Count your Blessings, Name them One by One...

I wanted to go ahead and post about all of the things I'm thankful for as Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I've been getting the house clean, doing laundry, doing a few projects, and going to start baking a cake but while the baby sleeps, I want to get this post in.

I have so much to be thankful for...we are richly blessed! Even though we may have a few struggles, we have far greater blessings.

I'm thankful first for Salvation...without it the rest would be nothing!

I'm thankful for my wonderful husband. I'm thankful for his love and commitment, his hardworking character, his skills, that he's a great daddy, that he loves Alabama so much, that he loves Jesus, that he's faithful, and that he's mine!

I'm thankful for Adam's job at C&C and the income it provides for us.

I'm so thankful for the wonderful gift of my daughter! I love her so much and thank God for her everyday! I'm so thankful that she's healthy, for God healing her from the jaundice when she was a newborn, for every smile and laugh that she has, for her development, for her beautiful face, that she loves me so much!, and that I know God has great things in store for her and I look forward to seeing her grow up into the godly woman she is called to be (but not too fast!ha).

I'm thankful for all that God is teaching me this year. Through bible study at Grace, church, and all the things that He uses Alabama to teach me! The comparisons are so amazing and I love growing closer to Him.

I'm also thankful that I get to be with her everyday! I know this is such a blessing and all mothers aren't able to stay home with their babies but I'm so glad that I am!

I'm thankful for great parents and in-laws! They are both so wonderful and we are blessed to have them!

I'm thankful for my sisters who are the greatest aunts and help me so much!

I'm thankful for freedom...freedom for our country, freedom to worship, freedom in Christ. And I'm also thankful for those who serve our country to make that possible!

I'm thankful for our church family at Grace! They are such a loving church and I am so proud to be member there. I'm thankful for Pastor Bill and Mrs. Leila who so faithfully serve and minister to us. I'm thankful for our new Young Couples class and the Fords who are doing such a great job of teaching and leading us.

Christmas Wreaths at Grace

The Ladies of Grace had a very fun night tonight of making wreaths and swapping cookies. I brought "Cake Balls" that I learned from Kelly at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/. They are soo good and so very easy! I came home with an array of yummy looking treats! Can't wait to sample them.....

We also made Christmas wreaths. You could select one of the designs they prepared to make or bring your own items. I chose to bring my own things and decided it would be neat to make a wreath to hang on Alabama's room door. I don't think we will have a tree in her room so a wreath can add that festive touch that's just for her!

These are the items I started with. I just placed them all around the wreath and made the bow and then started gluing/wiring everything in place. I love how it turned out! I especially love all the little touches that make it special. Here's an "a" for Alabama, (I'm still going to paint white dots on the a)here you can see the silver baby spoon I tied on....here you notice the angel's wings and tiara. (These wings are an ornament from the ornament swap I participated in. Thanks Amanda @ http://www.celebratinglifeseries.blogspot.com/. Most of the items came from the Dollar Tree. The wreath itself was at Michael's for $1.99. The feathers that Kristine convinced me to add at the end (and I LOVE them!) are from Michael's also for about $4.00. The spoon I had already and the zebra ribbon came from Wal-Mart. The pink ribbon was part of the decorations for my family baby shower!

Here is everyone getting started on their wreath. Crystal and Danielle working hard! Crystal gluing away on her Raven's wreath. It really turned out good, actually! Here's Mrs. Kim busy, busy.

This is one of the wreathes made by the other ladies that participated. They were all so pretty!

I'm also linking to the Frugal Friday party at http://www.shabbynest.blogspot.com/ because I did all of this for under $15! Yay!

Georgia vs. Auburn

We had a fun night last Saturday at the Conleys watching the UGA/Auburn game. It was a close one, but so glad we pulled it out! Gooo Dawgs! Alabama was so happy to see her friend Lauren (even if she was wearing an Auburn shirt)ha! We need to go over soon so they can play a little better. There were just too many new people there for Lauren and she had a little cold. Anita got the cutest cake for the game! It was so funny because the cake was cut and eaten in a way that it was so chopped up at the end of the night! ha! "Miss Georgia" whose name is Alabama was chillin with the boys.Jacob and Lucas are so sweet and love to play with her! She would not go to sleep for anything while we were there! She was out before we got out of their driveway, though. Hope we can get together with the Conleys again soon!

Happy Halloween!

