Update through Photos

There's been quite the time since I last posted, but that doesn't mean a lot of life hasn't happened! So for an quick update to bring the blog world up to speed, photos from the past 5ish months!

August 2012

 The Best Time of the Year--Allen County Fair

 Sassy Sondra modeling her Guys & Gals Lead outfit that Aunt Sara made for her.

Right before she stuck out her tongue then was too embarrassed to finish!

Ainsley's 1st Birthday Party 

She certainly wasn't shy digging into the delicious cake Grandma Massie made for her!

September 2012

Clum Family Gathering in Bellefontaine

Running and diving on a mattress with Stu and Sondra--It's so much fun to see how much you love interacting with other kids!

Train ride at Bellefontaine Lodge--Riding with Jacob

 October 2012

Half Marathon with Momma-Cita & Mister

All smiles BEFORE the run! After the run was more of a straight-faced hobble for me!

Trick-or-Treating At Otterbein

Three CrAzY kids!

Our Skeleton Family

 

President Obama came to my high school. This made for a crazy few days but was thankful to witness the madness!

November 2012

 We said goodbye to Grandma Clum as she was reunited with her husband and her Lord. It was the worst, yet best birthday present.

Ainsley first picture with Great-Grandma Clum

  Hot Chocolate 5k--Momma-cita's Birthday Gift

Trip to Chicago for Math Conference--This was our first time that both Mister and I were away from Ainsley overnight. 

We went ice-skating for the first time. [Isn't that what every 6 month pregnant lady does?!]

No falls! All smiles! Millennium Park

December 2012

We met Miss Piper McCracken. Ainsley absolutely loved the precious little baby! It made us more excited for the arrival of our little bundle!

Kisses for Piper

Ains LOVED holding Piper!

Cheese Party--We hosted a cheese party at our house! We had friends over with lots of cheesey food, wore cheesey aka ugly Christmas attire, and played Cheeseopardy aka cheeseo-themed Jeopardy.

 

I painted Ainsley's fingernails for the first time! It made her seem like a little lady, instantly!

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning we had to torture you awake for presents!

"Cheese" face!

She did great opening presents until she opened a book--then all she wanted to do it read.

Motorcycle Momma like Grandmomma-cita!

One of Ainsley's common faces--I <3 br="br" it="it">

Nephews became animals for Christmas

 Visit with high school friends--Ange and Britney. Crazy that we all have at least one babe now!

Angela's Jillian; Britney's Emma; and my ham!

 Clum Family Christmas

Part of the Crazy Clum Great Grandkids

Play cards with Gabe

 Helping Papa put together our new *double* stroller

Crazy hair!

 January 2013

33 Weeks Pregnant & 16 months ornery!

Monkey

 Perhaps I'll work on consistent updating now!

Drumroll Please!

Oftentimes when I blog, I catch myself checking my stats and wondering who's reading my thoughts through what I punch out on the keyboard. I look at my followers and see "9" and wonder where all the other pageviews come from. It's kind of interesting how Blogger categorizes the stats what information you can learn.

Well a little over a month ago, I noticed people visiting my blog through a friend's blog. Clicking back, I saw that I had received an award. Honestly I was surprised as I didn't even realize there were awards out in Bloggerland.

Then just this week, I received a second nomination/award so I decided that I just needed to hunker down, fulfill the requirements and pass on this award!

The requirements, so to speak, for this award are:

1. Bring to light the person who nominates you by thanking them.
2. Post on your site the wonderful Liebster Award stamp.
3. Find 5 of your blogging friends to nominate who have less than 200 followers but deserve to be recognized with praise!
4. List them below these instructions so others will find their blogs and read them. [Don’t forget to let them know they have been nominated!]

So without furtherado, this award was passed on from my friend Amber on her blog "A New Chapter to Write".

One of the first pics in our friendship

Amber and I have been good friends for about 6 years--whoa! I had no idea it had been that long! Oddly enough we had lots of mutual friends and were commonly drawn together in times that we both felt akward and out of place! In a time of figuring things out for ourselves, we developed a friendship that has since lead to being in each other's weddings and sharing some of our most vunerable parts of our hearts with one another! If you want to be challenged to love Jesus and your spouse, Amber's blog certainly does that!

Additionally this week, I received recognition from my friend Leslie on her blog.

Leslie & Me with our handsome hubbies

Leslie and I met by circumstance, namely that we fell in love and married best friends and I am so glad we did! Of course because we both married great men, and we received each other as great friends. Double score. Leslie has been a great friend over the past 4 or so years! When I am not sure where to turn, Les is always a text away and can lighten my heart! I'm excited to continue to "do life" with Leslie and her husband over the next several years decades regardless of our locale! While reading Leslie's blog "Show the Wonder" you are sure to have an insight to Les' heart and her passions which will undoubtingly push you to have a better heart and live life more passionately!

Now to pass on the blogger-love, here are 5 blogs that I frequent that you should as well!

My sister-in-love: Joie on http://notyouraveragesmalltowngal.blogspot.com/ 

My college roommate: Deb on http://debinmemphis.blogspot.com/

My friend: Beth on http://hodgepodgeheartstories.tumblr.com/

My Twink: Leanna on http://leannamt.blogspot.com/

A complete stranger who encourages my heart!:

Molly on http://ellieandaudrey.blogspot.com/

Hope you continue to stop by my blog as well as all the lovely, lovely ladies' blogs linked in this post! :)

Friendships

Lately I’ve been thinking about friendships and what they really mean. More specifically I have been thinking about “best friends”. I’ve come to the conclusions that I don’t really know what a “best friend” is or if I have a best friend.

Tag along as I think through this. What is a best friend really? Is it someone who is always there? Is it someone you spend a lot of time with? Is it someone who you can confide anything in? Someone who share both your greatest dreams as well as your greatest fears? The person who is the first to know what’s on your mind and heart? Someone who can tell what’s on your mind and heart without you saying? Someone who never forgets your birthday or special occasions in your life? The first person you want to text when you just heard some gossip good news? The one you have been friends with the longest? Someone who is very similar to you?

Seriously. What is a best friend? What got me thinking about this topic is how I commonly will describe various people as my best friend depending on who I am talking to and what I am talking about. Sometimes I’ll even put qualifications on my “best friend”. So-in-so that’s my best friend from… Or yeah she’s my best friend but we don’t really see each other often… This list goes on and on and by doing so I can think of nearly 10 people that I have referred to as my best friend over the course of the past few years.

So who is my best friend? Well that would be Chris, but beyond him I am not sure that I have a single person that I would call my single best friend. If I were to answer each of the questions that possibly describe a best friend as listed above, I’d likely still have many friend’s I would answer with.  I enjoy my friendships and appreciate them all greatly too, but I think that it would be neat to have a person that is clearly my bestest friend ever and I am her bestest friend ever as well because I don’t think we all value our friendships with someone in the same way that they value it in return. 

Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I am alone in this boat. Maybe I have never let all my walls completely down so that others know me more intimately as a best friend. Maybe I do have more than one best friend. Maybe it’s you! J