COUNTDOWN TO LB BIRTHDAY!

9 Days until Laura Beth turns ONE year old! The picture below is a 9 Month old picture.

One of our friends did a countdown to her daughters birthday. I thought it was a cute idea. I think I might add to the blog entries some thoughts that we had as parents the first weeks after she was born, as we count down the last week of her first year. ha! I kept a journal for Laura Beth during this first year of her life. We plan on giving it to her later in life (16 years old or maybe when she has her first child). Anyway, I was reading through it the other night and all of the feelings and emotions of first-time parenting came rushing back. Ah the memories. :)

9 days after Laura Beth was born I wrote:
"I am so amazed every time I look at you. You make the sweetest faces, especially when you yawn and stretch. You smile sometimes when you are dreaming, which is fun to see at just a week and 2 days old. ....I am amazed at how perfectly healthy you are. Your hands are so little and sweet. Your hair is thinner on top than the back. Watching you breath gives me an overwhelming sense of responsibility. However, I know that you are not mine. God has given you to me and your dad as a gift to love and care for as long as He wills. We will pray for His guidance so we know what to do as parents."

Jail bird.

Steve put up a gate to "contain" Laura Beth. Actually, the gate is to keep Laura Beth out of the kitchen. (I'm sure Teresa, Laura Beth's sitter, will appreciate the new boundaries. ha!)


Jack usually doesn't come out of his "room" (the laundry room), but we called him into the entryway to play with Laura Beth while she was in jail. ha!



Then today, we stripped off Laura Beth's church dress for a fast lunch. Her food had carrots in it, and I didn't want her dress to get dirty. (Plus, I wouldn't have taken the dress of if I had known that lunch would be a photo op.) Laura Beth decided she wanted some of her Daddy's food. So, she "asked nicely" (yelled!) for some of his sandwich. Of course, her daddy gave her what she wanted. So Laura Beth officially ate a ham sandwich with a little mustard today. It was so cute. She was taking big bites too! I should know, by now, that ALL times with an infant can turn into a photo opportunity at ANY moment. ha!

Oh and for those of you who know about the "texture situation," Laura Beth now eats chunks of cooked carrots and potatoes. She doesn't pick them up yet, but she eats them off the spoon with no problem. (We're excited!) She has been eating (and picking up) for a while, crackers, cheerios, bananas, etc. However, she was giving her mommy a VERY hard time about the other stuff.

Sundays can be rough. Especially since Laura Beth officially moved up to the "Creepers" Sunday school room. She played with the "big kids" all morning and was EXHAUSTED when she got home. Daddy and Laura Beth taking a snooze after church.

All in all, we had another fun weekend together!

HAPPY BUFFDAY, UNCLE A

"My Uncle A. (Uncle Aaron) has a buffday today. I wish I could see him. But I do remember all the times before that he held me and wuved me. I wuv you! -Laura Beff"

Uncle Aaron helping us get ready for Laura Beth.

Uncle Aaron was in North Carolina to be in a wedding on the Saturday that Laura Beth was born. THen, he drove through the night on Sunday night and came straight to the hospital to see Laura Beth. He didn't even go home first. What a sweet uncle. :)

Uncle Aaron and Laura Beth on the Monday after Laura Beth's "birth" day.
Playing "motorcycle" in a restaurant. hA!Uncle Aaron won't believe this but Laura Beth does this game all the time now. We can't wait for him to see it. It is quite funny.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

So Big! (with videos)

Laura Beth has gotten so big and it has only been 2 weeks since I've posted pictures of her. She has officially had her first "hair do". I couldn't get her to smile in this picture because she didn't understand why I wasn't feeding her. Oh, and she wasn't "taking" to those strawberries very much at all. :)

She has also gotten more teeth. Her top two front teeth came in and they are big and spread out (just like mommy's were). Poor child, she'll need braces and have terrible 3rd grade school pictures. ha! But they are pretty cute to me at this age. You can kinda see them in this picture.
She is also crawling and cruising all over the place. I don't have video of her latest crawl, which is a hand, hand, knee, and foot crawl (you can imagine what that looks like. ha!). BUt I do have this one picture of her "unpacking" our suitcase from our last trip. Really she was just dragging out all of the clothes. But this picture shoes how the crawled to it, with one leg up. It's quite hilarious. Steve and I were watching Laura Beth the other night as I was folding laundry. She started doing the most interesting thing with afew of the clothes. We thought it was funny, so we wanted to show you. I hope this is normal development. ha
!


