the sweetest sound

I've been meaning to update you on our life happenings, and tonight was a very important reason to! I had one of the best moments a parent has with a little one. I was reading to Everly one of her favorite books, "What is Christmas, Anyway?" I know it's not the season, but she loves to look at the pages. It goes through the different traditions of Christmas--making cookies, singing carols, the tree, Santa, etc.--and then gets to Jesus. Now, every time we get to the picture of Jesus being held by his parents, Everly points at him and says "baby." She knows that He is important, and I thought that maybe she thinks because she is/was the baby and life might seem like it revolves around her... atleast in her mind. Nevertheless, she points out baby Jesus on all the pages and I tell her that she's right--that He is important. Well (here's the exciting part!), tonight she didn't just say baby, she repeated after me- "Jesus", in her own little baby talk. :) It made me tear up, to hear my baby say the name of Jesus for the first time. We've been working on getting Everly to learn the names of those we do life with and she doesn't always want to repeat after us, she's a little stubborn! So it was awesome to hear her choose to say the name of Jesus. I had to stop and say a prayer that she would say the name of Jesus for the rest of her life, and then I sang "Jesus loves me" to her. I think it's going to become a favorite song now too. :)

alright, it's late so I'll put some more photos and updates on soon!

fun times with Everly

A picture Aaron took from bath time tonight. We are excited how she is growing to be so smart- she'll hand you the wash cloth or wash herself with it, put her toothbrush under the sink faucet for some water, try to put the milk cap on the jug, and so forth. I was trying to teach her how to dip a cracker into dip the other day, however, and found out that this is too advanced for a 14 month old--her entire hand ended up in the dip! :)

Cruising to Cozumel!

We just returned yesterday from our first cruise to Cozumel! It was a lot of fun relaxing and spending time together without Everly. Here are some pictures:

We embarked from New Orleans on Thursday evening and sailed down the Mississippi River by our own Parish. This was one of Aaron's favorite parts of the trip. Here he is in front of the Domino Sugar Plant in St. Bernard.


We ended up getting a room with two port holes! Aaron's parents said it's rare to get a window, so we were excited :)


The second night of the cruise was the dress-up dinner and Captain's Gala. Here we are sipping free drinks in our fancies while we met the ship's sailing crew.


On Saturday we ported in Cozumel--here's Aaron in front of our ship.


We decided to head to the beach for most of the day we were in Cozumel--it was a cheaper excursion with lunch and drinks all included. They had a trampoline, paddle boats, and an inflatable iceberg to climb! It was a lot of fun!


Of course, it was just nice to relax on the beach, too!



Some other highlights from the trip include:
meeting other people from Chalmette
playing ping pong
aaron playing 21 with some guys and winning!
taking swing & latin dance lessons- both of us! Aaron really enjoyed it, too!
hanging out with our table buddies, Bryan and Toni
watching the dance shows
playing chess on their giant board!
not having to take care of Everly (as much as we love her!)
and sleeping and eating lots!

Some of the low points were:
never being able to get room service, ?
being the quickest ones to lose in the corn hole tournament, ha!
attempting to play miniture golf on the highest deck and the crazy wind kept blowing our golf balls around!
our new spray sunscreen not working that well, and getting a little burnt, mostly Aaron, poor guy!

We were pretty psyched to see Everly when we got home Monday. Her reaction? She just stared at us for about 10 minutes with a confused look on her face, poor girl. She grew so much when we were gone and has a little bit of a different personality, too.

And, pretty much as soon as we got home they started tearing down the house next to us- the lot we'd like to purchase in the future if we can. It was kinda scary with it being so close to the house! here's a picture Aaron took.



well, i suppose that's all. we really appreciated the chance to make this getaway. now we're just trying to get back into the swing of things! No more napping and already prepared meals! :)

jeremiah and our 3rd anniversary

I've been reading Jeremiah and today this verse stood out-

"When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, Oh Lord God Almighty." 15:16

Our church family talks a lot about where our joy is found. I want to be like Jeremiah--really grasping what it means to bear the name of the Lord, and to find my joy and my delight in His words above all else. That's my prayer today for you and for me!

Also... thank you to all who wished us a happy anniversary! We had a nice dinner last night to celebrate the day, and took Everly with us since we are "getting away" for our anniversary in a week. We are using some vacation money that we were blessed with to take a long weekend cruise out of New Orleans. It goes to Cozumel for one day, and we're pretty excited to just relax and enjoy being a couple. Our friend Amanda is going to watch Everly while we're gone at the house. hmm.... I feel like I've written this before, but I can't remember! Anyway, thank you again!

sidewalk sadness

so, yesterday they dug up some of the yard next to us to unconnect the gas to the house that is getting demolished. well, they accidently unconnected us too! of course. we didn't realize until the evening, after aaron had cut the grass and needed to shower, and a guy came out right away. But, we said it could wait until the morning. So now they are tearing up the yard again, but sadly they had to destroy some of the sidewalk! :( it's sad because we had a nice stretch of sidewalk in front of our house that we stroll down to the park. now i understand why there are places where our sidewalks are missing or torn apart. this place has a long way to go before it ever looks nice again, though we've had great improvements. an ex-counsel woman told us the other day that they are waiting before all demolition is finished until they work on the streets because of the dump semis that drive our streets, shake our houses, and tear up the roads. i should take a picture of this street not far from us that is the worst i've ever seen--we never drive down it.

