Snow Again!
We were shocked in February to have another snow day. This one was more of a dusting but was still exciting after going so long without any snow.
Birthday at the Beach
DJ and I celebrated my 40th birthday with a little getaway to Charleston/Edisto. The crazy part of the trip is that a snow storm hit the area right before we left. We had updates from Eric and Jenn’s neighbors about the roads and safety getting there so we decided to go for it. The roads were definitely not great but we couldn’t pass up the chance to see Charleston and the beach with snow. It was beautiful and such a wonderful getaway for my birthday.
Redeemer’s Generosity Campaign
My friend, Jennifer, and I got to really use our event planning skills this winter/spring at church. In January, our church launched a Generosity campaign. The goal of the campaign was to retire our mortgage debt, start a seed fund to hire a pastor to lead a church plant, start a fund to deal with delayed maintenance on our current building and a fund to pay for an expansion on our children’s wing. Jennifer and I joined the steering committee as the events team and were in charge of the large Generosity dinner, two roundtable dinners for those who couldn’t make it to the Generosity dinner, and a dessert reception following the advanced commitment night. It was a ton of work but we loved every minute of it because we can’t get enough of planning events together. It was funny when our pastor texted us both about it, he said he knew we were both super busy so wondered if we knew of someone else who could take on the project. Jennifer and I both had the same conversations with our husbands that we’d be crazy to take on such a huge project but we also knew we couldn’t say no to planning these fun events. Nick was so excited when we said we’d do it. We all had such a great time planning for this huge endeavor at church and it has been amazing to see how God provided all the money that we had hoped to raise. We’ve already paid off the mortgage, funded the church plant and raised the funds for the delayed maintenance. Our church has been through so much in the past but God has been so faithful to sustain us!
The first, and biggest, event of the entire campaign was the Generosity Initiative Dinner. It was the kick off event for all adult members and active attendees. We set up 18 tables in the sanctuary and spent many hours setting up for this beautiful night for our church family. We enjoyed fellowship together, food from Lewis BBQ and desserts from Crust and Crumb bakery. It was such a wonderful event!
In February, we hosted two Roundtable dinners. These were much smaller dinners for the folks who couldn’t make it to the initial dinner. We recreated a smaller version of the dinner in the meeting rooms at church. They were much smaller but still very special evenings for our church family. Unfortunately, I had the flu and couldn’t attend the 2nd dinner but Jennifer and our team of helpers pulled it off beautifully.
Our final event was the Advanced Commitment Night. This was a night of worship and a chance for people to go ahead and make their commitment pledge before the official commitment Sunday. We planned a dessert reception following the worship service. It was incredible to hear the numbers committed after this first night. We’ve all been blown away at people’s generosity and the Lord’s provision for our church!
Snow!
After 3 years of now snow, we finally had snow in 2025! It wasn’t much but it was enough to enjoy. Our neighbor friends came over to sled down our hill and it was so fun seeing the kids enjoy the snow together. It was also Sookie’s first snow. She wasn’t really sure what to think about it but had fun playing with the kids.
The End of an Era
Sadly, I heard that American Girl was closing its store at Southpark. It felt like the end of an era of being able to take the girls to that store. So, I reached out to a good friend to see if she and her daughter wanted to join Zoe and I for one last trip. We had such a fun girls’ day shopping and saying goodbye to this incredible store. Zoe still says she misses it and keeps asking if we can go to the one in NYC…maybe one day we can make it up there.
Christmas 2024
This Christmas was very different than Christmas 2023 when we celebrated early because of DJ’s surgery. There were a lot of mixed emotions this year as the memories of the previous year kept surfacing. But, we were so grateful to be where we are now instead of the previous year. All the anniversaries of the past year hit hard. But, we are so thankful for how well God has sustained DJ and all of us through this past year. It was still different this year because of chemo and the side effects of that but we saw the light at the end of the tunnel with treatments too.
We enjoyed setting up our Christmas tree together again this year. I do still miss cutting down a tree but I am really enjoying the ease of the pre-lit tree! The girls didn’t really want their pictures taken (as usual) but I tried to snag some anyways.
We spent Christmas day at our house as usual. The girls were excited to open their gifts and spend the day together. We stuck with our traditional gift categories of something you need, something to read and something you want. Thanks to Facebook, we found a great deal on a gymnastics bar and beam for Zoe! We watched Charlie Brown Christmas and a couple other Christmas specials. We enjoyed our annual big breakfast and gingerbread cookies. It was a sweet day celebrating Jesus’ birthday as a family.
A few days after Christmas, we celebrated with my side of the family. Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of the girls with Piper or my mom. But, we had a great day with them. It was so nice being able to hang out for the day after not seeing them since they had moved back to Florida.
A few days later, we celebrated with DJ’s side of the family. The kids all had fun playing together and then really enjoyed going to see the Christmas lights at Hollywild and the animals. The bunnies were a hit with the kids!
We are so thankful this Christmas looked very different than last year! And we are thankful for the time we had to spend with our families.
