Claire's First Christmas

Tony, Claire and I celebrated our first Christmas as a family on Friday, December 21st before heading north to visit family. It was a sweet time we will never forget. We began with brewing the gingerbread coffee and getting out daddy's bible to read the Christmas story. Tony read as Claire listened for about 5 seconds...what can you expect from an 11 month old when there are no pictures to look at :) Anyways, we moved along to presents. Claire received a ball and microphone. She loves to push the ball around and chase it - in her "inch worm" style of crawling. She can crawl on all fours, but is much faster when she does the worm/army crawl. And the microphone magnifies her voice, so she really likes to "sing" into that and hear her voice echoed back to her. She smiles each time she makes a noise. I'm proud to say that her first Christms cost us a whopping $3! Praise the Lord for easy and cheap entertainment :) We then packed for our travels to see family. We got to enjoy time with both our families from Saturday thru Wednesday. It was great. Unfortunately I left our camera up there, so i don't have too many pics to share. But here's a start.

All three of us came down with nasty colds the day after Christmas, which we're still going thru lots of tissues and cough drops, so we'll be celebrating New Year's Eve just the three of us at home this year. We'll see if Claire can make it to midnight :)

Black Friday - Here We Come!

Claire enjoyed her first "Black Friday". This is the two of us fighting our way through Target. It was great! We had a nice day shopping around and getting some really great deals. We celebrated our savings by driving through McDonalds for a DP for Mommy and a small fry for Claire bear. When we got home, we put on some Christmas music and decorated the tree. This will be Claire's first Christmas and we can't wait to share the JOY of the LORD with her!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today was Claire's first Thanksgiving. We enjoyed a yummy feast at our friends' Rocky and Suzanne's home. Martha Stewart...I mean Suzanne set a beautiful table for all her guests to enjoy. She even took care of the turkey, along with a few other favorites. We each brought a side item or two to share. Everything was soo yummy! We then moved the party into the livingroom where we watched Elf and looked through the Black Friday ads. It was great! Here are a few pictures to share our Thanksgiving in Louisville. Tomorrow we'll put up the tree and see how long it takes Claire to knock it over! :)

Happy Halloween!

Claire celebrated her first Hallween yesterday, and what a fun day that was. First we started the morning off with pumpkin muffins for breakfast. I dressed her in her pumpkin "costume" because it does double nicely as warm outside coverup. We then went for a long walk. After a nap and play time with her real pumpkins, we dressed up again and went trick or treating. Our first stop, Rocky and Suzanne's. Then we went up Hillcrest that was more than packed with trick or treaters. I think the most popular costume this year was spiderman. And of course they were mostly little skinny 5 year olds with big fake muscles. Hilarious! The houses were decorated in everything from spiders, ghosts, charlie brown characters, cemetaries, smoke and music. WAVE 3 news was even there. One family said they gave out 3,000 pieces of candy last year! It was quite an experience. Here are a few pictures to share our fun day.

9 months!

Our baby Claire is nine months old today. Time has really flown! It feels like we just posted her six month pictures yesterday. What are her accomplishments this month...? she can say dada, mama and baby. However, when she says baby, she's wispers it - too cute. She also does the army crawl and when she's sees something she really wants she can scoot lightning fast. She has started to get on her knees, but just rocks back and forth. She has also graduated to sitting in a shopping cart like a big girl (without her car seat). She definitely enjoys the view better :) I just love her sweet personality and how she smiles from ear to ear in the morning when i walk in her bedroom. What a treat and gift from God! I almost forgot to mention one of her most exciting new "things"...teeth! she has two bottom teeth. She loves to eat, so these babies will come in handy. That's it for now, but we'll keep you posted on any Halloween updates.

wedding weekend

A couple weeks ago one of my dearest friend Kara got married. It was a really nice wedding and a great time to catch up and spend some quality time with my girls, Tiffany, Amy, Kara and Jen. We all attended the same church growing up and our most common bond is Christ. He has kept us sweet friends for years. Even though we've moved all over the USA, we try to get together once a year. This year, Kara got us all back together by getting married...thanks girl :) The wedding was in Illinois, but close enought to Brownsburg, IN that Tony, Claire and I stayed at my brother and his wife, Shannon's home. Claire loves their dog, Sadie, I'll get a picture of those two next time. But her favorite part of the weekend was watching Fried Green Tomatoes with her Aunt Shannon. Claire is definitely a cuddle bug and loves the girlie movies.

