Swimming in a Bucket!!

Any of you who are in Virginia right now know about the crazy hot weather we have been having. Well the weather has definitely gotten this mommy itching for a swimming pool, so we went searching today...Target, Kmart, WalMart....and those hard plastic round ones are NOT out yet!
Since we were going in to town on our swimming pool hunt anyway we decided to visit Dooders! Well since he is a dad he can come up with a solution for ANYTHING, so when we got there he had this nice bucket all ready to go for Emily's first experience in a "pool". Let me tell you we were feeling classy, but Emily absolutely LOVED it! Now we are both excited to get a pool! Hopefully just a few more weeks and they will have them in stores!
Until then, here are a few pictures of our little water baby in her bucket!!

She is serious about her "pool" time!

"Am I going to have to learn to swim in one of these?"
"I do like how my feet touch the bottom and I am still above the water!"

She loved to rest her elbows on the sides of her bucket!

The bucket says it is good for 160 washes, only 159 more to go! Hopefully we are all up for the adventures! Love her little innocent face as she poses (and looks off into the woods) with Dooders!

We are Sowing Ever Sowing!

It's that time of year again! Time to start digging and planting!! Micah and I have been planting a garden (in our flower bed) for 3 summers now, and we LOVE to do it! We love to plant, fertilize, water, pray and watch our fruits and vegetables grow!

This year with Emily we wanted to make sure that she got to be a part of the action too, so we have been taking her out in her little Excersaucer and talking to her about all the stuff we are doing with our garden! She has been a real champ too! Even though she gets fussy at times she enjoys being outdoors and checking out all of her surroundings!

Our first year that we were married we just planted 2 tomato plants (thanks to a GREAT class taught by Renee Risk) in pots and put them on our patio in our small apartment. Since those were successful we added strawberry plants the next year when we moved to our house in Ruckersville. Then last spring we decided to branch out a little more and we planted 3 pepper plants (red, yellow and purple) to our ever growing garden. This year we decided to be really brave and see if we could grow squash too! Miracles never cease, we will have to keep you "posted" to see if our efforts will be successful!

But for now here are a few pictures of our young little garden!!

Our Marigold Garden (last year the deer/rabbits got to them, we will see what happens this year!)

Our 4 tomato plants that were given to us by our good friends, the Morses. If all goes well we will have Sungold Cherry Tomatoes, Green Tomatoes, Yellow Tomatoes, and Red Tomatoes, all hybrids! We love them!

The Squash has not grown much yet.



Here is our row of cucumber plants surrounded by Marigolds.

Strawberries in a barrel, and running o'er.

All this planting makes a person tired.

Baby Play Group!

On Thursday Emily and I were invited over to a friend's house for our first Group Play Date! It was such a fun time. It was nice to have all of our babies together (even though they are not at the "play together stage" yet) and it was really nice to spend a few hours talking and laughing with other moms!
It was pretty funny, we all wanted to get pictures of the babies together before we left, and at the time all 4 babies were sleeping. But almost immediately they woke up. It's almost like they knew a photo shoot was coming! Some were fed, some were changed, and then we laid them all down on the floor together and the cameras started flashing. All of the babies were so good! They just laid there looking at all the different cameras, for about 10 minutes they laid there while all of us moms were making funny faces at them and snapping pictures!
It was such a fun morning, hopefully we will get to do it again soon! Here are some of the pictures I snapped during the photo shoot! Enjoy!

So Cute! We loved how they had their arms intertwined!

All 4 of our little munchkins having a blast on the carpet together!

I guess Emily decided she needed to stretch out her arm, good thing her new little friend didn't mind!

Easter Weekend as a Family of 3!!

Easter weekend was SO MUCH FUN! Even though I had traveled to town every day the week before, and the LAST THING I wanted to do was head in on both Saturday AND Sunday again, I am so glad that we did.

Micah and I decided that Emily was way to young to care, so we asked the Easter Bunny to skip over our house this year (that way he could save some candy for a few other kids). But it was so nice to get together with so much family. On Saturday we got together at my parents house with all of my brothers and sisters (except for Josh and his family) and we had a yummy lunch and a SUPER fun Easter Egg hunt. My parents went out and hid about 60 eggs before everyone arrived and then after lunch we split into couples and took off. There were 7 "Golden Eggs" with money inside! And even though Micah and I got the most Easter Eggs we came out with the least amount of money! We went home with a whopping 50 cents!! But we sure had a great time, and so did Emily. She was dressed up in an Easter Dress that Mema bought for her and she looked beautiful in it!

