Last Family Photo Shoot Before Haley Arrives!

It is so hard to believe that there is just one more day left until Haley Elizabeth will join the Gray household! We are so excited to FINALLY meet her:) Of course, I am nervous about having two little ones that are so young, but I am hoping that in time we will figure out how things are supposed to go. But for now I am just enjoying these last few days of kicks and squirms inside my tummy before Haley comes out to put her mark on the world! Pregnancy is such an amazing journey to be on and I am so happy that my Father in Heaven has allowed me this opportunity twice in this lifetime already! I love my girls so much and can hardly wait until they are both here together!!

Tonight is our last night at home before Haley arrives. Tomorrow night we are going to spend the night with Mommers and Dooders since we have to be at the hospital at 6AM on Tuesday morning! And since it was our last night at home, we had to have a little photo shoot! And lucky for us, we invited Mommers and Dooders over for dinner and so they were here to help with some of our photos!

Emily looking adorable in her new little pants suit!

Here I am at 38 Weeks and 6 Days pregnant with Haley!

This Mommy can't pass up an opportunity to take a picture with her little Sweet "P"!

Of course, we can't forget about the love of my life either! I love my Micah Cordon!

Precious Family Photo moment! Emily loves to kiss Haley (in Mommy's tummy) and we were excited to finally be able to capture it on the camera!

Our Latest Family Photo!

A little bit later tonight, Emily was excited to help Daddy to a few things on his laptop. As you can see, she takes her computer time VERY SERIOUSLY!

A Picture of the House

After so many requests, we decided to scan a sketch of the Lexington so you could see approximately what it will look like. The colors will probably be different, but that's about what it will look like from the front

The upstairs will have three bedrooms, two full baths, and a laundry room. The master bedroom will have a walk-out porch, a walk-in closet, and its very own bathroom, which we are very excited about. The main level will have a small foyer, a living room/dining room area with double sided gas fireplace in the middle, and a spacious kitchen that includes a breakfast area that walks out to a deck in the back. We're also getting a free basement, which is the main reason we rushed to get into a contract. We're paying to get half of the basement finished with a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchenette that we will rent out. We are excited to watch it being built, but we're even more excited about having enough space to have company over for barbeques and special occasions - something that our current home makes difficult. -Micah

An EXCITING Saturday for our Family!

Today, being the last Saturday before Haley's arrival, was already set up to be a busy one....running last minute errands, getting a pedicure for me (an absolute necessity!), grocery shopping, a car wash, taking dinner to a friend, going to a wedding reception....but it started with a very exciting event! We signed a contract on our new home!! We are SO EXCITED!

Our new home will be built in a neighborhood called Belvedere, which is in Charlottesville! So that is exciting that we will be closer to town again:) The style of our home is called a "Lexington." We don't have a picture yet because our lot is just an empty lot with a dumpster sitting in the front of it - not too exciting - and there aren't any Lexington's built yet in Charlottesville. So the picture below is of me (and Haley) in front of a different home on the street where our house will be built. But trust me there WILL be pictures to come:) The dumpster will be gone soon, and the pictures will start rolling!

One of the things that attracted us to Belvedere is that all of the homes built there will be Earthcraft certified. That means they will be more energy efficient and use more earth-friendly materials and methods of construction. We're also excited about the sidewalks, trails, and parks in Belvedere. There are already lots of families with children, and there is a great feeling of community there. Here is the Belvedere website: http://www.belvedereneighborhood.com/

Our Second Baby Shower to Celebrate Haley's Upcoming Arrival!

This past Saturday, February 27, 2010, my mom got together another baby shower to honor our sweet little Haley Elizabeth. We had it at my Mema's house. Mema was very excited to be able to be the host of such a special occasion too! And it was nice to have a few more guys join us for this shower too....in addition to Micah we also had Dooders, my uncle Mike and my cousin Brody! It was a very fun afternoon spent together!

My mom is a great party planner for events like this! She made sure the food was delicious, the decorations were so cute, and the games were tons of fun! And of course she couldn't have done it all without the help of several of my aunts and my cousin, Terri, who we are so excited is around for Haley's arrival! She is back home from living in North Carolina and it has been fun having her back! My cousin, Brody, is also back from living in Hawaii for a year and a half although he is moving to Pennsylvania in the next week or so to go to school for a year and a half. At least he will only be a couple hours, driving distance, away so that he can come and visit!!

This shower was another Diaper, Wipes and Ointment shower. So we are pretty much set on all of those types of things now! The trick was bringing everything home and trying to find a place for it, but with a few days to think about where to put things we are finally getting organized again, which is nice!

Again we just feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who love and support us, especially during this exciting time in our lives! We are very excited to meet our newest little girl and can hardly believe that she will be here ONE WEEK FROM TOMORROW!! Time sure does fly! But we love our little Sweet "P" so much and are excited to have another daughter to smother with love and hugs and kisses too!

Here are a few pictures from Saturday's shower...

The Front of the Living Room

Emily with her Great Aunt, Tede, as she is stylin' in her new hat, with her puppy dog!

Emily spending a little time with her Mema!

Okay, so like I said before the games were really fun! But I think Charades was my favorite one! Because I got to be the judge of who was the best actor and I didn't have to act out ANYTHING! But Micah wasn't so lucky!! Here he is giving the game is all!! I love him so much!

More Charades.....Samantha (Brody's Girlfriend) trying her best in front of Brody's family! What a trooper she was!

Charades was definitely made for people like my Aunt Debra!! She LOVES stuff like this!

I LOVE this picture!! Brody is so serious before he begins his turn!!

Then it was time to open the gifts. In addition to cash and diapers and wipes, Mema made Haley this adorable pink blanket and got her this cute pink pajama set too! Miss Haley is going to be stylin' when she arrives!

Now for a few group shots to end the afternoon with! Here is Emily posing with my Aunt Sweetie and Aunt Debra....but as you can tell Emily is DONE with Pictures!

Bummer that Emily got a little chopped out of this one, but it is a 4 generation shot! Me with my 2 girls, My Mom and Mema!!

Emily also got this adorable little hat and the shower and enjoyed wearing it around and hearing people tell her how cute she looked! I love this pose, you can tell she is very intent on trying to tell someone something very important!

Still going at it with these group shots....here's Emily with her Great Aunt Sweetie and her Great Uncle Mike!

Emily was good as long as her new bear was close by! So here she is with some of her second cousins....Brody, Samantha and Terri!!

And of course, we can't let a fun event like this go by without getting a picture of Emily with Mommers and Dooders!

And last, but certainly not least, our family photo! I feel so fortunate to be able to spend my days and nights with my wonderful family! I waited a long time for my Micah Cordon, but I am so glad I did! Because here we are today and I am loving being a wife and a Mommy!

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!