Picture Update

Randa and the boys and my Aunt Clara and Aunt Neva were able to come for a visit at the end of September. We really enjoyed spending time with them.






Emily has somewhat sensitive ears and on the drive home from Mommaw and Poppaw's house we passed a firetruck and I heard her saying in the back seat "it's too loud". She proceeded to put the car pillow around her ears. I was able to stop long enough at a light to take a picture.



Emily and I had the opportunity to take care of our friend's little boy, Ryan, a couple of weeks ago. It was a lot of fun and very interesting to see Emily's reaction to having another baby around the house. I thought she would be somewhat jealous, but on the contrary, she was very excited to have Ryan around. Every morning when she woke up she would ask where Ryan was. She was quite the little helper.

Upside Down & Chocolate Face Emily

A couple of weeks ago our church had our 50th Anniversary and during that weekend Shelli caught this picture of Emily with Mommo. Also, here's a picture of Emily enjoying a cupcake during the Anniversary dinner taken by Vince.

25 months old - Sept. 16

Another month and even more changes in our little 2 year old. Emily is getting nuttier by the second. She is constantly making us laugh even with the little things she does. We've had an exciting beginning and middle of this month and the month's not over. We celebrated 3 birthdays this month and by the time we brought out the cake for the last one Emily said Happy Birthday. She now associates any candles she sees with birthdays. That leads us into our next exciting event for the month, probably for the year, when Hurricane Ike decided to visit us Northern folk. Thankfully we had no big house or roof damage, which probably would not have been the case had Charlie and his Dad not cut down the tree in the middle of our back deck back in February. Thank you Lord!!! We did however lose our electricity for 2 1/2 days and used what my husband would call the plethora of candles in our house. It was funny because when Emily saw the candles in use the first night she said "birthday cake". One more exciting event for Emily was her first gymnastics class. The Columbus Gymnastics Academy offers a Free Trial Class Coupon on their website and we thought it might be neat to see how she would do in that setting compared to her tumbling and climbing around the house. She thoroughly enjoyed it and actually did not want to leave. I'll try to post the video of her experience soon.

Emily's favorite past time these days is watching Baby Einstein videos and reading her Big Picture Story Bible that Aunt Randa and Uncle Mark got her for her birthday. She absolutely loves looking at the pictures and she stays interested. Right now she loves trying to find the pictures of Eve in the water, Baby Jesus, Pharaoh talking to Joseph and John baptising. I highly recommend this Bible for your little ones.

Emily is enjoying the teeth brushing ritual more these days and is especially fond of watching Aunt Kristen spit out the toothpaste. Of course Emily has to try to mimic that task with her toothpaste. One tactic I use to brush her front teeth is by asking her to give me a big smile. I thought I might say the same thing while posing her for her monthly picture and see what happened. Well, she responded appropriately. Meet the ham of our family.

(the stamps on her legs are spaceship stamps she received after her gymnastics class)

Check it Out

A good friend of ours from church (Jon Hanson) entered a You Tube contest, along with 15 or 20 others, to create the best video regarding our rising gas prices. Yes, that is yours truly, close to the beginning of the video. Please view by clicking on this link and feel free to pass along to your friends. Thank you!

Fun at Gimmy and Pappy's at the end of July

Our little country girl.

Emily's 2nd Birthday Party

Make a Smilebox slideshow

(Thank you Shelli for the idea of a creative way to display pictures)

24 months old - Aug. 16

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the human body changes and grows during the early years. Emily is now a couple of inches shy of 3 feet tall and weighs 28 pounds. She is quite the little person now. This month she had an exciting time during her first trip away from home and from Mom and Dad. She spent an entire week in Pennsylvania entertaining Gimmy and Pappy Groff while I was chaperoning our church girls at Acteen's Camp. I heard that she thoroughly enjoyed chasing the dog, wearing clip-on earrings and taking walks in the evening. Emily also enjoyed a visit to the Columbus Zoo with me and Aunt Holly for her birthday.

Fun at the Zoo

Holly took Emily and I to the Zoo for Emily's birthday present. We had a great time and were blessed with perfect weather. Her favorite animal was the one we saw first - the flamingo. Her second favorite animal was the lorikeet.

