Joshua Cam: 9 Months Old

Our little turkey...

Special thanks to my sweet friend, Shasta, for making this ADORABLE hat for Joshua...and even one for Caleb. LOVE LOVE LOVE them, Shasta! And you, too!!!

While we were setting up for the next set of pics, Ally Beth handed Joshua an empty Diet Coke bottle to play with. I just had to grab pics. Grammy, aren't you proud??? Anita & Amy...these are dedicated to YOU!!!

What Joshua spends his days doing...

Crawling

Pulling up on everything in sight...

Watching his brother watch movies in the sun porch (during our school time, Caleb can watch one movie)...

Shouting, "YAY!!!" and clapping...

Reading books...

And, of course, his piano lessons...

He's also toying around with playing the trumpet...

We stay busy. Our days are fun. We are so thankful for the gift of a baby in our house this year!

To Aunt Denise

This post is dedicated to our faithful blog reader, Aunt Denise. Click on the picture to see it a bit larger...

We miss you already. Tell Uncle Mike and the boys we said hello!

Joshua Cam: 8 Months Old

Two teeth, crawling, drooling, clapping and jabbering away...our sweet boy at 8 months old...

Isn't that dimple just too much?

Log #2: World Tour

goa-vey-idonna-lika-yew

That means hello in Inuit. We have read a cool book about whaling in the Arctic Seas...Water Sky.

We are now in Canada. We had tea today in true British fashion, a custom many Canadians still practice. We had British blend tea. Instead of crumpets, we ate maple leaf shape pancakes with pure maple syrup imported from Canada (to our local Wal-Mart :-)

Log #1: World Tour

This year, I have added a new student to our home school. Here are his first school pics. (Ally Beth put Joshua in the desk and tied him in with one of her scarves. He loved it! Just had to grab some pics!)

Well, this August, my little charges and I headed out with some friends on a tour of the world's cultures. We are reading some AMAZING books....and some even more amazing missionary biographies! To say we are having fun is an understatement!

Here is our logo for the year. This is the first time I've designed a logo/T-shirts for the year...and we LOVE it!

We left our native soil to discover Central America at the beginning of the year. We read about Wycliffe Bible Translators founder, Cameron Townsend. Then, we met up with the Browne Bunch (fellow World Tour travelers) at the Wycliffe campus in Dallas, where there is an International Museum of Cultures.

When you walk through the door, you are faced with 750 Bibles that Wycliffe missionaries have translated in the last 50 years! SOOOO cool.

The museum has many samples of items that many different cultures use in day to day living, as well as many samples of their artisanship.

Afterwards, we hit Veracruz Cafe, a Central American cuisine joint. We had blue corn tortilla dishes and a chicken dish with a spicy pumpkin sauce. YUM!

Kara said the most delicious thing she had was sugars from Joshua! He loves his Kara.

We are having a blast so far. We have now landed in Brazil for a couple of weeks. Hoping to hit a Brazilian Steakhouse soon :-)

Refrigerator Organizer

This post dedicated to my cohort in post it note addiction...you know who you are :-)

Okay, I know I'm OBSESSED with organization. I have been keeping a planner since 10th grade, almost 20 years ago. My planner is my "brain." I know I could go electronic, but after Tony's phone crashed and he lost his whole planner once, I knew I'd have to hang on to my good ol' paper planner...just in case.

But, now the kids "get into" my planner to see what's going on. They've wrinkled, spilled, etc on my planner. They want to see the "week in view" to see what's happening. I like doing this, too, and leave my planner open on the counter in order to do this. But since the kids have "invaded" my planner, it has accidentally fallen into the trash, taken a bath in lemonade, etc.

So, it is still my main brain, but I have had to hide it away in order to not demolish it before its year is out. The kids still want to see the what's going on that week, so, I bought a cool little "week in view" tablet with magnets on the back to put on the frig for only $3 at Half Price Books....BUT...it was way too small for all my notes and post-its. And, it wasn't very cute. And my post its wouldn't stick well on the waxy paper. And the magnets kept slipping and driving me crazy.

As I was brainstorming as to how to fix this problem, this idea hit me. Use my refrigerator!

Here's what I did with a little ribbon remnant, my printer, a roll of magnetic tape and post it notes. All I bought for this was a little magnetic basket for my post-its. The rest was made here out of materials I already owned.

I "laminated" the strips of paper I printed out with packing tape, then added a magnet strip to the back.

Loving it!!!

Getting in the Mood

to start a new school year!

Titus 2 Women

"Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live...to teach what is good...to be keepers at home..."

(excerpts from Titus 2)

We are very blessed to have several "Titus 2" women in our lives. These women are mature believers who have lived a little longer than us and have great wisdom to impart. They are dear women I trust deeply.

I enlisted these ladies to come over this summer for cooking and homemaking classes with Ally Beth. Our sweet friend, Cara, got to join in on one of the lessons.

We learned a lot of neat cooking ideas this summer, as well as sharing sweet fellowship. This is what Titus 2 relationships is all about!

Weeta, our dear neighbor, is pictured here teaching Cara and Ally Beth how to make Lemon Bars, from her mother's recipe. Weeta ate these as a child. It was fun for her to pass the recipe along...

Here is our dear friend and former neighbor (10 years ago, when Ally Beth was a baby), Malena. She is a dear mother in the faith to me. She came and baked Coconut Drop cookies with Ally Beth one day. YUM!!!

Thank you, sweet ladies, for investing in my life and in my daughter's! We love you!

Cousins...

We've had a lot of fun cousin time this summer, with both the Busti cousins and the Payne cousins.

Here are the Busti cousins, lined up according to age. The 3 youngest Busti cousins are missing...Aiden, Joshua and Maddie were too young to go to Six Flags.

Blane, Emily, Ally Beth, Erin, Andrew, Nathan, John Thomas & Caleb

Then, this past week, my brother and his sweet family came for a visit. Judson and Joshua are 3 weeks apart in age. Bethany just turned 2.

And here are some more pics of our newest cousin, Maddie, in her baptismal gown.

Aiden has come for a couple of visits, but we haven't taken any pics. Sorry, Aiden! I tried to include all the cousins in this post. We'll catch ya next time!