Monday, December 7, 2009
Let It Snow!
Posted by Haley at 1:11 PM 1 comments
Saturday, November 28, 2009
My Life Is About To Get A Little Sweeter
Most of you who read my blog already know that we found out Monday, November 23, that we are going to be having another little girl! We are SO excited!
I think that a lot of people figured (and even said) that we "wanted" a boy, but I honestly did not mind one bit if it was another girl. I would have been tickled to have a boy, but my girls are precious gifts and I would not trade them for the world!
I'm nervous about Addy and the new baby being so close in age (20 months), but knowing it's a girl is making it a little easier. We have tons of girl clothes and toys, we won't have to repaint a room, I have an excuse to get to buy more bows..hehe, and I know girls. I also know how special sisters are and the fact that my daughters are going to have 2 of them gives me so much joy. Oh yeah, and so far I won't have to worry about having a daughter-in-law someday. Did I really just say that? lol I just think that's a hard relationship for a lot of news wives. Thankfully, my M-I-L and I get along wonderfully. The first couple of years weren't perfect, but the Lord was gracious and taught me SO much during that time. I am so thankful to have such a God-fearing woman in my life. I could learn a lot from her! (And just to clear this up, I'm not trying to be negative about boys . I know that boys are wonderful. My nephews are very, very special to me. I could just ball my eyes out telling you how much I love them. I'm just trying to focus on the positive things about having a girl. So far, I'm kinda just pretending that I won't have 3 hormonal teenage daughters with boyfriends who want to dress like hoochie mama's and think their Momma doesn't know anything that would be of worth to them. Wow. Maybe Jesus will come back before then. :-])
I guess the last part of my paragraph showed some of the thoughts that are really going through my head, right? That was a little extreme, but there are a lot of things that I'm worried about. However, I was nervous about having Emmy and it was fine. I was nervous about transitioning from 1 to 2 children and I couldn't have asked for a better outcome when our little Addy arrived. I am now trusting and have faith that the Lord is going to see me through just like he has done in every other area of my life! I can't think of a better "problem" (for lack of a better word) to have!
I guess to sum things up, Tim and I couldn't be happier about having another child, another daughter. 3 little girls. My house, my life is about to get a little sweeter! Oh, and by the way, we are thinking of naming her Molly. "Emmy, Addy, and Molly". What do you think?
Posted by Haley at 12:39 PM 2 comments
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by Haley at 1:26 PM 2 comments
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Halloween!
Addy was excited, too!
Cinderella and Ariel. This little girls Mom made her costume AND made her little sister a Flounder costume. They were SOOOO cute!
Trick or treat!!!!
Posted by Haley at 10:07 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Emmy's Fall Party
Emmy's class with their scare crow.
I took this photo later on during this day before we went to church. I think it's my favorite picture ever. :-) (Laurie, do you think you can work with this?)
Posted by Haley at 2:52 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
A New Life
Since Tim and I got married, we have always talked about how many children we would have, what we would name them, how we would raise them, etc. I guess you could say that once we had Emmy-we were in love with being parents and couldn't wait to have another one! After Addy came along, I realized that kids are a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, having a second child pretty much confirmed why I love being a Mommy so much, but I was tired and felt like 2 little girls were perfect. I had always pictured myself with 2 girls, so it seemed like our little family was great the way it was. Ironically, God had other plans.
A few months ago, Tim and I started looking at houses. We decided that this isn't the right time for us to buy, but it did make us think a little further into our future. One day, I just basically said "Tim, do you think that we will have any more children?" He grinned from ear to ear and said "Yep!" (I'm glad that he had figured that out already, because I had NOT! LOL) Next thing I know, on August the 7th, I was looking at a positive pregnancy test. And just to get this out in the open you CAN get pregnant while breastfeeding AND on birth control! I know that was a litte TMI, but wanted to make it clear that we were not planning to have our kids this close together. That's why this child's name will be Serendipity-the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. :-) Ha! (I'm j/k, by the way.)
Today, I'm 14 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Tim and I got to experience an ultrasound together this morning. It's so cool how every pregnancy, every new life, is so exciting. It is amazing to see that little baby wiggling around on the screen inside of me when just 8 weeks ago it wasn't even recognizable. I am in awe of God's power.
