My Little Adventurer
I should have realized back when Analise was almost 8 months old and got herself stuck between the end table and the wall (click if you’ve not seen the picture) that she was always going to be up to something. Well, she’s now progressed to climbing. Yesterday she learned to climb onto an 18″ small stool I keep in the kitchen. I found her proudly standing on it. Not cool. Today as I was working in the den, she was in the kitchen trying to get back onto it, so I turned it over. I went back to work, and it got very quiet in there for a while. I finally decided I needed to check on here. This is what I found:) I left her sitting there, wondering if I’d hear her needing help eventually, but she got herself out just fine. The adventures continue…

Tub Troubles
Analise loves bathtime, splashing and playing with her toys. The other day, I was watching her and she tried to stand up, but squatted down. When I reached down to pick her up and sit her back down I found a few “logs” floating!!! Yuck! Brian came running at my holler. I cleaned Analise off, and he disinfected the tub and toys. Analise was a bit disappointed that her bathtime had been cut short.

What Else is She Up To?
While my mom was here, Analise had a personality explosion! My mom took the time to write down all the things she is up to, and it’s quite a list.

• Words she’s saying: “Daddy”, “uh-oh” (probably the most frequent), “mm-mm-mm”, “oooh”, “num-num”, “no-no-no” (not used as the actual word, I don’t think, but when she really really really wants to communicate something). She’s trying to say lots of words, and she chatters all the time. It sounds like she’s speaking Japanese fluently.
• She rocks in the rocking chair, stands in it, sits her stuffed animal in it and rocks them.
• She balances things on her pull toy to give them a ride. She says “uh-oh!” when they fall off.
• She pretends with stuffed animals and dolls, sitting them in high chair or strollers, trying to put clothes on them.
• She started snuggling, hugging and kissing her stuffed animals.
• She kisses pictures of animals in books.
• She loves books. She spends a long time pulling books off the shelf, turning them right side up, turning the pages, before going onto another book. She loves to bring you books to look at with her. She is particularly into lift-the-flap books and pop-up books.
• She climbs up stairs and slides down on her bottom. She gets really excited to do this:)
• She dances when she hears music, and she’s started walking backwards and sideways.
• She straddles and sits on the soccer ball and then bounces on it a bit. She enjoys pretending to talk and listen on an old cell phone.
• Favorites: Stuffed gorilla, pink and white penguin, Baby Einstein DVDs, cuddling with Mom before a nap, balls, plastic tubs or boxes to sit in, lasagna, any kind of beans, bananas, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, watermelon, teddy grahams, ice cream and string cheese.

Just wanted to ask for all of our friends to be praying for us and for the residents of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana tonight and tomorrow night. New Orleans sits 12 feet below sea level and the storm surge is expected to be 20+ feet. If you do the math, it’s easy to see that you could drown in a three story house — even if the house isn’t washed away.

The worst for us here in Hoover will be Monday night. Here is an excerpt from the NOAA inland tropical storm warning:

MONDAY…WINDY. SHOWERS AND A CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS. SOME
THUNDERSTORMS MAY PRODUCE TORNADOES. HIGHS AROUND 82. EAST WINDS
15 TO 20 MPH INCREASING TO 20 TO 30 MPH IN THE AFTERNOON. CHANCE
OF RAIN 100 PERCENT.
MONDAY NIGHT…VERY WINDY. WIDESPREAD SHOWERS AND SCATTERED
THUNDERSTORMS. SOME THUNDERSTORMS MAY PRODUCE TORNADOES. LOCALLY
HEAVY RAINFALL POSSIBLE. LOWS AROUND 72. SOUTHEAST WINDS 25 TO
40 MPH WITH GUSTS TO AROUND 60 MPH. CHANCE OF RAIN 100 PERCENT.

This is the fourth tropical storm that will blow through Alabama this summer.

• Tropical Storm Arlene
• Tropical Storm Cindy
• Hurricane Dennis
• Hurricane Katrina

That’s not even including Hurricane Ivan from last year which stranded us while looking for houses in Birmingham. The airport was closed for a few days because of the storm.

