Happy Birthday, Perry!

Lots has gone on since the last time I posted to the blog. The most special event, though, is tomorrow, and I just had to take a little time to post.

My one and only child is turning 6 tomorrow! His birthday is always so special to me because it is a day for me to really reflect on the wonderful little person that he is and how incredibly blessed we are to have him. Many of you know of our difficulties as we have tried for another child. These trials only remind me of what a miracle our little boy is! He definitely fills our lives and our hearts, and I can honestly say that if we never have another child, the Lord has truly given us more than we could have ever hoped for with this one!

The best way to describe P is to say that he has lots of personality! Since he was an infant, he has been very interactive and friendly. I sometimes say now that with his humor, intellect, curiosity, and energy, you either fall in love with him or he drives you crazy! : )

We are so proud of the boy he has become. Just to update you, he is reading like crazy now and loving it! His sports mania continues, and he is now playing basketball. The most excitng thing is that he really has a heart for God and finds awesome joy in praising Him, learning about Him, and serving Him. What more could we ask for?

I wanted to make a scrapbook of his birthdays and continue to add to it as he grows. Since I haven't done that yet, here is a little digital scrapbook. : )

Perry's first day -- Dec. 20, 2002.

The birth announcement picture.

Perry turns 1! We had a party at our house with all of our friends and family. Nana and Grampa made the trip from Ky, and Big Daddy, Gamma, and Auntie Amanda came from Fl. It was a cowboy themed party, and a great time was had by all!

Perry and Big Daddy at the party.

Happy birthday to Perry!

Hey, this stuff is tasty!

His 2nd birthday party was at The Little Gym. This one was a fire truck theme.

Playing ball with Daddy.

Perry's 3rd birthday was INCREDIBLE! : )

We were at The Little Gym again, and obviously, Perry was into The Incredibles at that time.

This picture is really cute to me because the little boy to Perry's right is still a good buddy and will be at his party tomorrow. They went to daycare together when they were 2, and we've stayed in touch since.

To celebrate P's 3rd birthday at Nana's house, we enjoyed a chocolate fountain with the cousins!

He's 4! His love of sports had begun by this time. He had a sports-themed party at The Little Gym. The cousins were all in town for this one, so it was extra-special.

The little pirate turns 5...

This party was at an inflatables place. Perfect for little boys with lots of energy!

These are some of his buddies from school. He is really establishing some great friendships now. These friends are really special because most of them will likely be in class together for many years to come. In fact, Perry went home with one of these buds just yesterday.

Happy 6th birthday, Little Man! We can't wait to make lots more memories with you!

Weekend in New Orleans

You may remember that we had planned to visit my sis in New Orleans on Labor Day, only to be foiled by Gustav. This past weekend, we finally made it there! Thanks to Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492, Perry and I had a day off from school, so we headed to the Big Easy.

My nephew Luke wanted to show Perry his favorite place -- the Insectarium. It was really fascinating, and the boys were both mesmerized. There were bugs of all types, along with spiders, a butterfly house, and a very cool movie experience.

There was also an insect cafe. Eric had heard about this and was eager to give them a try. The rest of us took a little coaxing, but we all took the plunge and tried a wax worm. Luke even ate 2! They weren't too bad, actually. They were cooked and seasoned, and you could really hardly tell you were eating an insect! I will say that I was not interested in anything with legs, though. Even the deep-fried cricket did not appeal to me at all, although I am usually a fan of just about anything deep fried.

Another highlight was a ride across the river on the ferry. Last time we were in NO, it was too foggy to ride, and Perry was so excited to get the chance to actually ride this time.

On Sunday, Lana and Luke took us on a tour of a couple of neighborhood parks.

And we had a great time hanging out at the family business -- The Monkey Room! Perry was a huge fan!

We had a really wonderful visit. I wish they didn't live so far away. It was great spending time with them!

Date Night

Here we are before we went to the Landmark 20th anniversary banquet last night. I'm so sorry the picture does not show the accessories, though!

Thank you all for your help. I went with the red, which won against the black by a landslide in the voting. Pearls were also popular, but I just ran out of time to shop for anything else.

The hubby and I had a very nice time. It was really amazing to see what God has done with this school in the past 20 years. There were several video slide shows, one of which showed the very humble beginnings of the school, in a run down warehouse building. One of the teachers who has been there since the start told about being impressed that the founders wanted to meet at the Marriott for lunch when they interviewed him. Only later did he find out that they thought he'd never take the job if he saw the school building! : )

Now there are over 800 students in PreK-12th grade on 2 campuses, both of which are MUCH nicer than the original!

I'm so thankful that the focus and the vision have never changed, though. As the school motto says, everything we do is with this goal in mind:

"Every student prepared to impact the world for Jesus Christ."

Now that's what I'm talking about!

What Not to Wear?

OK, ladies. Here I am living in this house full of boys, and I find myself needing fashion advice. This is where you come in!

