Our FIRST Baby Shower for Our Little Haley!!

My mom started talking about having a baby shower for us a few months ago and at first I wasn't so sure about it, because since we are having a second little princess we couldn't think of anything we would need. Boy were we wrong!! First of all, we definitely needed a good reason to get together as family and friends and what better reason than another sweet little princess preparing to join our family! Secondly, we then got the idea to have a Diapers, Wipes and Ointment baby shower and that was the PERFECT idea! We are truly so blessed to have so many people who love and support us. Saturday was such a fun and memorable day for us! And it was so special to have our whole family there....Micah, Emily and I and of course Miss Haley! It was a great memory maker!

The food was delicious (Thanks Mom!), the punch was AWESOME (Thanks Jeannie!), the decorations were super cute (Thanks Terri and Mom!) and the gifts were useful and thoughtful (Thanks to everyone for coming out to support us at this special time!).

And, as if it couldn't get any more fun, we get to have another shower this coming weekend at my Grandma's house for my mom's side of the family! Which I am sure will be a fun time too! Stay tuned for pictures and details next week! We just feel an outpouring of love from our Father in Heaven, he has blessed our family so much in these past 40 + months. Starting with helping Micah and I to find each other, allowing us to be sealed as a family for time and all eternity in the Washington DC Temple, helping us to learn and grow together as a couple, teaching us about becoming parents in all kinds of ways.....learning about adoption, c-sections, etc. The list could go on and on. I am just so grateful to go through all of these experiences with my family!

Emily is so blessed to have so many cousins that are close to her age! This is her with her cousin Eliza...they are only 10 weeks apart!

Another shot, after Emily realized someone had a camera!

We are sure in love with this little girl!

At the shower there were presents....got this GREAT Diaper bag from Mommers and Dooders!! I absolutely LOVE it, because it's PINK and Micah, well, he is getting used to it:)

One of my beautiful sisters with our newest niece, Gracie Kaye!!

Here's Eliza working on her balance as she steadies herself on top of a box of wipes!! Love that expression! You can tell she is concentrating!

In addition to Great Company and Presents, there were also games. Here's a "Great" shot of Micah measuring my belly! And wouldn't you know he guessed the measurement PERFECTLY!! I was very impressed! Oh and do you see little Emily down there in between us? This is also the closest we came to having a family photo during this shower! I promise to do better this coming weekend!

Another Fun Game done by my other beautiful sister, Jessie. These are the babies that all the guests made out of a piece of bubble gum they were given! I was super impressed with all of their talents with just a small piece of gum!

One last game involved a bottle for each guest filled with 4 ounces of Sunny Delight! The object of the game was to see who could drink their Sunny D from their bottle the quickest! Micah and I were only able to down 1/2 an ounce! I am just glad it didn't make me sick....Sunny D is far from my favorite!

Some more of the guests doing their best with their bottles of Sunny D!

Jessie even let Eliza help her out!

Love all the looks on every one's faces!

Here's Melissa who came in a close 2ND!!

These are just a few pictures from all the fun that was had and all the memories that were made at the shower! We didn't get all of the pictures we would have liked, but we sure enjoyed ourselves! Hope this gives you just a small idea of how our shower for Haley went! It was tons of fun!! And we were able to have it at Mommers and Dooders house, even though it was tight. It was just the way I had hoped it would be!

Emily Got her Bangs Trimmed!

Emily's hair has been growing so quickly, which we LOVE. But then Micah and I realized that it was time to do a little something about her bangs, since they were constantly in her eyes...even though she didn't seem to mind it at all. So I got a few tips from one of my friends at church on Sunday and last night finally I was brave enough to give it a try. I only cut this smallest amount, but it was so stressful for me. I was afraid I would poke her with the scissors, I was afraid I would cut to much, I was afraid she would freak out....the list goes on. But as it was, this was pretty much her demeanor throughout the whole 2 minute process. She had her goldfish and she was happy! Which made for a happy mommy too! Glad the first trim is done and I am sure it will get easier on this mommy from here on out....at least I can hope, right?

This is the only picture I was able to get of her after her trim. She was way excited to look at the computer and eat her goldfish to look at Mommy while I was trying to take a picture!! But I just love her expression!! She is such a little sweetheart!

