Do NOT feed the animals!

We left for church this morning at 8:00am and just now got home at 8:30pm! Luke's actually still there and may be for quite a while! Why, you ask? The HUGE Malvern Hill Baptist Church Fall Festival, of course! Now, when I say huge, I really mean huge...we were expecting 1500-2000 people, but I am sure that there were a LOT more! It was a great way to get to know our community and it was so fun to be a part of it. Anna Kate had a great time dressing up as a pretty pink cheetah!

Now, in addition to taking care of my cheetah, my job was to register everyone when they arrived. I couldn't really do this while holding the wild animal, so we put her in a cage complete with a warning sign saying "DANGER - Do NOT feed the animals!"
She was quite a hit!

Just havin' some fun!

Here's a few pictures to show you how Anna Kate likes to spend her evenings!

Goin' bananas!

Anna Kate's favorite food is definitely bananas. She does really well eating lots of different foods (even her vegetables), but no matter how full she is, she always has room for bananas for "dessert"! At first we were just feeding them to her mashed up on a spoon, but lately she has had fun picking up pieces and trying to get them into her mouth. She does pretty well, but it's lots of fun to watch!

Bottom Teeth!

I know I just did a post about teeth yesterday, but I finally got a picture of Anna Kate's bottom teeth, so here you go! You will definitely have to click on this picture to make it bigger...

Teeth!

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that Anna Kate's first tooth had finally broken through, but it wasn't through far enough to get a picture. Well yesterday while I was tickling her, she was smiling so big that I had to grab the camera. It's not the best picture, but you can definitely see her first tooth! The bottom front two teeth have also poked through, but I couldn't get a picture of those...so all you can see in this picture are the ones on the top. If you look closely (you may need to click on the picture to make it bigger), you can see the one on the left side (her right) that is about to come through.

Bouncer? Nope, tunnel!

We bought this bouncer for Anna Kate when she was about 5 months old, and she has had a great time using it. She loves playing with all the toys, listening to the music, and spinning around in the seat. Lately, though, I think she has been thinking that it's for babies and since she's such a big girl, she doesn't want to stay in it for long. She would rather be able to crawl all over the house. She did discover a new way to play with it the other day, though, that keeps her quite entertained while I cook dinner. She likes to crawl through the bottom of it like a tunnel! I took some action shots of her so that you could see:

Here I come!

Hmmm...I wonder if I can go through this...

Do you think I can make it, Mommy?

Watch me!

If I can just reach over there...

Hey look, I'm almost there!

Just a little farther...

Plop!

Ta da!

A sacred and holy trust...

I have been struggling a bit lately with Anna Kate's relatively new level of separation anxiety/general clingy-ness to her mommy. Not that I don't LOVE snuggling and holding her, because I do, but it has been hard to not be able to leave her in the nursery for Bible study, or various other church activities, or be able to get things done around the house when she just wants to be held. Anyway, I came across this quote from a 19th-century American pastor named J.R. Miller and it has been quite an encouragement to me, so I thought I would share it here:

"O, that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained! Could she have but one glimpse into the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity; could she look into its soul to see its possibilities; could she be made to understand her own personal responsibility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny--she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no others' hand the sacred and holy trust given to her."

--JR Miller

That is my prayer today - that I would be faithful to the sacred and holy trust which God has given me!