We went to a AKC dog show here in Greenville today. I could kick myself for not bringing my camera. (I'm so bummed about that). However, if you live in the Greenville area, you may can catch us on the 6:00 or 10:00 news (WABG). A camera person stopped us and said, "Can I get you guys to talk to me and tell me why you came out to watch the show?" I told her we would talk, but that we would probably just say we came to the show because we wanted our daughter to see the dogs. The lady actually wanted that on the news (only in Greenville)...so we did it and you can probably see it tonight. The dogs were all great. Laura Beth loved them all.

As I am typing this blog, Laura Beth is making noise in her room (which is unusual when she goes down for a nap). I go in to see what is wrong. She has pulled up on the crib, thrown her pacifier and "lovey" (security blanket) on the floor. She wasn't too upset, just wanted her stuff back. Man, she is big.

Speaking of so big...enjoy this video of Laura Beth walking with her "mail carrier" walker. This walker has envelopes (that Laura Beth loves!) and a place to "drop off" mail. Enjoy this one minute video (IGNORE HOVERING MOMMY!)



Oh yeah, her Sunday school teacher said, "I've never seen an 11 month-old talk so much. She ran out of her star snacks and started signing and saying 'more' over and over again." I was surprised to hear that she signed "more." She is pretty stubborn with me on this sign. However, I was very excited to hear them say she was using her words and signs. :)

Honduras Video

This is a highlight video from our Honduras Mission trip that Steve took with the youth. This video is just over 5 minutes and it is a summary of five hours of video and 1000 pictures. So understand that it's just a blink of the mission experience, yet it is the best way to get atleast a blink..

Really, the last Honduras Update.

Just thought some of our family and people praying for the Honduras Mission Team would like to know these "numbers." They're coming home tomorrow! Whoo Hoo!

Steve's final update:

"By last count, over 40 Hondurans prayed to receive Christ as their Savior. We passed out over 500 bags of food, over 300 bibles, 150 frisbees with the plan of salvation, made hundreds of verbal witnesses to the Gospel, and passed out hundreds more flyers that were scriptural tellings of the life of Christ. Who knows how many people will come to know Christ as their Savior as a result of this effort. Who knows who God may call into full time Missions based on their experience on this trip. We are only to honor God and to do His will and leave the results to Him. I am confident that we followed His leading and He will reap the harvest."

Last Honduras Update!

Steve called yesterday with the best news. Last year while he was in Honduras, they met a little girl who had some sort of cancer. She was on alot of medication, which made her body swell. When I say "swell" I mean she was very, very swollen. Well, Steve saw her again in the village, and Layne Parrish was holding her. Steve couldn't believe this was the same little girl. She was so trimmed out and beautiful. She no longer needs the medication, which made her swell, because she was cured. She takes no medication anymore. In the states, cancer is very hard to fight. I can't imagine what it is like in Honduras. People from our team last year prayed for this little girl. God heals!

The team traveling to San Pedro Sula today. After arriving there, they spotted a Pizza Hut. Everyone was so thrilled to see the Pizza Hut that they ate there for lunch today. They will board a plane tomorrow (Sunday) from this city and land in the states at Atlanta. Then, they will have one more flight to Memphis tomorrow. They will arrive home in Greenville at 2 a.m. Monday morning. All week Lauren Kelly stayed at my house helping with Laura Beth and just hanging out with me (helping the time pass more quickly). I know she would have rather been in Honduras, but I am so thankful for her company this week. She left today heading back to Texas. We miss you already Lauren.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Steve has the cameras. Hopefully, we will post pictures of growing Laura Beth this week. I can't wait for Steve to be home again!

