"The child grew,"
2 Kings 4:18a
My cousin, Rachel, turned 1 this week! To celebrate we drove up to Rocky Mount (3-4 hour drive) and spent the night at their house. We left our house around 10 AM and arrived around 3-4 that afternoon. We quickly got settled in, toured their renovated basement (it's really pretty!), and ordered some pizza. By that time, Na-naw, Paw-paw and my great-grandma, G.G. had also arrived. We ate some delicious pizza and ended up watching the Olympics. (We don't have cable so the only thing we really miss is the Olympics and the Duggars :)
Uncle Kevin, Aunt Mae-Mae, Cadence, and Justus arrived around 9 that night. People were sleeping everywhere in their house! Almost every room became a place for someone to sleep! The older kids (me!) stayed up till about 11:30 and then we went to bed on a really comfy floor! :)
For breakfast the next morning we had some really cheesy (and hence really good!) sausage casserole and Paw-paw bought us some biscuits, cinnamon rolls, etc. from Hardees and Bojangle's. (That has almost become his treat for us every time we spend the night at Aunt Stacey's). I forgot what we did until lunch, so I can't tell you about that. Anyways, my Uncle and his family (the Nolans) arrived near lunch time finishing off all of the family arrivals! :) Chicken and potato wedges from Wal-Mart was for lunch. Rachel was, of course, as cute as can be the whole time!
After lunch Rachel opened her presents!
Cadence (my cousin) absolutely loves the camera and so she gave me a few poses:
Back to Rachel...
Opening a present.
Rachel then had the delightful idea to put the bag on her head! She's so cute!
She took it off and was just as happy as she could be!
She loved any stuffed animal! She'd pick it up, hug on it and kind of rock back and forth!
-Sorry about those red eyes, I tried to remove it, but the computer must be stubborn today!-
After presents were opened and looked at we went to the kitchen for cake, cupcakes, mini-cupcakes, and ice cream! :)
Since Rachel is highly allergic to milk, Aunt Stacey made her a dairy-free cake that was very yummy!
As is custom in our family, the littles ones get to make a mess of the cake on their first birthday. So, after singing Happy Birthday, Rachel got to try!
She actually didn't enjoy herself too much. She just took a little finger full and licked it. It took some persuading by Aunt Stacey to get her to put her whole hand in it!
There she is, getting ready to eat a cupcake!
We left their house later that night. We stopped in Farmville, VA to get some Mexican for Mama, who was really wanting an enchilada. We practically searched the entire town before asking at a gas station (we had also asked a lady) for a Mexican Restuarant and he told us about one us that we had passed coming in! :) So we all piled out of the car and ate some yummy Mexican food!
We arrived home late that night.
Sunday afternoon, Mr. Johnny, (a friend from church) came over for our weekly popcorn-and-movie-night Sunday routine! Since we had no popcorn, Daddy went to the store with Hannah and Alexis and the rest of us showed our land off to Mr. Johnny! I had not been down in a while so it was fun going over all the trials again! When it was getting dark we went back up to the house and prepared to start popping. Well, the popcorn Daddy bought was bad so they had to go back to the store and get some more! Thankfully that popcorn was good and we popped tons of it, before watching a movie about Chuck Smith and how Calvary Chapel got started. (We attend Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville :) After 3/4 of the way through the movie we stopped it because of the time and said goodnight to Mr. Johnny and Daddy!
To give you an idea of what's ahead for us:
Friday night we're celebrating Seth's 9th Birthday.
Saturday morning we're going to our cousin, Collin, basketball game. (Hannah's going to Lavender Fields)
Sunday we're having the Nash Luncheon at our house, so there will be lots of preparing to do on Saturday!
I've recently started taking pictures for friends and referrals at any of their events (i.e. birthday parties, sporting events, etc..). I also started a new blog, http://www.photographyforjesus.blogspot.com/. Don't worry! I'm still doing this blog, the new blog is just for my photography endeavours (I'll be posting on the pictures I take for others and sometimes my favorite photos from the week or something).
One more thing - Mama has a bad cold and along with her getting over her morning sickness, she isn't feeling very well at all! Please pray for her! :)
Delighting in Jesus,
Kimber :)
