There Was A Party In Heaven

On Monday, heaven threw a huge party. My sweet Papa was able to reunite with my Mama and many friends and family members as well as meet Jesus face to face! I wish I could have seen the smile on his face as he walked through the pearly gates. Heaven is where he belongs. He was a simple man, but one who touched the life of just about everyone he came in contact with. He was a preacher in the church of the Nazarene and a high school English teacher. He and my Mama were married for 66 years and raised 4 children. My Mom is the youngest "Northcutt" child. He was a very tall man who always wore a suit and tie. Everyone laughs that he actually mowed the lawn wearing a tie! The words that best describe my Papa are found in Galatians 5:22, "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness faithfulness, gentleness and self control." Most of us have to work really hard to have these traits, but Papa seemed to come by them naturally.

I am so grateful that Olive and I were able to see him in August. I will never forget when he looked at her and said, "Well, that's a pretty little girl."

At the funeral home, they had a big picture of Mama and Papa. When we walked in Olive, pointed at it and said "Papa". She kept repeating it over and over. It makes my heart smile to think that she remembers him!

I am so blessed to have such an amazing example of how to live. We love you Papa and you will be missed until we see you again! You will get to give us all the heavenly tour when we get there. I bet your backyard there is even more beautiful than the one on earth. We love you.

New Park

We had heard that the new playground at the First Baptist Church was so neat, so we decided to check it out. Olive and I had been watching it being built during our daily drive home from Miss Terri's and I had been telling Stephen how amazing it looked. So, last Sunday, we loaded up on our bikes and went over to play. It really is AMAZING!!

Olive was amazed before we ever walked in the gate!

"Wow! What is this place?"

The playground is divided into several play areas. And they have something for every age! Olive liked every area.

In the middle is a "musical section" where they can make all different kinds of music. She loved this part!

Can you hear her squealing in this picture?!
Whee!! The big kid slide

Having a little snack on the ride home.

I know we will enjoy many more evenings playing at this park! Thank you First Baptist of Norman for sharing your amazing playground with our entire community!

New Testament Challenge

Our church is participating in the "New Testament Challenge" and it starts tomorrow! This means we will be reading the New Testament in 9 weeks...that is quite a challenge isn't it? This is a great way to spend time in God's word everyday! As a part of this challenge, our church purchased 1000 copies of the New Testament to pass out in the church neighborhood. We are asking our neighbors to join us in this challenge. Tonight we gathered at church and broke into Life Groups to distribute the copies to our neighbors. We had a great time passing out the Bibles and we are eager to see the lives that our changed by this challenge, including our own!

Olive is ready to pass out some Bibles!

Poundin' the pavement

Daddy passed out the last one on our assigned route.

Our group passed out 38 Bibles.

Inside the packet with the Bible was a note from our pastor and a reading guide. We would love for our friends and family to join in this challenge too! You can log on to www.alamedacofc.org/NTChallenge for a daily reading schedule and tons of resources. They have made this easy for everyone by creating podcasts of each day's readings that you can download and listen to, or you can sign up for the daily email that will email you that day's reading. Or you can do it the "old fashioned" way and follow the guide by reading in your Bible. We are so excited to accept this challenge and hope that you will join us! Happy Reading!

Go Sooners

We had the opportunity to have 4 tickets to the OU game this week against Air Force, so we decided to take Olive to her first Sooner game. We weren't sure what she would think, but she really had a good time. It was blazing hot outside, so she and I only stayed through the first quarter. If it wasn't for the heat, we think she could have made it through at least the whole first half.
Before the game, we went to our friends, the McEravey's, tailgate for a little bit. Olive fell in love with this stool! She had a little snack on the stool and then climbed up and down, up and down, up and down...

Getting ready to go in!
"What's that guy doing?"

Ready for the game to start!

Notice the BLAZING sun over head!

Daddy's girl

Taking a little water break

Watching with Pop.

So sweet!!I think she was a little excited about being back in her stroller headed home.

Maybe the next game she goes to won't be so hot!

Wee Cubs

We had heard from several friends about the great toddler gymnastics class at Bart Conner's Gymnastics Academy. We thought that jumping and climbing and running around like crazy sounded like something right up Olive's aisle and boy were we right! She loved it! There were 3 other little girls in her class and I am sad to say we were the only one not in a leotard! Aaah! We will fix that before next class. When we first got there, we went into the big gym and they got to run on the "air track". Olive wasn't so sure at first, but once she started, we couldn't stop her!

Run Ollie Run!

Then we moved into the "preschool gym" area. There are lots of different stations set up with different equipment where they can play. She tried out just about everything. Don't let this picture fool you, she wouldn't go through the tunnel, she just peeked through.

Trying out the rings

She thought this hill was a slide, she would sit at the top and say "Whee!"

The last activity was playing in the foam pit. She LOVED every second of this! I would just throw her back and she would shriek and laugh.

When I was trying to climb out of the pit, Stephen was standing on the side talking to "some guy". I couldn't figure out why he wasn't helping me out, until he introduced Olive to her first gold medalist, Mr. Bart Conner himself. This picture is so classic.

At the end of the class, everyone sits in a circle and sing a little goodbye song. Then they get stamps on either their hands or feet. We opted for feet. I didn't get a very good picture of the stamps, but the whole way home she had her feet in the air looking at them.

We had a great time and can't wait for next week. I will post more pics of Olive in her leotard, if I can find one! :)

September 11 by 11

I was hoping to do a "ten by ten" every month, which means take a picture of Olive for 10 consecutive hours on the tenth day of the month. August was just too wild and it never happened, today is the 11th, so I took 11 consecutive pictures :) Here is a look into our very busy Saturday...

8:00 am- "Breakfast Club" eating breakfast with Daddy watching the Wonder Pets.

Can you guess what she had for breakfast? Cereal and yogurt, of course!

9:00- in the car on the way to a special friend's birthday party

10:00 am-Checking out Chuck E Cheese..."I think I am going to like this place!"
11:00 am -winding down the fun at Chuck E. Cheese.

12:00 pm- Playing with her toys at Dano and Honey's house. She loves this potato salad bucket!

(Side note: She slept in the car from place to place so she kind of had a nap.)

1:00- Eating lunch at Chili's with Dano, Honey, Gigi and Auntie M

2:00- Doing a little shopping at Target. I think she likes going to Target with her "crew" better than with just me, they let her out of the cart!

3:00- On a shopping scavenger hunt with Honey, didn't find what we were looking for, but found a few neccessities! Like part of her Halloween costume for half price! Woo hoo!

4:00ish- Home! Let's she what is on TV. (Her favorite thing to do these days is find the remote and push all the buttons)

And this is the channel that she turned on and then proceeded to dance happily all around the living room.

(i took the picture of the channel later, that is why it says 7:07 in the corner of the screen)

5:00-playing with her favorite playmate, Wrigley!

6:00-out for a cruise around the block

7:00- almost bathtime...she pulled her hair down and was saying "Bye Bye Daddy" on the phone.

I wonder what we will do on the 10th (or 11th) day of October...we will see!