Melia

Melia decided it would be a good idea to try
see how my nose tasted. This pose didn't last long
seeing as this cutie now posses some sharp chompers.

She can always make me smile.

Kisses, hey I do whatever it takes to steal
kisses from Melia. Now like she has a shortage
of them. But she's just so stinking cute.

Do you see those cheeks? Normally I don't
do the whole pinching cheek thing. A year ago I
would have said that I was totally against it.
But you just cannot resist pinching those chunky cheeks!

Melia is growing up so fast. The night these
pictures were taken was the first night she walked.
She had taken a step before, but she took 3 steps
directly toward me. I was entirely too thrilled. She
went from those three steps to taking up to 5 just
in that one night. Now she walks around almost everywhere.
I cannot believe that she is almost one years old!

Summertime and the living's easy

My best friend Vye and I were fooling around with the camera
while her hubby, Tofer, was on a road trip to CA. This is just
one pic from the montage, we were having flashbacks to being 16.
Pretending to be blond, not too far from the truth at times.

My adorable little Persephone is getting so big.
I have to give her kisses often; slightly in love.

As most of you know, I am a nanny for a 2 year old
little girl. Her name is Schei and right here she is
cheesing for the camera, this is her interpretation of
"smile!". She's a real cutie and I'm going to miss her
a lot when she starts going to a private pre-school at
the end of this month.

Annnnddd... one of my favorite people in the world!
Here is Melia, she met a new friend, Dawson (I think)
when we went out to dinner at Home Grown right down
the street where AJ and Julie live. Personally I think she
is too cute for words. It's amazing how fast she is growing.
She now crawls like a speeding bullet and can stand up as
long as she holds on to something. She also plops down fairly
gracefully, something she most definitely got from Julie's side;
if you know any of the Stolldorf children you will know that
we are some of the biggest klutz's around. Perhaps Melia will
grow up to be a ballerina or something graceful, that would be
something new to come out of our clan. I don't get to see my
adorable niece nearly enough, as I'm normally in Durham and
between my work and AJ and Julie's work we don't get to have
as many visits and we could wish, but I'll work on getting more
pictures of Melia for all of you doting aunts, uncles, and the
great-grands/aunts/uncles and so on.

NEXT '09

This weekend has been without a doubt one of the most amazing weekends ever. I attended NEXT (formerly known as New Attitude). This conference is given by Sovereign Grace Ministries and it is mostly for my generation of young people (youngish anyway). The speakers were Joshua Harris, D.A. Carson, Kevin Deyoung, C.J. Mahaney, and Sinclair Ferguson. Each of the sermons were amazing, all together they went over Jesus. First we talked about His preeminence, then who He was, then His life, and finally Sinclair Ferguson (AMAZING!) did two sessions, one of the resurrection of Jesus, and the other on His return.
I was struck anew with God's grace and compassion for me. I am still in awe that He would have chosen to save me. This weekend just brought me closer to my God, and gave me the full realization that this life is only for HIM. He is not a means to an end, He IS the end. I wish that everyone could have come to this conference you all could share in the awesomeness of God and benefited from all of the teachings. God met me not only in the sermons but in worship. It seemed as though this weekend God wanted to make my sight clear and see Him more fully. The first night during worship I suddenly felt His presence and He spoke to me. Although I gave my life to Jesus several months ago, I was still holding back on some of the sins I had committed in the past. I didn't even realize that I was doing this, but as God spoke to me I saw that I had foolishly held on to one sin in particular and had convinced myself that I could never be as good of a christian as everyone else because I had committed this act. Almost as though He was standing right next to me I heard Him say, "Do you really believe that your sin is more powerful than my blood?" That woke me up! As though showing me His wounds to prove what He had done, He reminded me that He had made me whole again; His blood covered everything. How could I have ever doubted Him? Although I hate my sin, and will never be able to change it, I can only glory in my Redeemer more for what He has done for me. I feel as though my eyes have been opened yet again. To realize that this is only the beginning and I will have the rest of my life and eternity to get to know God more makes me tingle with anticipation.

Terri and Vance, I don't know how to thank you enough for paying for registration which allowed me to go to this conference. It was life changing. I love you so much!

Summer Ambition

Summer is almost here, I can smell the freedom. I was trying to decide what this summer would be dedicated to. After careful consideration, I decided to read as many classics as possible. I love reading, but feel that there has definitely been a lack in my knowledge of literature. I've already gotten together my first list of readings which include Poe, Whitman, Frost, Plath, Yeats and more, after I catch up on my poets I am going to start on classic novels and just all around good authors and books. Obviously some of you out there *cough* Terri *cough* and others know a lot more literature than I do and I would greatly appreciate any advice on some good books to read this summer. I have a feeling it's going to be a fabulous one. Here's to lovely weather, a good book in hand. cheers.

