I Love to See the Temple, and Family too!

We do our best to get up to NOVA to visit with Micah's family about once a month. This month was extra special because we got to be there for 2 of our nieces' birthday celebrations. Hannah turned 6 about a week ago and Abigail will be 4 the day after Thanksgiving! So Nathan and Sarah had a combined birthday breakfast for them! The food was delicious and, as always, the company was Great! We had so much fun catching up with everyone there and talking and Emily had a blast playing with her cousins too!

Here is Emily with her youngest cousin, Priscilla. They are just having a bonding moment on the floor together, how precious!!

Emily is reminiscing about the days when she used to lay under her gym and stare up at the toys!!

Hannah, Abigail and Lydia dancing and prancing around the living room!!

From Left To Right: Hannah, Joseph, Lydia, and Abigail all ran to the couch to be in a picture!!!

And here is little Miss Priscilla, all wide-eyed and beautiful!!

Now the excitement REALLY begins....time to open presents!! Hannah loved opening her cards!

And Abigail really enjoyed her doll that Mummis got for her! You can see her "serious" look as she checks her out!

The birthday girls posing with some of their gifts!!

Here I am tired, but enjoying being all snugly with the two youngest girls in the family!

Nathan and Sarah were kind enough to take care of Emily after the birthday breakfast so that Micah could go to the temple! It was such a beautiful November day that we had to take a few pictures. Plus we wanted to capture the moment for Haley to remember one day. I love being pregnant and am so excited to be getting ready to welcome Haley Elizabeth into our family! I hope that she will want to come to the temple often as she learns and grows throughout her life and I pray that Micah and I will be good examples for both her and Emily and they will have the desire to remain worthy to enter into the temple one day too! I know that is a desire that I hope and pray and dream for all the time, especially when I am at the temple!

We were fortunate to run into some of our friends outside the temple too! And they were more than willing to take our picture for us!! Since it is sometimes hard for us to get pictures together!!! Thanks Tennille and Courtney!!

We also were able to visit with Ruth, Micah's youngest sister, while we were up too! It was a nice visit and we are looking forward to heading back up on the day after Christmas and getting to see everyone again!!

Emily Is Getting to Be Such a Big Girl!!

I think each day gets more and more fun and exciting with our little Emily Marie! She is so active and so verbal now (even though her main word is definitely "HOT") she has lots more adorable babbling that goes on constantly!!
It has become a morning routine for me to wake her up and almost immediately bring her out to sit on her little potty chair on top of the toilet! She LOVES it! I think she would sit there all day if I would let her. And she loves to read her books or magazines while she is waiting too! She has already been successful on the potty 3 times in the last week! She is amazing, and it is so much fun to watch her grow and progress!

Here she is on her "throne" turning the pages in her magazine!! This girl cracks me up!!

Here she is studying her magazine and trying to figure out why all the words are backwards and the pictures are upside down!!

Ahh, Now she has found the right page and is really getting into a nice article in the Reader's Digest!

Another thing Emily LOVES to do these days is to pull up on EVERYTHING! Doesn't matter what it is, she will try to pull up on it! She has had quite a few falls and is learning pretty quickly not to pull up on things like her little play chairs and the toilet paper holder!! She is definitely a mobile little girl now! And Micah and I are enjoying every minute as we watch her grow into a beautiful and fun loving little girl!! And we are so thankful that she is ours!!

I just snapped this picture during snack time this morning. This is her "glazed over" look after she has a full tummy!! And of course that includes the thumb going straight for the mouth!! Nothing like being full, comfortable and loved!
Here's a Cute little Video of Micah teaching Emily her newest Trick!! He's a Good Teacher and She's a Good Learner!! Love them both SO MUCH!!

Family Dinner for Haley Elizabeth!!

On Wednesday, November 11th 2009, after our ultrasound, Mommers and Dooders hosted a dinner for us. We invited my Dad and Jeannie and all of our brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews....however since some live farther away they weren't able to come down for the dinner.

After the dinner we wanted to find a special way to let everyone know the gender of our second baby. It was something we had thought about for several weeks. And finally we came up with THE IDEA on the Internet. So this is what we did.....we had everyone in our family wear something either PINK or BLUE (whichever color they felt represented the gender of our next baby!) and then those in our family who are farther away sent pictures to represent their guesses and then we gathered the two groups together at the party to represent their guesses! It was really fun to get pictures of everyone in their PINK or BLUE.