White Christmas
DJ and I had a fun day date after an oncology appointment where we were able to go the the Upcountry History Museum for their White Christmas display. They had actual costumes (and some recreations), set pieces (also some recreations) and memorabilia from White Christmas, our 2nd favorite Christmas movie (right after It’s A Wonderful Life). It was so fun to see pieces of this classic in person.
Festival of Trees
Zoe and I celebrated the start of Christmas break with a trip downtown to see the Festival of Trees and search for the Dance Without Limits tree to see her ornament. It was a tradition we missed last year so we were excited to be able to get back this year. Zoe loved finding her tree and seeing all the other fun decorated trees. And, we found our sweet little friend Willa on the tree for a ministry that supports families of kids with cancer. Sweet Willa was diagnosed with cancer at just a few weeks old and we are so thankful that she remains cancer free now. Zoe made sure to take a picture with Willa’s picture to celebrate with her!
Zoe’s Christmas Recital 2024
Zoe’s Acro 3 Christmas Recital was so much fun, as usual. Her class danced to the Polar Express. She looked so cute in her red costume and did such an amazing job with her routine. She even had her own special part at the beginning by signaling “All Aboard” when he first says it in the song. As usual, we were super proud of our little acrobat.
Lessons and Carols 2024
Ok, I really wasn’t sure if I would ever get back to posting on the blog. But then I was looking at the printed blog books I have from over the years and I realized I would be sad to not continue that. So, here we are well into 2025 and finally catching up on 2024 and 2025.
First up in my major catch up….The Lessons and Carols event at church. This is the second year we’ve had a Lessons and Carols service at Redeemer. In 2023, when they decided to start this tradition, they asked my fellow wedding coordinator friend and I to plan a dinner to go along with the service. We had so much fun planning an elegant dinner together. Then, a week before the event, DJ had his seizure and I had to drop out of the event. Jennifer and some other ladies pulled off a beautiful evening and managed to have enough for 300 people even though we only planned for about 200. When our assistant pastor asked us to plan this year’s event again, it brought up a lot of feelings but I was excited at the chance to be able to be there this year. They decided to shift to a dessert reception after the service instead of the dinner because of the growth at church. This made planning much simpler but Jennifer and I wanted to make it just as elegant as the previous year. We love working on events together and had a blast planning this one. And it was so nice to be able to be there in person this year to see the fruits of our weeks of planning.
Halloween 2024
Zoe decided to be a mermaid for Halloween this year. She was so excited to go trick-or-treating again in my mom’s neighborhood. She definitely loaded up on candy but it wasn’t too much.
Field Trip to Table Rock
When DJ and Ava finally came home, after 2 weeks away, Ava and I decided to take a field trip day to Table Rock. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and scenery while hiking!
Skytop Round 2
Zoe was pretty disappointed that we didn’t pick apples when we went to Skytop the first time. So, she and I decided to take a trip up there when the Pink Lady apples were ready. She had a great time finding the best apples to fill our bag and we are still enjoying them!
Zoe is 7 and a half!
I cannot believe we are halfway to Zoe turning 8. This year is flying by! Zoe celebrated her half birthday shortly after the hurricane, while DJ and Ava were still at his parents’ house. She had fun with her portraits and insisted on having Bun Bun and Bobby (her two favorite stuffed animals) in the pictures. As always, you can see her silly side in the pictures. We took most of them in our yard but I snapped a couple extra shots at the Rock Quarry gardens. Zoe came along with me for a portrait session while DJ and Ava were gone and I snapped a few pics of her while waiting for the family to get there. She had fun being my assistant for the shoot.
A little snapshot of what life is like for Zoe at 7 and a half…she is growing like crazy. She wears mostly size 7 clothes but can make some 7/8s work. She wears size 13 shoes. She is loving school, especially math. She was even sad when she had a field trip because she was afraid they would miss out on doing math that day. She has managed to teach herself how to figure out multiplication facts and always asks for math problems to solve. This is definitely not something DJ or I can relate to. It is fun to watch her little brain work as she does math or works through a craft or building project. She still loves to do crafts and always has a vision in her head that she wants to make happen. That can lead to frustration when that vision doesn’t work out but most of the time, she finds a way to make it happen.
Some of Zoe’s favorite foods at 7 and a half are bacon, mac and cheese (especially Panera’s mac and cheese), pancakes, waffles, alfredo with little shell pasta, Chicken and tomato soup with pasta, black bean taquitos, and rice and beans. She is still willing to try new things and is more ok with some spices in her food these days. She really likes getting lunch at school and one of her favorites is the crispy chicken sandwich. Her new favorite dip is bbq sauce and she loves to have that with chicken or fries. She still loves to go to Chick-Fil-A, Tropical Grille and any Mexican restaurant.