Baby Persephone

So, for those of you interested, here are more
pictures of my little kitten, Persephone.
I've been wanting a pet ever since I was 3.
But we all know that mom was allergic, and
dad pretended to be allergic to animals, which
left me only with goldfish, not exactly the most
exciting pet for a little kid. But now I'm a big kid
and so I decided to get a real pet. And yes i do
consider cat's a 'real pet'. I was trying to figure
out how I was going to afford to get a real pet
and had sort of given up expecting not to be able
to get one until at least summer or next year.
But, amazingly I stumbled across a site that had
pics of some adorable kittens and fell in love with
this little one. When I e-mailed the owner asking
about this cutie pie I got a response back telling me
that they would not charge me anything and just
wanted to find a good home for their kittens but
didn't want any 'crazies'. Apparently I don't fall
under the category of 'crazy' and so I got my kitten!

Perhaps I am biased but I think she's adorable!

She was sprawled out on my futon, having a nice
cat nap. I think the flash woke her up. She gave
me a look like 'hey, I'm sleeping here!'

Again, who couldn't love her? She's extremely playful
and pounces rather than walks. It's pretty entertaining.

I get the feeling that she's somewhat of a ham.
She's always trying to get me to pay attention to her.
"look what I can do!" Hmmmm... sound like someone
else we know?

Persephone

PERSEPHONE

I got a little kitten. She's 9 weeks
old and absolutely adorable. Just brought
her home today, and she's getting used to
the apartment.

She's just so itty bitty! LOVE HER!

So I got my new camera and I started playing around
with it the night I got it. Here are some of the pics I took.

Tofer and Paul working on their music outside.


Annnnndddddd.....


This is how amy and I work on our music.
Be amazing by our impressive guitar hero skills.
(my impressively awful talent might I add)
Me cheezing for the camera while driving.
Don't worry we were at a stop light.


Vye and I


Little Finn. He always looks so serious. But he
loves me. I get to spend a lot of time with this cute
little guy. He's quite energetic and is always bouncing
around or crawling at the speed of light.


The other cute Moran child with his mommy.
Mickey was being quite crazy when we visited his dad
and Christine at work. He finally settled down when
someone found him a little toy drum set to play with.
He adores drums and was enamored by then until
the time they left. He's gonna be a little rock star.


Me trying to threaten Vye.
She's trying not to laugh and she says,
"What? I didn't do it!"

My Birthday Present to Myself

It's official

It is official. No matter how long you hold on to denial, reality eventually comes up to bite you. 23, eek. I know it's still young, but I was trying to hold off on this day for as long as possible. Sigh. Well you know what they say, if you can't beat them, join 'em. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get over the disappointment of becoming old and embrace it. I'll get there. ;-)

Well, seeing as I am now officially *gulp* 23, I suppose I will be joining the real world. So I figured I'd do what the big kids do and start a blog. I am getting a new camera for my birthday, my family helped out to fund this. :D I have to say I am truly blessed. Although I was not looking forward to this birthday, I have to say, the presents so far have been fabulous! Dad, Deonni, AJ, Julie and Granny have donated to my camera fund. I realize how amazing it is that I will be able to get something like this considering the economy and I appreciate the generosity of my family so much. You noticed I said 'presents' with an 's'. Yes, I did get another one. While the first gift is rocking my socks off, this second one left me at a loss for words. My sister, Terri, and her husband Vance are being EXTREMELY generous and are going to pay for my registration for NEXT. How amazing is that?!?!? Just this week, not days before Terri informed me of her staggering present, how on earth I was going to be able to go to the retreat. For those of you unaware, NEXT is the new name for what used to be NEW ATTITUDE. Its over memorial day weekend and is a conference for younger individuals (mostly I think). I am VERY excited to be able to go to this if you can't tell. I don't know how to thank my family enough for their generosity and love they have given to me. So if you happen to be one of those *blessed* individuals who are related to me, just know that I love you so much and am really and truly at a loss for words as to express how much.

Once I get my camera this blog should hopefully be much more interesting. I plan on being trigger happy and capturing the wonderful parts of my life on film. Hmm.. I wonder if 'film' is really the correct word seeing as it is digital. Oh well. Do not fret my good people, you are about to be up to date with what is going on in my life. Be prepared to roll your eyes at how many pictures of Melia show up on here, sadly my other precious niece and nephew do not live nearby, but I'll snap up a lot of them whenever I get to see them. Hope you will all enjoy this. And don't be expecting too much. I am not my brilliant sister, and I am sure this will not be nearly as funny and well written as her blog is. Forgive me in advance. You can't say I didn't warn you. :)

LOVE TO ALL! <3

Just registered for this blog. Won't officially start it until my birthday. Stay tuned.