A season of life...

As I have returned to work this year has begun to bring many challenges and professional endeavors. I am pursuing my national board teaching certification this year. This certification in the state of North Carolina translates into a 12% pay raise and the certificate to hang on your classroom wall stating that you have officially jumped through their hoops in hopes to prove yourself sufficient according to the National Board teaching standards. Needless to say it is an intense year long process to produce a portfolio including videos, written commentaries, student work samples, accomplishments, and a final 6 essay written assessment to prove your breadth of science knowledge. That last part really scares me but I don't even have time to start thinking about studying for that part yet. But it seems in midst of this process God had begun to do a wonderful work in my life. I prayed really hard this summer about starting this process because I was worried about the time commitment and with a 20 month old I knew this would be even harder. I began to feel a peace and God speaking to me telling me that now is the time to do this. To be quite honest, I really haven't pursued this certification in the past because of my fear of failing. There is a large percentage of people that do not pass on the first go round and I didn't like the sound of that. I really don't deal well with failure. In fact, I guess you could say I used to have a fear of failing, and in the back of my mind never quite feeling like I was good enough at many things in my life. In the midst of beginning my work I joined a women's Bible study at church, mainly because a friend of mine wanted to start the study. This study has been a catalyst for change in my life and my relationship with God. In the midst of all of the work and pursuit of a professional goal God has spoken to me very loud. Not only has the Bible study provided a means for this change but the 11 AM sermons that Will has delivered have ironically contained many of the same passages that our women's Bible study has been focusing on. It is amazing to see God weaving together the details of life to speak in such a way that is so loud and clear. Our Sunday School lessons that Heth has prepared have only further been a piece of the woven fabric that God has been speaking to my soul. God has spoken so loud to me to get rid of my fears and be complete in His love. When we are complete in Him there is no room for fear. I have read this verse before but never before has it spoken to me like it has in the past few weeks. As I have been praying that God will relinquish my fears and set me free I have felt the greatest sense of peace and calm in the midst of this busy season of my life. If nothing else but to draw me closer to Him, this process has been more than worthwhile. I have watched God weave people, circumstances, and situations together like never before. I am just thankful that I have been able to sense His presence and praise Him with for all that HE is doing. I know that my words are inadequate to articulate my feelings, but I have been praising and thanking Him for speaking to me. Oh how this could have the potential to change my life. To serve Him with passion and no fear of failure. To live everyday dancing in His arms, to live each moment knowing that His love completes me and is without fear. I pray that this continues to transform my life and I can live this everyday.

A Typical Saturday with Abby

Abby is learning so quickly and is such a fun little girl. This video shows how much she loves to talk on the phone to her mama, da-dee, mi-mi and paw-paw. She is definitely our little buddy and a joy to have in our house.

Potty Training?? Already??

Abby is now 18 months old and I never imagined she would be doing and saying all that she is. She continues to amaze me everyday! She has been telling me lately when she peepee's and poopoo's so that I can change her diaper. So, i thought I would buy a potty and maybe introduce the idea to her and see what happens. I bought the potty about a week ago and she has loved playing with it, sitting on it, looking at her books while she sits, opening and closing the lid. Well, on Wednesday she looked at me and said, "pee pee mommy", so we dashed off to the potty, I removed her diaper and helped her get seated on the toilet. She sat for a minute looking at her book and then I heard the music start playing ( her potty plays a celebration song as soon as she goes). I couldn't believe it! At 18 months she used her potty, and believe me we had a celebration party! She was also proud of herself and starting clapping and then wanted to see the pee pee in the potty herself and put her hand in it (we'll have to work on that). That was two days ago and she has not gone again but continues to let me know when she has used the bathroom so I can change my diaper. I know this is just a start, and my fear is she will get bored with the potty and forget about it. We shall see.... in the meantime I am not going to push this too hard, i mean she is still my baby girl right? Although, no more trips to Costco for huge boxes of diapers would not hurt my feelings or budget!
Besides potty training these days she is loving to read books, saying lots of words- especially thank you and bless you, loves to say amen at the end of a prayer, and tries to repeat most words you say to her. Each day it seems her language continues to blossom and it is so much fun to watch her learn and grow. Her 18 month check up was this week as well and everything was great. She did not cry until she had to get her last immunization.. but i would too seeing the size of that needle go into her tiny leg. She was average for weight, head size, and above average in height. I was a little worried about her weight being too low but he said everything was great. She loves to eat peas, peanut butter, cheese, yogurt, veggie sticks, green beans, tomatoes from the garden, blueberries, strawberries, garlic hummus ( i know right?), loves pancakes, eggs, any bread or cracker product, cereal bars, and waffles. I could go on but those seem to be her favorites. And of course just like mom and dad she loves ice cream. Well, i guess thats about it these days. I am just trying to soak up all the time I can before I go back to work in August. Be praying for me on the 18th because it will be a tough day for me. Leaving behind another special summer with my little girl. Trying to be in the moment each day and soak it all in. It is so hard being a working mom and shifting gears from teaching all day to mommy mode and taking care of everything at home. I know many of us do it but it still isn't easy. When Abby goes to school and our schedules are similar I think it will be a little easier for me.

