My Sweet Baby is TWO Today!!!

Our precious baby has gone it two VERY short years from this...
and this tiny...

To a big girl:

The last two years has probably been been the hardest, and the most rewarding years of my life! What a blessing it is to be this baby girl's mommy! Kris and I couldn't be prouder to be her parents, and discuss how blessed we are practically daily! I love this little girl so much more than I ever thought I could ever love another person, and I feel SO incredibly blessed to get to stay home with her!

We are so grateful God chose us to take care of her for a while, and to get to know her so well! She is very loving, giving lots of hugs and kisses, frequently just out of the blue. She certainly has an opinion about everything, and you seldom have to struggle to figure out what that is! :) She loves to dance! She will often come into the bathroom with me where I have a small jam box and push the ON button, announcing, "I wanna dance!" We have many hours of fun dancing together! :) She loves to play with her baby dolls, pushing them in the stroller, rocking them, or feeding them. And don't try to put her to bed at night without her bear lovey and at least one of her babies! :) She is really a little ham and laughs hysterically when you laugh at HER...she loves to be the center of attention! She loves animals, giving hugs and kisses to Mocha almost as often as us! :)

I am already missing the baby years, but know that each age will bring exciting new things too! I do love how much she talks, and watching her learn new words and putting together sentences. One of my favorites is when she calls me "silly mommy." Her little voice is so cute! And watching her learn her shapes and colors, and identifying people in pictures by name is really cool too!

What a wonderful job mommyhood is...I love my job! I look forward to many more years and precious birthdays with my sweet little blessing!!!

"Four Times the Photo Fun!"

My friend Micah tagged me for the Four Times the Photo Fun, and I finally have a little time to follow through. :) So, here are the rules...
1. Go to the 4th folder where you keep your pictures on your computer.
2. Post the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the photo.
4. Link to the person who sent you the Tag and then Tag 4 friends to share the fun!

Here is the 4th in the 4th file picture in my "my pictures" file. I think Emmalyn was just at 4 months old, and learning to grasp this little butterfly, and if I remember correctly, just beginning to give us lots of cute smiles! I do LOVE this picture! :) :) :)
btw....Where has the time gone, and how can I possibly be celebrating this little baby's 2nd Birthday tomorrow?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Oh....and I TAG:
Kristy at JeffandKristy.com
Jessica at Surrender
Jeanifer at The Bartlett Family and
Michael ...if she has time. :)

Four Fabulous Years

Yesterday, Kris and I celebrated 4 wonderful years of marriage! I know some of you have been married much longer, but we feel like we have been together forever! :) I knew I would love being married, but it has truly been better than anything I could have imagined! We have learned characteristics of God through each other, and truly learned what it means to become "one flesh"....what a blessing God has given us!!! We are so much alike, it is scary! But the areas in which we differ compliment each other so well, we tend to balance out very well. He keeps me sane when I get a little strung out, and I keep us organized. (He says he loves organization, he just doesn't want to "do it." :) We even share the "Love Languages" that you hear about from Dr. Chapman! :) Happy Anniversary, Kris...I love you so very much!!!!!!! Thank you for loving me, when I am so often unlovable!


Here are a few pictures from our fabulous wedding in the cold January day of 2005:


The Very Happy Couple:

Our Awesome Wedding Party:
Our Magical Wedding Site: We had a lovely date last night, eating at Carabba's Italian Grill (YUM!), and then browsing a few stores in town. (What else is there to do on a date night when you live in such a small area w/ virtually no night life?! :) And these are the beautiful flowers my darling hubby brought me!

Sharing Some Pictures...Finally

I said I would be sharing more pictures in 2009, but I sort of have a love-hate relationship with the way my new camera saves and stores my photos. I can't seem to find them easily, and I haven't learned how to edit and transfer them very well yet. The new program tends to shut down when I do much. And then blogger made me mad last week shutting me down... but today, we have success!!! :) :)

I have been really wanting to get rid of the pacifier recently, but she seems to know that and is for some reason more attached to it than ever! She seems to want it all day every day! ugh! I don't know if I want to get rid of it right now. On the one hand, we could tell her that they are for babies and only let the new baby have one...but then I don't want her to resent her new brother for taking her nunu's either! Oh...what to do?! Any ideas, experienced mommas? Well, I walked in to get her from her nap the other day, and apparently she found an extra one hiding in her crib and thought THIS would be funny! It was! silly baby...