Time Flies on Wings of Lightening....36 Weeks Already!

It is so hard for me to believe that THREE WEEKS from RIGHT NOW we will have another beautiful daughter joining our family, our Haley Elizabeth will finally be here. And we are all getting very excited to meet her! Even Emily loves to pat and kiss my belly every morning when I ask her if she wants to say Hi to Haley!! She is going to be a GREAT big sister! I am sure we will all have our challenges as we are adjusting to being a family of four, but we are excited to all be on this exciting journey together.


As has been our tradition, here are our 36 week photos. We have enjoyed capturing these precious moments on our camera and in our hearts that do indeed fly on wings of lightening. But first, we thought it would be fun to compare a pregnancy picture from our last pregnancy with Emily too.

Here I am at 35 weeks and counting, anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little "Sweet P"!
And here I am 15 months later....enjoying life as a mom and anxiously excited to meet our second little daughter in just 3 weeks!
And of course this time around we have our little Emily Marie to celebrate with as well. She is going to be such a Great Big Sister for Haley!

Here's our little family at this moment in time. A picture that makes me happy inside to be who I am, a wife to the most amazing husband I could ever hope for and the mommy to one sweet and lovable little princess and getting ready to meet our second little girl, both of whom were sent straight from Heaven to our little family! What Blessings!

Past to Present

Holly dressed Emily in blue overalls today, and this evening she reminded me of a picture that was taken of me when I was 6 to 9 months old. We took a picture, and here you can see the comparison.

Me as a baby in blue overalls. Emily in blue overalls.

Now where's the tractor?

We Survived SNOWMAGGEDON 2010!

Wow!~ That was some CRAZY blizzard that we had this past weekend! The snow started on Friday morning at around 7:15am, just as Micah went out the door to start his car...so that was perfect timing....and didn't stop until LATE Saturday night!! I think we ended up with somewhere around 20 inches here in Ruckersville, VA...although it was hard to get a real measurement since the ground was already snow covered from our last snow!

But luckily we had an AWESOME shovel and a 50 pound bag of salt, so we were able to get our driveway cleared, although it didn't help a whole lot at first because there were so many trees knocked down across our street, but once the bulldozers came by and took care of those we were set! Which was a good thing, because we were all taking a little snooze on Sunday afternoon, after Micah had done his last bit of shoveling, and when we woke up we realized we had NO POWER!! And we had thought we were in the clear since we hadn't lost power throughout the whole storm. Guess not. So I called the power company and they said that we would be fully restored by 11:59 PM on FRIDAY FEBRUARY 12th!!! I thought I was going to die laughing! So, Micah and I made a quick decision to pack up and head in to Mommers and Dooders house for a few days. Now they had lost power for the two days of the storm, but theirs had just been restored Sunday afternoon! Parents are the greatest! They told us to come on in and we could stay as long as we needed! So we packed up and got in the car, headed down our nicely cleared driveway and we were Dudley Mountain Road bound! We were actually really impressed at how well the road crews had done to clear and plow the roads! We had hardly any trouble at all getting in.
We finally came back home yesterday afternoon (Tuesday). And we were so grateful to be home again. To wash our clothes, to sleep in our beds, to play with our toys, and Emily especially missed our refrigerator with all of her refrigerator magnets!! And now we are all settled in, clothes are washed, house is pretty much clean and this morning we woke up to about 3 more inches of snow!! Craziness! But between Micah and I we shoveled and salted our driveway again and cleared off the cars and are ready once again! Not ready for another snow storm....hopefully this weekend we will see some warmer temperatures and some sunshine! We need to break this streak of snowy weekends! Plus we are hoping to make one more trip up to NOVA this weekend before Haley comes. And since we have baby showers for the next couple of weekends this is our last chance! Here's to hoping we see sunshine for many days to come!

This is the first Comparison Picture that I took at the very beginning of the storm on Friday Morning around 9AM!

This is the last comparison shot that was taken on Sunday Morning around 8:45AM! What a difference 2 days and 20 inches of snow can make! Notice the bag over the heating unit, Micah decided to cover it up and use the Emergency Heat!

We didn't take any pictures during the snow....other than the comparison pictures in the back yard. But Micah and I got to head out for a walk on Saturday night after Emily was in bed and then again Sunday morning to check out the damage and the beauty of the Blizzard! This was our view from the top of our driveway!