Then after the pictures were taken we passed out cupcakes to everyone at the dinner and counted to three and then everyone got to bite into their cupcake at the same time. And inside each cupcake there was a jelly bean. And since we were having a little girl.....there was one Pink jelly bean in the batch, but NO blues! So, everyone ate until they found their jelly bean! And Finally the one with the SECRET jelly bean spoke up and announced that we would be having a little GIRL! It turned out to be a really fun idea and one I think everyone enjoyed being able to participate in!

And even though we didn't take too many pictures that night, as our minds were on other things, we did snap a few pictures to capture some of the main moments.....

First here are the pictures that we got from our brothers, sisters, nieces and nephew that live far way.......

Ellie and Emma sporting the PINK look!

Jacob posing in BLUE!

Nathan and Sarah and their family with a good mixture!! We thought this was an adorable family picture too!

Ruth and Matt even had a blue tint in the background!

Rachel stylin' in her blue!!

Here is the BOY group from the Family Dinner!!

(From Left to Right: Jacob, Sandi, Jessie and Avery, Dad, Dooders and Eliza)

And Here is the GIRL Group!

(From Left to Right on Top Row: Mommers, Tiffany, Emily, Jeannie, Colton, Danielle

From Left to Right on the Bottom Row: Eliza, Jessie, and Mark!)

And here is Sandi, both excited and surprised to find the PINK Jelly Bean!

These last two shots are just a couple of cute pictures that we snapped of Emily with Pop and her new personalized sippy cup that they got for her!

Emily was so mesmerized by all of the activity that was taking place!! We sure love our little Sweet "P" and are excited to welcome a second little princess into our family in March!

We Are Having A.......

....Baby GIRL and her name is going to be Haley Elizabeth Gray!! And we could not be more excited!! We had our ultrasound today at 11am!! I just love having these ultrasounds! It is so amazing to be able to see our little miracle sent straight from our Father in Heaven kicking and moving around inside of my tummy! Micah and I were ecstatic when the technician said it was a Girl and got even more excited when the doctor came in and spent a good deal of time with us, talking about each of her parts and how they were perfect and he confirmed again that in fact we have a little girl waiting to join our family!!

It was such a wonderful experience today. Mommers and Dooders met us at the office and took Emily for the day! It was nice to spend this moment just focusing on Haley ~ as she is our second child we know she won't get too many moments like this so we were thrilled to have this time! She is absolutely beautiful already and we can't wait to meet her some time around March 15, 2010 and get to know her!! Parenthood is an amazing journey and Micah and I are so happy to be taking this amazing eternal journey together!!

Without further ado, here are some of her cute ultrasound shots!! Enjoy!!

Haley's Profile

One of my favorite shots! How I love that little leg!!
We were so excited that Haley was co-operative for her 3D photos! With Emily she had definitely had ENOUGH and plus her little umbilical cord was draped across her face! But not Haley, this was her moment to shine and she was taking full advantage of it!! We think she is absolutely beautiful and can't wait to meet our second little princess!!

21 Weeks and Happy as can Be!

I can't believe how quickly this second pregnancy is going! And since I don't usually get the full few of my pregnant self I was surprised to see these pictures after Micah took them! I had no idea that my belly had grown so much!

Having this second baby is so exciting though. I have recently started to feel this little one moving around inside my tummy! And it is a feeling that is irreplaceable!! There is nothing for me quite like feeling my child and knowing that he or she is developing, growing and moving right inside my tummy! It is amazing! It makes up for all the hard parts of pregnancy 110% that is for sure!

With each passing week I am getting more and more excited to welcome this second baby into our family! I am really looking forward to watching Emily continue to learn and to grow as she becomes a big sister! I feel so blessed from Heavenly Father that He has chosen to send down 2 of his most precious children to our family so close together! I know that it is going to be a big adjustment having two children so close together, but it is going to be a lot of fun to watch them growing as siblings and best friends too!

Only 1 more week until our 22 week ultrasound, which we are very excited about! I love that part of pregnancy too! But for now here are a few pictures that we have taken to document this 21st week!!

