Fall Festival and More..

We had a Fall Festival at our church last night with blow up bouncers and slides, cake walk, games, hayrides, food and candy, etc. A lot of people came out for the Festival and it went really great. Grace was scared to do the blow up things. She is not really old enough yet to be able to fully enjoy it because she can't do all of the fun things. The kids looked very cute in their costumes and some adults even joined in on the 'dress up'!:) Grace just walked around with us and she was able to play one of the games where she rings the basketball hoop with the ball and she gets candy. She did ring it so she had her first sucker! :) She really liked that and she had grape sucker juice dripping down her face!:) The thing she liked most was the hayride. She enjoyed walked around and seeing the other kids in the back of the trailer while we were waiting to 'take off'. The weather was actually pretty mild so that was very nice!

As you know, Grace was a Ladybug. She was not real excited about pictures yesterday and had even started that a little before we left the house. I thought she just didn't want her picture made because she had acted fine all day. When we got there, she was doing the same thing but more.. she would fuss when we tried to get her picture or she just wouldn't smile for the camera. She was 'gnawing' on her hand about the whole time we were at the festival so I was beginning to wonder if her teeth were bothering her and that was the reason for her 'touchy mood'. On the way home she fell asleep in the car WITHOUT her paci (which both of those things are pretty amazing). When we took her in we noticed she felt hot but at first just thought that she had gotten hot in her car seat while asleep. After her bath, she started shivering pretty bad and was very hot and we checked her fever and it was 102.0 rectally. This really concerned us because we were worried that she might be coming down with a bad sickness. We gave her some Motrin and she went to sleep. She woke up at about 7:45am and was hot and her fever was 101.8 this morning. She has no other symptoms except gets fussy when her temp goes up but after taking medicine has played very well, and been in a good mood. She has mainly only wanted cold and soft food today and hasn't ate a whole lot but as the day went on she only had some Tylenol at 1pm (this usu. only brings her fever down for about 3 hours) when her temp was 101 after 5 hours from the Motrin. Since then she hasn't had any medicine and has been acting okay and I checked her fever tonight and it is only 100.0 rectally. Which is really like 99.0. So I am pleased that her fever has went down on it's own as the day has progressed and she seems better. I now think it may be just related to a inflammatory response to her teeth. I was looking in her mouth and she is cutting ALL 4 first Molars on the other sides. They are still working on coming all the way through. When, I saw that.. I thought... this probably explains it! The Molars are the WORST for babies/toddlers to cut. We will see tomorrow but I pray this is the case and that she will quickly feel better.

On the other hand, all is well in the Brown house. I am posting some pics and a video that Adam got of the Fall Festival. You can also see how Grace's hair is growing. Slowly but surely Grace's hair has been growing. Her hair is starting to grow over her ears some and it has gotten kind of wild lately!:) You can see this some in the pics.

We will see what this weekend holds. We have been invited to a friends house on Saturday to celebrate birthdays for Kendall who just turned 2 and for her Daddy. We will decide if we can go later depending on Grace. If I think Grace has any 'sickness' and if the fever doesn't go away real soon we won't go because I certainly don't want to expose any other kiddos to sickness, etc. We also plan on taking Grace trick or treating around our neighborhood if she is okay. We will see!

This video gives you all a better idea of what the Festival was like. As you can see, when Adam pointed the camera to Grace she fussed. That summed it up.. :)

Our little ladybug before we left the house..

Grace giving hugs to Bella Kate (little ballerina)
Bella's Mommy and Daddy are in our home group too so Grace gets to play with her a good bit!

Grace and Paige.. holding hands.. (Snow White)

Grace got to participate in 1 game :) And she made the hoop!:) (With the exception of Daddy taking her on the cake walk)

And ..enjoying her prize!.. She loved the sucker!

Daddy, serious Grace, Brian and Abigail!

These two pics are friends of ours.. Brian and Faith above with kids that Faith Nanny's. They were all decked out in the Scooby Doo theme! Weren't they cute!! The little girl is showing off the cake she won!:)

This is Ashley to the right and her baby Emma Grace (another Lady Bug) that Holly (she has my name:) is holding. Ashley is our Pastor's wife.

Grace enjoyed the blow up bouncer from the OUTSIDE. She LOVED watching other kids through the side jumping up and down. She just laughed and smiled at them...

This is out Pastor Jon Akin and his other daughter to the left of the picture. Her name is Maddie..

Maddie was Cinderella. Grace loves Maddie and Maddie loves Grace. They are in our home group too and Grace calls her 'Mammie'! :) They have so much fun playing together and giggling!

Grace was making her presence known on the hayride (while we were sitting still) and LOVING the other kids!

Gnawing on her arm....

These are more just random pictures and you can see her hair more..

Aunt Carey check out her shoes.. recognize them!:)

The Girls!!... and Baby Shower!

