Bryan's Progression

These are pictures of Bryan from birth days old to 12 months :)

Dancing With the Stars

I love Dancing with the Stars and am so excited about the new season starting September 24th! They announced today the new contestants. Here they are in case you care! :)

Mark Cuban--the billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner

Welterweight boxing champ Mayweather

Wayne Newton

Melanie Brown, aka "Scary Spice" and Mel B

Sabrina Bryan of Disney Channel's "Cheetah Girls"

Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves

Actress Jennie Garth ("Beverly Hills, 90210")

Model-actress Josie Maran

Soap star Cameron Mathison ("All My Children")

Singer Marie Osmond

Model Albert Reed

Actress Jane Seymour ("Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman")

I think my vote will be for Jennie Garth! I love her, so she better be able to dance! :)

Monkey

Guess what Bryan did today?!

Well, let me start by saying he LOVES playing with the books in his room. He can sit on the floor for 15 to 20 minutes by himself which is wonderful for me so I can get something done. Well, this morning I left him to check my email. After a few minutes I heard him grunting like he does when he's stuck or wants something he can't get to. After I walked to his room I was looking in the direction of the bookshelf thinking he would be on the floor, but NO! He was SITTING IN THE GLIDER! I WISH I would have had a camera with me. He pulled the bottom cushion off so he could climb on it to get in the rocker. He is definitely a monkey!

It was really really cute and funny! He still hasn't mastered how to get off of the furniture. We need to work a little harder with him on that! :)

Bath time for the cousins!

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Pa!

Psalm 23

I saw this video on another blog and had to post it for y'all to see! It's so cute! :)

I think I'm in love...

For those of you doing some (very) early Christmas shopping, I've got the first item for my geek wish list this year: the Asus EEE PC.

Here's the lowdown:

• 7" LCD Display
• 900MHz Celeron-M ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) 353
• Intel 910 Chipset
• 512MB DDR2-400 RAM
• 4, 8, or 16GB solid-state storage
• ASUS-customized, Xandros-derived Linux OS
• Dimensions: 225x165x21-35mm
• Weight: ~2 lbs
• Colors: White, Black
• Priced from $199 to $369

I'll take the 4G model in black, please!

When It Rains, It POURS!

We have discovered that water has been leaking into the wall behind our washing machine causing lots of mold, wet sheetrock, and rotted subfloor! We've had 2 plumbers here and 2 contractors to access the damages. We'll let you know what all happens with that!


We went to the mall yesterday and as we were leaving the AC in the highlander quit working and was blowing out straight heat so we added that to our list of things that will cost who knows how much money.

So, please keep our checkbook in your prayers :) Other than that we are doing great! So far it's been wonderful being a mom to a 1 year old! He is so much fun!

Bryan's Birthday Party

Bryan's First Birthday Party

Birthday Pictures

First Birthday!

Click above to see the birthday photo album! :)

I am One!

 

2 hours...

In 2 hours our little boy will be one year old! I can't believe it! On this night last year I was getting ready for bed knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep much because I was so excited, nervous, and anxious for the next morning to arrive! (It also didn't help that we had to get up at 4:30am!) Like every new parent, we had no idea what to expect with labor and delivery. Then we had no idea how one little person could turn our worlds upside down...in a marvelous way! :) There is nothing in this world that I would trade for the 2-3 hour periods of sleep before waking or the poopy messes or spit up all over his shirt and mine.

Now we are on to bigger and better things like training and discipline...including spankings (yikes) and breaking his heart when we take him away from things he REALLY wants but can't get in to...like the dog food! :) But I am looking forward to it all because I know that these times are precious and fleeting. If one year goes as quickly as this one has then he'll be starting school soon. I'm going to hold on to him every second he will let me, and kiss him as much as possible because I know there will be a day that I will not be allowed!

Bryan, your name means Noble, Strong, Virtuous. Joel means "the Lord is God." I pray that you will grow into the meaning of your name and always remember that the Lord is God and there is no other! We dedicated you to the Lord even before you were born, but participated in our church service dedication when you were 3 months old. These are the scriptures that were chosen by God (and us) for you. This is our prayer:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:5-9


I love you, little man, and pray daily for you to come to know Jesus as your Savior at an early age and live your life sold out to Him! This truly is the only important decision you will ever make!

Can't wait for this next year!
Mommy

Hello?

If you say "hello" Bryan will pick up the closest object and put it to his ear like he's talking on the phone. It's pretty darn cute!

     

escape artist

Have you seen this?

If you haven't seen Freedom Writers I highly recommend it and it's a true story! Who doesn't love that?!

In 5 days our little man will be 1 year old! We are very excited about this coming up week and next Sunday is his birthday party with our family. Of course we will blog LOTS of pictures afterwards. :)

We had another new first yesterday! Bryan woke up from nap time totally diaper-less! He was just sleeping in a shirt and diaper and figured out how to take it off! Needless to say I had to change sheets and wash his bumper because they were all wet! haha!

frozen treat

what do you do when it's 100 degrees out? we eat ice cream!!!

Soccer?!

Yep that's right. Soccer. I'm officially a fan now. I just watched D.C. United beat David Beckham and the L.A. Galaxy tonight 1-0 on ESPN2. I've even got a D.C. United wallpaper on my laptop now.

weather

It is 99 degrees outside with a heat index of 110 at 2:45pm...HOT!

I cannot even imagine not having air conditioning! Thank you Jesus for providing us with something that is usually taken for granted!

New Blog

Well, it's not a new blog, but it's a new link over to the right on our page.

John Piper's blog: Desiring God

For Us

From the Message Remix:

Romans 3:21-24

"But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God will for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he puts us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ."

I have been doing the devotions out the David Nasser's book "Glory Revealed." Today's lesson was on God's glory revealed through sin. He talked about King David's slippery slope starting with arrogance and ending in murder. It only takes one thought, one look, or one "little" lie to start us down that path. Why flirt with sin to see how close we can get? We must stay away from sin altogether.

David Nasser said, "When we find ourselves in situations brought on by our sin and disobedience, we need to listen more closely to what God has to say. We must put more weight on his commands-more stock behind his instruction. We learn to take his loving discipline soberly and submissively. And that's how he gets more glory."

The scriptures above were for some extra reading on the subject and they just made me want to shout "Thank you Jesus!" and "Hallelujah!"

Flint Riverquarium

The Englands have a year pass to the Flint Riverquarium. ML and I took Bryan and Allison yesterday to check out the fish, turtles, alligators, etc. They really enjoyed themselves, as did we.

I didn't have my real camera so these were taken with my phone. :)

Jamie's Accent

*Note* The graph doesn't appear when using Mozilla Firefox.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
The South
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Since I grew up in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia I have no idea what kind of accent I really have! :)

New Perspective

Bryan is only 2 weeks away from being 1 so we decided to go ahead and change his view of the world! :) He is no longer facing the back of the seat! He loves being able to watch me drive. It's so cute to look at him through the rear-view mirror watching the steering wheel!

2 weeks big boy and you'll be a year old! What a blessing you are!

Here's Bryan enjoying his first ever bubble bath! I love the little foamy goatee he's sporting in this pic. :)