.STRIKE!.

...but we are going to have to teach her to roll the ball to the pins, not RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN and KICK them over!..

:We got mail!:

Yes, we get mail everyday, but it is always either junk mail or bills, never anything exciting. BUT last Thursday I got home and there was a box on the porch for us! It was an Easter package from Gigi and Poppa!!! HattieJo was so excited for us to open it. She got LOTS of goodies inside, including a "tractor, tractor." Baby boy even got his first football, a gator one! So the bottom right picture is HJ in her sunglasses doing the gator chomp. She will be a great cheerleader.

:BOOTS:

The other morning I was cleaning the house and heard HattieJo in our room saying, "mommy, mommy, daddy shoes, daddy shoes" when I walked in the bedroom this is what I found! This girl LOVES some shoes!

.EasterSunday.

On Sunday we woke up and enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes and bacon. Then Andrew headed to our church's North Raleigh Campus. HattieJo and I played outside the whole morning until it was time to come for me to cook lunch and HJ to nap. After nap we spent the afternoon "spring cleaning" together outside. We cleaned all the porch toys and furniture, daddy washed the cars, and then we washed the yard toys! Once we finished cleaning we hid easter eggs.... Yes, HJ is hunting easter eggs redneck style with just a diaper...but she did have on a hairbow and flip flops! After we came inside to get cleaned up we went to another potluck with some friends! It was some yummy food and a great time of fellowship outside! We were only in the car about 5minutes and HJ had fallen asleep from playing so hard all day. LOVE seeing her enjoy herself and other people.

.whew...

..what an awesome weekend! We have had so much fun this weekend. Friday I was off from school so HattieJo and I played all day in our pj's! Then when daddy got home from work we got showered and ready for a dinner date, then we headed to our church's North Raleigh campus for the Good Friday service. It was great! On Saturday we had planned to go to an Easter egg hunt, but the weather was yucky, so we just headed over for an Easter potluck with our small group:

After lunch we headed home for a short nap before going to church! It was a great evening of worship! After each service we had baptisms outside, so after each service I had HJ out to watch them and she clapped right along with everyone after each one...it was awesome to see so many surrender their lives to Christ!

These next picture was HJ EXHAUSTED after a busy day.... she just laid out on one of the rugs in the lobby of the worship center:

.Good Friday.

I am so excited about today-Not only is it a day off from work to be with my sweet family, but it is a day that kicks off the Easter weekend at TheSummit. I am so excited to see what the Lord is going to do this weekend through the Gospel being proclaimed. I pray that many lives are changed forever marked by the Word this weekend.

Here are the lyrics to the song, "How Great is the Love" by Meredith Andrews....LOVE these!

"Thank You for the way that You love us

How You love us

Thank You for the way You have made us

We were created

For Your pleasure, for Your presence

For the glory of Your name

Thank You for the way that You love us

Jesus, faithful King

Lord, with grateful hearts we sing

How great is the love

How great is the loveOf our Savior

The weight of the cross, the curse of our shame

You carried it all and rose from the grave

How great is the love,

how great is the loveOf our Savior

Thank You for Your grace that has saved us

You forgave us

Thank You for the way You have freed us

We have been ransomed

We've been rescued,

we've been purchased

With the price of Your own life"

:BED HEAD:

On Saturday morning HattieJo woke up at 4:30 crying like she had had a bad dream. So I went up to check on her and she asked to come downstairs to the couch, so that is where we went right back to sleep! The thing about sleeping for a bit on the couch is that she is a WARM BODY, so she woke up with a hot mess of a hair do! haha... Here it is:

.antique tractor show.

Last weekend Andrew was at a local gas station and saw a flier for an antique tractor show. We were so excited about it because HattieJo is fascinated by tractors. She will spot them so far away and say, "tractor, tractor, tractor." So Saturday morning we headed to the antique tractor show. It was so much fun. She was overwhelmed with all the tractors everywhere. She loved getting to sit on them, look at them, touch them, and just run wild! It was so fun. They had a kids section with some little ponies that you could ride. She said, "horse, horse, mommy." So I thought she would like to ride them, boy was I wrong. She liked petting the little one, but wanted nothing to do with the bigger one and definitely didn't want to sit on them! We got us some homemade ice cream before heading home and she really enjoyed that.

.31 weeks and a baby shower.

Well, I am 31 weeks today! Its crazy to think that baby boy is going to be here soon..we can'twait to meet him! We had a dr. appointment yesterday and it went great. We were able to hear his sweet heartbeat and everything sounded and was measuring good. I have been feeling so good which I am thankful for. No crazy cravings, just pretty hungry all the time it seems! Baby Shower: A couple weekends ago, some of my dear friends up here in NC threw me an amazing baby shower. It was a great time of fellowship with great friends. We had some delicious brunch food. They showered me with TONS of great gifts. I am so thankful for each of the ladies who were at the shower. They each have played such an important role in our time here in NC and in HattieJo's life as well. Thank you ladies so much!!!

.practicing for Easter.

With Easter this weekend. I decided one day last week that HattieJo needed to practice for an egg hunt! So she grabbed her bucket and went to filling it up with pine cones around the yard! It was so cute. "I get it mommy!"

.ABC's.