here are a few pictures from Sunday of Evelry in her cute sundress from Monica Surface--she put the beads on herself!!! She's so savvy ;)

but don't be fooled, just before she was eating dirt! :) we all have to try it sometime!

shopping

So, I don't know if I've ever blogged about this, but yesterday was another grand trip "into town" that got me thinking about it. "Into town"--something that people might say who live way in the country and take few trips to the closest town to buy things, right? I never thought that that would be me, but that has been the case for the last year living in Chalmette. Yes, we do live outside of New Orleans, in more of a small town than the suburbs. There used to be a Super Walmart and K-mart here, even a Sears I do believe. A movie theater, clothing store, and so forth. But now, we have a Walgreens, Winn Dixie, and that's about it! Oh wait, we have like 7 dollar stores in the Parish- ridiculous! So, whenever there is something we need, I try to make a list and make one shopping trip every so often. I mean, the nearest Walmart takes at least 30 minutes to get to, depending on traffic.

So, like I said, yesterday was one of those trips. Aaron found a truck tool box on Craigslist that was in the same area of a Walmart, and we were needing new window shades for Everly because her color-changing ones decided to stop changing colors, weird. Anyway, whenever we get to Walmart I like to walk around and try to think of anything we might need. I'm always feeling a little frustrated with the pressure of not fogetting something and with Everly getting squirly. It was nice having Aaron with me yesterday and we didn't really need too much. We also got to eat dinner out since it takes so long to drive into town--we weren't sure where we were going to go, but we were in the Uptown area which is a place with lots of cool little cafes and shops. And then, there it was--Whole Foods! Ahh, one of my favorite places. You walk in and there are tons of flowers and fruits and vegetables, all brightly colored and all screaming--"Buy me!" Well, we didn't because they're expensive, but we did find some coupons for some granola bars (ones for serious hiking trips so now we must plan to go!) and bought some yummy dinner.

Now, as we were sitting eating our healthy and very reasonably priced dinner, I am thinking about how I miss living in a place where you can walk places, see people out jogging, where there are trees lining the sidewalks, etc. Sometimes I wish I could be an Uptown person--they're kinda artsy, thinkers, health nuts, and pay a pretty penny to live where they do and buy the stuff that they do. I have to admit, I like that culture, but there are things I like about Chalmette, too. I mean, people here aren't as worried about being healthy--our restaurants serve some fatty foods and are proud of it! And, most people here are blue-collared, hard working people, at either oil refineries, sugar plant, in construction, fisherman, etc. And people are quite fine with blue jeans and t-shirts here. But, people are friendly for the most part and take care of each other.

...well, i din't mean to go on and on like that! here are some pictures because I hate leaving a post without any pictures! :)


ahhh.... Everly loves her daddy!

..and she loves corn on the cob! I don't know if she's supposed to have it, but she's really good at it :)

...and she loves peanut butter!

yum- fried strawberries from the fair- so good!

Everly and our neighbor Amanda

yardwork and Prayer

Aaron took some time today to help do some yard work at the house. Our flower beds that we created in December with his Dad were in serious dismay due to the heavy winter rains flooding them out. It's interesting to learn what grows here and how to make it work! Well, it took us a few hours to revamp it, and I was pretty excited when it was done, but our yard is another issue. We go back and forth about what to do. Most everyone here puts sod down because, we've been told, seed doesn't take well. Today our neighbors told me that the weeds grow so fast that they will over take the yard before your grass seed ever grows! So, we don't know if we want to waste our time with the seed, but we got some for free last year. The front yard isn't as bad as the back--we can walk on it and it's pretty soft, even with the weeds. But, the back is aweful! It is lower ground than our neighbors because we had to dig it, so it floods every time it rains! And it's really nasty weeds that hurt if you walk on them bare foot. Not quite the place you ever want to spend time in. Poor little Everly, she doesn't like grass yet because she doesn't get to play in it very much... and walking bare foot was one of my favorite things as a kid!

Tonight, on the other hand, was a monthly prayer meeting that all the churches in St. Bernard are invited to. It's an attempt at being united, and this is our second time to go. It's quite an intense time of prayer- about seven different ministers lead prayers for different things- revival, the youth, the Church, unity, etc. And there is musical worship as well, though tonight there wasn't as much I think to focus on prayer more. I have to be honest in saying that we feel quite uncomfortable during these meetings--two of the larger churches in town are pentecostal so there is alot of speaking in tongues and other outbursts that we are not used to. But, tonight we felt a little more comfortable realizing we knew quite a few people and families from these churches. We also are challenged though by the different things said through the night and are glad to be coming together with other believers in our Parish, as different as we might be.

So, that ends the night. Poor Aaron is trying to sleep but has terrible allergies! I think we need to get him some new medicene to try--any suggestions??? :)