We had a very tiring but fun Halloween! I was so excited to dress up Alabama in her pumpkin costume! She was sooo cute! I've dreamed of this for so long, I knew I always wanted to have my baby be a pumpkin for their first Halloween, so there was no decisions to be made....pumpkin it was! We were home most of the day and around 3 we go her ready and Adam, Audra and I took Alabama to meet Haley Lamb to take some pictures of her in her Halloween Mini Sessions! I can't wait to see how they turn out!

After that we began our night of visiting family. First, we went to Adam's parents and saw them for a little while....(somehow I managed to not get any pictures there...boo). Then we went to Bath to see Bo and Kathie at their church. When we left we were getting hungry, so we stopped at 5 Guys and got something to eat while we headed back to Thomson. At Granny's, Aunt Judy and her had gotten Alabama some "treats" for Halloween! So sweet! They had a little pumpkin snow globe, a tiny pumpkin with suckers in it, and a little green CareBear! It was so cute! By the way, Alabama loved the sucker! We let her lick it a little and she wanted to put the whole thing in her mouth and suck it. It was so funny! After we got some pictures and Alabama finally let Granny hold her, we finally left for Gibson. We got to Nana's after 9:00. Who know it takes so long to trick-or-treat. We've got to come up with something different next year!

We also met Mama, Daddy, and Alicia at Nana's. Alicia brought so many "treats" you would have thought it was Christmas, not Halloween! ha! She gave her some Mum Mums (vegetable flavor), some Sweet Potato puffs, a baby cell phone (which she loves!), a stacking ring set, and super soft Tigger! Really, like Christmas without the wrapping paper! We finally drove home and we were all sooo tired we fell into bed!

8 months

Alabama turned 8 months old on Monday!

Here are some things you are doing now, sweet girl!
You are pulling up on EVERYTHING!!! You don't sit for long, you pull up on the couch, the exersaucer, the bed, people, chairs, baskets....the list goes on!
Daddy "taught" you how to stand up in the bed, so we've got to lower it now!!!

I come in and find you standing up many times when you're supposed to be sleeping! ha!
You wave "hey" and "bye" a lot now.

You can easily get back to sitting from crawling. You mostly do the army crawl still...and are very fast! ha! Sometimes you'll take a few steps on your hands and knees.
You love to sing and clap and love it when we say "Yay, Alabama!"
You wear 6 months clothes. The 3-6 months are a little snug, but the 6-9 are still kind of big! I can't wait for you to wear all you new fall clothes!
You eat all kinds of baby food. You also eat mashed up pieces of banana, the Gerber "puffs", and the corn snacks that look like cheese puffs. Yummy! You love eating those snacks that you can feed yourself. We are still nursing and also supplementing with bottles of formula when I'm gone.
Last weekend, you got your ears pierced! I didn't want to take you, so Uncle Bo and Aunt Kathie did! They said you only cried for a minute, and now you're a complete gypsy baby! haha!
You also spent the night with them for the first time on Saturday. Everyone at church missed you so! They said you did great (and so did I!) but you didn't sleep a lot so were pretty fussy when you got back! (I think you really missed us a lot! but Bo says you were fussy because you missed him!)
You get into everything and must have your hands on something at all times! You still love to play with paper and most things still go right to your mouth.

I have to keep everything out of the way because you're a plunder box like your mama!
We get stopped everywhere we go. People randomly stop us every single day to say what a beautiful baby you are! As Aunt Katie says, "You so pretty, like mo-del, cheerleader...something pretty!" (with a vietnamese accent!)
You're still a Mama's Girl through and through! You are still working on those teeth....hopefully you'll have some by the time you need to chew! ha!
And of course, you're still the sweetest girl in the whole wide world! I love you more than I ever thought possible!

A baby giraffe comes to church!

I bought this cute set from Gymboree on ebay and it was finally cold enough last Sunday morning to wear it to church.

Everyone at church just loved it!!! They wanted to take pictures themselves so I told the nursery workers I would bring them one! My little pink and brown giraffe! Love her!

Flower Child

My beautiful flower child!!

I don't think it's too over the top....well, maybe a little...but I love it!

The flower bows are so easy to make (well, my version is anyway!). I just cut off the stem of a daisy I bought at Wal-Mart then hot glued it to a hair clip and "Voila!" Instant flower power! ha!

We call this her old lady face! She does this all the time and it looks like an old lady with no teeth! ha!