Precious Moments

Ok, I know there are figurines with that title but this is really one of my very favorite parts about being a mommy. There's nothing better than the feeling of your little one falling asleep on you. Many say you should put them to bed awake, but sometimes at night when our baby Claire falls asleep on me i just sit there and rock her and pray for her until the music on her cd runs out. She won't be that small forever, so I've got to enjoy these little "treats" while I can. They really are precious moments, from God.

Promotion Sunday

Today was "Promotion Sunday" at church. That means Claire was promoted from babies A to the babies B class. I was unaware of this event until I signed her in this morning. They gave me new identity tags and escorted me to her new class room. My eyes started to well up as if i was sending her off to college. Sweet volunteers were there to greet her and take her bag. I looked around and there were a couple babies even walking! I still couldn't believe she was done with the "newborn" class. I took a deep breath and kissed her head as i handed her off. What am I going to do when she goes to kindergarten! When daddy picked her up, she had a big smile on her face - so i think she likes the new toys and friends she made.

So Proud

So, many of you know from previous posts that my daddy has begun his ThM. Last weekend my grandparents were in town and they took me for a walk to the school's library. There we got to see his new assigned desk. Yep, he gets his own desk! Here is a picture of me sitting on the ledge of it made for his books. I'm so proud of my daddy...can't you tell by the smile on my face!

1 Week Down

Well, I made it through my first week as a ThM student. This semester I am taking Graduate Research Seminar, an Old Testament Colloquium, a seminar on the Pentateuch, and an Isaiah exegesis class. I will be reading many books this semester such as The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century (Nicholson), The Prolegomena (Wellhausen), A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Noth), Abraham in History and Tradition (van Seters), Reading the Old Testament (Barton), Word Order in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (Lunn), Yahweh is Exalted in Justice: Solidarity and Conflict in Isaiah (Leclerc), and A Students Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible: Its History, Meathods, and Results (Wegner). Also I will be reading many journal articles and selected Hebrew texts from Leviticus and Isaiah. I also will be writing two papers: a forty page paper on Isaiah 47 and a twenty page paper on the Pentateuch (topic currently undecided). Obviously it will be a busy semester but I will try to update the blog periodically with my progress (although I doubt too many of you care).

Bath Time

Here she is - taking her first bath in the "big girl" tub. Believe it or not, Claire became a little too big for the bathroom sink, so we moved her to the tub. I think she liked it, especially now that she can fit more friends in the water with her.

7 months old!

Our baby Claire is 7 months old today. We have really enjoyed every month with her and each one we learn her personality more and more. Like today she and I were in the "nursing room" at church and every time someone new would walk in, she would stop eating and sit up to see who it was and either smile at them or "talk" to them. Then she would go back to her morning snack. She's my little social bug. I remember when i got this lilac dress i thought it was soo big and she would never fit into it. Then this morning i tried it on her and with bittersweet emotions i was excited it fit but a little sad that she was growing so quickly! Oh well, i guess we'll just have to have another one :)

What's New With Us...

What's new with us...let's see...Tony graduated in May and has now started his ThM classes. He currently works at UPS to help get us thru school and life here in Louisville. Our little daughter Claire Elizabeth was born in January and will probably be the bulk of this blog. All you parents out there know what I mean. :)

This past weekend Claire and I went up to Indy to help celebrate her cousins birthdays. And as an added bonus, my sister Anji and her daughter Elena came all the way down from Chicago to join in the girls' weekend! It was so great to spend time with family. We went out to brunch, did a little shopping and chit chatted. And of couse tried to get a picture of all the cousins together, which you will see didn't go over so well.

My precious friend Jennifer who had quadruplets 3 weeks after Claire was born came to the birthday party too. Each time we get our kiddos together, we take their picture to watch them grow...hopefully as friends.

So this is my first post - more to come later.

Comming Soon

I have read Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative and will try sometime soon to write a review of this must read in Old Testament/Hebrew studies.

Tony

ok, ok...

all of our friends have blogs and we feel a little behind the times not having one, so here goes. This is our attempt to keep family and friends up to date on our lives (we'll see how consistent we are in posting).