First Pig Tails

Abby's first pig tails! They look a little messy because holding down a 17 month old and trying to fix their hair is near impossible. I remember when I was growing up this was my favorite way to wear my hair. In fact, I'm surprised I don't have a permanent part from wearing pig tails every single day until I was too old and it didn't look cute anymore! She was so funny looking in the mirror and checking out her new do. You can see by the smirk on her face in the Blog title photo that she was loving this new hair style!

Memorial Day visit to Alabama

Abby walking up and down the stairs with Paw Paw.

Our Buddy.

Waliking in the driveway at Paw Paw and Grammy's house.

Cookie face

Abby and Paw Paw take a look at the garden.

Miss Bryleigh, Abby's cousin.

(L to R) Brody, Tommy, Erica, Bryleigh, Jeffrey, Teresa, Cindy, Abby and Heth

Nana and Pop got to spend some good times with the grandkids.

Abby had a great time playing with her cousins Bryleigh and Brody.

For some reason, Abby really like to roll around on the doormat just inside the door on mom's deck. She would just walk over to it, lay down, and then commence to rolling around.

Nana and her grandkids would site on the deck and look at the neighbors cats, the gold fish, watch it rain, or anything else that passed by. We had a great time with our family.

Abby and Bryleigh shared a wagon ride at the local elementary schools Spring Day.

Brody and his friend were acting goofy. I think they had a little too much Kool-aid.

Nana holds her two granddaughters.

Brody's team had just won the tug-of-war challenge. They were a little excited (as you can tell from the kid on the right).

Brody has been eating a green sucker. Needless to say his teeth were just a slight shade of green.

Abby makes "the face"

Bryleigh loves her Nana and rests on her shoulder at the Spring Day event.

The second most beautiful girl in the world. Her momma is the first.

The Blogging shall soon return....

So I have one more official day with my students taking exams and one more full week of work and I will be off for the summer. I love being a teacher!! Don't ask me the week before spring break how much I love it!
I have become such a lazy blogger, not really lazy, just busy with a soon to be 17 month old and working full time can be pretty consuming at times. I cant wait to be at home with Abby all summer so I can soak up all of my mommy time with her. I also hope to be blogging more frequentlytand posting some new videos. Blogging will also be a great distraction from my summer cleaning/organizing to-do list.

Easter Sunday

Here is my favorite picture from Easter Sunday. I have many more but love this one!

Many milestones...

These past few weeks have been filled with milestones in our little Abby's life. She started walking, or should I say taking her first steps completely by herself on March 29th. This just happened to be the weekend that PawPaw and Grammy Kendrick were in town visiting and were also able to witness these first steps. How special! You'll also notice her singing a little in the video, saying her favorite word "bead-a-bye" (we have no idea what this means but are convinced this is the universal Abby word), making a scrunchy face at me (which i taught her one day being funny and it amazingly has stuck with us) and taking those first steps. Enjoy one of my favorite videos of Abby!