I hope that you are all just as excited as we are about our news! My hands are full already, so I ask that will pray for me! The enemy is really good at controlling your thoughts and at times I am overwhelmed by the thought of what my life will be at the end of April! However, I know God will provide the patience and strength that can only come from Him. I am also praying that I will be able to ignore those lovely comments that people like to make when you're pregnant. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Thank you all for your prayers and support! I am excited to be able to document this pregnancy on my blog! I didn't have a blog when I was expecting the girls, so this should be fun! Have a wonderful Tuesday!
Posted by Haley at 2:01 PM 4 comments
Thursday, October 8, 2009
I'm Still Here
I'm still here guys! I'm just kind of blank about what to write about these days! I will have something exciting soon.... I PROMISE! Thanks to those of you who check it often!
Posted by Haley at 7:44 PM 0 comments
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Happy Birthday Addy!
As I type this, Addy is a little less than 48 hours away from turning one! I can't believe it! When I had her, for some reason I thought that it wouldn't fly by as fast as Emmy's first year did. I figured that since I already knew how fast everything went, I would enjoy it more and it would slow down. I really have enjoyed her first year probably even more than I did Emmy's, but just the fact that I'm SO much busier than I was when Emmy was a baby is probably the reason why it has flashed before my eyes.
I thought for this day, I would write out all of the memories I could think of off the top of my head of her first year. I hope that when she gets older, she will look back at this in her scrapbook and know how loved and cherished she was from the moment that I saw those 2 little lines!
*When I gave birth to you. It was SO much more relaxed than when Emmy was born. I watched you being born in a mirror and held you immediately. I probably held you for at least thirty minutes like that with a blanket over you keeping you warm. Those moments were so precious and we were in love with you, just like we were the moment we met your sister.
*The morning you met Emmy she ran into the room and jumped on the bed with us. When you started to cry/grunt, she started singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and you immediately calmed down. I hope that you girls will always have that special relationship like your Aunt Nah-Nah and I do.
*We went to Target on the way home from the hospital and got Emmy a doctors kit from you so that she could help take care of you. When we got out of the car, we gave it to her and told her it was from you. She immediately said "Thank you, Addy!." She still uses that kit to this day to help take care of you if you are sick!
*The night we brought you home from the hospital you slept until about 5AM. You woke up, ate, then went right back to sleep. That morning Daddy and Emmy got up and left us in bed. We cuddled until 11AM. It was SO sweet!
*When you were about 8 weeks old, we traveled to GA for the weekend so that Daddy could fill in for Mr. Ron at his church in Rockdale. You slept all through the night in an unfamiliar place! I was so thankful!
*We started Mother's Day Out when you were about 8 weeks old and I worked in your class all year long. You changed so much from October to May. It was so much fun to see you go from a little lump that didn't care about what was going on to a crawling baby that was extremely tough around the other kids who were all several months older than you.
*You started going to the nursery much younger than when your sister started. I think it helped you because now you pretty much have no problem going to other people.
*When you started smiling, it melted our hearts! You would smile at your sister more than anyone! You have always had the sweetest smile-just like your Daddy!
*I will never forget the decision we made to let you visit Granny in the nursing home when she moved here from NC. I was so worried about germs, but ended up getting over it and I am SO thankful that I did. She died just weeks after she moved here, but the look on her face when she held you...I will never forget it.
*Rolling around was your FAVORITE thing to do when you started! It was all I could do to keep you still for a diaper change or changing of clothes. You're still a little wiggle-worm, but much stronger than you were then!
*When you were about 4 months old, we traveled to VA, to meet Danny, Laurie, Gabbie and Luke. You were SO good the whole trip! The ride home, however, was a NIGHTMARE! You were SO tired of being in the car. Thankfully, when we got home you were happy to be in your own bed and slept well. I will never forget that loud car ride home, though!
*You acted like you were going to crawl for about a month and a half before you actually did it. You started at about 5 months and learned how to get faster very quick. It was then that I got the full-effect of this 2 kid thing. :-)
*I love that you and Emmy could play after you started crawling! Emmy was always very gentle with you and you LOVE playing together.
*You did not do well with babyfood for several months. We eventually decided to give you mushed up table food. After a few weeks of that, we tried babyfood again and you did great. I believe you were about 9 months old when you started eating babyfood well. Now you can't get enough of food.
*Speaking of food, when we're at the dinner table, or table in general, you make this noise like "MMMMMM, MMMMMMM, MMMMMM" and it is SO loud. Once we give you a bite of something you stop until you swallow then it's "MMMMMMMMMMM, MMMMMMM, MMMMMM" the rest of the meal until you are full!