Our cars which had not been dug out yet! But you can see that some sort of animal was very grateful for the path Micah had made!

Here I am by our side porch and one of the mounds that Micah created as he was shoveling our driveway!

Our Front Yard!

Micah standing in his path that he began two days earlier! He shoveled SO MUCH during the blizzard! I felt so bad that I couldn't get out and help much....seeing that I am only a month away from having Haley.....but at least I was able to put salt down for him after he shoveled! It's all about teamwork. And Emily was a trooper too! She sat in the warm car in her car seat and watched Micah shovel while I spread salt!

One of the many trees that came down during Snowmaggedon!

A view from a little farther back!

More downed trees across our neighbors driveways!

Here I am standing by some of the beautiful disarray!

Micah at the bottom of our property line....with our house in the background!

A Look Up our Street!

This is a photo of many down trees together that completely blocked our neighbors driveway! Later they bulldozed them out of the way, chopped them up and used a 4 wheeler to make a path up their driveway!

Later on Sunday we decided to take Emily outside, as you can tell by this picture....she was not EXCITED or AMUSED!

She had no interest in standing by herself. She just wanted to be held and preferably taken INSIDE!

So I picked her up and then she started being silly!! Man, I LOVE my little cheeser!

She was even okay to smile for another picture!

A Little Girl can always use a hug from her Daddy too!

Here's our family shot on our side steps!! Man, you gotta love self timers and a husband who knows how to work them!

Weekend of Fun and Snow!

This past weekend was another cold, wintry one here in Ruckersville! But our little family thoroughly enjoyed it! Even Micah and I enjoyed getting out and getting our driveway shoveled....especially since we FINALLY invested in a good snow shovel!! And trust us, that snow shovel got broken in well this weekend! And of course, Emily enjoyed playing inside with Mommy and Daddy all weekend and some special treats along the way too!

Emily has really come to love her playroom! She enjoys her books IMMENSELY!! And she loves having enough to play with so that she can go from one to another at her own speed!

Another thing Emily really enjoyed yesterday was when Micah went and brought in a little cup of snow of her very own....right off the front porch:) We sat her in her chair and let her explore it! She seemed to like to play in the snow more when she could be warm while she was doing it, instead of freezing her little nose off outside trying to touch it!

On Saturday we mainly stayed inside, since it was SUPER COLD and the snow was falling all day. But I was able to make a few loaves of bread and a yummy Chicken Pot Pie!!

But in Sunday afternoon we decided to venture out and take some pictures. We also decided to go for a drive up to Sheetz just to see how the roads were looking, to see if it would be safe for all of us to make it out today! And plus we wanted to dry out our nice driveway since it was all shoveled and beginning to melt!! I just can't say how much we appreciate SALT and a SHOVEL!! Thanks Mommers and Dooders for pushing us to get both....well actually getting them for us and allowing us to pay you back! We REALLY appreciate it!

Overall, our weekend was a memorable one. We were so grateful and fortunate that we could all be home together and that we didn't have anywhere we HAD to be. It was just nice to stay home and have some family time!!

Here are a few pictures from our weekend of Fun and Snow!

One of Emily's funny faces she likes to make! As Daddy has cornered her between her table and her bookcase!

A Moment of Love, Silliness and Adoration!

A Sweet Hug....too bad Emily's face is getting a little smooshed:)

Playing with her Ball Popper! One of her favorite toys!

Time to play with the snow.....INSIDE!

"Uh oh, it's on my fingers. And it's a little cold!"

She enjoyed poking her fingers into it!

Love that Little Grin!

Some pictures of our outside adventure! Emily is standing up with Daddy's assistance!

What an adorable Face!

I love snuggling with my girl!

Emily's serious look as she stands on her own!

However it didn't last long and the poor thing face planted into the snow! One of those moments where we could resist taking a picture (for her future) before we picked her up, comforted her and got her warm again!

Another classic shot, that I am sure she didn't think was too great then, but one day!! Who knows:)

Now she's all dried off, but still not too amused that we are STILL outside and Daddy STILL has the camera!

One last Family Photo before we headed back inside to warm up and dry off!