Nate's Dedication

We celebrated Nate's baby dedication at Parkway Baptist Church today. We love our church and are so happy to be raising him there. Nana and Papa Penny and Aunt Lauren were there to celebrate with us.

27 years without a trip to the ER

Last Sunday I made my first trip to the ER. Emory Johns Creek Hospital just can't get rid of me! Luckily I was already in "the system" so we were only in the waiting room for 5 minutes. What did I do to get these lovely bandages on my fingers you ask?


Here is the culprit.This is a praline. Yes, go ahead and laugh. Just like a Krispy Kreme, I believe these are best served warm. So after microwaving my beloved praline, I then proceeded to touch test it to make sure it was the perfect temperature. Well, it was not. My finger was sucked into the hot sugar goo (if you enlarge the picture I have circled the indention). After running it under water and icing it for 2 hours it still felt as if my finger was on fire. Many google searches later we determined it would be best to go to the ER. Probably the hardest part of the situation was finding an open pharmacy at 9:30 on a Sunday night. It has been difficult to operate without my right index finger, but I have had lots of help from Joel and friends at church.

All in all it's been a pretty humorous story to tell and who knows when I will eat a praline again.

Father's Day

Joel enjoyed his first Father's Day. We went to church and Joel got cards, a new grilling book and a new tie. Unfortunately the afternoon consisted of this:


more studying! Joel has been diligently studying for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) exam for over a year now. He is now in an intensive review mode, studying several hours a day. The big test is July 17 & 18 and we will ALL be happy once it is done!

Talking and Laughing

Nate has two new favorite hobbies...talking and laughing. You have to coax the laughing a little (so please excuse my raspberry blowing in the video) but he's constantly talking to all of his toys. They have quite the conversation!

3 Months and catching up!

It's been a busy month and we're getting back into the swing of things. After being in NC for 2 weeks we all brought home colds with us. We recovered from that last week and then had Vacation Bible School this week.

Nate is getting so big, so fast! He's up to 14.8 pounds (from home measurement), is wearing mostly 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers. He really loves looking at faces now and is very smiley and giggly. Joel really got him giggling one night and as soon as we got the video camera out he clammed up. We'll capture it one day soon hopefully! His hair is getting longer...I call him fuzzy head because it looks like he has a little crew cut. He is also sleeping through the night on most nights--from around 7:30 or 8 until 6 in the morning!

Here is his 3 month picture in his big boy pj's!

And 1 month

Enjoy all of the catching up!

Where did we leave off?

Let's see....my birthday was the 13th, the day before we were leaving for NC. I woke up feeling really sick and figured out that it was probably mastitis. So I went ahead to the doctor to get a prescription, had Joel work from home to help me with Nate, and prayed that I would feel much better for the trip the next day. Joel went and got me Rita's Italian Ice since he didn't have time to pick me up a cake (but they did have birthday cake flavor that day) and I got a new watch that I had wanted. Joel had given me the watch I have been wearing for my birthday 10 years ago...it has had several battery and crystal replacements, so I thought it was time for a new one!

Happily I did feel much better on Thursday and had the Pilot packed tight! Nate was ready to nap around 12:00, so we hit the road. He slept the whole way to Sharla & Josh's! We spent the night there and then got up bright and early to head to Raleigh. Nate slept the whole way again, and starting screaming just as I pulled into my sister, Megan's apartment. We had lunch at Red Robin to celebrate our birthdays and then I went to Mom and Dad's for them to meet Nate for the first time.

I'll break here to say that as many pictures as I think I take, I definitely have gaps in photos when I start to blog :-( I guess this was such a busy day that I didn't think about it.

Next up...Meredith Reunion!

Meredith 5 Year Reunion

Five years has definitely flown by! The reunion weekend was fun, although I did miss seeing many classmates who I was hoping to see -- who aren't on Facebook and I haven't seen since graduation. Still, it was fun to catch up with my girls!

Everyone at the President's house on Friday night.

Class of 2004 PJ Party

And dinner at Cafe Luna!

Nate was loved on....

all week by family and new friends!

He had his first trip to the bowling alley....
and to Build A Bear
Met the Surles

and Uncle Dion

and Great Grandmother "Mimi" Cornett

Such a lucky (and spoiled) boy!

Alan and Tabatha Penny

Part 3 of the trip was to celebrate Joel's brother's wedding. Alan and Tabatha had a great ceremony and reception at Bass Lake Park in Holly Springs. They will be living near D.C. and we hope to maybe visit them next summer! It was a great time for Nate to meet more of the Penny family as well.

5 years went by so fast!

May has always been a busy month and by these posts this year was no exception! Since we were home and could take advantage of free babysitters, we spent a night away to celebrate our 5 year anniversary! I had always hoped we could spend this anniversary at Fearrington Inn, where we spent our wedding night. We splurged for our wedding night and stayed in a deluxe suite, but decided just to book a standard room for this stay. Upon check in we were happily surprised that they had upgraded our reservation and were taken to Room 33, the same room from our wedding night!

On May 30, 2004

Redecorated in 2009...
We got the whole Fearrington experience this time--afternoon tea, shopping around the village, dinner at the Fearrington House Restaurant and breakfast the next morning.

Joel after tea

Doves in one of the village shops


All dressed up for dinner...it was delicious!


It was a great anniversary!

Home again, home again

Here are a few pics from the past 2 weeks at home. Nate is getting so fun to play with!

Sammy still thinks that most of Nate's toys are his...

Joel says this bib should say "billionaire"...being a millionaire isn't that big of a deal anymore

And the only pics I took at VBS...this is Nate's friend Micah. These pictures were taken on his first birthday! He's a sweet, miracle baby who was born at 25 weeks. Sadly, Nate will outweigh poor Micah in a few weeks...but Micah will be running circles (literally) around Nate soon!

Update coming soon....

But for now, we've changed our picture website. At the recommendation of Sharla & Josh, we've moved to Smug Mug.

Check out our pictures at pennyfamily.smugmug.com