*You put EVERYTHING in your mouth. I am constantly picking things out of your mouth throughout the day. Even though it scares me to death, I think the little chewing face you make when you've got a non-food item in your mouth is SOO precious!
*You are and always have been a Mommy's girl. You love it when Daddy gets home, but are ready to be back with Mommy shortly after you give him lovin'. I hope you stay that way! (Let's keep that between you and me, though!)
*Until about 7 or eight months you were a chunky monkey, but now you've thinned out and are average in weight and above average in height. I loved those little rolls you had, but think your little figure is so cute and girly now!
*I guess you will see in your pictures that I always put either a headband with a big bow on your head and as your hair grew I started to put just a bow on your head. You're precious with or without them, but what can I say?? I LOVE bows and my philosophy is the bigger the better! Just wait until you see your first birthday bow!
*At about 11 months we were all sitting at the dinner table. I looked at you and told you I loved you. I swear right after that you looked at me and said "Iloveya".
*Sometimes when we are playing, I will try to work on speech stuff with you. You are already starting to repeat some things with me. F.E. When I say "Fish" you repeat "shhhh". I know you're not talking a lot yet, but you are definitely understanding me!
*You love music and often direct Daddy on Sunday mornings when we sit in on him practicing!
That's all for now! Your birthday party went great and I will be posting that very soon! We love you sweet girl! You are such a blessing to our family!
-Mommy
Posted by Haley at 10:23 PM 2 comments
Thursday, August 6, 2009
A Day At The Beach
She was spinning around in circles and singing when I took this picture!
I felt bad because I only had a couple pictures of Emmy, so I wanted to show y'all a couple more of her recently.
Posted by Haley at 10:41 AM 3 comments
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Dollywood 2009
Emmy and Valerie. Emmy LOVED getting to spend time with Val that day. Every time I would try to hold her hand while walking at the park, Emmy would say "No! I want to hold Valerwie's hand!"
Addy snoozin'
I just love this picture! Andrew is such a good Daddy!
I just had to share this recent picture of the girls. Addy can't quite walk without help yet, but she's almost there. I look at this picture and I can't help but thank God for my little girls. They are so precious to me! Raising them isn't easy by any means, but seeing them smile and play brings me so much joy and makes it so worth the difficult times! I love being their Mommy:-)!
Posted by Haley at 11:08 PM 1 comments
Thursday, July 9, 2009
4th of July and Life These Days
First of all, let me just say...God is SO good!
I think the last time I updated, we were waiting on the vote for the church that we were hoping God would call us to. Well, they voted us in almost unanimously and we have now been there for a little over a month. The people in this church have been such a blessing to us. They have welcomed us with opened arms and encourage and love on us like we've been there for years and years. Things have been very busy, but we like to say it's a good kind of busy! :-)
Anyway, besides the new church, we have had a few other things go on. On June 20th Emmy was in a wedding in Mississippi. Her job was to run down the aisle with a Mississippi State cowbell yelling "The bride is coming! The bride is coming!" If you know Emmy at all, you know how perfect of a job this was for her! The wedding was at 8 PM, 9 PM our time. She did exactly what she was supposed to with the exception of her tripping right when she got to the front of the sanctuary and then deciding that she was done standing on the platform after about 2 minutes and wandering around the church until she found Tim. It was a lot of activity for just a few days, but we had a great time and we were very honored that Whitney, the bride, wanted our little girl to be a part of her big day.
Right when we got home from MS, Tim literally un-packed and re-packed his suitcase to go with our new pastor to Louisville, KY for the Southern Baptist Convention. He was gone from Sunday-Thursday leaving me at home all week by myself. On top of that, I was puppy-sitting my in law's new puppy. I was so worried about not being able to handle the girls, the dog and whatnot, but I made it and am actually very proud of myself! I hear that now I'm a youth ministers' wife I need to get used to my hubby being away a lot during the summer. I guess it was good that I got some practice before next summer comes around!
We celebrated July 4th a little differently this year. Every year our new church does an outreach at a park right near the church. Tim was there from 8AM-4PM handing out flyers about our VBS while some other members painted faces, handed out balloons and offered free waters to the people enjoying the festivities. That night we all went over to my aunts house to enjoy a cookout and then Tim, the girls and I all went back to the park we had spent the day at and watch some beautiful fireworks. Emmy LOVED it and so did Addy, surprisingly. One of our friends that met us for the fireworks brought Emmy some glow sticks. During the display, she started throwing them up in the air and cheering. I got onto her because I didn't want her to be a distraction. She then said, "Mommy, I'm making fireworks!" It was too cute, to I didn't make her stop! We ended up not getting home until about 11, but it was worth it! We all had an awesome time!