Here are a few pictures from Saturday.......

Emily loves snuggling in Mommers' arms!

Spending time with Uncle Jacob! The expressions were priceless! But the funniest part was when she started to fuss I heard him over there telling her how she was going to stop fussing! It was a really funny conversation and I think it actually worked for a little while too!


Jacob and Tiffany getting ready for the Egg Hunt!

Jessie, Tanner and Eliza gearing up to find the eggs!

Us, just before the Egg Hunt Began! LOVED the bunny ears (and I am sure Emily did too! Hey, she wasn't crying!)

On Easter Sunday after church we went to Mema's house for Easter lunch and to show off Emily's 2nd Easter Dress that Mema bought for her. It was nice to visit and get to watch Emily spend some time with Mema and her Great Aunts too! Mommers and Dooders were also there (of course) and Emily always loves to get cuddle time with them! Mema and Gail put together a super yummy lunch too! It was an all around good day! Plus we had our very own little girl to spend the weekend with, so that made it all the more special! Heavenly Father sure does know each of His children personally and what each of us need and when we need it. I am so grateful for this knowledge. And I am also grateful that He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to this Earth and He was willing to live, die, atone and be resurrected so that one day each of us can have the opportunity to return to our Father in Heaven if we chose. I am grateful for this knowledge and testimony that I have at this Easter Season! Life is Great! I am so thankful to be living at this time and on this beautiful Earth!

We hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful spring weather!! Here are a few pictures from our Easter Sunday!!

Easter Sunday at Mema's

Great Aunt Gail feeding Emily her bottle!

Love the Expression as she spends a moment with her Great Aunt JoAnn

Emily was SO HAPPY to see her Great Aunt Sweetie too! "Who are all these people?"

Mommers and Dooders love their little princess too!

Our first Easter as parents was wonderful and we are looking forward to many many more holidays together!!

Emily's Newest Best Friend!

These photos were taken about 3 weeks ago. My friend Arielle lives about 5 minutes away from us and she had a little boy about 5 weeks after Emily was born! They are quickly becoming great friends. We have gotten together several times, mainly to go for walks, and both babies have been asleep during our walks, but this was the first day that they were both awake and alert and somewhat playing together, so we had to snap a few photos!
Jenkin and Emily get lots of chances to play together...it will be so cute to watch them as they both continue to grow! Babies are a lot of work, but so much fun!
Here are some pictures of the two together!!

Emily trying out Jenkin's Bumbo Seat! I think she gives it 2 thumbs up... or one "Yo, what's up?"

Our 2 little ones together on Jenkin's blanket. A primitive form of playing, but it still counts.

LOVE the expressions!

Look Who's 3 Months Old!

So, it has been another whirlwind couple of weeks for our family as I had to go back to the hospital for yet another surgery, in regards to the same as before, only this time they gave me a "newer model", a reprogrammable shunt and new tubing! So, the hope is that if anything else needs to be done that it will be a simpler procedure not requiring surgery.

Without further ado, during this crazy time Emily turned 3 months old! I can't believe how fast time is flying! She is getting so big! She has really started to get more personality and is becoming her own little cute adorable person more and more with each new day!

Here are some of her skills that she acquired this last month:
~She has pretty much been sleeping through the night since she was about 8 weeks old! Micah and I are very excited about it too! Even if it means we have to sacrifice her afternoon and evening nap:)
~ She LOVES her hands! Anytime they are free they go straight for her mouth! One night when we got home from the hospital and we were spending the night at my parents house she wasn't swaddled too tightly and she got her hands free and she sucked on her hands ALL NIGHT LONG! She slept great, but it kept Micah and I up most of the night!
~She is definitely becoming more interactive. She loves to play with us and she loves books! I think story time is her favorite time of the day, and since she doesn't do a whole lot else we have story time several times a day!
~We started giving her a multivitamin at her 2 month appointment and she LOVES taking it each morning. She gets one mililiter dropper full and she downs it like a champ!

Now that we have noted her "new skills", here are some pictures from our 3 month family photo shoot!

Emily with her favorite bear ~ She LOVES the camera!

We love all of Emily's little hats that Mema makes for her! Great Grandma's are so special!

Mommy and her 3 month old "serious" princess!

Daddy and his little Doll Baby!

Here we are together! I love spending time with my little family!