I am an awful blogger once again….Ok my few readers that are hanging in there with me. I am sorry I don’t do more posts. Honestly our days seem to look mostly the same here lately. Get up, get Addie up, go to work, pick Addie up, go home, play and get dinner ready, put Addie to bed and then Mommy and Daddy fall on the couch and relax for a couple hours before going to bed.

However there are some things that have happened recently that I would love to share with you. First Michael and I went on a Mission Trip to New York. It was AMAZING!!! I will return to that in just a moment but it is important that you know this was my first time away from Addie for more than 24 hours (I don’t think I had even been away from her for a full 24 hours before). It was the first time and I was not just leaving her for a day or two, I was going to be gone for an entire week (Saturday to Saturday). This wasn’t quite as dramatic for Michael since he has to leave her from time to time to go on work trips but for me it was hard. We are so incredibly fortunate to have amazing parents that both live here in town that took care of our sweet baby. They even put up with my crazy notes (seriously like 3 pages of notes) on what to do with Addie. I know they raised us and we turned out ok however as a mom I just think but “this is MY baby”. They were very patient with me as I was very hesitant about leaving her for the first time. They even humored me as I talked to them about not letting her near chemicals (duh). The morning I left her, my mom came to my house and was playing with her as Michael and I left for the airport. There were many tears on my end. I hated leaving that sweet girl. Once we got to the airport and the trip began we stayed very busy and I was pretty proud of myself because I didn’t get emotional again until she came to the airport to pick us up. JoJo, Papa and Mimi did such a great job of sending pictures, videos and constant updates on Addie that I wasn’t really ever very worried about her. It was a successful trip and now I don’t think I will be nearly as anxious to leave her again.

Now on to the trip, We went to New York to work with a local organization (see the video below):

It is seriously such a great organization and concept for getting to interact with people from all across the globe. That statistics on New York are striking:

New York City

Population

· Population of NYC: 8.5 million people

· Population of New York metropolitan area: 20-22 million people

· NYC is the most populous metropolitan area in the United States and the sixth most populous in the world

Language

· 176 languages spoken by students in the New York City Public School System

· Linguistic experts estimate over 800 languages in NYC

People Groups

· Danny Goldfield has photographed children from 172 different geopolitical nations who are residents of NYC (http://dannygoldfield.com/100_photographs/)

· As of November 2010, Metro New York Baptist Association estimates 500+ people groups live in the Metro New York area.

The Need

· Southern and Midwestern United States = 1 evangelical church per every 1000 people

· NYC = 1 evangelical church per every 8500 people

· 22,000 churches need to be planted in order to bring the ratio of NYC up to the Southern and Midwestern areas of the United States.

· Much of the church-planting effort has been focused on Manhattan, with limited focus on the ethnically diverse outlying boroughs.

· NYC vs. Bible Belt

o Alabama: Population: 4,708,708; 41% evangelical; 717 people/evangelical church

o New York County (Manhattan): 2.3% evangelical; 10,529 people/church

o Queens County: 1.9% evangelical; 8542 people/church

o Metro NYC: Population: 21,104,292; 2.3% evangelical; 8517 people/church

o This means that the metro NYC area has the lowest percentage of evangelicals of any major US city.

God Is At Work

· Before September 11, 2001: 0.5% evangelical in Manhattan

· Today: 2.3% evangelical in Manhattan

It was such an incredible trip, we got to see parts of New York I never knew existed and come in contact with different people groups I had never met. It was so eye opening, all the people from across the world right here in the US. We don’t see that often here in Birmingham, AL. I was amazed at the cultures created around New York City. We spent most of our days in the ESL center teaching English or helping the local ministries pass out flyers about upcoming bible camps, cook outs or kids camps. We also got to go and see the area that Brook Hills is sending a couple out to plant a church. We talked to them for a while about their vision for the church and NY City. We did have one free day where we got to do the traditional touristy things. Here are some pics from that day:

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support. Please keep this ministry in your prayers as we left them behind to continue to press on in New York City.

ADDIE:

Ok now on to some fun things on Addie. Addie is back on the growth charts. She was falling off the chart for a while and having to go to the doctor once a month to monitor that she was gaining enough weight. She is now back on the chart (still below 5%) but she doesn’t have to go to the doctor once a month. Here is what she is eating: Cheese (she loves cheese, like mother like daughter), mac n cheese, crackers (on any kind, but her favorite is Peanut Butter Ritz Bits), fruit (mainly pears and peaches but she does venture out some), veggies (not much but some green beans, potatoes, english peas), yogurt, and she drinks juice, milk and water. This is mainly it. Her daycare provides meals and snacks for her and often times she does not eat much of what they serve. They keep a food log for her since the doctor recommended it due to her weight and not eating enough. When I pick her up it often says this:

AM Snack – Animal crackers (or something close)

Lunch – Would not eat lunch, ate some Banana Pudding, fruit or the like

PM Snack – Popsicle

Needless to say when she gets home we eat a snack (usually Peanut Butter crackers) and she will down it, the girl is hungry. After she eats her snack at 4:45 she usually won’t eat much for dinner and definitely won’t venture out to “other” foods. Any helpful hints on how to get Addie to eat a better variety of food? She seems to have enough to eat by the end of the day because the girl definitely sleeps at night. We put her down at about 7:00 at night and she doesn’t wake up until at least 7 the next morning but sometimes it is closer to 8:00, the morning after we got back from NY she slept until 8:40, she is so sweet and knew Mommy and Daddy needed some sleep! J

She has got the BEST personality. She is just happy and content. She had her first temper tantrum the other day and I know those days might be coming. At first I got frustrated that she screamed for like seriously maybe 5-10 mins and then I then I was immediately thankful, thinking that some moms have to deal with this on a more regular basis. Seriously I feel so grateful and know that my next one will probably be a handful. Addie is definitely into everything, she loves to open draws, purses, bags, anything she can go through. We host Bible Study at our house every Tuesday and Addie loves to try to go through all the girls’ purses. She also is loving crayons, but not in the traditional sense. She might make a mark or two but she loves to take them out of the box one by one and go put them in a kitchen drawer. This is actually a good game that keeps her busy for a while. She also knows what it means when I say let’s put them up, she will say “up” and start collecting the crayons to and putting them back in the box. She also loves to be chased, caught and tickled. Hearing her laugh is so much fun and it sounds more like a little sequel. She really didn’t like going outside in the past and ofcourse now that it is like 100 degrees she loves to go outside. We get home and she walks to the front door points to where the keys hang and says “ruff” which means let’s go outside and see if any dogs are out. That brings me to my next fun thing. Addie LOVES dogs! It is crazy that my child loves dogs, that is the way it goes I guess. My sister and her husband have dogs and when she stays with them she wants to be around the dogs constantly and she even wakes up saying “ruff ruff”. It is the funniest thing.

Addie is also very sweet. The ladies at her daycare say she hugs on all the other kids. They said if another child is crying that Addie will go give them a hug and pat them. However if the kid keeps crying for a while she will say “stop it”. Too funny!

Words Addie is saying:

Momma, Dadda, Cheese, Ruff Ruff, No, Yes, Please (it sounds more like just a long sssss), juice, Wawa (water), Jojo, up, down, go, off, hot, cold, hi, bye, night night, Addie, knock knock, mmmwahh (kiss sound), bzzz (like a bee), Meow, more (and signs it), snack, eat, book, baby

There are probably some that I am forgetting but these are the main words she says. Here are some fun videos to enjoy:

First Temper Tantrum: