Thankful Thursday and an Update

What a great week it's been since my last post. We had my niece Annelise's birthday party at our house on Saturday and it was wonderful. She was so beautiful and such a trooper as we put her through the typical one year old's birthday festivities: lots of unfamiliar faces singing weird songs at you, passing you around and calling your name for pictures, then watching and clapping as you open weirdly colored packages. It's enough to stress anyone out, but she was so sweet and patient. Blue icing in her hair and all, she was precious. It was great to see her and the rest of my family and spend the day celebrating what a gift she is.

After we recouped from all the excitement, I hit the ground running preparing a talk for my Thursday morning Bible Study class. (We typically spend an hour doing Bible Study and an hour covering a home-management topic.) Our teacher asked me to share about getting and staying organized, so I spent a few days researching and writing out my thoughts on the subject. I plan on posting the stuff I wrote eventually, so you can look forward to that enthralling read!

In AJ news, she is doing great. She turned 9 months old on Saturday and is such a sweet baby. She wants to pull up on everything and LOVES to hold our hands and walk around the house. She has also mastered walking around her Leap Frog table while holding onto the gadgets. She officially crawled on March 14th, but she doesn't really know she can do it yet if that makes sense. We think she just assumes she's reaching little by little. She still cracks up at peek-a-boo and I can usually get her laughing just by laughing. She doesn't have her "pincher-grasp" mastered just yet, so she picks up Cheerios or other finger foods, holds on to them tightly, then just kind of licks her fist. She loves making "motor-boat" sounds and moving her fingers across her lips while making noise. Just the other day, she realized she can put her foot in her mouth. (Hopefully she won't be as good at doing that figuratively.) She loves to point at everything and scrunches up her face because she knows it makes us laugh. She plays by herself very well if I'm nearby and is clearly exhibiting signs of early genius as she entertains herself and observes the world.

So, that is us lately. Here is this week's list:

1. Our niece Annelise who's official birthday is tomorrow. Happy Birthday, sweet girl! We love you!

2. Fitting into single digit size pants. I've been working my butt off (literally) and, though I'm not there yet, I'm getting closer!

3. David taking off an hour early yesterday. We went to the park and let Audrey try out the swings before enjoying a walk in the beautiful weather.

4. Apple juice. I stole a little glass from Audrey's stash. Is it strange that it makes me want club crackers though? Too many years of that snack combination in Sunday School, I suppose.

5. New music. Several of my favorite artists have put out some good stuff recently (Norah Jones, for one). Time to reload the iPod!

Enjoy your weekend!