Some of our dear friends in SC have a little girl named Kyley who was born the same day as HattieJo. We keep up with them weekly and see them each time we go down to SC. The other day Andrew was talking to Clay and they were talking about the girls and Clay said they had been working on getting Kyley to say the alphabet, so we tried it with HJ...Here she is performing!
Disregard the last part of the video, I was going to try to get her to say her vowel sounds (which she knows, but she wasn't interested in doing them!). Kyley, we are excited to see you in a couple of weeks! You and HattieJo will have to perform your ABCs together for a video!

.we.heart.spring.

With the warmer days and longer days, our afternoons once we get home from school are spent OUTSIDE! I have a hard time getting HattieJo to come inside long enough for me to change clothes so that we can head back out. We stay out until Daddy gets home and then they play outside while I get dinner ready. Most nights we go back out after dinner for a 4wheeler ride or walk!

.happy birthday.

Happy Birthday Aunt Bec! We love you so much and hope that your day is extra special! Can't wait to see you soon!!!

.sneak peek.

So when I began to look for bedding for baby boy's nursery, I quickly realized that there are NO cute boy bedding sets, so I decided I would have to create my own! So one Sunday, my dear friend, Rebekah and I met at JoAnn's fabric and went to searching...Rebekah is WONDERFUL at sewing! She is the one who made HattieJo's birthday dress with a matching baby doll, so I asked her to make all the bedding essentials for baby boy. She got right on the bumper pads(print on one side and dark gray on the other) and crib skirt, which turned out WONDERFUL, I can't wait to get his crib and set it up. Then on Sunday she and a couple other of my friends came over for lunch and we all worked together and made the valance and a coordinating pillowcase for the bed that is going to be in the nursery/extra bedroom! Now Rebekah is making 2 throw pillows for his nursery as well (I will post pictures of those when she finishes). So if you need something Rebekah is the girl to use! The money that she makes from her sewing projects goes to help bring their baby home from Ethiopia. You can check out their website here. She even has an etsy store that you can buy things from! The dresser was given to me from a parent at my school and my dad painted it and put on new hardware! The bookcase was one that we already had that my dad painted the dark gray as well! So it is all starting to come together, once it's all finished I will do another post of the finished product... getting so excited for baby boy's arrival!!!

.young pros.

Every other Thursday Andrew leads the Young Pros gathering at the Summit. HattieJo really enjoys going up there. She is quite the greeter for the event. She tells everyone hello, eats lots of snacks, sings, and runs WILD! While Andrew does the teaching portion of the night, HattieJo and I play in the lobby which is always fun...then we head home once everything is over. Its really neat because a lot of the young pros have been there since before I was pregnant with HattieJo, so they have literally watched her grow. She gets so excited to see the familiar faces each time.

:GLOVES:

:playdough:

I have let HattieJo play with playdough before, but she really wasn't interested, so the other day I decided to get it out again and try it... She LOVED it! She now is wanting to play with it all the time. We made snakes, food for the snakes, patterns using a fork, etc. It was so fun. She couldn't figure the texture out right at first, but then quickly began squishing and molding!

.Little Momma.

When we arrived at the airport in Florida, Gigi had bought HattieJo a baby doll that was a boy! HattieJo quickly took to the little baby boy and Gigi of course! She did so well playing with the baby and being a momma to him. Hopefully this is good practice for when baby boy Hopper arrives!!!!

.here lizard, lizard.

I have never seen so many lizards or frogs in one place, but I tell ya what... there are an abundance of frogs and lizards at Gigi and Poppas house. HattieJo loved looking at the "izards" and insisted that her daddy catch them everytime she saw one on the back porch. So he did and he would put them on his ear, his finger, etc. and she laughed everytime! Then one night Gigi showed her the frogs on the front porch and we spent at least 2ominutes outside trying to catch "rogs"(HattieJo tried to stomp them) the frogs! What fun times!!!

.Trip to FL part3.

We went shopping on Friday morning with Gigi and Cousin RyRy. They had a great time although I am sure that people thought we were crazy. HattieJo and Ryan could be twins (they are about 8 weeks apart) and then I am preggo! The kids had fun playing at Stride Rite, then at the mall playground. Then Gigi treated us to a train ride around the mall, HattieJo loved that and was waving at everyone we passed. Here are a couple quotes from 2 old men at the mall.

Old Man number 1: "Wow, yall got a double header today!" To which Gigi replied, "He should have said homerun if he would have seen your belly!" hahaha

Old Man number 2: "How old is your daughter?" Me:"19months." Old Man number 2: "Wow sure are having a hard time getting your figure back huh?!" Then he chuckled and said, "That one makes people laugh all the time!" WEIRDO!!!!

They were worn out and both fell asleep before we even got out of the parking garage to head home.

That evening the whole clan (friends,aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandpap) came over to Andrew's parents house for a weinee roast. It was so much fun. Before everyone arrived we had a photo shoot with the grandkids... Here are some of the shots:

HattieJo cried when we had to tell these wild boys bye. It was so sad. She LOVES her cousins! Go to TheCollinsFive to read more and see some other great pictures from our weinee roast!

.Trip to FL part2.

We woke up Thursday morning and headed to the Jacksonville Zoo, I was so excited for HattieJo to go, because she loves animals and they had a dinosaur exhibit which I knew she would enjoy. She had a great time! She got to feed a giraffe, run around with the goats and brush them, ride the train, and see LOTS and LOTS of animals. She was exhausted by the end of the trip, but wasn't interested in napping!