TWIG: September 25-31, 2011

This week started bright and early with a

MOVE school assembly across the street from where I work.

MOVE is an anti-bullying campaign that we started at our church,

and we've tailored it to fit the needs of schools in our area.

It's fun to see our church kids in their school environment!

Cody's sister-in-law, Tiffany, gave birth to her second baby this week!

Here is Uncle Cody, and his newest niece, Savanna Isabella.

I am SUPER excited to start our next curriculum series in the preschool!

It's called "The Adventures of Wesley and Wallis."

It's about the tales of Wesley, the elephant, and Wallis, the goldfish.

We're going to be talking about the book of Proverbs.

Since it would be pretty hard to get a pet elephant, we decided on a goldfish.

We ended up getting two goldfish...just in case!

Traumatizing the preschoolers is not on our to-do list!

Here are Wallis 1 and Wallis 2:

My dear friend Carey had a birthday this week!

She and her husband celebrated by going to a fancy spa/golf resort!

Fun!

I got to stay with their kiddos.

This is what our weekend looked like: lots of giggles and moving around!

And lastly, I love Starbucks.

This is me enjoying what Cody and I call,

 "a Christmas party in your mouth!"

Peppermint java chip frappucino. Yum-o!

I had to go dress shopping and I needed some liquid energy.

Luckily, I found a dress,

and I'll be happy to show it to you in a couple of weeks. :)

Cody and I are heading to Denver to celebrate the wedding

of one of my best college friends. Can't wait!

See you next week!

Instagram Week: September 20-26

I'm trying to eat a lot more fruit.

Fruit salad is my friend.

Especially when it has plums, strawberries, bannanas and pears. Yum.

My friend, Kristine, was out of town, so I got the pleasure of

dog sitting her pooch, Marley.

Doesn't he look fun?!

We had a courtyard event at church this weekend

to celebrate the end of Bible Boot Camp.

It was army/camo themed, and one of our security guys,

who happens to work for the SWAT team,

pulled some strings and brought the SWAT team's truck!

The kids loved it!

I tried something new with my hair...

what do you think?

Lexi Lu and I went to the Children's Museum of Phoenix!

You can read more about our adventures here.

We had a blasty blast!

And finally...

When I moved into my house, I had a long list of projects to do...

I got to cross one of them of my list this week!

Re-organizing my closet. Color coded. Bam!

See you next week!

Girls Day with Lexi Lu

My friends Erin and Jon are on a missions trip to Africa!

They have been posting to Facebook about what they've been doing,

and I can't wait to hear more when they come back!

On Sunday Erin posted, "Just experienced the most amazing church service of my life.

The worship was of full surrender and love for God and the people

gave their all for Jesus. Praise God."

Erin and Jon have three of the best kids around, Jake, Madison, and Lexi.

Before they left, Erin started to get really nervous about leaving the kids.

She asked that we would check in on them every few days to make sure they were doing ok.

I offered to take Lexi for a day of fun on one of my days off.

We had a blasty blast!

First we stopped by one of my favorite pizza joints, Oregano's.

I love this place for multiple reasons, but one amazing thing is that

they give kids some pizza dough to play with while they wait for their food.

Genious!

We also enjoyed some delicious pizza cookie...

Lexi really enjoyed the ice cream!

Then we were off to the Children's Museum of Phoenix.

The CMP is one of the first places in the nation to have a play structure like this:

www.childrensmuseumofphoenix.org

It was a hit!

Lexi loved playing in it! She especially loved the flying bathtub!

After a day of fun, Lexi was super tired and fell asleep on the way home!

Love you Lexi Lu!

My first week with Instagram!

My old android phone bit the dust last week,
so I am a proud new owner of an iPhone!

Here is the first of what I hope to be a weekly post of
“My week in Instagram photos…”

The good ol’ Arizona monsoons finally hit this week…and they hit hard!

My electricity went out for a few hours.

Luckily, I had a few candles around the house and
a man who was willing to bring me dinner

and take me to his place so we could enjoy our meal

with the comfort of air conditioning.

 

I got sick… again.

This time with a sinus infection and bronchitis.

Pass the codeine please!

I had to stay home from work on Saturday and
was not able to teach the kiddos on Sunday.

Looking forward to teaching them again next week.   
 