Honestly, even asking for prayers and desiring for God to have mercy on those who are in the most direct danger, I can’t help but feel most alive in the midst of nature’s fury with these storms. I think it’s recognizing that there is something in God that is so big, so powerful, so dangerous, so awesome that a massive Hurricane such as this one awakens me to it — but I recognize it is still only part of the footstool of God. Isaiah 66:1

Analise Fluff
For all of you checking in for Analise pics, these are especially for you. Analise has been quite busy trying to ride her rocking horse lately (above). She stands next to it, lifting her leg up, trying to get on herself. She’s pretty excited when someone stands there and rocks her. Below, Brian and I were all dressed up for a Samford Faculty dinner at The Club, a classy member-only dining club overlooking Birmingham. I enjoy the perks of being a professor’s wife! It was a fun (free!) evening out.

Extreme Analise Room Makeover
Alright, finally pictures of Analise’s beautiful room makeover! My mom did a great job. She was the definite motivator and the pocketbook. I had no desire to paint, but it looks so much better in the light yellow (lemon ice). You can click on the top picture to see a larger version. Some highlights:

• My favorite project was taking white, wooden letters, about 4″ high that spelled her name, and using scrapbooking stickers to decorate them, and hanging them with pink ribbon. I’ve had these for a while, and I was itching to do something with them. I’m excited at how it turned out!
• We also hung the quilt that came with the crib set (spontaneous purchase off Ebay a long time ago, that again, I was itching to put up). It’s hung with pink ribbon as well.
• Mom made a nice yellow gingham curtain for around the changing table to cover all the clutter.
• We found a nice scarf to drape as a curtains, tied with a pink ribbon. The front window didn’t need much, because it’s got stylish plantation shutters, but the whole room looks better with window treatments.
• The last touch that didn’t quite get finished is a string of chenille hearts to hang across the top of the windows in front of the scarf swag. Mom took them home to finish since we ran out of time with all our little projects.

It was our own version of Deisgn on a Dime or one of those fun HGTV shows that mom is always watching (and I would, if I had cable).

What’s been keeping me busy since Mom left…
I’ve been really busy lately trying to get our church’s home church ministry organized. It will be called ONE ACCORD, and right now, it’s a big hit with over 50 people meeting WEEKLY at 3 different homes. It’s a great opportunity to experience real community and grow with others on a deeper level than the usual Sunday experience. With groups that big, one of my tasks has been to divide. It’s stressful… I’m a people-pleaser, and I’m so afraid someone will be disapointed. We’re also trying to nail down the invisible details of how we’re going to do things. We’re basing our ministry on a very successful home church ministry at North Point Community Church, detailed in the book Creating Community. It’s exciting but overwhelming to try to put it all into practice. As I’ve said in other posts, our home groups, both here and in California, have become our second families. We’ll have a kick-off event on September 7th to bring everyone together and lay out all the details, so I’m sure you’ll hear more about ONE ACCORD in the future!

Smart Toys
Brian made a funny discovery with Analise’s little Leap Frog Alphabet Pal. It’s a caterpillar with a letter on each leg, and it plays various things for the different modes – letter name, letter sound, color, etc. As Brian was playing letter sounds together to make words, the thing said, “Hehe! That tickles!” We realize that it won’t play the sounds for A and S together… probably to prevent it from saying bad words. There are a few others combinations it won’t play either. Funny -and sad – that toys have to be that smart.

Promisekeepers and Scrapbooking
Brian just took off for a weekend with the guys from church in Mobile, AL for the Promisekeepers rally. He attended the event in California 2 years ago and had a great time, so I’m sure he’ll really enjoy himself and the fellowship this time, as well. One of our friends from church who is also husband-less for the weekend is coming over for a night of scrapbooking. Woohoo!

As always, I’ve got lots of catching up to do. But I just stumbled across a really cool article from Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today magazine. It’s an excerpt from a book called Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller about 6 college students who took radical responsibility for the atrocities that have been done in the name of Christianity. Very powerful idea…
For your evening reading… The Campus Confession Booth.
Leave me a note if you have any thoughts about it!