These are called Fox Bats.

I gave Emily her night-night and she automatically wrapped it around her head. Doesn't she look like a Diva?

Emily with her Grandads

Happy Birthday to my Best Friend

Fun in the Sun

Last week we had the opportunity visit with our friends, Shelli, Brooke, Karter and Ryan and had another opportunity to get used to swimming in a big pool. Emily was cautious at first, but quickly realized how much fun it was. She is especially fond of her first freckle which we noticed after leaving the pool. She says "Mommy, frackle".

23 months old

What an interesting month this has been as we are preparing to begin the terrific two's. Emily continues to be quite the communicator and it amazes me to listen to what she picks up. Most mornings when I go in her room she will say "Hi Mommy", but just recently she started adding "I...lub you" after saying hello. She asks quite frequently "ah, doing" (what are you doing?) and she will continue to ask that question until she receives an answer and even when she gets an answer she'll ask it again. Her funniest communication yet is when she says "no touching" to Charlie or any member of the house that is touching Mommy. I'm not surprised that Emily has a protective nature about her when it comes to me because I recently found out that Charlie was the same way with his Dad when he was very little.

Emily is very observant to sites and sounds around her. She enjoys telling me when she sees an airplane or hears a motorcycle speeding down our street. She also lets me know from inside the house when she hears the mail truck driving to our box.

Emily has the ability to switch from her sweet self to Miss Flossy Bossy in a matter of seconds. She enjoys trying to get one of us to come to her by saying "mere" and then she tries to move her pointer finger which ends up being upside down. Here she looks like she's saying in her best mafia voice the words of Sofia from Golden Girls "I spit on your grave".

Monkish Child

We realized the other night by the placement of these colored cups that we have a "monkish" child on our hands. Basically that means she's crazy/picky about certain placement of things and orderly which is certainly not a bad thing. I'm really hoping this will carry over into her teenage years too.

Meet Claire Lillian Buss

Kristen and I had the opportunity to visit with Mandy (formerly Fitzpatrick) and Scott Buss and their newest addition, Claire, while they were in town last weekend. We had a great time visiting and playing in the pool.


Watch out world of business tycoons, Emily Groff has just submitted her resume.
This is friends of ours, Amy and Kevin Johnson's, little girl Josie. She could have been my twin when I was little.
Aunt Kristen sun bathing at the playground.

Window Project

A while back I got the idea to handmake a curtain rod for our guest room along the woodsy theme. I never really had the motivation to work on it until Kristen and Holly moved in. I finally finished it a couple of weeks ago with the help of my husband and Father-in-Law. Bambi approves.

Blast from the Past

We had the priviledge of visiting Tim and Julie Sellers and Leah and Phil Mollohan during a cookout last Thursday. Tim, Julie, Leah and I went to Uganda Africa together 13 years ago. Tim, Leah and I were in the Ohio State Baptist Student Union together. Leah and I haven't seen Tim and Julie in about 12 years. Leah found them on Facebook and found out they were going to be up from their home in Texas for a wedding. We had a great time reminiscing and the kids also had a great time meeting and playing together. Thanks Leah for getting us all together.

(Charlie had to leave early to prepare for his hiking trip that weekend so that's why he's not in this picture.)

Start them early

Emily had the opportunity to be involved on a small scale in our Vacation Bible School this year since there were classes designated just for teacher's kids. One of her teachers, Mrs. Marie, built this castle and Emily decided to sit inside. She had a great time and we're excited for next year.


Thank you Cavanaugh's for taking this picture. How cute they are peering out the window.

Philippians 4:13

This is an amazing video! You might want to get some tissues.

Brotherly Love

My Mom is giving me updates about David since we couldn't be there for his arrival. She says Jack is really proud to be a big "brodder" and you can tell from this picture.

David Bryant Clay...

...entered the world on Monday, June 30th at 5:50pm. He weighed 8 lbs. 13 oz. and 20 1/4 inches long. Mommy and David are doing well. Don't ya just want to squeeze his cheeks.