Tidbits

I was going through some pictures and found these two today..



I just love them because it shows both Grace and Daddy's very silly personality. Grace LOVES playing with her Daddy and I've come to realize that he is SO much more fun than I am! :) Lets not forget where she got her LOUDNESS from either! :) (Uh, hmmmmmm... her Daddy)

Lately, we have been watching Lilly on Wednesday. This is our friend Amber and Paul's brand new baby. She was born just over 3 weeks ago. Amber is in the midst of nursing school while just having a baby so unfortunately she had no 'maternity leave' to be at home with Lilly. I honestly don't know how they do it. They also have Grace's very good friend Abby, (4yr) and Isaac, (7yr). She has a very busy homelife and is trying to survive nursing school, clinicals, etc. and a husband who is working his tail off to bring home a paycheck. Anyways, we just love their family and I offered to help them in whatever way we could and that has been to watch baby Lilly on Wednesdays while Amber is in clinical and Paul is working (as long as I can). We have SO MUCH enjoyed her. She is the best baby and Grace loves helping to be her little "Mommy". :)




On other notes, Grace went to the dentist for her first cleaning a couple of weeks ago. She did GREAT! We were a bit worried about it with her past horrifying experiences at the dentist when she chipped her teeth. She was a champ and we loved this pediatric dentist office too.

Today I finished this..






It's our "Family Brick". We did this for Grace's preschool. Her teacher asked us to do this and I thought it was a cute idea!

Oh and lets not forget... ROLL TIDE!!!!! You know, this week we ARE the enemy here in Arkansas! Ha ha ha!! :) Funny thing is.. we are watching the game with an AR fan this weekend.

Church Progress :)

We have had a great weekend at church. We are encouraged by the response we got at our Back to School Bash that was this past Saturday. Adam had been planning that for a while and lots of work went in to it. We did lots of outreach too. We ended up with 60-70 people. We had a live band, free food.. hot dogs, popcorn, chips, and snow cones. Of course snow cones are always a hit! :) We had the air hockey, pool table, and ping pong upstairs. Outside we had cornhole, and ladder ball as well as our small playground and our food was in the fellowship hall. So as you can see from the pictures people were scattered at different places. It went GREAT! Everything went smoothly and we were happy with the amount of adults/ parents that came and listened to the band. Adam also spoke for a short time and I was so proud of everything he did!

We were also greatly encouraged that our neighbor and their little boy, who we had been inviting to church for a while, came to the bash!! Many people are sadly un-churched around here so we definitely have a mission field. On Sunday, a Dad and his two daughters came back to visit our church (that came on Sat.) and even came to Sunday School. We also have three young girls that we are going to pick up for church Wed. night that came to the bash. Very awesome!

Then Sunday night, Adam spoke about our Family Ministry and showed all of his plans/ events for youth and children for the upcoming year as well as showing what he had come up with for a mission statement, vision, etc. He gave handouts and let the church see where our needs are to serve also. I am so thankful the church appreciates Adam and his hard work and are telling him/ showing it. After this, we had our Cake Auction to raise money for the Family Ministry. I was amazed that about $850 was raised!! We had a great turnout with cakes, pies, etc. and church members that came to buy/ support the ministry.

Praising God for great results and we trust He is going to do so much more!!

Good Times with Granny and Papa

Adam's parents (Grace's Granny and Papa) was here with us last week. They stayed a full week and left last Monday. It was nice having them here and we all got to get out and do some things too.

We showed them Entergy Park at Lake Catherine and of course, Grace got to play on the playground and throw rocks in the lake. We also visited the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. This is a tourist attraction around here and we had been thinking about going but just hadn't yet. It is a HUGE tower that looks out over the city. Grace was super excited about it because she felt like she was Rapunzel :) We also showed Papa the campgrounds at Lake Catherine and Lake Ouachita and we got to get out and see the Three Sister Springs. This is a spot where these 3 natural springs come up from the ground and you can feel the water. The Springs were said to heal you from all these different diseases as well as prevent you from getting all kinds of sicknesses. Many years ago people really lived by that. What's funny is now it tells you it will do all these things (heal/ prevent diseases) and then it says "This water is not approved for drinking". It's just a neat little spot. Unlike the hot springs in the city, these springs are cold.

We also enjoyed some ice cream at Holy Cow creamery and cooked out a couple of times and the city even had a firework show over Lake Hamilton on Sunday night before Labor Day that we all got to go see. This is Grace's first real experience with fireworks. She did good and was pretending to reach out to touch them.. See picture :)









Adam at the Three Sister Springs :)

Uprising at Magic Springs

We took some of our kids/ youth to Uprising last Saturday at Magic Springs (Amusement Park). This is a yearly baptist youth day. A few of our youth couldn't go but still we were proud of our group. They were great and we ALL had a BLAST!! Grace was unbelievably good too considering we started our day at 9am and ended our day at 9pm. She took a GREAT (2 hour) nap in the stroller too!

We are very thankful for each and every one of the guys/ girls! :)









Grace found a new favorite friend.. Tyler.. She had a blast playing in the kid's water area with him. She couldn't stop giggling at him getting wet under the water fall! :)






The day ended with a concert by Shawn Locke and a service.

PRESCHOOL!!!

Putting Grace in preschool has been on my mind for a while now. Especially after she turned 3. I started realizing how she needed it for the teaching as well as for many other reasons. I also KNEW she was SO READY to go. She had been asking a lot lately about going to school. Financially, it has still been so hard since we got here. So come August, we realized we would have to seriously check our options. Needless to say, we are THRILLED with the opportunity Grace was given to go to St. Luke's (Episcopal) Day School. They had a Mon, Wed., Fri. open in her age class and we really could only do a 2 day and wanted Mon. and Fri. They administrator was gracious enough to allow us to do that, with the hopes that we will be able to move Grace to the 3 day program sooner than later. Not only this, St. Luke's was one of our top two places we liked in Hot Springs. The other one.. had a waiting list AND St.Luke's waived all the fees (which would total $215.00!!!) to start her in the program, and with the help of Mom we were able to go ahead and get her started. :) I am amazed at God's provision in this, and how He has worked out all the details!

We also LOVE her teacher (Ms. Ballard)! We met her on our tour of the place. We both liked her a lot from the very beginning. She seemed great with Grace and you could tell she goes ALL OUT when it comes to her room, her organizational skills, her ideas, all the little details that make Grace's and all her kid's day special. It is very OBVIOUS she puts A LOT into her job! We are grateful! All of the staff has been great!

Grace ADORES school too! She can't wait for her school days to get here. She has already met some special little friends and is doing so well. We are proud to see that she is quickly adjusting to the schedule and even napping at school. She also gets to eat breakfast and lunch at school on her school days.

Grace's first day of 3 yr. old preschool! :)