The Butler Family: July 2009

Friday, July 24, 2009

Usborne = Girl Time!

Many of you already know that I sell Usborne Children's books. I try hard not to be the crazy book lady, but they are so amazing sometimes it is truly hard to contain my excitement! I have been with the company for almost two years and have promoted to a supervisor. This year I traveled to convention in Tulsa, OK with four other consultants on my team. We were able to hear Jim Trelease, author of the Read a Loud Handbook, speak on the importance of reading to your children. I was reminded of my teaching days and I'm so thankful to have found a company that allows me to teach others while still be home with my own child! It truly is an amazing opportunity!

Me with Randall White, President and CEO of Usborne Books and More

Awards Banquet on Saturday night

My awesome Usborne girls...by the way we all went to Freed Hardeman

Our Roaring 20s team dinner on Friday! This is my awesome team! They are some AWESOME moms!

This is the BEST part!!! Digging through the discount books!!! It never gets old! I'm such a dork!

My awesome supervisor that has helped my business grow in so many ways!

This was taken during some of the training! I'm telling you, moms should not be allowed to have that much fun!!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...the ZOO!

While in St. Louis, we made a very quick trip to the zoo. For those of you who don't know, the St. Louis zoo is FREE to get into! It is an awesome zoo too! I grew up going to this zoo so it is always fun to bring Jack! We only had a few hours before heading back to Tennessee, but we covered a lot of ground!

This was not zoomed in...this penguin was that close and NO glass in between us! St. Louis has an amazing penguin exhibit!

I look like I have a mullet here...ha! Just a ponytail!

This is my super model mom!

LOVE my daddy!

That's as close as he would get!

Jack LOVES being with his SheSHe!

A Family Wedding

My cousin Kyle got married in St. Louis July 11th! It is so crazy as all of us get older and the phases of life we enter. Kyle was the cousin that was at our house all the time, we played outside for hours, and laughed about those crazy people in our family when no one was watching! He is so precious and he will always be my "Baby cousin."

The Cousins!

My Aunt TT

Precious cousin Sammy

Ashley, Jack, and the massive tattoo

Cody and Jack

They did it!

Tarah his bride.

My Aunt Toni (my mom's sister) and my cousin Jake

My grandma and grandpa with Jake

I wanted to get some good pics of Jack at the beautiful park they got married at, but thanks to Nan and that massive tattoo on his arm I decided to pass :)

Hanging with Nana and Papa

A few weeks ago we went to St. Louis for a quick trip. Chris couldn't come with us, but Ashley got to come so it was a fun ride!

Here's Jack and Papa washing the camper! I think this experience ended with a hose war!

Jack and his Papa...they are two peas in a pod!

This is the way Nana does things...Jack gets to sit on counters and do whatever he wants! It was an awesome weekend!

Meet Aunt Beth

This is Jack's Aunt Beth, remember she is new to the family...Jack adores her. This is why! Who dosn't like to spin in circles at his age! Mommy is not this cool!

By the way...it was raining too!

Diamond Jacks Game...

It has been a VERY busy summer and my blogging has taken a back seat, but now we are getting back into a routine and we are back in the blogging world! I must say that despite the fact we haven't seen any of our regular play friends this summer I have loved keeping up with their blogs and not feeling like I've missed a thing!!

Here was a trip to the Diamond Jacks game in Jackson, TN. We went with the 3rd-6th grade youth group at church! It was $1 night....we got in for $1 and popcorn, cokes, and hot dogs were all a $1! Very cheap and VERY fun! Jack LOVED it!

This is all Jack wanted...copcorns!!!

He was taking it all in!

Jack was having much more fun here than Daddy !! My crazy boys!

Friday, July 3, 2009

Ginormous "kitty"fish!

Last Friday night we got to go visit with the Winders family! They live out in the country in a beautiful home! They are a very special family! During our visit, they asked Jack if he wanted to go feed the catfish. Of course he was all excited about that! The cutest thing was that he kept calling them "kitty"fish and to call them he would say, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty!" Too funny!

This is a close up shot so you can see just how HUGE they were! It was crazy!

I had to include a picture of their pet goose...she was too cute!

Here jack is throwing the food into the water...we were just getting started!

I was cracking up at Jack...he was laughing soooo hard everytime the fish would flop in the water!

So proud of his own bucket of food!

Sardis Lake Christian Camp...no we didn't disappear forever!

Hello to all my blogging buddies that have been looking at my same page for the last three weeks! We are finally home and jumped into things full swing! Here are some highlights from camp. This year Chris was the director for the first time (assisted by many of his best friends) and it was a BLAST! Jack ended up staying the entire week, and he was a GREAT sport! The heat index was 110 degrees one day so we were extremly HOT!!! However, we came back spiritually uplifted as usual! God has blessed me with 12 summers at Sardis Lake, and I couldn't begin to tell you the impact it has made on my life! We continue to go every year and work with the young people....however, what the young people don't know is they do more for us than we do them! Young people tend to be so soft hearted and honest...as adults we tend to begin building our walls and our pride keeps us from doing what God expects of us. Therefore, after spending a week with young people that love the Lord and have thier entire lives before them to serve him...it is a very humbling experience that continues to teach me many things!