A new nephew!

Ben now has some competition in the cute nephew department, as Andrew's sister Evelina and her husband Serge celebrated the arrival of their first son, Austin Samuel, yesterday. We are all thankful for this precious gift from God, and that mom and baby are both doing so well!



















Welcome to the world, little Austin (and at 6 lbs. 1 oz. and 18 inches long, "little" is the appropriate word)!

Austin with his Aunt Sarah and Uncle Andrew:

And the award for cutest nephew goes to....

...Ben, sporting shades at the local pool.















And showing off his pearly whites!















Ben was a year old in June. I get to see him again in November! Kinda' sad that my sister and I live so far apart... but thanks to technology, I don't have to miss out on cute moments like these!

From a distance...

One of my dear friends lives in a country on the other side of the world. She celebrated a birthday this past week, and because I did not plan ahead well enough to send her a package in the mail, I pondered what else I could do for her besides sending an e-card. Then I thought, why not send her flowers? In this day and age of the Internet, it should be as simple as a few clicks of the mouse! So I promptly went online, found the website of a florist in her country, and ordered a beautiful bunch of daisies to be delivered on her special day. (It even cost half as much as sending flowers to a friend two states away, and the bouquet is bigger, too!)

Here's my friend holding her gift -- she told me that it really made her day. I'm so thankful for the technology that allows me to bless a friend half a world away!

The Boys

It's been a while since I posted a picture of Skipper and Gilligan. So here are my little fuzzy fellows! I love having them in my life...I'm so glad God created cats, and that He created these two in particular!

I think I've discovered a new talent!

Yesterday evening I attended a baby shower for Andrew's sister Evelina, who is due to give birth to our nephew Austin Samuel in about a month... I was asked beforehand to make a "diaper cake" as a decoration, so I looked online for inspiration and got carried away with how fun and easy it was and ended up making three of them! The idea is for it to be something beautiful but practical -- and for a new mom, what could be more practical than diapers? ;-)

The "ingredients" for these cakes are simple: rolled up diapers (cloth or disposable, depending on what the new mom plans to use) and whatever you want to decorate them with. I used straight pins to hold the ribbon and fringe on. This decoration is very easy to make (I put all three cakes together in less than two hours, including driving to Walmart to get the supplies). But it looks so elegant! Similar cakes like this sell for around $40 to $60 online, but it's so much less expensive to make your own. You could probably also do the same thing for a bridal shower using rolled-up new white washcloths or cloth napkins.

So, without any further ado, I give you my first attempt at diaper cake making -- Evelina's favorite flower is the calla lily, so I incorporated them in two of the cakes (click on the pics to see them larger):

























































So what do you think? Maybe I should make some more and sell them at craft fairs this coming holiday season! That would be kind of fun!