I guess it has been over a month now but.. the Ninth and O Baptist girls did a baby shower for Rachel Yates and Laura Kazee. They were both due on Oct. 17th (same exact due date). Laura ended up having her baby about 2 weeks ago and Rachel had hers this past Wednesday. Praise God.. they both have had beautiful and healthy babies since this pic. I was able to go see Rachel (wearing black shirt) and her baby Sofia yesterday at the hospital. I have only been able to see Laura (wearing purple shirt) through pictures on facebook. I wish I would have at least had my camera yesterday at the hospital but I know Rachel took some pics. Grace saw little Sofia and kept saying 'baby', 'baby'! Very sweet! I am VERY happy for both of them!!!

As you can see, this pic was from their shower. Leah, sitting to the right in white.. hosted the shower at her home! It was very nice and a lot of fun!

Silly Grace

Grace is definitely learning how to get a laugh. She LOVES when we laugh at her and will do things over and over again to get a laugh. She also knows when she is being real cute and real sweet. It is a lot of fun to see her little brain take in LOTS of new things EVERY DAY! We can also see her imagination. It is so fun to be able to start to play pretend. She will pretend to cook with pans, spatula, and will mix 'ingredients' in a bowl and stir them up 'real good' will a big spoon. She was doing that this morning. She loves playing with real kitchen utensils. She also likes to swaddle her babies and she did the CUTEST thing the other day. We were out front on the front porch and she picked up the outdoor frog figure that was at our porch and sat down with it on the front door mat and held it up to her chest like a baby and was patting it's back with her fingers and rocking back and forth! We had never seen her ROCK her babies. So precious! It was even funnier because it was a frog figurine for outside! She's done that more since then with her babies! She also loves making a tent. We use her table and put a blanket over it for a tent. This works best. She loves going under there and will take things under there and play and gets real excited. They have a play tent in the nursery at church and I watched her and another little boy play in it while keeping the nursery on Wed. night. They were SOOO cute. They would go in and out of it and they would get so 'tickled' about being under there and being hidden!

Her vocabulary is definitely expanding more and more every day! She can say 'Jesus', 'Mary' and 'Bible', and she has been saying 'Amen'. She has learned a lot from her books. She can point to things in them. She has learned who Mary and Jesus is.. in her books and DVDs. She will also TRY to repeat about any word but only some come out right.:) She can point to all kinds of things in her books if you ask her for example.. where is the tree, flowers, shoes, etc. We are trying to work on letters and numbers more. Truly amazing what these little brains can learn!! You tell me that we don't have an AWESOME GOD/ CREATOR!:-) Just think about the human life, growth, and development, etc. etc. etc.

Standing on her head!!:) (And she had made a mess of the living room!:) She also LOVES doing flips like this with our help.....

In Daddy's work t-shirt!:)

Looking pretty!

Grace in her house shoes!:)

Saying 'cheese'. Lately, we can get her to say 'cheese' for the camera to smile!

Grace is under the 'tent'

This activity she is doing in the video is a first for Grace! Lately, she has not cared as much for eating. She is on the go all of the time and really hasn't wanted to eat much lately. I guess it has caught up with her the last couple of days and last night she particularly liked her dinner and was eating well. It showed...:)




P.S. Sorry about the picture quality. After uploading my pics to blogger they come out looking blurry or 'blocky'. Not sure why...

FALL is Here!

With the Fall season here come feelings of excitement AND some feelings of sadness. I LOVE Summer time and Spring time when it starts to warm up outside. I LOVE being outside and we had A LOT of fun playing with Grace outside this past Summer. It felt like this year was her first Summer since she was such a little baby during her first Summer. We didn't really go out with her near as much because she couldn't 'play' or walk around and explore, etc. Also, this year our Summer was pretty mild for a Summer. The temperature stayed just perfect throughout the majority of the Summer.... not many unbearably hot days! Plus, I am just the type of person that would take Summer over Winter ANY day! You all that know me know that I would MUCH rather be hot than cold!!:) So... as Fall is here I am not real excited about it getting colder AND having to be indoors more. Thankfully, Fall here is REALLY nice and there are some very mild, and pleasant days. After all, FALL in Louisville is one of the reasons why we fell in LOVE with Louisville! :) When we came to look at the Seminary here while still living in Memphis.. we came in the Fall. Louisville is just GORGEOUS in the FALL. Just go into the St. Matthew's area around the Seminary or to local area parks and you will see it is just BEAUTIFUL! I wish I had some pictures to post on my computer from our visit and all the beauty we saw while visiting for the first time. The Seminary is a beautiful campus anyway and is beautiful in EVERY season but it is great in the Fall! We also loved the rolling hills and all the trees that we saw. It felt more like 'home'. :)

With this said, Fall brings excitement too because of football season! :) It also brings anticipation of all the Holiday's and memories with Grace and our family and what the future holds. So with that.. it is ALL GOOD!:)