And here are a few of Emmalyn and her friend, Mark when he came over with his mommy, my friend, Amy a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time! :)

A friendly duet:
Loving having a playmate in the bounce house with her!

January 15th: Memory Verse TWO

WOW! It is not easy to find that perfect verse, when the Bible is full of so many that need to be written on my heart! After looking through a number of them, one kept jumping out at me. It is a verse that I considered my life verse back in college when I was saved and on fire! for Christ, and had memorized. Well, it has slipped from my memory, but remains a favorite. I think I should commit it to memory again and keep it this time! I also think it is a verse FULL of ideas on which to really meditate and try to fully consume. I want it to mean more to me than just the words on the page.

It is Philippians 3:8. (I will add verse 9 later when I have sharpened my memorization skills.)
"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my LORD, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ."

I mean, really...Do I consider everything a loss compared to knowing Christ? That means my life, my family, my friends...all that is near and dear to my heart. Would I really consider them rubbish....trash....compared to my relationship with Christ? It is hard to imagine that, to really understand what HE has done for me.....and fully appreciate it! But I think that is what He calls us to do.(Mark 12:30) He tells us to love HIM above all others. We are to love our Lord more than we love even our spouse or our children! It is easy for me to say I do, but another thing entirely to feel, let alone put into practice. But this is where I have to let faith take over where my feelings...which are so humanly dependant on tangible things or people..leave off. My prayer for the next 2 weeks as I begin to meditate on and memorize this verse is that I truly put God first in my life. At least as much as my feeble, sinful human mind is capable of doing.

And of course, I will still be reciting Matthew 6:33 to keep it fresh in my mind. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Off to put Phil 3:8 on a sticky note on my mirror... :)

Good Grief!

Well, the original title to this post was supposed to be "Sharing Some Pictures." Notice there are no pictures! I typed up how I was frustrated with my camera and how it saves pics to my computer, but that I have figured it out a bit today...

But then Blogger won't publish them, saying there are some sort of "internal errors"!!! I tried THREE times!! I give up! Maybe in the next few days I will figure all of this out, but for now.... I think I shall go take a nap!!!!!!!!!

Show and Tell (Year Two)

I just want to show off my niece's incredible knitting talent! You might remember when I showed you last year the sweater she made for Emmalyn...HERE. Well, this year...my niece (who is almost 17) made another beautiful sweater that I could/would have bought at BabyGap! Isn't it precious? Emmalyn was so cute...she ooohed and awed as I was putting it on her and kept rubbing the sleeves saying "soft! soft!" Here is the view from the back...it even has a cute little hood. :)
And wow...isn't it amazing how much she has changed in just one year?! I think I am in denial that my baby is about to be TWO!

I have more (random) pictures I would like to share, but I think I will save them for another post....

Update on Pennie's precious baby

Thank you for praying, friends! It seems that poor little Emma got a UTI back in early December (that we already knew...), and the antibiotic that she took seems to have killed off all the good bacteria in her little body. So, she has caught every little thing, from stomach bugs to sinus infections. They still don't know why she has had diarrhea for 7 weeks, but they seem to think the fever is just her immune system trying to catch up. They are still waiting on a few tests, but she is home from the hospital and seems to be feeling a little better for the first time in weeks! Praise the LORD! There are still a few unanswered questions, but at least they seem to be moving forward, and she feels a little better! :)

Calling Prayer Warriors...

I told you all HERE about when one of my best friends, Pennie, had her baby last April. Well, she is now 8½ months old, and has been very sick for quite some time. Ever since she was weeks old, she has not slept well, and been taken off most proteins (including breast milk and put on special formula). Well they have had procedures and tests over and over, and can't figure out what the problem is.

The most recent problem is that she has had diarrhea and fever almost daily for 7 weeks! Again, they have done blood tests, cultures, x-rays, and gone to a number of specialists... and still no answers! Poor Pennie is beside herself and admitted her to the hospital yesterday.Please pray for healing for baby Emma, and answers to the physicians taking care of her! I am worried! I don't know many details b/c Pennie has not wanted to spend much time on the phone explaining everything...so I feel like I am in the dark over here, a 4 hour drive from her.

Here is the picture of her last month when we got to see her around Christmas time. :)