In Memory of Amy

A friend of ours, Amy Wilhoite, past away from Leukemia a couple of months ago. Her and her husband are our age and have a little boy that will be turning two in December. I would highly recommend her blog, wilhoite.blogspot.com, that she began when she first found out about her cancer. You will be amazed and freshly encouraged by her testimony and the outworkings of the gospel in her life! She was a precious saint who has gone home to be with her Lord.
In honor and memory of her, Jason, my dad, my sister, and I, went yesterday to put ourselves on the bone marrow donor registry. It was suprisingly simple. We filled out a little bit of paperwork, rubbed 4 cotton q-tips in our mouth, paid $25, and we were done.
After Amy died, I was reading through all of the hundreds of comments on her blog and got caught going from blog to blog of the people whose lives she had affected, including several leukemia patients. One site I came across was about a little girl named Amy who had the same type of leukemia as Amy. Her website is amysarmy.org. She was diagnosed in 2003 and has still been unable to find a donor match. For this type of leukemia, a stem cell donation is the only possible cure. It just made me think, what if I was a match for someone and had the bone marrow that could possibly save their life? I felt the conviction to go place myself on the registry. And, having the wonderful family that I do, they came with me!
If you want to look into it, the national bone marrow website is www.marrow.org. In loving memory of Amy! Thank you for your amazing example and for a life that pleased our glorious Savior!

Jason bought his first tree!

It is the simple things in life! Right guys! Well, we do have to say that we were pretty excited about buying our first tree! We had this great tree in the corner of our backyard that slowly came to its death. After a long wait and much thought, Jason decided to uproot it and plant a new one. So, he went to a nearby nursery, asked questions, researched several trees, and bought one. It was planted today and we love it. It is called a Sissou tree and it is supposed to grow really fast.

Happy 5th Birthday Jaime!

Saturday night we celebrated Jaime's 5th Birthday. We are so happy they live here in AZ now! Jaime had a Dora party and the kids had a great time eating pizza, lots of cake, girly party favors, a Dora pinata, and plenty of play time! Happy Birthday Jaime and thanks for a great time!



Abby watched this Sesame Street episode on birthdays and since then she has been obsessed with birthday hats. This is the first birthday since where she got a birthday hat and here is her the next day still wearing it. She is watching TV and it is slipping off her head. As always, she is too cute!

Scrapbooking Night!

This past Friday night we had another girl's night with the boys at the men's conference at church. My sister and my niece came over, we made dinner, and worked on my scrapbook project. We were also joined by Jaime, a new friend from church with the most amazing testimony! It was great to talk with her and hear about God's most amazing works! Our scrapbook project was Abby's birthday album. For each of our children I am endeavoring to make an ongoing birthday album. For each birthday there are 4 pages. The first page is their picture with a signature page for everyone at their birthday party to sign, the second is a letter from Mom and Dad, and the third and fourth are pictures from their birthday party. Then when they turn 18 they get to keep it. My sister's amazing ability is making Abby's album fantastic! Thanks Tracy!

Girls Night!

The guys at our church our participating in a men's conference this weekend at our church. There are some fabulous speakers and breakout sessions. I can't wait to hear all about it from Jason! Well, the girls in our small group came over last night for some good ol' girl time! We had pizza, leftover Halloween candy, lots of chit chat, and my absolute favorite chick flick, You've Got Mail!
The Nerds of the evening!

Nora and I

I love this movie! Meg Ryan is absolutely adorable!

The only one I am missing from the evening is Danae and that is because our picture turned out funny. Sorry Danae! We missed all the other girls in our group who were unable to come!

Phoenix Zoo

We have a membership to the Phoenix Zoo and we love it! It is a great educational outing for the kids and, weather permitting, a rather enjoyable way to spend an Arizona morning. Abby has come to know many of the animals and "what they say." This is one of her most favorite things to do. On a zoo day, it is so cute to watch her at the dinner table as Daddy asks her what she saw at the zoo and she launches into a long list of animals, animal sounds, and "oh it was fun!" intermittingly throughout the list! Yesterday we went to the zoo for my niece, Jaime's Birthday. We packed up all the kids and had a great time!
All the kids!

Isn't she cute!

Katie loved hanging out in the stroller!

My Little Fish!

My parents have ever so graciously purchased swim lessons for Abby at this great swim school with an ever so fabulous swim teacher! My friend Becky is her teacher and Abby loves her! And she loves her kids Drew and Bella, who she asks for everytime we go to swim lessons. Becky is super knowledgable and great at making things fun! She is starting to actually really learn how to swim. It is so fun too watch! Way to go Abby!