1st baby food!

I waited a little late to start her on solids.  Since I waited, there was the opportunity to have my sister here to witness this "first." She lives in Williamsburg, so she doesn't get to see the big milestones in person (only on our blog). I thought it would be cool, if she fed her her first foods. It was fun!  And she was great about the Mom & Dad paparazzi going on.

6 months. bring it on.

Here's her baby stats:

15 lbs 4 oz (25-50 percentile) & 27.5 inches (95 percentile...some Daddy genes, I think)

memories from Christmas morning

Here are a few of my memories from our Christmas as a family...

Starting our morning reflecting on the nativity & why we celebrate Christmas

Here is my gift from our oldest girl. I opened up a nicely packaged gift bag and found rocks, $1, and her favorite seashells. She gave me her "treasures." I love them! I know what her heart meant by giving me these things. They are important to her & so I will treasure them too. Sweet memory!

One of her favorite gifts, a sparkle purse. Adam and I have such a funny story about this gift, but no one ever finds it funny when we tell it. It will just be for us, I guess.

The sweet baby did not need a single thing. So, she got a sweet wooden rattle. It was in instant hit!

What I'll remember our Christmas morning looking like...

Adam surprised me with some clothes money & a blurb.com gift credit (so I can make my annual family yearbook out of last year's blog posts). I'll be enjoying my gifts for a little while, mainly because I can't find time to shop & blog book design! But I'm so grateful!

christmas eve service

1.  the candlelight service is so pretty  2. lots of red jammies  3. my beautiful sis & baby 4. my sis holding the baby again!

I love our tradition of Christmas carols and candles at church on Christmas eve.  We went to the late service with the girls in their pj's.  Our sweet neighbors next door came and had a good time.  And all of our family together took up almost 2 rows.  I love that we were all together at a worship service.  Our oldest tattled on my sis, Rachel, when she had access to the mike that night.  Our pastor's wife, Kathy, asked all the kids (when they went up on stage) if any of them had been peeking at their presents.  Our girl leaped to the mike and said, "My aunt, Rachel, has."  We all got a good laugh out of that.  Poor Rache, she wasn't actually peeking at her presents earlier that day, but she will always have her reputation tarnished.

Papa's Birthday

We had a large family gathering to celebrate my Papa's birthday.  We all love him so much!  Papa and I love pictures and collecting family stories.  I enjoyed seeing his new book he made recently with all of the genealogy work he has been doing.  He is very computer savvy!  He got a new DVD player for his bday, so Rachel and I got him the John Adams miniseries on DVD.  If you haven't seen it yet, it is a must see (minus 3 scenes that we fast-forwarded...just had to throw that in).

love you, Papa!!

oh, all the ladies made appetizers.  It was brilliant!  And very yummy.  Banana pudding is Papa's favorite, so we enjoyed that as well.

family portraits & christmas card

I had fun making our card this year on the computer.  I did a 4X6 layout...because printing is cheapy, cheap.  I just love cards!  And I just love getting mail.

Here are a bunch of Rachel's pictures from November.  I couldn't post them before the card went out...that was hard!  They were taken on Main Street in Round Rock and Kawaii's sno-cone place.

it has already been an eventful day! updated.

My best friend, Mary, had her baby girl last Friday.  She is a doll!  Now we both have 3 girls each and can be totally terrified of the teen years together...6 girls!  We will have many, many stories to share with each other.

Here we are...

I'm sporting lovely bedhead (and trying to hide it) in this picture at 5:45am.  I've been waiting for you to post your pictures online, Mary.  What are you busy with a NB and 3 other children or something?? But I can't wait any longer.  I have to show the fam, who have heard to so much about her.

From Friday...

This is just a teaser.  Look what I got to wake up and see?!  More to come soon...

cookie baking with babies & cookie cutters that don't work

For Kathy & Barie...I can't help but look at these pictures and laugh.  I take all credit for what a funny, crazy baking endeavor this proved to be.  Kathy was so sweet to invite us over to her new, beautiful home the week before Christmas.  She thought it would be fun to do something crafty together.  So my brilliant idea was..."We can bake Christmas cookies with my new 3D cookie cutters!"  Now looking back, this would have been a fantastic idea if...