Here I am 21 weeks and Smiling!

Can't have a photo shoot without my Sweet "P"!!

Practicing our Waving....And Who better to wave at than Daddy behind the camera!!

On Sunday night we decided to give Emily a bath in the "Big Tub" for the first time, since we were both home. She was a little apprehensive at first, but she ended up really enjoying it! I think now that she is getting bigger she likes to have the extra room to play and splash around! And thanks to a knee pad that Mommers and Dooders gave us we can finally kneel down on the bathroom floor for her bath time!! It all works out and everyone is happy!

She sure does love to Cheese for the Camera!

Halloween Fun with the Grays!!

Halloween was so much fun this year! It's funny because neither Micah nor I are really into Halloween all that much! I am just not a fan of all the scary gross things that sometimes accompany Halloween. I like the happy light-hearted fun side of Halloween! Carving Pumpkins, trick-or-treating and dressing my baby up in the cutest costumes ever!! This year we were fortunate enough to have 2 costumes for Emily. Mom and I were shopping a few weeks back and saw this adorable pumpkin costume and we had to get it!

These first few pictures are some that I took of Emily during our little photo shoot on Friday morning before we headed out to take some Halloween Cupcakes to Daddy's work!! I definitely found out during this photo shoot that I need an extra helper!! Even though she was not into smiling for the photos she was still simply irresistible in this little costume! I sure love this little pumpkin!

Nothing can compare with this little "Sweet P" sucking her thumb!

Had to bring in an extra prop!

2 pumpkins in the family!


Getting ready to take off towards the camera!

Tired and absolutely adorable!

We stopped by Mema's on the way to Mommers and Dooders' on Friday, so that she could see our adorable little pumpkin and Emily was excited to check out all of her Halloween decorations too!

And Emily's Great Aunt Tede was there too! She hadn't seen Emily in a while, so they had a fun time together!!

Emily on the floor doing what she does best....checking out all the Halloween decorations!!

Full Shot!!

Had to take a moment out for a family photo!

On Halloween Day we dressed Emily up in this adorable Ladybug outfit! Aunt Sarah gave it to us for her to wear!! Hannah, Abigail and Lydia (Emily's cousins) all wore this little ladybug outfit for their first Halloween too! A little bit of nostalgia!!

View from the Back!!

Emily LOVES to pull up ~ doesn't matter if it is a pumpkin, a chair, a crib, a couch!!

This mommy sure loves her Ladybug!

On Halloween afternoon Mommers and Dooders had us over to their house for a Halloween lunch and some family fun! It was nice to get to see Jacob and Tiffany and little Miss Gracie Kaye (who is still inside of Tiffany's tummy!)

3 mommies with their babies!! Me with Emily and Baby #2, Tiffany with Gracie Kaye, and Jessie with Eliza Lynn!

Have you ever seen a sweet bumblebee and an adorable ladybug just hanging out together on the ground?

Daddy getting in some love with his ladybug!!

Group Shot on Mommers and Dooders front porch!

After we left Mommers and Dooders' on Halloween we decided to make a quick stop by Mema's so that she could see Emily's second outfit too! And they had a little party going on their as well! Everyone loved Emily's little costume and Emily enjoyed all of the attention she got too! Here she is sitting on Mema's lap with a pretty funny expression on her face!

3 of her Great Aunts had costumes on too! So Emily didn't feel to out of place here. In this picture she is with her Great Aunt Debra!

Here's our little ladybug with 3 of her Great Aunts ~ She is trying to give Tede some lovin', and Debra and Sweetie are in the photo too!

Halloween was definitely full of visits! After we left Mema's we went over to see Great Grandma Louise and Charlie. Emily was getting tired by this point and was tired of visiting and her ladybug costume, but we were still able to take a few more pictures!

Great Grandma Louise thought she was a super cute lady bug and enjoyed getting in some snuggle time!

Lastly, here are a couple of videos that we took! This one is of Emily and Eliza racing for their toys! It is the first time we were able to capture a crawling race between these two on video!



This second video is one that we took of Emily in her bedroom before we left for the afternoon on Halloween! We thought she was super cute crawling across the floor as a little ladybug....and her wings only seemed to weigh her down slightly!