Vacation Bible School is going on this week. I am working with 4 and 5 year olds and we have had at least 10 each night, so far. Tim has planned out an awesome week for the youth. They are calling it Youth Camp and the theme is "Planted". They have averaged over thirty kids(6th-12th grades) every night. 3 have accepted Christ as their personal Savior and several others have re-dedicated their lives to the Lord and joined the church. We are so amazed and humbled to see the way God is moving and how He is using us. I'm getting chill bumps just typing this!
To say the least, these past few weeks have been overwhelming from one extreme to another. However, in ALL honesty, God's goodness has exceeded my expectations of anything I could have ever thought up and I don't think that saying "thank you" to Him would do any justice for all He is doing for us.Posted by Haley at 10:31 AM 1 comments
Friday, May 29, 2009
What time is it? SUMMERTIME!!!
I definitely couldn't come up with any better blog title. These are lyrics from a song from High School Musical. What can I say?!?! I love those movies!
I feel like we've been so busy, but I my mind is blank now that I have a chance to sit and write what's been going on! Here are some updates!
*Addy started sleeping in the crib in Emmy's room a couple of weeks ago. She gave me my FIRST sleepless night with her May 15, the second May 16, and by the next morning I was over it! It was like she would wake up just to play and if I put her in her pack-in-play by our bed she would scream! It was so frustrating! The first night she hated when I put her to bed for the night in it but, thankfully, when she woke up in the night she only fussed for a little while and fell back to sleep and slept until about 7:30AM. Some nights she will sleep through the night, but it's not consistent yet. I'm just glad she's out of our room! I was so worried that once the girls shared a room Addy would disturb Emmy's sleep, but Emmy normally just sleeps right through Addy's fussing. The first night she did come in our bed and say "My baby sister's crying." In a very matter of fact way, but other than that it has been great! I remember just sitting and worrying about milestones when Emmy was a baby like "what's gonna happen when I stop nursing her to sleep?", "what's gonna happen when I take her paci away?", etc., but we've gotten through every step-then you have new worries which is a whole 'nother blog! I guess the lesson I'm learning is that there are times where it's not easy by any means, but you get through them and a lot of times look back and wonder why it was such a big deal!
*Emmy and Addy's last day of Mother's Day Out was Thursday before last. I love working there and the checks have been such a blessing, but boy am I glad it's over! Working with children under the age of two for several hours a week on top of caring for your own 2 under the age of 3 1/2 gets very tiring! The last day of MDO they had a whole little carnival planned for them in the parking lot. They started out by serving Happy Meals, then whisked each class outside where there were inflatables and games. It was such a beautiful day and we had such a wonderful time! Emmy is starting the summer Mother's Day Out program next week. She will go every Tuesday from 9am-1pm and I will not be going with her! In August she will be going to preschool for 3 hours a day 3 days a week. The other day she said "I can't wait to dwive myself to pre-school next year. I'll be a big girl den." She was dead serious, too. Anyway, it will be nice to have a few hours to get some things done. I laugh because now that I have two kids, it's a piece of cake when I've only got one with me!
Addy's class in the lunchroom on her last day of school. We were missing 2 kids. I love these babies! I'm sure gonna miss them this summer even if they do wear me out!
Emmy's class at lunch time on her last day. Emmy is at the head of the back table cheesin' it up, of course!
She was having such a good time! One of the things I will miss about working at her school will be getting to peak in on her any time I want.
Addy on a window seat with the boys in one of the inflatables called Crayon Land.
DRUM ROLL, PLEASE................
*So you know how on my last blog I said I had some exciting news?? Well, it's still not official yet, but we believe that the Lord has opened a door to a church for us to serve in FULL TIME!!!!!!! We are SOOOOOOO excited, thankful, and anxious all at the same time. The reason that it is not official yet is because the church still needs to vote us in. Tim and I both have a peace about this church and feel like this is the place where God is going to use us, so we are optimistic about the vote. That's all the details that I can give so far, but please keep us in your prayers in the next couple of weeks. The church will vote June 7th.
Posted by Haley at 9:27 PM 3 comments