Some great pregnant pics...

With 5 1/2 weeks to go, here's Amy showing off her stuff.... this 1st one is particularly wonderful....

Giving thanks...

Here are some pictures of us over Thanksgiving. We celebrated with the Berry's in Black Mountain and then with the Cushings in Nashville. So thankful to be with the family in this time of thanksgiving and celebration. Now, we're in Black Mountain until baby Lily gets here- only 6 weeks to go!

We might have to get this for Christmas...

Whenever we think we've figured Piper out, she surprises us....She has never been interested in playing dress up until we spent a few days with the influential and dress-up fanatic, Eden Krawczyk. Eden LOVES to dress up and so Piper tried it out and played in this dress for hours. We are thankful for Eden's positive influence in introducing Piper to something as girly as princess dresses. This will complement her love for construction equipment well. Also pictured is Jolie- our other beloved Krawczyk girl!

Trick or Treat!

Here are some more pictures of Piper and David Thomas! They really are such good friends to each other...

Our tired girl digging into her candy bucket....

Happy Halloween!

We'll have more pictures to post soon, but here is a little taste of Piper in her costume- she was a cheerleader and LOVED Halloween. She actually said, "This is fun" when we got back in the car to drive home! The bucket of candy and living room "picmic" (ad Piper calls it) of Wendy's helped out a bit. Hope you all had fun too! Phil took about 20 pictures in a row of her "dancing" so some of these are evidence of that...we'll try to post more soon!

Circus Day....

I don't know what has gotten into me.....maybe it's the Fall or that really, at heart, I am a "themey" person or the fact that I am pregnant, nesting and have cleaned everything in my house so now, I've turned to cooking and being "creative." And when I say "creative", I don't mean creating anything of value that I'll keep or could ever sell. But this October I have done the following projects....carve pumpkins, decorated pumpkins, made pumpkin face luminaries (complete with glitter), made and hung kleenex ghosts on our porch, collected pinecones for a Fall arrangment (to be honest, I made Piper collect them b/c I hate bending over right now), made pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bars, cut-out cookies with orange icing, made a homemade apple pie, learned how to cook a whole chicken (cleaned out the guts and all- hillarious to watch), boiled the chicken leftovers and made a stock and then a soup, and FINALLY....drum roll, please....I sewed Piper's first, of many I hope, costumes....She was a clown for Circus Day at school. She got to march in a parade and everything. Here are the cutest pictures ever of her!

SharpTop Cove '08

As you know, one of the greatest places on earth is owned by Young Life. This is a place created with high school students in mind. Excellent food, beautiful accomidations/cabins, 2 zip lines, a blob, a gym, game room, frisbee golf, state of the art Club Room, hot tub, pool, and a lot more....these are the things that our God uses to change lives. Some of our high school friends joined us about a week ago, and it was awesome! We took a small crew this year, and it was perfect. We heard the greatest love story ever told and had the chance to talk about what it has to do with our lives today. All in all, I'm still convinced, there is still nothing quite like the time spent at a Young Life camp.

Picking Apples

Apples yes, but we also saw a ton of pumpkins, apple doughnuts (soooo good), cider, some Grade A people watching and more. The owners of Sky Top Orchard are geneus. They charge me and hundreds of other families to pick their apples for them, and then charge us more than what they can sell the apples to the grocery for. But, I'm ok with that. The time walking with the family, playing on the free playgrounds, eating a few apples as we stroll, and did I mention the fresh apple donuts? It was well worth the $8. So if you haven't experienced Apple Picking with your friends or family, then this is the time of year....

one of those proud moments...

One of Piper's favorite books is the Bible and I'm so happy that there is something in her that wants to read it and understand it. I continue to be amazed by the mystery of what God is doing in us and bringing out in us. And I see it in Piper all of the time and in the little girl growing in me. This is a great picture that Phil caught:

pumpkins...

Piper...and when i say Piper, I mean me (Amy)...loves this season and all the themieness it brings. We have carved pumpkins, made pumpkin break (and muffins and cookeis), made Halloween cut out cookies, luminaries, kleenex ghost- the list goes on and on. It has been so fun to have her get into all of this and have fun with it, and it's great that she thinks that all of the scary stuff is really "silly" and "funny." Thanks to Young Life and dressing up being a part of our lives weekly to teach her the difference between real and pretend!

Bonfire!

After our weekend of hard work....we had a lot of stuff to burn. We had a ton of fun roasting marshmallows with our friends, Hayne, Erica and Layla!

We had a great weekend as a family being outside and playing a lot. Here are some pictures of Piper's first braided ponytail! I decided that I should probably start learning how to do this stuff since we're having another GIRL! Below are some pictures of Piper's outfit of choice and her helping Daddy mow.

Finger Painting

Heeding some advice of my aunt- the preschool genius- I'm trying to get Piper to take some risks and get dirty. She has already mastered bugs (minus butterflies- they are too unpredictable) and puddles. So we attempted some finger painting- this lasted about 6 minutes from set-up to clean-up.

Time for a big girl room....

We moved Piper into a big girl bed this weekend and began work on the nursery for Baby Sister! Piper has done an excellent job with the transition- of course, we didn't expect anything less! Thankfully, Grammie and Granddaddy were here to help us. So glad for them!