First Birthday Party Pictures

Here are some pictures from Abby's First Birthday party. She had a blast celebrating with family and friends. She was so funny with her "cupcake" smash cake. She didn't want to stick her in the cake and eat it, but loved picking all of the polka dots of icing off the cake and eating them. Too funny!

Happy First Birthday Abby!!

Our sweet little baby girl is one year old today! My how times flies by! One year ago today at 3:24 PM we saw our Abby for the first time. I'll never forget that day and first time I saw her. I waited for her for so long and I was finally able to see that precious little girl, a memory forever with me. Now she's trying to walk, loves to laugh, sing "la,la, la", squeal and trying to say new words everyday. She is such a sweet and happy little girl. We are so blessed and thank God for this wonderful gift he has given us. Happy Birthday Abby, we love you so much!! Tomorrow we're having her birthday party and we'll post lots of pictures.

First Christmas!

I can't believe that Christmas has come and gone again. Wow, does a year go by fast when you're having so much fun! This was Abby's first Christmas which made it pretty fun for us and her. She definitely loved the Christmas tree and all the lights and knew what Santa looked like but I think that was about it. When it came time to open presents she was more interested in the paper and bows rather than her presents. After she opened her presents she loved climbing on top of the boxes. I never knew that girls could be such climbers and explorers. In fact, Abby would rather climb, walk with mom or dad, and maneuver around the coffee table more than anything else. She did love her new car we can ride her around in the neighborhood. We had to pry her out of it one day after going about two miles and she still wanted to keep going. She also loved her Zebra and dancing to the music. She is going to be quite an active energetic girl. When she starts walking by herself you'll know because Heth and I will start shedding some pounds! Most of all it has been amazing to have the past two weeks to spend at home with her playing, shopping, eating out, and just having a good time. Since Heth has been home he keeps her going nonstop playing, laughing, and walking her around the house, up and down the stairs and doing whatever she wants to do. She is a daddy's girl! One day she wouldn't let me hold her, she would just hug me (she leans her head in and opens her mouth to try to kiss you) but would want to stay with her daddy. Heth is probably the most amazing, and fun dad there is. No seriously, I will never be able to entertain and make Abby laugh the way her daddy does. We spent Christmas day at my parents and Heth's dad and Jane came to visit on New Year's Eve. We had fun playing the Wii, and games of Roulette (my favorite!). We also did lots of shopping and just had a great time visiting and Abby spent most of her time showing them all of her new tricks. All in all we had a wonderful Holiday Season soaking up every minute with family and just enjoying spending time with our sweet Abby. In just two weeks we'll be celebrating her first birthday and wondering where the last year went but remembering how much our sweet girl has grown and brought us so much joy. I never knew my heart could possibly love the way it does now. Her life has taught me so many things over this year and made me more thankful for each day. I pray that we can be the kind of parents God would have us be and teach her to love Him and follow Him. As parents I think you can never pray enough for your little ones! I can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for us!

Help us Shaquille O'neal

Several months ago you may remember a blog I wrote about a bird pecking on our window early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Fortunately this stopped around October and we haven't heard from the bird... until today. This morning around 8:00 I was playing with Abby and I heard an indistinguishable sound of "peck, peck, peck" coming from the foyer. After looking up I saw the same dumb robin flapping its wings and flying into the window pane. I opened the door a few times and scared it away but it would return very shortly and start to peck at the window again. I have tried placing a fake snake on the window sill, throwing tennis balls at the window, and considered purchasing an air rifle to permanently get rid of the problem (which Cindy veto's every time). Today I had the revelation of placing a scarecrow on the window sill.


The window above the front door is the bird's window of choice. We had it tinted and a reflective treatment added to it our first year in the house to cut down on the afternoon heat coming through the window. If you look closely at the bottom left of the window you will see my "scarecrow." That's right. The scarecrow is none other than LSU's center from 1991 Shaquille O'neal.


"Why Shaquille O'neal" you may ask? He was sitting in my garage and looked like a good solution. For the bird's sake, I hope this works. So far the bird has not returned in the past 6 hours since Shaq has kept watch over the window, but only time will tell. If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears.

