In the Pumkin patch with friends

This morning Julie called and asked if we were interested in meeting she and Luke at the Highland Park United Methodist Church pumpkin patch and take some pictures of the kids playing. Of course we said yes! Erin and Grant were able to join us, and the kids had so much fun playing with pumpkins. It was so sweet to watch them and take some great pictures. Nothing better than sweet babies to get you in the mood for Fall!!

This one is my favorite!!

Trying to pick out a good one!

Attempting to get all three kiddos in the picture and all looking at the camera at the same time proved to be impossible!!

For some reason she loved this little white pumpkin!!
The best group shot that we could get!

After our time in the pumpkin patch we headed to Chick-fil-a for lunch. The kiddos loved the chicken nuggets and fries!! While we were there some friends just so happened to show up, so we got to hang out with Jennie, Carlisle and Evelyn as well as Courtney and Olivia!! As we were leaving to take our babies home for naps, Mandy and Doff showed up!!

Notice Jennie and Courtney and their beautiful babies in the background!

Baby Girl and Grant sharing some love!! They really just love each other, they are going to miss each other so much!!

Erin and Julie--two great mommies!!

Apparently Chick-fil-a is the place to be for lunch on Wednesdays!! We will have to remember that!! It is not everyday that we get to have lunch with a bunch of sweet people and their sweet babies!!

My Birthday Celebration

I am a lucky girl--I got to celebrate my birthday for three days!! Saturday in Charleston, and then on Sunday we (Mr. Allen, my Mom, Jason, Isabella and myself) ate Papa John's pizza for dinner and my Mom made a carrot cake with cream cheese icing (my favorite!!). We decided that since Isabella is almost a year old she was old enough to try pizza crust and carrot cake. I scraped all the toppings off of the pizza and let her eat the crust--she ate a whole piece!! After that she was kind of timid with the cake--she sometimes has a thing about new textures--Mr. Allen put a small piece in her mouth to make her try it, and she loved it!!

Her Grandpa Nick will be so happy that we finally let her try pizza!!

And now, on to the cake! Mommy's favorite part!!

This look says "wow, you are really letting me eat this"!!

Papa and his "Honey"!

My Mom and Jason enjoying their cake!

Then on Monday, my actual birthday, I worked. Jason and Isabella got me a bouquet of beautiful flowers. That night we finally got to go to a parenting Bible Study that we have been trying to make it to for almost a year. The very first meeting of the Bible Study was last October, the day that Isabella was born!! Anyway, it was great to finally get to be there. We really enjoyed the study and getting to fellowship with the other people in the group. Thanks for being so welcoming!!

A wonderful day in Charleston!!

To celebrate my birthday we went to Charleston SC for the day on Saturday. Our wonderful friends Nick and Keri as well as my Dad and his wife Andrea live there. We started the day by meeting all of them at Nick and Keri's adorable apartment, and then we went to one of our favorite restaurants--Jason's Deli!! It has such a great name, and the very best Chicken Salad and Reuben sandwiches ever!! We walked around Northwoods Mall while Isabella took a little nap in her stroller and then we headed to Isle of Palms beach. Isabella seems to love the beach, and trying to walk on the sand. As you can see from the pictures it was very windy, but it was the perfect temperature!! We only got our feet and lower legs wet, but the water was wonderful!!

My Dad, Andrea, and Isabella!

The five of us on the beach!! What a gorgeous day!!

Windy family picture on the beach!

The wonderful Nick and Keri!

I love this one--the wind blowing her hair!!
Thanks guys for letting us come and spend the day with you--we had a wonderful time!!

Finally feeling better!!!

Our sweet Isabella is finally feeling better!! She hated having to take medicine, apparently Amoxicillin does not taste very good. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!!

Best Laid Plans. . .

As you have seen in previous posts our best friends Patrick and Heather have two children--Alana and Lilliana. Lilliana is about 7 weeks older than our Isabella. We are so excited to have children born so close together, and have decided that they will grow up best friends and be college roommates some day!!
Lilliana turned 1 year old September 17th! A birthday party was planned for Saturday September 22rd, Isabella and I were on going to Jacksonville for the weekend. I had arranged my work schedule to be off Friday through Monday for a nice long weekend in FL.
Thursday night Jason picked Isabella up from day care and brought her home while I went to the last meeting of a Beth Moore Bible Study on the book of Daniel (which I would highly recommend to anyone). While I was there Jason called three times to tell me that Isabella was not acting right, and seemed to not be feeling well. When I got home to put her to bed, we took her temperature and her fever was 101.3. We gave her some Tylenol and rotated it with Motrin through the night. Friday morning she still had a fever, and just seemed to feel terrible. I called the doctor and we went into the office, after waiting 1 and 1/2 hours in the sick waiting room, we finally saw Dr Whitehead and he told me that she had an ear infection in her left ear. Apparently the cold that she had been battling for 2 weeks had resulted in an ear infection. We started her on Amoxicillin and called to tell Heather that we would not be coming that afternoon, but maybe we would still go on Saturday. Well Friday evening Heather called me back and told me that Lilli had awakened from her afternoon nap with a 103 fever and they had taken her to the doctor and she had strept throat!!
We decided to listen to what the Lord was apparently telling us, and stayed home. We were all very bummed!!! Apparently we made a good decision because by Sunday Alana was sick too!!! Poor Lilli's 1st birthday party had to be rescheduled!!
Our weekend was spent at home, taking medicine, and trying to get Isabella to eat, drink, and sleep!! Hopefully next weekend will be better!!
Happy 1st Birthday Lilliana, wish that we could have been there to celebrate you!!