Halloween Party

I'm still way behind on blogging! Last Sunday, our resident wives' group had a Halloween Party for the kiddos. We had a great turnout with snacks and a craft and the playground nearby. Unbelievably, I forgot my camera, so I stole these from Leah and Melanie's blogs!

The lion and the construction man. I didn't realize how much he looked like Bob the Builder until afterward.

Josiah, Jack and Bailey had fun playing with Brantley's push car.

Georgia Aquarium

Nana and Pop took us to the Georgia Aquarium. Last time, we went Josiah was in the womb! It was fun to see everything from his perspective.

He went crazy over this fish tank; most of the kids did. The takes up the whole wall and contains all the tropical fish.

He'd follow the fish around saying "Nemo," "Nemo's Daddy," "Dori" or naming the colors.

This place really is designed well for kids. They can see most everything without you having to lift them up, plus there are these neat little alcoves small enough for just kids. Below, you can see Jonathan and Josiah looking into one of the kids' windows (well, trust me, that's what it is).

My son won't go into an enclosed playground, but he has no problem getting right up into an alligator's face.

He would have nothing to do with petting the sting rays, but he did touch a sea urchin later on.

Our Mountain Getaway

Jonathan flew up to meet us in Raleigh on Monday (though it was supposed to be Sunday night. Poor thing missed his connection and had to spend the night in Atlanta. Luckily we have some nice accommodations available there.) After that, we drove for a job interview, then on to Atlanta. We dropped Josiah off with Nana and Pop, and then Jonathan and I headed to the mountains for two days BY OURSELVES. Woohoo!

I don't think we realized how great it was to be able to have a conversation whenever we wanted, read whenever we wanted, sleep whenever we wanted, eat, shower... you get the picture. We love our munchkin, but it was nice to have some time to ourselves.


We rented a cute little cabin in Blairsville, Ga. It was just perfect for us. Here's the porch swing (perfect for that reading I mentioned) and the view from the cabin.

We hiked to Helton Falls. It was nice to go during the week when everything isn't as crowded. There were lots of other hiking places nearby, but we liked this little secluded waterfall.

We had a little "picnic" (of peanut butter crackers and trail mix) on the rock. We had an early dinner at a nearby local place. It was a great little getaway!

Page-Mullis Reunion

My dad's side of the family had a reunion on Sunday. I'm surprised I didn't see pigs flying over the get-together because this NEVER happens. My grandmother passed away while I was in college, and she has one sister still living. We gathered at her house with all the children of my grandmother's siblings.
Here's Josiah getting tickled by Aunt Joan.

Love this one, of course.

He is such a hair twirler. My hair, his own, whoever is holding him.
By the way, we ate outside, and it was freezing, and I brought no jacket for poor Josiah (mine is borrowed from Mrs. Sharon). Luckily, my dad's cousin's serious boyfriend's 2-year-old grandson was there and loaned us one of his sweatshirts. Phew.

Great Uncle Jim and Aunt Alice (Josiah's great, great aunt and uncle).

My dad's siblings: Uncle Rusty, Aunt Marisa, Dad and Uncle Bob. I think the last time all four were together was at Parker's wedding.

Our crew

Caleb's Dedication

Sunday morning we swung by David and Amy's church to see Caleb's baby dedication. It was a sweet ceremony, though I did have to keep a toddler quiet during it.

Josiah gave Caleb some encouraging hugs before hand.

He seriously loves on his cousin. It's adorable.

Here are some pictures I stole from Amy's blog of the dedication. It was a really wonderful service, and we were so happy to be there. We know they're going to do an awesome job teaching Caleb about Jesus and modeling God's love for him.
We had to duck out early to head over to Rocky Mount for a family reunion...that's the next blog post!

Laura and Jay's Wedding

I was so honored that Laura asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding! We worked together in the same office at Providence for four years. I got to see a lot of she and Jay's relationship play out, so it was such a joy to get to see them commit their marriage to the Lord. I was smiling the whole ceremony!

Doesn't she look beautiful? She picked out some great necklaces for us, too.

The happy couple

I had to take a picture of this: If you look closely at the man in the white shirt, he's dancing with Laura's 94-year-old grandmother. I've heard many amusing stories about Grandma Churchill, so it was nice to see her in action.

NC State Fair

Instead of a bridesmaid's luncheon for the wedding weekend, the happy couple encouraged guests to go the NC State Fair Friday morning. No need to twist my arm! This was Josiah's first trip, and Mimi, Amy and Caleb came too!

We stopped by the "petting" zoo, which they don't let you pet the animals anymore because of an E coli outbreak a few years ago. Josiah liked seeing all the animals, named them all and their sounds, but he clung to me the whole time. He liked them, but he was also a little unnerved at seeing the animals in real life.

Chowing down on the roasted corn.

The girls with our boys.

Giving Caleb some love.


Did I mention we went during Josiah's nap time?

The bride and groom at the pig races :) Jay is holding one of the bridemaid's little boy.

Josiah woke up in time to see the train at the agriculture exhibit. Maybe the best part for him.

He didn't really like this chicken. "No, no, Mama."

Trying his first funnel cake.

Riding a tractor

Heading out with Mimi.

The Long Journey

So Jonathan had this past week off for vacation, but he didn't get the start of the weekend off. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in my friend Laura's wedding that weekend, so Josiah and I made the 9-hour trek to North Carolina by ourselves. Our strategy: make lots of stops and borrow a portable DVD player from a friend (thanks, Jessie!). As you can tell, Josiah was pretty entranced with Thomas and Veggie Tales.

First stop: we met Elizabeth and Michael Horner at Chick-fil-A in Atlanta. I knew Elizabeth from Carolina and Raleigh in the years after college, so it was really fun to get together and let our boys hang out.


Michael and Josiah are three months apart, but I think they were both to close to nap times to have a lot of interaction. Josiah did give him a hug when we were leaving.

We stopped once in between to run around a McDonald's playground. Then we headed to Charlotte for dinner with Uncle Ronnie, Aunt Gail and Jaclyn. Here's Uncle Ronnie giving some Josiah snuggles and making him laugh. They got tickled over Josiah drinking juice from his fruit cup.

Jaclyn and Aunt Gail. Jaclyn's expecting a little boy, Christian Clayton, in February, so I was really excited to see her baby bump!

Dinner with the Dyes

My apologies for the blog delay. We've had a busy 9 days on the road, and I didn't bring my USB cord. But now you get several days in a row of picture catch-up!

We're going to stay chronological! Before we left, we had Jonathan's Uncle Jim, Aunt Lois, and cousin Charles over for dinner. They live here in Birmingham, but we've been pitiful to wait this long to invite them over for dinner.

Charles is 13, and Josiah loved playing with him! We got to have a real, adult conversation, because he did such a good job entertaining him.

Uncle Jim had Josiah belly-laughing at the end of night. I can't remember what he was doing exactly, but Josiah thought it was hysterical.