11 months old...

I can't believe my baby girl is 11 months old today! So exciting that she's happy, healthy and growing like crazy but I still look at her and see that tiny little
6 lb. 8oz baby girl. It's even harder for me to believe that in one month we'll be celebrating her first birthday. This year has flown and been one of the most challenging but fun years of my life. Wow, how your life can change so fast. Abby is now feeding herself and loves her snack foods more than anything else. In fact she went from eating lots of fruit and veggies to wanting only snack foods. I tried to tell her tonight a girl can't live on puffs and graham crackers:) I am trying new foods with her and she'll let you know she doesn't like it by throwing it right up. I have a kiddopotamus bib that's great because when she starts throwing up I can catch it in the little pocket and scoop it over to the sink and wash out the bib. She's also cruising around as long as she has something to hang on to and I won't be surprised if she's not walking real soon. Our baby girl is soon to be a toddler. She's into everything now, loves to dance, read her flap books, try to sing, laugh at her daddy's antics and gaze at the Christmas tree. I can't wait to see what she's going to think about Christmas!

How time flies!

For Thanksgiving this year, our family traveled to Gatlinburg, TN for a four day stay at the Hemlock Hills Resort. Cindy and I had stayed here last year with our church group and it is a great place for a large group. The cabin was a five bedroom/five bath and we had 14 adults and three kids with us. It was a bit crowded when everone was in the same room, but it was a great time. We visited the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg, hiked in the Great Smokey Mountains, shopped in Pigeon Forge and had a great time playing at the cabin. Here are some photos from our trip and few photos from other visits with family.

This year, our family came together in Gatinburg for four days of fun and relaxation. Heth's family drove from Alabama and Cindy's family drove from Charlotte and Greenville, SC. In this photo from left to right are great Paw Paw Fleming, Grandma, and Grandpa.


Heth's family included from left to right Pop and Nana Gibson, Brody and Bryleigh Wood, Aunt Erica, Abby, and Heth. Cindy took the photo and Uncle Tommy was trying to get Bryleigh's attention for the photo.


Nana, Bryleigh, Abby, and Uncle Tommy enjoyed playing together and reading books all week. Bryleigh was 18 months old and Abby was 10 months during our trip to the mountains.


At the aquarium, Abby's cousin, Bryleigh, stands along the ledge of one of the tanks and tries to get Erica's attention to show her the fish inside the tank.







Brody, Abby's oldest cousin, is excited to go inside the aquarium in Gatlinburg. Brody had a great time exploring the aquarium and got a toy shark from the gift shop.



Outside of the aquarium there were fall decorations set up. Abby loved the pumpkis and scarecrows while Brody liked climbing on the hay bales.



Cindy has bought Abby a Leap Frog learning table that she loves. She likes to stand along side it and push all of the buttons. She also sways back and forth like she's "dancing" to the alhpabet song.



On Thanksgiving Day, some of our family took a walk in the Great Smokey Mountains Nation Park to a waterfall. It was a 1 1/2 mile trail that is completely paved with asphalt the entire way. I would recommend this walk to anoyone visiting the park and looking for a stroller friendly trail.



On the way to the waterfall, Brody climbed several rock outcroppings that are beside the trail. In this photo, Pop and Brody show us how high they can climb.



Abby really liked her Aunt Erica and everone else in the cabin. Abby loves being around new people, as long as mom and dad are nearby.




Wii madness swept the cabin. We brought our Wii from home and enjoyed playing bowling, tennis and baseball with each other. Brody loved to bowl, box and race cows. He mentioned Santa may bring him a Wii for Christmas this year.

"D" is for Dishwasher

Last night as I was loading the dishwasher and Cindy was feeding Abby dinner, I started pretending the dishwasher was Cookie Monster. I was singing "D is for Dishwasher, that's good enough for me... Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum!" As you can see, Abby thought this was hilarious as she keeps looking at Cindy for reassurance. Needless to say, her little personality is showing more and more every day.