Mr. CJ and I enjoy learning obscure facts and watching crazy documentaries.

To prove it, I took a picture of him googling the
difference between emus and ostriches.

 Self proclaimed nerds!

 

My coworkers are some of my favorite people on the planet.

After going to lunch to celebrate Erin, we stopped by Target
to try on some of the latest fall fashions.

Erin is about to go on a missions trip to Mozambique! Read about it here.             

We had a BUNCH of parties and events to attend this week.

As a result, my dining room table played host to lots of presents.

 I LOVE giving presents!

 

One of the events we got to attend was a going away party for two friends.

My friend Anthony is moving to Hollywood to work for a company

that does the editing for some really cool TV shows!

 And my friend Jessica is about to go to Spain for three months to study abroad.

 Here are Jess and Izzy.

I love watching Izzy grow! Check out how little she was! 

Jessica loves journaling, but even more so, she loves journals!

 I found a journal a few weeks ago that I knew she would love,
and I wrote in it for her.

She absolutely loved it and said it would be her Spain journal :)

I got to hang out with two of my favorite kiddos this week, Daniel and Violet.

We had dinner and this is how they preferred to sit…

one in front of the other, so they could properly watch the movie, of course. :)

LOVE these two. 

 

Another of my favorite kiddos turned 4 this week

and we got to go to his pirate themed birthday party.

 He loved opening his presents and squealed for joy
every time he opened new “pajam-jams.”

 Happy birthday, Ronin!

And lastly, we attended the baptism of little Michael 

 (his cousin Nate also got baptized on the same day).

Our friends Summer and Johnny came down from Flagstaff
for the baptisms and stayed with me.

We went for a coffee date and my day was instantly better!

See you next week!

Spelunking in Flagstaff

Holiday weekends are the best!

I get to have more than one day off in a row

and Mr. CJ gets to have time off, too.

For Labor Day, we decided to go visit friends in Flagstaff

and do some hiking.

I had hiked in the lava tubes before, but it was Mr. CJ's first time.

The lava tubes were formed 700,000 years ago by molten lava.

The cave is completely underground and is 1.4 miles to the center.

At the highest point, it is 80 feet high,

and at the lowest, it's about three and a half feet high,

causing hikers to litterally crawl through.

It's completely dark inside; absolutely no natural light shines through.

It's a challenging hike, with lots of rocks and boulders to climb over,

but so much fun!

Here are a few before, during and after shots:

Then we decided to go hike part of Humphrey's Peak.

It was such a gorgeous day!

We got to see such great scenery and had a great time together!

I can't wait for our next trip!

Embrace the Camera: Embracing my Grandparents

My grandparents are a hoot!

I could tell you countless stories about them

and the funny things that they say and do

(like how my grandma irons underwear!),

but really, stories don't do them justice.

I'm determined to do a video interview with them the next time we see each other.

You better believe I'll share it!

Here are a couple of photos we took together

at my brother's college graduation festivities

in Evanston, Illinois last month.

By the way, Grandma just turned 83 last week.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

I'm linking up with The Anderson Crew!

Hometown Glory

I'm from Iowa.

I LOVE Iowa.

And I love that I grew up there.

My work friends are not farm-people. At all.

In fact, they think the stories I tell are hysterical.

So hysterical, in fact, that they have a top ten list of "You know you're from Iowa when..."

It's actually turned more into a top 23 list, but whatev!

Here are some of my favorites from that list.

You know you're from Iowa when...

-You never lived in a town with a stoplight until you moved away to college. Not joking. There was ONE stoplight in my entire county. Just one.

-Your high school math teacher was also your track coach, basketball coach, an attorney, and owned the town's grocery store.

-There is a place to fix your tractors on Main Street. And Main Street is wide enough that two combines can travel in opposite directions down the road at the same time.

-You know what a combine is.

-You've shown any kind of livestock at the county fair.

-You were in every single extra-curricular activity because if you didn't, there wouldn't be a team.

-You grew up in a town of 350 people, graduated with 42 people in your class (and you know all of them) and that's totally normal.

I've always wanted to give my friends a tour of my hometown

so when I went back this summer, I did a video tour.

I seriously hope you enjoy it as much as they did!

And for reals... I had just had four cavities filled. Be kind :)