Vacation Bible School

This past June, our church put on Vacation Bible School just like many of y'alls. Since I always help work it I get to have a sneak peak at Ella in the opening worship rally. I think I was the only mom taking pictures and video of her. Thankfully, she's not old enough yet to be embarrassed.

The theme was Saddle Ridge Ranch, so here's my sweet girl in her cowgirl apparel that she made in class.










Krystal, this is for you. hehe. This is Jared our worship leader. I couldn't help myself getting a picture of his awesome moves!




I love the way our children's ministry decorates every year. It's always so cute!


Ella and her friend Colby doing "You're my brother you're my friend."

VBS Part 2 6-10-10 from Janelle on Vimeo.

VBS 6-12-10 from Janelle on Vimeo.

Ella and her sweet friend Annie!


They danced their little hearts out.


Ella had a great week learning about Jesus! I'm so thankful for our church and the way they invest in our children. I'm so glad we get to be a part of this church family.

Pine Mouth

I have a mentor friend of mine named Michelle. Her and I meet for lunch the last Wednesday of every month to chat. We always go to the same hole in the wall mexican restaurant down the street from where we work because it is SO yummy and we like to spoil ourselves when we are together! I just LOVE her!

Well, this past Wednesday, Michelle came up with the idea for us to meet at her house and she would make me this fabulous lunch instead of our norm. Sounded wonderful to me because she is an amazing cook. Many in our church have enjoyed the blessing of Michelle's cooking.

Anyway, she had me over and made this amazing pasta, spinach salad. It had parmesan cheese, tilapia, spinach, pasta, fresh ginger and pine nuts. To my recollection, I had never had pine nuts, so I grabbed a hand full and decided they were yummy, so I had another hand full. Then I proceeded to put 2 more hand fulls in my actual dish.

The food was great and the company was great.

Flash forward two days. I was sitting at home late Friday night and started noticing that I had this weird bitter taste in the back of my mouth. So I got some water and ate some cheese because isn't the cure for anything. To no avail, the taste was still there. Woke up Saturday morning and the taste was STILL there. Saturday night and this morning, same story.

So this afternoon, I got on google and started doing a little research. I put in the search "bad taste in the back of mouth". There were 2 main topics of articles that popped up and there were hundreds on both. I was either pregnant or had eaten some pine nuts recently. As much as I was wishing it was the former, it was a little coincidental for the latter.

Sure enough, everything I read said that there is this reaction to pine nuts that they call Pine Mouth! Who knew? Crazy. And they said in most cases, the pine nuts came from China. I immediately called my friend Michelle to see if she still had the package so she could look which country they are from. But I haven't heard back from her yet.

The worst part is that every article said that the taste can last UP TO 4 WEEKS! 4 weeks y'all! Ughh! Ack!! And there really isn't anything you can do about it.

Please pray for me. :-) And stay away from the pine nuts.

Sleeping Ella

I think I could probably take a picture of Ella every night after she has fallen asleep in her bed. At some point after I tuck her in and she actually falls asleep, she gets out of bed and fills her bed with all sorts of items, usually about 5 to 10 stuffed animals. It's always a surprise as to what she will have. It's usually something as adorable as these pictures. But it's also a lot of the time hysterical to to see what she ends up.

This has been one of my favorite nights.




Unfortunately I took these with my iphone so they aren't the clearest. Has your camera on your phone made anybody else lazy with taking pictures? Or is it just me? In the past, I would run and grab my nice cannon camera that my wonderful husband bought me. But now that I have this phone, it's just so much easier to grab that instead because more than likely it's right next to me. But then I'm always disappointed when the picture turns out cute, but it's terrible quality. When will I learn? :-)

My Little Hula Dancer

A few weeks ago, our good friends the Selfs had a Luau at their house. The guys actually bought a pig and cooked it all night leading up to the party in the ground in their backyard using hot coals. Boys will be boys. I'm so sad I didn't get a picture of it and the huge pit that it was in. Pretty interesting.

Ella in her true fashion, couldn't help but break out in some awesome hula dancing!

Making Treats w/Laney

One time last month when Ella and I were hanging out with Kristin and Laney, the girls made some yummy rice crispy treats. I didn't get any pictures of the actual treats, but I did some of the cute treat makers!

Jumping Girl

Ella had a slumber party at my parent's last night. Whenever she spends the night there, my mom pulls mattresses out of a closet so her and Ella can camp out on the living room floor. Ella thinks it's the greatest thing ever!

My mom sent me these pictures today of Ella jumping on them, which is a common occurrence.




Flying Ella!


And face plant.

My New Wheels

Well, here she is. My new (very old) car!





Now I know what you are thinking. Why? Why would Janelle allow her husband to purchase her a 1989 Dallas Cowboy themed Suburban?

But follow me on this:
1) It only cost $1800!
2) No car payment.
3) It only cost $1800!
4) No car payment.
5)

Okay, that's really all I got. But it's kind of awesome in it's own unique little way. I mean we'll never lose it in the mall parking lot, right?

It does have some charm to it though. The inside is pretty awesome. Very plush seats and lots of room. And the best part about the inside is it's custom crafted wood panel sides with dear heads engraved in them. Huh?! I mean how can you pass that up.

All kidding aside, I really am okay with it. It's kind of fun. I think it will be functional for the time being for what we need it for. And a year down the road, if it's just not working out, we'll get me something else and Heath can use that for a truck. But I have a feeling she's going to be in the family for a long time.

One thing I do need help with though is naming her. Amanda said it best when she texted me after seeing the above picture of it, "That truck is just begging for a name." So bring on the suggestions.