Thursday update!

Steve sounded so encouraged last night as he could NOT stop talking about what God is doing in Honduras.

More on all of that in a minute. As for me and Laura Beth, we are missing daddy (Steve) so much. This is the longest he has been away from us. Laura Beth has grown so much since he left. Laura Beth is now saying more and more words. Her favorite is still "ball" and she will say "ball" whenever she sees any ball. For example, I turned on the TV yesterday and was not looking at it. Laura Beth was looking at it. She said, "ball, ball...ball." So, I am looking at the floor trying to see if I see her ball (or any ball) and did not see anything. Then, I look up and a basketball game was on TV. I was so surprised at her "carry-over" of the word. Then, I turned it to a football game (which was on ALL day yesterday) and she saw the quarter back pass the football. Sure enough, she said, "Ball" and looked at me for reassurance. Steve is just not going to believe it. Laura Beth also eats alot of different foods now, which she wasn't doing last week. She is alot more receptive to the word "more" at meal times, pulling her hands together with very little (well, still some) cueing. She also "dances" now. I don't have the camera this week, so I can't show much of her growth, but we'll put pictures and video up soon. :) She is also cutting some more teeth. She has the top two central teeth and the bottom 2 lower central teeth (Upper and lower central incisors, for those who know teeth. ha!). However, something else is coming in...I just can't decide which tooth it is. I am hoping it isn't the molar yet. I hear those make babies very uphappy. Ok, enough about Laura Beth. Let's talk about DADDY!

God is revealing himself to the Hondurans and also to MANY people on the team from the states. Last night, Steve talked about how the holy spirit was moving and how things seemed to be falling into place. He talked about how people were saying, "You are doing so well, Steve, putting people where they need to be, sharing God's word, and making all of this so successful." Steve said it was hard not to take the compliments, but he knew that he (Steve) wasn't why all of these marvelous things were happening. To God be the glory.

Steve said that he loved how they are doing bible school. He said that they have crafts like most bible schools, but mostly the "Bible SChool" was building relationships with the villagers so that they could show Christ love and tell them about WHO Christ is. So he describe the scene of the "bible school" not as crafts and songs (which did occur), but rather as a sixteen year old American girl braiding the hair of a sweet Honduran child while sitting in the grass of a very poor village. He further states the youth guys hanging out with the Honduran boys playing soccer for 6 hours and then later talking about Christ and how He can save them.

Thank you for praying for him and the team. Today (Friday) is their last day to be in the village with the Honduran people that they have come to love. Tomorrow they will be in another city as they begin to travel back to us.

BELOW is a "Thursday Update" from Steve:
Thursday, today, is New Years Day. People were slower to come down to see us. The streets seemed empty. Yet as the day went on there were more people in La Colonia than in previous days. This afternoon we had a large soccer game going on. This included many Hondurans and a few of us. After 30 minutes of soccer two of our 17 year old guys stopped the game and asked the kids to "circle up." Our youth told the Honduran boys that soccer was fun game but this soccer ball we were playing with had a much deeper meaning than just fun and games. They explained that the reason they were here in Honduras was because of Jesus Christ. They also said that their relationship with Jesus was the most important thing in their life. They held up their soccer ball colored in Gold, Black, Red, White, and Green. Through their translator Rafael they explained that the Gold color represented God in Heaven. That he was perfect, all powerful and desired a relationship with us. The black represented our sin and the bible tells us that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." The red represented the blood of Jesus. The White represented how through Jesus blood our sins can be forgiven, and the green represents our growing in Christ. At the end of their presentation the translator asked who there wanted to have their sins forgiven by God and to trust in Christ for this. Twenty-two sweaty soccer playing Honduran boys from the ages of 8 to 14 prayed to receive Christ in this one moment. We were able to catch much of this on video from a distance. This will forever be one of the many memories for those who were there.

Tomorrow is the day we will tell our friends goodbye. Please pray for us as we finish the race and accomplish the task that God has set out for us tomorrow in La Colonia. This task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

Acts 20:24
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.