18 months

today bella joy is 18 months old. 1 1/2 years. oh. my. i really don't feel like it could be possible that my sweet big girl has been outside of my belly for a year and a half. but i also feel like she has been a part of our family forever. isn't it strange how time works.

anyway...at 18 months this little lady is a sponge! its like she learns new things by the minute. she loves to sing, sign, talk, and play. she loves people. she is totally living up to her name in that she is an absolute JOY! i mean, don't get me wrong, we have our moments. disobedience. whining. tantrums. but MOST of the time she is an absolute JOY ;)

bella joy, thank you for being so fun. and for being such a hoot! you make momma and daddy laugh all the time and we are so glad. please love us like you do forever. and we will do the same. happy half birthday sweet girl.

the next big thing: take 2

i told you lots of fun things were coming up! also in October, our dear friend (and my get-in-shape accountability partner!) Brie Golliher is doing mini-photo-sessions for us! we are so excited and thankful for the generosity of our friends! anyway...back to the task at hand!

Brie will be doing mini-sessions on October 15 & 16 at Romanza Johnson Park. the session will be 30 minutes long. you will get 10 images (rights to print as you wish). the cost is $75 and 60% of that will go DIRECTLY into our adoption fund!

if you are interested you can email or facebook Brie or myself. you can also check out her work here.

the next big thing

on Saturday October 22nd, you will want to plan to be in Alvaton, KY! we are going to have an outdoor movie night to help bring our baby home! as we wait on our referral, we know we have a big chunk of money to raise in order to accept the referral when we get it. we are so excited to meet this baby!

anyway, our outdoor movie night will be at our house. we will project the movie onto the side of our house. so you will want to bring blankets or lawn chairs and your favorite friends! (the movie will be kid friendly!)

you will also have a chance to buy tickets to get chances to win some "giveaways". right now we have some fun and exciting items! (including a Kindle, a handmade doll bed and handmade doll quilt, as well as some other fun crafty things, and lots more! so do you have a talent? (baking, photography, crafty) or would you just like to donate a gift card to a local restaurant? we are hoping that this will be a BIG fundraiser, so the more "giveaways" the better! (i'm trying to avoid calling it the "r" word!)

and stay tuned because we have several more FUN FUN FUN fall things coming up!

dollar general market: my take on it

last week I got a sales flier in the mail for dollar general market. I briefly looked it over and saw a few deals so I thought I would see how much further dgm is from my house than my usual grocery buying places. then I looked closer at the flier and noticed two things: 1) the sales were for the dgm in scottsville 2) there was a $5 off a $20 purchase coupon. so I was back to mapping the distance. the scottsville store is only a mile or 2 farther from my house in distance but with zero stop lights and almost no traffic, I thought it must be faster. so this morning b and I took a little cruise to the big city of scottsville!

here are my observations:
1) as far as time is concerned, this is where it's at! I got to and from my location quicker and was able to make it through the store faster because there were very few people there!
2) the employees were SUPER friendly and helpful! I can not say the same for all of the stores we frequent.
3) produce was priced very well!! avocados were 85 cents each which is a steal people! (they are 1.66 at kroger this week).
4) as far as healthy choices go, they have no whole grain pastas or tortillas. they did not have fat free or low fat cheese, sour cream, or cream cheese. they did have whole grain bread, but it wasn't as cheap as Aldi's. (I make our bread so this doesn't matter for us, but it might for you!)
5) they did have nutella!!! and they have more name brand items as well (tide, charmin, big brand foods, etc). I got 12 pack angel soft tp for 4 bucks. I call that a good deal! As far as prices of other things, there were several really great deals and everything that wasn't over the top awesome was comparable to aldi or walmarts prices. I did pass up a couple of things that are cheaper at kroger this week because of sales.

All in all, I'm loving the scottsville dollar general market! This will become a regular in our grocery repertoire! Especially if the keep sending $5 coupons!!

Oh, and they DO accept manufacturer coupons!

Adoption update

if only I were better at coming up with clever titles...

anyway, we have some big stuff going on in the way of adoption. last week we mailed our dossier! and we found out that we are number 11 on the waiting list! this morning I woke up at 530 and I couldn't fall back to sleep because I couldn't stop thinking of this little one...is it a he or a she, is he/she born yet, what will it be like when we see the first picture, when will we see the first picture, etc, etc, etc.

so while we wait for the answers to those questions we still have quite a lot of money to raise, which should keep us quite busy! we have some very fun fundraisers coming including (but not limited to) craft fairs (you can always make special requests!!), more mini photo sessions, painting, a movie night and raffle, and as always thirty-one parties! be on the look out for how you can join the fun!!

b and I mailing the dossier!!!

fundraiser friday!

so i pretty much stink at weekly blog ideas...but i'm not giving up! so here we are for another fundraiser friday!!!

today i want to bring to your attention an extra-special-to-me fundraiser! it is extra special because it will help bring my niece home!

yesterday my sister and Lylah came to our house to play and as Lylah was walking around talking on the (play) phone, i asked her who she was talking to. she said "Lydia"! she talks about her sister all the time and when you ask her "where is Lydia?" she knows the answer is "Africa". oh how i long for her to be able to answer "in our room!"

anyway, check out my sister's blog to see how you can help bring Lydia home! on september 11th, Lara and Nathan will be having an adoption cook out. in conjunction with the cook out they are having a raffle with all kinds of great prizes! so even if you live out of town and can't come to the cook out, you can still have a chance to get in on the fun! if you would like to get tickets, tell me--or email/facebook message my sister!

what's new with boo?!

Bella Joy will be 17 months old in 4 short days. She is growing and changing so much. It really does seem like each day she learns something new. It is the neatest thing to witness. So let's talk about some of the things that our nearly 1 1/2 year old is up to, shall we?!

She is learning new words by the minute. She can say bye, hi/hey/hello, thank you, please, loads of animals, two, a, b, c, bless you, momma, daddy, poppy, bebe, papaw, lylah, Elsie, zoey, loads of animal sounds, book, ball....ok maybe I'll stop. Just in the past month or so she has taken off! She says so much, I can't even keep up! She also understands so much!! She knows when she is doing something she shouldn't, when she is being funny, and how to follow simple instructions. She also signs more, please, thank you, milk, bath, help, eat, and water (again, I may be forgetting some!)

She loves to play!! She is a pro at her shape sorter and can do it mostly by herself. She loves animals and books. She loves to swing, slide and run.

She is still taking 2 naps a day, which I am totally ok with (it just makes errands more difficult). And she is also becoming a more adventurous eater.

She definitely makes us laugh regularly and really does bring so much joy to our lives! Boy oh boy 17 months has flown by!