This Sat., we are attending a banquet celebrating the 20th anniversary of the school where I teach. Since this is the first dressy function I have attended since the weight loss, I had to buy something to wear. Oh, and it did make me so sad to have to do that (can you hear the sarcasm? You know I loved it!).

I went with a pretty basic black dress, and I've decided on the shoes (black patent, chosen mostly b/c they flatter the legs). Now I need to accessorize. We all know that accessories are very important to the black dress, so this really is a dilemma!

Since the dress doesn't really lend itself well to a necklace, I went to Steinmart today and picked up this lovely bracelet and these earrings. I was thinking it would add some interest -- a pop of color, if you will.

My hubby seems to prefer this simple black sparkly cuff bracelet. Now keep in mind that his preference may be completely motivated by the fact that I already own said bracelet, and it does not involve a new purchase. Not that I'm saying he's cheap or anything...

And besides, I still need earrings if I go with that one!

Sticking to black accessories would be a classic look. But would it be boring?

Any other ideas for accessories?

Help me out, girls!

Catching up

Aren't we beautiful?

Do you like our new fall look?

Very cutting edge and fashion forward, right?

We had tacky day at school, and Perry and I made a great showing, as you can see.

I am going to put together a slide show of some of the other exciting things we've been doing lately. Maybe once I feel caught up, I can do a better job of keeping the blog up to date.

I can hold onto that hope, anyway.

In honor of the 2 week anniversary of Labor Day 2008...

Finally! Pictures from Labor Day!

2 weeks ago we were supposed to go to New Orleans to visit my sister and her family. If you remember, however, a very unfriendly guy named Gustav cleared out The Big Easy that weekend. So my sister evacuated, and we took a last-minute trip to see my mom and stepdad in Kentucky.

Perry always LOVES being at Nana and Grandpa's house! There are so many fun things to explore there. This trip did not disappoint.

We roasted a few marshmellows.But Perry soon decided he'd rather just eat them out of the bag.
Grandpa showed Perry all of the cool stuff that's growing in his garden. P picked some carrots and baby pumpkins himself.

We also got to visit my Uncle Mark and his pool! When we asked Perry if he remembered going there last year, he shouted, "Oh yeah! That place is awesome!"

It earns such high praise because there is a diving board AND a slide! Wow!

My cousin and his kids actually came by while we were there. It was fun watching Perry play with his kids. It brought back lots of memories of us at that age. When I was Perry's age, we were living there in Ky, and we had some good time with the cousins back then!

The last day we were there, tour guide Grandpa took us exploring. We checked out the creek behind their house, and, of course Perry couldn't resist testing out the waters!

He only got waist-deep in water!

And he wondered over and over why Nana and I didn't go in.

An excellent time was had by all!

I have a lot more pics, but, hey, you can't expect too much! For some reason, uploading pictures to blogger is a much slower process on my laptop. No idea why. I'm working on it.

Maybe someday I'll get the pictures posted from Perry's nursery rhyme parade at school. Right now you'll just have to imagine. It was very cute.

Yep, those will be coming right along with pictures of him driving his first car...

Where I've been

So I know that I said I'd post pictures from Labor Day weekend, and I haven't gotten around to that yet. Allow me to explain...

A couple of weeks ago, my dad told me he was going to be having a heart cath. He had an EKG that "was not textbook," as he put it. They did a stress test, and based on those results wanted to do the cath. They thought there may be some blockage that could require a stint or simple angioplasty. They scheduled the cath for this past Wed.

Wed. afternoon my little sis called with the news that Dad would be having quadruple bypass on Fri. -- 2 days later. The heart cath revealed serious blockages, and they decided to schedule him for Fri. and keep him in the hospital until the surgery.

Not exactly the news we had expected! But we were all thanking God for that heart cath, which allowed them to identify the problems so they could be fixed.

Of course, I wanted to be there with him for the surgery, and the Lord graciously worked that out for me. Amazingly, I found a very reasonable price on a last-minute plane ticket, so I headed down to W.Palm only a little more than 24 hrs. after hearing the news, and I arrived around midnight last night.

Amanda and I made it to the hospital (VERY early this morning) to give him kisses before he went in.

The surgery went very well. The doctor was pleased with the results, and, according to the nurses, he is on the "fast track" recovery-wise. They were able to remove the breathing tube about 5 hrs. after surgery (MUCH to Dad's relief).

We pray that the rest of the recovery will go well, and that he will feel better than ever!

And I will get around to posting those pictures eventually, I promise. : )

My New Toy!

I am posting this using my brand new lime-green laptop! Oh, it is fabulous! So pretty!

I even took some pictures. Because I do want you to share in its beauty. : )

Eric just called it "the new blog machine." Hopefully its portability will allow me to post more frequently. And it's so fun to use, you know, 'cause it's so pretty! I really want to go out to Starbucks right now and do some public blogging, just because I can.

Too tired, though. Wouldn't you know it.

I have some other pics from the weekend to post as well. I just had to test this out!

I'll be back tomorrow with more.