for myself because you know how Target can be. Things fly off the shelves at that store! I just looked online and of course they have all their other Real Simple office organizing stuff, but not the nifty little pocket.

Friends

Old Friends + New Friends = Good Times

Christian has a new friend named Caedmon. His daddy just became a pastor at our church and Christian and I have been enjoying getting to know him and his mommy. Can you tell that these two are in boy heaven?
And then there's are sweet friend Tanyon who we always love to spend time with. These three, three year olds, had a great time playing at the park today!
Tanyon's sister Addie even joined in the fun!
Christian's in the middle with his sun glasses on!
And McKenna had a great time watching them!

What a blessing great friends are!!

MIRACLE!!!

I just got the best news I've heard in months. Maybe years! You know that we have been praying for our sweet little cousin Olivia. She has had some serious heart issues over the past two years of her life and she was just diagnosed with Leukemia this spring. We have been praying for complete healing for Olivia for two years now. And you're not going to believe it! It's happened!! I can't even keep the tears from falling!!! God you are so good!

The following is an exact quote from Olivia's blog:
"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before Him with joyful songs.Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
the sheep of His pasture.Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
give thanks to Him and praise His name.For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100
I can't believe I am actually writing this post. Dr. Al just called from St. Jude. Olivia's bone marrow results are in. Her cancerous cells have significantly reduced to a point that takes them out of the classification of AML. The cancerous cells are virtually non-existent. She does not have leukemia. Her bone marrow is producing lots and lots of beautiful, healthy, wonderful, new cells. The bone marrow was so stressed and just reacting to how sick her little body was prior to surgery. St. Jude will still keep close tabs on Olivia and repeat a bone marrow biopsy in 6-8 months. It's so hard to believe that we have one of God's great miracles in our lives. We are so truly blessed. The power of prayer is absolutey amazing. Thanks be to God!"

Did you get that part about how Olivia doesn't have Leukemia anymore?? Amazing!! Thank you for praying for this sweet girl. I know that many of you have and God has heard the prayers of His people! There is NO doubt in my mind that this is a God thing and we give him all the glory.

September 9th

You may not realize this but today was a pretty important day:

#1 McKenna is now seven months old! Yipee! Wow these last few months have flown by!

#2 Today was the official release of Thomas and Friends and The Great Discovery. We don't have a copy yet, but I'm sure it won't be long!!

A sticky treat

Christian's been bugging me for awhile about trying a candy apple. One of his favorite friends, Caillou, had a candy apple on an episode of his show and ever since Christian has been convinced that they must be the best treat ever.

I'm not sure if Abby and Nate have had candy apples before. They both told me that they had not, so I think this was the first time all three of them have tried them.

We did NOT make these - I'm not that brave. I'm sure they would have enjoyed the candy apple making process and mess, but I wasn't up for it. So this time around the store bought ones will have to do.

I was convinced that no one would like their apple, but as you'll see from the video, I was wrong!

I know that this event probably wasn't a blog worthy moment, but we're having a slow day (which is rather nice) and this is all I could come up with to entertain you :)

So BIG!

We added another new toy today thanks to Nate! It took McKenna about 10 min. to figure out that you can bounce in this and once she got started she didn't want to stop. She keeps laughing at herself as she bounces!
McKenna wasn't the only one fascinated with this toy, Abby, Christian and Nate were hovering around dying to get their hands on this new toy as well, but I wouldn't let them. Can you just imagine poor little McKenna being bounced and rocked and swayed by a four year old, three year old and two year old? Not to worry, mommy was standing guard.
Whenever I see McKenna stand I realize just how big she's getting. Just for the record, she did not pull herself up, I put her there. She hung onto the side of the train table with one hand, while playing with a train in the other for quite awhile. Pretty amazing for a little girl who's not quite seven months old.

We'll miss you!

Goodbyes are never fun! We met Grammy and Grampy at Cracker Barrel this morning for a late breakfast and then they hit the road and began their journey back to Illinois. As soon as we got home Christian said, "I need my Grampy to come play with me."
Christian really is going to go through withdrawal because Grampy really does play with Christian pretty much non-stop when he's with him. It's been so much fun for him.
This was their very interesting game of checkers!

A big group hug until we see each other again for Thanksgiving!

Thanks for coming Grampy and Grammy. We made some great memories! You will be missed and talked about a lot! We're going to have to start talking about our trip to Illinois and all the tractors, wagons and doggies we'll get to see!

Genesis 1:1

"Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created, the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1"