Zoe still watches a lot of the same tv shows like Gabby’s Dollhouse, Bluey, Spidey, Mira, and Vampirina. Some new shows she’s discovered recently are Pete the Cat, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, Pupstruction, and PJ Masks. She also discovered a Polly Pocket show on YouTube Kids that led to her finding a scientist (I can’t remember her name) who does fun experiments with kids that she absolutely loved.
A few of her favorite shows are based on book series like Pete the Cat and the Mouse/Cookie books. Those are definitely some of her favorite books. She also really loves the Click Clack Moo series of books. She enjoys finding early reader books at the library but her new interest has been in early chapter books. Some of her favorites are Amelia Bedelia, King and Kayla, and Yasmin or anything involving faries. She is improving in her reading a lot. She doesn’t always want to read for us but when she finds a book that she can read (especially graphic novels) she gets so excited to keep going with it. She has made so much progress from last year already and we are excited to see how she grows in her reading this year.
Zoe is still very into her baby dolls. She has 2 that she is especially attached to, Nina and Sofia. She and DJ will come up with all sorts of crazy activities that they say the babies get into. She has such a huge imagination, it amazes me to watch. She also loves to do pretend makeup with her play makeup set. She is always looking at new toys but she is truly happiest when she is crafting because that is when her creativity can fly. I can’t tell you how many make up kits she’s made that she plays with just as much as the toy one she bought. Or how many phones or computers she’s made out of paper. We still think she is going to end up being an engineer or architect or something like that. Zoe is also still happiest outside. She loves to be out in nature looking for crystals or acorns or whatever treasures she can find in the yard. She loves to swing, do flips on the trapeze bar and jump on the trampoline. She also still loves bubbles and sidewalk chalk.
Speaking of flips, Zoe is loving acro 3 this semester. She was determined to master the backwards roll and she did. When she sets her mind on learning a new skill, there really is nothing stopping her from figuring it out. She may get frustrated in the process but she eventually gets it and is ready for the next new skill. She definitely got the gymnastics bug when we visited the gym during the hurricane. We truly wish there was a more convenient option for her to do gymnastics because we would probably switch her. Although, we adore her dance studio so that will be hard to leave if we do decide to make the move to gymnastics. We are looking forward to her recital in December when we get to watch her shine on stage.
I included the picture of her sucking her thumb because right after this portrait session was when she had a consult with an orthodontist. He told her she needs to stop that habit and hopefully her body will do what it needs to do to get her teeth in the right place without braces. She left that appointment very motivated to break the habit…hopefully I’ll have a big update on that very soon!
As you can see in the pictures, this girl is still full of so much personality. She’s creative, silly, feisty (keeping it real), but most importantly, loving. She cares deeply for those around her and is a sensitive girl. We are so blessed to be loved by her and to get her cuddles all the time. We know raising her is a true honor and being chosen to parent her was such a blessing to us. We know someone so special is missing out on these big moments in her life and we never take that for granted. We love her birth mama so much and are so thankful for her.
Happy Half Birthday, Zoe Girl! We can’t wait to see what the rest of this year holds for you!
Skytop 2024
As with most things this October, our annual trip up to Skytop was very different. Since we were coming from different locations, we met up at Skytop. We wanted to be able to spend some time together after being apart for so long, even if our favorite apples weren’t ready to be picked yet. The girls enjoyed donuts, gem mining and the animals. We tried to see if Winnie’s inner sheep dog would react to the sheep but she was more scared of it. It was a beautiful day in the mountains, but we knew not too far past Skytop there was still so much devastation. We feel so awful for our neighbors in these beautiful mountains that we love so much. Praying they recover soon from the destruction.
Swamp Rabbit Cafe Fall Fest
One afternoon during the chaos of being separated during Helene, Zoe and I headed to Swamp Rabbit Cafe after school for their Fall Festival. The highlight for her was getting her face painted.
Random Fun During Helene
Here are some random shots of Zoe during our time at my mom’s and back home while DJ and Ava were away. She had fun with my phone and adding things to her selfies. She especially loved going to the open gym time at a gymnastics gym near my mom’s house. Although, now she wants to do gymnastics even more.
Hurricane Helene
Life has been very different around here for the past month. We were busy with regular school life and then our area was hit with Hurricane Helene. We are so grateful that we did not have any major damage, especially compared to Western NC, an area we love so much. But, we were without power for 11 days and without internet for another 10 days. We are still working on cleanup around the yard where we lost a couple of trees but in the grand scheme of things, it could have been a lot worse. The hardest part for us was the inconveniences of not having power or internet and needing to be split up. DJ’s parents got internet back way sooner so he and Ava spent 2 weeks with them so that they could have internet access. Zoe and I spent several days with my mom to have hot showers (thanks to her gas hot water heater) and she got power back before us. Once our power came back on, Zoe and I headed home because she was finally going to be able to go back to school. Zoe and I got to go to a friends’ house to make cards for the people of Western NC to encourage them in the face of all the destruction there. We cannot imagine what life is like there and are thankful we could do something very small to help. We are all looking forward to when we can visit places like Asheville again. It was a crazy time and one we definitely will not forget.
