and...we're baaaaaack

Ok, after a 6 month-ish blogging hiatus, I have realized that it's time to get back to business. 

I've missed blogging.  

I actually had a friend ask me at Mom's Night Out one night, "WHY do you blog, anyway?!" And that made me kind of stop and think.... (mostly because I have not been blogging!)  So why DO I blog?  Here are a few reasons...in no particular order

 (not to be confused with the Letterman top 10 or anything)

 1) Memory Keeping.  I started blogging when Lauren was 5 months old.  Although I was not as consistent as I could have been; being able to look back on those growth updates, milestones and pictures of Lauren are priceless to me.  It also takes a heck of a lot LESS time for me to type out a blog post and add pictures than it does to make a scrapbook page.

(Thank you Mr. Grantham for those 8th grade typing classes- my speed typing would make you proud!)

2)Updates.  Having a blog allows my family to read about what Lauren has been up to.  We have never lived closer than 4.5 hours to Jason's family in the 10 years we've been married.  When we were in KY, we were almost 10 hours from my family in FL!  For them to be able to click over to my blog and see pictures of what we've been up to is great- and a picture is worth a thousand words, truly.  I can talk on the phone all day long about what we did that week- but seeing it is better, I think!

3) It's an outlet for a "wordy" girl like me!  I love to talk and write and read.  Blogging allows me to express myself and I've also "met" several other moms online who have children of similar ages/stages as Lauren.  It's been great to make connections.  I also keep up with friends from college through their blogs and facebook.

4) Purpose.  I have been encouraged in many different ways by other bloggers in the past few years.  I am sure that they will never know this, seeing as how they are women that I do not know in real life.  I often think that if I have been encouraged by others, maybe (just maybe), God will want to use my blog as a way to bring glory to Him and use my words to encourage other women as well.

Whew.  With all that being said, if there are any friends out there still following my blog, you can expect to see more frequent blog posts from me in the coming days/weeks/etc. ( I need to be held accountable, but haven't figured that part out yet!)

And because I strongly dislike blog posts without pictures....here are a few random ones of my cutie-pie.  She is growing so fast!

**In my next few posts, I plan to do some SERIOUS catching up from the past 6 months or so...they will be very condensed versions of what we have been up to, just so I can keep a record of it here!**