...3D cookie cutters actually worked & the cookies could stand up in their little stands

...we had picked the right time & temp on the oven to cook the cookies

...we weren't needing to nurse & care for little infants

...and if I didn't have "mommy" brain and put the wrong ingredients in the frosting to make it sour and yucky

Doesn't this sound like it was fun?  It was!  I love getting together and NOT being superwomen!  The time that I have with these 2 ladies is priceless to me.  I always leave encouraged and strengthened in my faith.  I thank God for their friendship constantly.  Only thing is - I'm putting myself on creative-project-idea-probation...for a little while.

baby's first christmas

This year is peaceful with a baby.

this just made my day...

Here we are at the Christmas party for dance class. I just had to share this (very accurate representation of my kid) silly video. The teacher lets them play this game at the end of class...called "freeze dance." My girl is not hard to find...she's wearing the gray skirt...and she's the crazy one.

5 month update

I'm too brain-dead to think of her latest milestones. I thought I'd cheat with 2 videos.

christmas break started today!

Here we are at the end-of-semester party.  The moms helped throw together a birthday party for Jesus for the kids.  I was the last mom to sign up for what to bring...so, I got the birthday cake!  Surprise, surprise.  I didn't realize at that particular moment that there was a specific recipe I needed to make.  But here's the deal...it ended up being a real blessing for me.  I loved the presentation that Ms. Carlson did for the kiddos using the cake, my labor of love.  I think I may even make it again.  So, here's the recipe - Grandmother's Birthday Cake for Jesus.  

And here's how it is presented:

The shape of the cake is round to represent the world into which Jesus was born. The bottom layer of the cake is black to signify that we all are sinners, which is why Jesus came to earth. The red layer symbolizes Jesus' blood that was shed on the cross for our sins. And the green layer denotes the new life we have in Christ after our sins have been washed away. The pure white frosting stands for the righteousness and purity of Jesus Christ, and the border of red hearts represents brothers and sisters united in Christ and circling the earth as his witnesses. On the top of the cake is the gold star, the Star of David. The star shone bright heralding Jesus' birth and lighting the way to the manger. The red candle is Jesus who came into the dark world to bring truth and light to all who are willing to receive it.Each person holds a green candle and lights it from the red candle and says, "We are the light of the world to shine for Jesus." Place the candle on the cake (be sure to assist small children). When everyone has had a turn, finish by singing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

why blog?

I've been thinking about this blog a lot lately. Why have I come to love it? I came up with a few reasons and I wonder if you can identify. Don't ask me why I am writing this...maybe it will encourage other young moms to blog?  I don't know.

• Journaling has always been good for me.  I look back on times that I faithfully journaled, and I can remember more vividly what was happening in my life and what I was learning.  
• I really like taking pictures and it is even more fun when I can share them.  I won't lie, it feels really good when a friend tells me that a picture of my kiddo made her laugh or one of the grandmothers was touched.  You know how it is.
• Sometimes it helps to "keep in touch."  Life is consistently busier than I would prefer.  It feels good to reach out and stay connected.  I have the secret hope that it encourages my friends to do it too.  Because I love seeing pictures of my friends kids!  If I could see my loved ones everyday, this desire wouldn't be as strong.  But I still want to be connected.
• Similar to the point above - I really want other people to share too.  What else would I do when procrastinating from the other things I should be doing?  It's fun.  

My basic point is that a year and a half ago I was really intimidated by sharing about my life over the Internet.  For some reason, it didn't seem authentic enough to me.  Since then I have really benefited from sharing about our family.  I don't really think I have much to say that will benefit other people, most of the time.  But I'm trying to grow out of that.  If for no other reason, it will help me.  Don't get me wrong, I am aware that I am not all that vulnerable on this blog.  I'd like to become more that way, but I struggle with how it is perceived.  It has been my experience, that if I share something pretty raw it creates worry that I am not "doing good," when I was trying to be honest and real.  On some of my worst days is when I'll want to post a sweet picture or an uplifting thought because it ministers to me.  (Keep that in mind, if you look at this site and think I have it together...it is easy to come across that way over the Internet.  And that is one of my biggest pet-peeves.)  I could be a lot more brave in what I record on this blog.  We'll see what happens there.  By the way, if you read all of this I am sure you are among the few.  I'm pretty sure people just look at the pictures, but no judgement there...I often do the same.      

my new, amazing family member!

My cousin, Brittany, had her sweet baby boy today (all his info here). I rushed to meet my new second-cousin or 1st cousin-once-removed...or whatever! He's my new family member and when I saw him I instantly loved him like he's my nephew. It has been such an amazing time for Adam and I, seeing several couples very close to us become first-time parents.

His red-hair is awesome.  And what an incredibly handsome boy! Photos taken by Patrick (one great, new daddy).