This past weekend sure felt like Fall and we did some Fall type activities!:) Grace wore her Halloween shirt and colors and we went out and bought a pumpkin! We brought it home and drew a face on it just so Grace could take some part in the pumpkin. All we had was markers so I drew the face :) and Grace and Daddy took part in coloring it in, Grace had our help, of course! :) Then we all signed our names to the back including Grace!:-)

On Sunday night, our Mission groups at church were combined and we had a bonfire at someone's house and the guys played Cornhole, threw football, etc. etc. We had grilled out hot dogs and chips and dessert. We had stuff to roast marshmallows and to make smores. It was pretty cool so us women hung out around the fire for the most part!:) The locations was really nice because it was a flat open field behind this house that allowed the kids to walk around too and not really worry about them. (Except keeping them away from the fire:) It was a lot of fun and we even had some visitors. I got some pictures later in the night and there are some that are blurry because it was in night time mode and it wasn't quiet dark.. Grace was very cute in her hat and then we pulled her hood over her head also to keep her ears warm!

Maybe she was saying 'BOO' just like her shirt!:)

First time Grace takes part in decorating a pumpkin!:)

Fun times with friends from Highview at Valley Station....

Grace putting on a Show

OUR MISSION

I got a very encouraging reminder the other day of this promise in God's Word:

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

And do not return there without watering the earth

And making it bear and sprout,

And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;

So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;

It will not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what I desire,

And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11

I got a message the other day from a coworker to call a prior patient's son's girlfriend. Apparently she had come up to my work the other day looking for me and asked for me. She had gotten word that I had a talk with the patient before his discharge about salvation. I had a really good talk with him that night at almost midnight. You see, he has a 'past' as the world would see. He has a history of drug and alcohol abuse and he is about a 50 year old man. He had also not been the most 'ideal' patient. He had been 'agitated' and 'non-cooperative' at times, etc. He had come a long way in his recovery and the Lord laid it on my heart to talk with him that night. I pretty much knew that he needed a SAVIOR! He told me that he grew up in a pretty strict Catholic family and didn't agree with the Catholic faith but it was kind of 'forced' on him. Since then, he has spent his whole life kind of 'running' from faith in the Lord. He actually has been kind of angry and closed off in the past! But this night I could tell he was earnestly listening yet still kind of 'thinking' about every thing. After my talk, I didn't know where this would go. He was discharged home the next day.

When I got the message to call this girl.. she had put on the card 'in regards to the church you attend'... I knew he must have been talking! He had told me that one of his son's has been going to a baptist church and his son's girlfriend has been trying to get him to go, etc. I had told the patient that night that he ought to come to my church too.

I called her yesterday and she first thanked me for talking to him that night. She said she has been trying for a while but was he was 'very closed off'. She said he told her the story of a nurse talking to him and some of the things I said to him. Every since then he has told her the story multiple times and kept saying 'I wonder what church that was that she goes to because I bet it is a good church..' She said that it seems the Lord is really working on His heart and drawing him! I told her where our church is and she tells me they are going to come!!! She also said that she doesn't know of any one in there family that is saved so this could be a life-changing for the whole family!! So PRAY!!!

The reason why I tell you this is because some times we don't see the effects of our witness EVER and some times we do but the Lord reminds me that we MUST fulfill our Great Commission to spread the Word because as He said ' My Word will not return void!!!

On how we must press on and do that which He has called us to do..

Good Spoiling!!:)

My mother (Nana) and Paw Paw came last weekend for a long visit to Louisville. Mother was very gracious to get us AL and KY football tickets since they were playing in Lexington, KY this year. She knew that we would LOVE to go but couldn't afford them our selves! :) They flew up here on Thursday and spent some quality time with all of us and then on Saturday the plan was for Adam and I to leave for the game and they watched Grace at home. Of course, Grace just 'soaked up' all of the attention that she got! Adam and I really enjoyed the time too and was VERY thankful for everything they did for us!

I worked on Thursday night 11-7 but on Friday Mom and I went to the mall and a consignment shop while Gary stayed home and looked after Grace while she napped. After Adam got off from work that night we all went to Texas Roadhouse and Grace was SUCH a trooper. She did really good! We also got Grace's Halloween costume--- she is going to be a LADYBUG! :) More on that later! On Saturday, when we had returned from the game Mom had made us all a big 'country' dinner with roast and fresh cooked garden veggies and so on! YUM!! Sunday was church day and lounging!! :) There plane left for AL on Monday morning. ..

You can see how long Grace is looking these days.. we can really tell she has gotten taller!

As you can see.. not much food is going in to her mouth these days... just look at the table! :)

Up to no 'good'! :)

Pretty girl!!

They also bought Grace some 'shades'! :)

Entertaining us with a lemon!! She is so funny but she LOVES lemons!!:)

Sweet Grace! She says 'Baby" all the time these days. She LOVES babies!

Just playing!!