What's been goin' on

It's been a little while since I blogged. I have started working part time at Target for the holiday season, so I've been pretty busy! Wes and I have had a good month and have gotten to do some cool stuff. One of the coolest things we did this past Sunday. A big group from our church went to serve and help out with a thing called "Boxes of Love". It was started by a church in Buffalo 10 years ago, and they helped 5 families with Christmas dinner and gifts. It has grown so much over the last 10 years and now many churches and organizations are involved each year. Last year Boxes of Love assisted 2,500 families!!

We helped out on the very first day of preparation for this year's Boxes of Love. Places all over Buffalo donate all kinds of items for this each year, so there were hundreds of boxes that had to be sorted through and organized, which is what we did. We sorted and separated everything into categories of food, medical supplies, personal/toiletry items, diapers, gifts, and household items. We did all this in a big warehouse space that gets donated to them every year. Here are some shots of everyone in action.

It was really fun and neat to be a part of this awesome ministry to the city of Buffalo. It's so wonderful to think of all the families that will be receiving food, gifts, and all kinds of necessities this year, and hopefully they will get a glimpse of Jesus' love for them through this. And it's always amazing to me what a blessing it is and how much joy you receive in serving others!

On a different note, I had a fabulous girls' night out last weekend. A bunch of us from church went to dinner at PF Chang's and then went to see "New Moon"! If you don't know what that is - but surely you do - it's the sequel to "Twilight". We had been waiting for this for months and it was awesome! Here we are at PF Chang's before the movie:

It was mahem and craziness at the theater because we went on opening night. Even though we had pre-purchased our tickets, we still had to wait in line for a while before we could get in. Here are Ashley and Amy in their Twilight t-shirts:

They say "Edward prefers brunettes" and "If you don't sparkle, I'm not interested" Ha!!

And finally, here I am growing, growing, growing! This is at 27 weeks (November 23, 2009). I only wish I had remembered to take this picture BEFORE I got in the shower and washed off all my makeup. Oh well.

Halloween Fun

Here we are on Halloween - Can you guess what we are??

We are The Black Eyed Peas!!

Restoration Church had a picnic on Halloween, and it was a lot of fun. It was not the best day outside - cold, very windy, and raining on and off - so we had the picnic inside the community center. Lots of people came, and it was a great time for our church family to just chat, eat, and have fun.

Here is the wife and kids of Alex, one of the pastors. Jennifer is the zoo keeper, Amelia was her lion, and Josie was her little caterpillar. So cute!

Here is our friend Shelly and her little pumpkin Carley:

We had an awesome spread of food! This was the main and side dish table:

And this table was just sweets, so it was my favorite of course! I made apple cider cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing, YUM!

There was a serious game of flag football going on outside, despite the sprinkling rain and mud.

Here is Dan, our pastor, after the game:

And the whole muddy team:

Here was the inside of the community center where we ate and hung out:

And the set up outside where some guys were frying turkeys! They were so good.

And here is another belly shot! This is at 24 weeks and a couple of days (taken November 4, 2009). She's in there alright, and kicking away!