Family Alive

Analise Fluff
For all of you checking in for Analise pics, these are especially for you. Analise has been quite busy trying to ride her rocking horse lately (above). She stands next to it, lifting her leg up, trying to get on herself. She’s pretty excited when someone stands there and rocks her. Below, Brian and I were all dressed up for a Samford Faculty dinner at The Club, a classy member-only dining club overlooking Birmingham. I enjoy the perks of being a professor’s wife! It was a fun (free!) evening out.

Extreme Analise Room Makeover
Alright, finally pictures of Analise’s beautiful room makeover! My mom did a great job. She was the definite motivator and the pocketbook. I had no desire to paint, but it looks so much better in the light yellow (lemon ice). You can click on the top picture to see a larger version. Some highlights:

• My favorite project was taking white, wooden letters, about 4″ high that spelled her name, and using scrapbooking stickers to decorate them, and hanging them with pink ribbon. I’ve had these for a while, and I was itching to do something with them. I’m excited at how it turned out!
• We also hung the quilt that came with the crib set (spontaneous purchase off Ebay a long time ago, that again, I was itching to put up). It’s hung with pink ribbon as well.
• Mom made a nice yellow gingham curtain for around the changing table to cover all the clutter.
• We found a nice scarf to drape as a curtains, tied with a pink ribbon. The front window didn’t need much, because it’s got stylish plantation shutters, but the whole room looks better with window treatments.
• The last touch that didn’t quite get finished is a string of chenille hearts to hang across the top of the windows in front of the scarf swag. Mom took them home to finish since we ran out of time with all our little projects.

It was our own version of Deisgn on a Dime or one of those fun HGTV shows that mom is always watching (and I would, if I had cable).

What’s been keeping me busy since Mom left…
I’ve been really busy lately trying to get our church’s home church ministry organized. It will be called ONE ACCORD, and right now, it’s a big hit with over 50 people meeting WEEKLY at 3 different homes. It’s a great opportunity to experience real community and grow with others on a deeper level than the usual Sunday experience. With groups that big, one of my tasks has been to divide. It’s stressful… I’m a people-pleaser, and I’m so afraid someone will be disapointed. We’re also trying to nail down the invisible details of how we’re going to do things. We’re basing our ministry on a very successful home church ministry at North Point Community Church, detailed in the book Creating Community. It’s exciting but overwhelming to try to put it all into practice. As I’ve said in other posts, our home groups, both here and in California, have become our second families. We’ll have a kick-off event on September 7th to bring everyone together and lay out all the details, so I’m sure you’ll hear more about ONE ACCORD in the future!

Smart Toys
Brian made a funny discovery with Analise’s little Leap Frog Alphabet Pal. It’s a caterpillar with a letter on each leg, and it plays various things for the different modes – letter name, letter sound, color, etc. As Brian was playing letter sounds together to make words, the thing said, “Hehe! That tickles!” We realize that it won’t play the sounds for A and S together… probably to prevent it from saying bad words. There are a few others combinations it won’t play either. Funny -and sad – that toys have to be that smart.

Promisekeepers and Scrapbooking
Brian just took off for a weekend with the guys from church in Mobile, AL for the Promisekeepers rally. He attended the event in California 2 years ago and had a great time, so I’m sure he’ll really enjoy himself and the fellowship this time, as well. One of our friends from church who is also husband-less for the weekend is coming over for a night of scrapbooking. Woohoo!