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.

22 months old - June 16

Say hello to Hula Girl. Back in May this year Aunt Kristen, her friend Veronica and Grammy Gin had the opportunity to go to Hawaii for an all-girl vacation. While they were there they scoured all over for this outfit that would fit Emily so we had to use it for one of her monthly photo ops. She was not too keen about putting it on until Aunt Holly said "if you put this on we can go outside". I'm sure this picture will reappear around the time when Emily gets married.

Things truly do change in one days time. One day Emily speaks one word requests/statements and the next day she's speaks understandable phrases. It is enjoyable to communicate with her at this age.

Emily continues to bring lots of laughter into our household. A while ago she wanted to help wash dishes so I stood her on a kitchen chair and scooted it close to the sink thinking she would just play in the water as she had done in the past. I stepped away while Aunt Kristen was watching her and returned to see Emily actually using a wash cloth to scrub the dish. We also noticed that Emily had one shoe on while washing the dish and of course there was water all over her onesie. Oh, one wonders how long this joy of helping in the kitchen will last. Just a challenge to me to continue making it a fun thing to do as part of our family and teamwork.

I'll post more hula pictures that Holly took once I get those.

Happy being a girl

There are quite a few things that make being a girl a lot of fun. Two of those things are shopping and pampering ourselves. Emily has experienced these two things even at an early age. Her Aunts took her to Kohl's and while they were there she kept taking all the shirts in her hands and saying "Oh cute!" She then kept bumping her head on the very clean glass of the jewelry display as she kept trying to get to the expensive pearls. She started to whine when they took her away from the jewelry display only to quit when they told her they were going to the shoe department next. "Oh shooos!" was her reply. Then the day after shopping, Kristen decided to paint Emily's fingernails and toenails.

Wet n' Wild

So far Emily has enjoyed playing in her pool from the Fannin's twice this Summer. Once with Daddy and once with Aunt Holly.

She loves to play with the boat she got from her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Hanson, the Sunday they learned about Noah's Ark. She also enjoys sliding into the pool despite the expression on her face in one of the pictures below.

Don't Be So Open-minded

This is a small article by the editor of Tabletalk. I think what he says speaks volumes for what is happening in our churches today. You can also read it here

Coram Deo: Living Before the Face of God
Don't Be So Open-minded
by Burk Parsons

Our enemy’s supreme deception is in his attempt to convince us that he doesn’t exist. Toward that end, he has launched his assault against us with every weapon in his carefully fashioned arsenal. Perhaps his greatest success is in persuading us that being open-minded is a good thing. For it is precisely when we accept the notion that open-mindedness is a Christian virtue that we fall into the same devilish trap by which our first parents were ensnared.

Once our minds are open to open-mindedness, all ideas, no matter how absurd, can come and go as they please — with our sanction. We thus become headless and brainless philosophers who just want to get along. One such philosopher and self-proclaimed theologian has written: “So I believe we have radically to rethink our understanding of the place of Christianity in the global religious picture. And we have to face the fact that it is one path amongst others, and then reform our belief-system to be compatible with this. This is the big new challenge that theologians and church leaders have yet to face. We have to become consciously what are called religious pluralists.” This is the mantra of religious pluralists: Liberate your mind, lose your faith, and feel the love.

Although many professed evangelicals have become precarious evanjellyfish, I would like to think that most have not yet succumbed to the most blatant sort of religious pluralism. Nevertheless, being the narrow-minded biblical fundamentalist that I am, I am decidedly closed-minded to anything that is not biblical, and I concur with John Calvin: “Wherefore all theology, when separated from Christ, is not only vain and confused, but is also mad, deceitful, and spurious; for, though the philosophers sometimes utter excellent sayings, yet they have nothing but what is short-lived, and even mixed up with wicked and erroneous sentiments.” As the closed-minded, Christ-minded faithful we must join arms against the satanic pluralism of our day, whether it is decreed from the Vatican or broadcast from Mecca. We live and breathe for Christ alone and proclaim that there is only one way to God. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).

21 months old - May 16

This has been an interesting month. Emily loves playing outside which I'm very thankful for, but she has now begun to screech at the top of her lungs when I bring her inside which of course is not very harmonious to my ears. She thankfully calms down pretty quickly and finds something to play with inside for a while.

This month 2 of Emily's 3 Aunts have moved into our home so now she includes their names along with the entire family list when asking where everyone is in the morning. It's neat to see how she pronounces everyone's name. I need to get her to say the names on video because print just doesn't do it justice. My parents are called "Mammo" and "Poppaw", Charlie's parents are called "Mi Mi" and "Pappy", Cousin Jack is "Ja", Uncle Mark is actually Mark, Aunt Randa is "Ra Ra" which I thought would be an easier name to pronounce since Emily recently acquired a stuffed Panda from Mammo and Poppaw's house and I keep repeating Panda sounds like Randa. Kristen is "Kicken" which used to sound like chicken. She hasn't repeated Holly's name enough yet since she just arrived, but I'm sure her name will have some unique sound to it. Charlie's Grandmother "Gommy" is "Gammy". Soon-to-be Uncle Jose is "Augie" - I have no idea where that came from. Soon-to-be Cousins Cameron and Bub sound pretty close to their actual names.

I believe Emily's favorite foods this month are cherries and cheesy goldfish crackers. Charlie brought cherries home from a work thing and she asks for them pretty much any time she sees me open the frig. The cheesy goldfish were introduced while on one of our walks in the park with some friends from church and their kids. One little boy, Landon, who is very close to Emily's age, decided that he would like to swap his goldfish for some pretzels. It was so cute to see them negotiate with each other before the swap even while the Mommy's were moving them in the strollers at a brisk pace.

Our exciting outing this month was to see Go Diego, Go Live! with Mammo at the Palace Theatre downtown Columbus. We had absolutely perfect seats in the balcony just behind the railing. Emily had ample space to walk around if she wanted and we were high enough so we could see everything. She was tuned in for the first 45 minutes and then faded a little for the last half after the intermission. We had a lot of fun. Thank you Mammo!!

Emily is very curious to know what every noise is. Here she heard some birds and enjoyed seeing them fly.

20 months old - April 16

We've had a fun month with the weather being so nice and with the return of Mommo and Poppaw. Emily has realized she's a big girl now and enjoys attempting to go down the stairs in a manner similar to that of anyone above 33 inches and thankfully she's very careful to hold on to the railing. We've begun potty training so hopefully we'll be able to say bye-bye to diapers pretty soon.

It's fun to try new foods with Emily. We let her try sweet pickles and quickly found out that is not one of her favorites. Mommo gave her some cantaloupe and blueberries and she loved them both. Lettuce topped with a little Ranch Dressing is a new favorite at dinner time.

We've been saying a nightly prayer before putting Emily to bed and always begin with Dear, Jesus... and end the prayer with Amen. The other night I started the prayer and before I could get a couple words in Emily says Amen. It made me chuckle.

Spring has arrived

I absolutely love the weather we've been having recently and so does Emily. Once she goes outside, it's pretty difficult to get her back in. She now has an array of Little Tike outdoor toys so she could stay outside all day if I'd let her. We received the sliding board from Pappy and Grammy, the Little Coop from Aunt Kristen and our recent addition is a picnic table from Great Aunt Neva. Thank you all for contributing to the many hours of fun outside.


This little frog must have seen how much fun Emily was having and decided to give it a try.

Fun with a Friend

Emily had the chance to go visit her friend Kara Schmidjell today. She was excited to see an array of different toys. The girls loved "talking" on the phones and chasing each other around the house. They ended their time with a hug. (Of course I didn't have my camera ready.)

Easter Sunday