Last Thursday, I drove to Wake Forest, North Carolina to see my newest "niece". Oh, yeah, and to see her parents! Baby Georgia is absolutely beautiful and was so well behaved while I was there, though the picture doesn't show it! I expected to be up all night with her, but she woke up only to eat -- which I could definitely not help with! I also expected the six hour drive to be awful, since I loathe driving, but it was a gorgeous day and I loved looking at all the fall colors. (A book-on-tape also made the drive fly by!) The visit was wonderful. Leah and I never run out of things to talk about, and I always enjoy conversations with Nathan, too. I went home on Saturday, after Nathan and Leah went out to lunch together. I think they were a little nervous about leaving their two-week old baby, but that was overridden by the excitement of getting to go on a date. Of course, the best part of any trip is coming home and this was no exception. Jeff was just settling Kaitlyn and Joseph into bed when I arrived and they promptly attached themselves to me until I finally made them get in bed. The worst part of the trip had to be my fruitless search for a Hazelnut Caffe Mocha from Starbuck's on the way home. I settled for a Coke from McDonald's.
For our church's Fall Festival last week, I scrambled to come up with costumes for Katie and Joe (at the last minute, naturally). There are thousands of cute, super-easy costume ideas out there -- and all you need is a plain, solid color sweatsuit in your child's size. The hard part is finding a plain, solid color sweatsuit in your child's size! After scouring four different stores, I gave up and brainstormed these costumes when I got home. Joseph is puppy dog with floppy ears sewn on his hooded jacket, and a brown dress sock safety-pinned to his rear end. Katie is a cat with felt ears sewn on a cloth headband, and a pink fuzzy sock safety-pinned to her rear end. I had to use my make-up to give them faces, so now whenever I start to put mascara on, Joe says, "Nose!" P.S. Brown eyeliner makes great cat/dog whiskers!
We celebrated Katie's 6th birthday with a tea party for a few friends: Lydia, Danielle, and Karah. The girls loved drinking pink lemonade out of china teacups and getting to serve the food themselves onto china plates. They felt very grown up! After "tea" they gathered in the livingroom to open presents, with Katie getting some of her favorite things -- new clothes, snacks, and crafts! The girls dressed up in my nice dresses, then the mommies did their makeup. After that, I read Beth Moore's children's book, "A Parable of the King".
Georgia Elisabeth is here! Nathan and Leah Finn welcomed their little girl this morning at 4:18 a.m. She is 20 1/2 inches long and weighs 7 lbs, 5 oz. Georgia picked the perfect day to come -- her Mommy's birthday! These pictures are courtesy of Georgia's maternal grandmother, Linda Phillips, via her adoptive Aunt Sandy.
Today is Katie's birthday! Six years ago, Kaitlyn Grace Pittard arrived weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces and measuring 21 inches long. Since then, she's "sextupled" her weight and doubled in height. We just hope that trend doesn't continue over the next six years! We'll be having a tea party with a couple of her friends on Saturday the 21st, and I'll post those pictures later. For now, this is a picture of her in May when she did her ballet recital. She takes "praise ballet" at a local church. They dance to Christian music and learn scripture as part of the performance.
We have definitely been busy lately! Last Thursday was Ladies' Night Out, which is put together by our church. Held at the Commerce Civic Center, the program this year featured Iris Blue, a lady with an amazing testimony. Out of that night there were 12 salvations and 42 women who rededicated their lives to following Christ. A few weeks ago, I started a Beth Moore Bible study on David, in addition to an evangelism class on Monday nights and teaching Sunday School. Katie is taking a kids' version of Beth's study on the beloved disciple, John, and doing children's choir. She is in my Sunday School class this year. Jeff has started attending a new men's Sunday School class that he is really enjoying. He continues to sing his wonderful bass in choir and to play his saxophone during Sunday services. We're both excited about the Christmas musical our church is doing this year which has a 1940's theme. Joseph is loving his AWANA class on Wednesday nights, called AWANA Bees. He treasures the little art projects they do there and in Sunday School. He points to his name written on the back and says, "My 'Joe'!"Labor Day weekend we drove down to Granny and Papa's, which is always lots of fun. (It was made much more enjoyable by the addition to our family of a minivan, I can assure you. There simply cannot be a price set on separating small children on a five-hour drive!) We had a nice long visit with Granny and Papa and assorted family. We got to play games and drive "Scooter" down to the river, which thrilled Katie. Jeff always packs work clothes along in the hopes that Papa will have a project that needs doing -- he wasn't disappointed!Last weekend, we went to our nephew Joel's fifth birthday party at Chick-Fil-A. We had a great time spending the day with the Pittard clan, despite the fact that the children are rapidly outnumbering the adults!Stuart called me yesterday and let me know that he and Virginia and Ralston have settled in nicely in Charleston. Ginny graduated in the spring with her PhD and has gotten a job there. Last week, they got a marriage license and they'll be getting married either this weekend or next. So, that's what's new with us -- whew!
Today was the first day of school for Kaitlyn! We're off to a great start. I think the tentative schedule I've set for most days will work out very well. Most everything can be done in the morning after breakfast. We do Bible reading/lessons during breakfast. Things like science (which involves experiments), art, and math that require little Joe to be elsewhere can be done while he's napping later in the day. Since Jeff wanted to be involved in Katie's school too, he will do music and geography in the evening. That will only be one day a week for music, and a couple of days a week for geography. She'll have art just 2-3 times a week. We are thankful every day that God has given us the opportunity and the ability to homeschool. Even on the frustrating days, it's entirely worth it all!
Today is Joseph's second birthday! On Saturday we had a little party for him with our parents, siblings, and our friends the Cospers. We had a great time and I loved being able to cook for a bunch of people! Our friend Abbie owns Common Road Bakery here in Commerce and she made the cake from my description of a rock quarry.
Well, I have wrecked our Taurus. I was driving home in heavy rain at 9:30 on a Friday night -- never a good combination! To top it off, I was heading into a curve and the car coming at me had its brights on. The road also has a railroad spur crossing it to join to the main track. When I completely lost sight of the road, my right front tire dipped off the edge. I might have gotten the car back on the road, but the tire caught on the train track. The car simply followed the rail up to where the two tracks joined and wedged itself in! It's hard to believe the damage it did. After talking with the insurance company and the guy at the body shop, we've decided to cut our losses and buy another vehicle. The insurance company will pay to fix the car, but we'll take that money plus what the body shop owner pays us for the Taurus and buy a van we were looking at just last week. (Until Friday night, the plan was to sell the Taurus and buy the van.) It's a 1996 Windstar -- the same color blue as our "old" car. Pictures to come!
