1st Snow of 2011..

On Sunday, January 9, as we sat in Sunday School at Calvary Baptist Church in Warren when it started sleeting. We have our class in a room off from the gym so we could hear it hitting the tin roof. It started around 10:30 am and by 11:15, one of the church members, Amy, came into the  nursery asking me if I wanted to come look outside at the parking lot. It was my Sunday in the nursery so I was reluctant to leave early. However, the snow was getting so deep that the pavement wasn't visible after tracks had been made on the parking lot! I slipped in the sanctuary and told Marshall to meet me in the nursery. After I showed him the parking lot, we decided that the bridges were probably getting bad so we needed to go ahead and head home. We stopped by the grocery store for momma and then headed north. We drove 30 to 35 mph all the way home! It took us almost an 1 hour and half for a 15 minute drive! But all that mattered was that we were hope safe and sound.

We met Kaylee's mom to drop her off around 3:30 and then when we got home we played out in the snow with Nana and Uncle Taylor. Annslee liked it but Addison wanted nothing to do with it. After it stopped snowing Monday, we went out in the snow again and Addison LOVED it. I guess she didn't like it snowing and playing in it at the same time! Haha! We got about three inches! That is the most I have seen, in snow, in a LONG while! We definitely had fun playing in it, but Marshall didn't get to work all that week so we were glad to see it melt! :-) Nana came over that Monday and we all played in the snow and took some pictures out in the snow too! Below are some pictures of the girls playing in the snow! (You guessed...it's quite a few!)

I can't remember if this is our road...or momma's road. I think ours! 

Momma's house

Our house

25th Birthday! And a New Year!

I celebrated my 25th birthday on December 30th. For weeks before my actual birthday, I teased Marshall that I was expecting a surprise birthday party! Ha! I had thrown him one in 2009 and then momma one in October 2010...and then mom and I had planned one for mamaw in November 2010. The Monday before my birthday, which was on a Thursday, Marshall told me to invite who I wanted to come and let him know what I wanted to have to eat. We had steaks, baked potato and a cake made by momma. My in-laws were there and mamaw and papaw, Taylor, Stevie, and us. Rexy, Mikey's fiancee, said that the cake mom made was called "better than sex." Ha! It was a good cake..not sure I agree with the title though! Haha! We had a great time visiting with each other and dinner was delicious! :-) The next night my step-mom and dad watched Addison and Nana, my mom, watched Annslee while Marshall took me out to dinner at Red Lobster. We decided that from now on this would be our New Year's Eve tradition since we don't eat there very often because of Annslee's allergies. It was DELICIOUS!! We also bought a new fan for our living room since our old one was shorting out! Marshall put it up when we got home that night.

On New Year's day, we got up around 10 am, got ready, and headed out to Daddy and Dana's to hang out and celebrate the New Year. (Plus we had to pick up Addison.) We stayed most of the day there, at lunch, and headed home early evening! The girls got to play with some other kids their age, one even had a peanut allergy like Annslee! When we got home that night Nana came over and helped hang some pictures for Marshall and myself and cleaned out the bottom of Kaylee's closet for me...it was full of paint from when we moved in and painted the house!

All in all it was a great start to a new year! :-)

This year I plan to be even more involved in church. We attend every Sunday morning and night, Wednesday nights and take the FBI class on Monday nights, so that's not what I mean. I mean getting more involved. Teaching children's church on a regular basis, helping out in the nursery, and other such events that I feel called to be apart of during this year. I am already apart of the AWANA program on Wednesday nights and I teach during book time. I enjoy it immensely!

Addison..

I realized that I talked a lot about how Annslee has grown in her three years on this earth but not much about Addison! Addison was a surprise to us as well, I actually went to the doctor to get checked out for a pulmonary embolism since Annslee was only 7 or so months old at the time. The doctor ran labs to check and he told me that it would be awhile that I could go home and wait for the results. I remember laying in the bed resting when the phone rang from the doctor office. The nurse told me that my D-dimer was extremely high and that I need to go to the hospital to have a leg ultrasound done to check for clots. I immediately called Heather to tell her what was going on because I had left clinicals earlier that day. We were in nursing school together! She said that she was in town with her mom and she would wait for me at the hospital. After the leg ultrasounds, the technician called the doctor to let him know the results. All was clear. He asked to speak to me and I can still hear him today in my head, "You scans look great. Baby, you are pregnant." I was ...in shock..."I am," I muttered. "You are...you need to schedule an appointment with your OB as soon as you can." "I will," I told him. I turned to the technician...I remember her asking me if I was okay. I told her I was...I was just expecting a diagnosis of a pulmonary embolism and instead had been told I was pregnant. I immediately went and found Heather and asked her to ride home with me. Either she saw the shock on my face or a ghost, because she didn't hesitate. I remember her asking if I was okay, once were were in the car I told her the news. Driving down the road, I called Marshall and put him on speaker and told him that we were expecting a new bundle of joy. His response was, "I kinda figured you might be." Um...WHY didn't he tell me his suspicions...to this day..I still don't know.

I was really in disbelief that I was pregnant again. I didn't have any of the symptoms that I had experienced with Annslee, at ALL. I couldn't hold ANYTHING down with Annslee...until about 8 or so months! It was a breeze of a pregnancy..I'm sure the next one won't be that easy! Looking back, it was a breeze of a pregnancy, but she is FAR from easy to care for! LOL. She had acid reflux for the first 9 or 10 months of her life. We had to thicken her formula and changed formula more often than we had to change her diaper!  (Or so it seemed.) She was a fussy baby...I blame that on her tummy issues!

The older she has got the easier it has been to care for her. We got her checked for allergies in Dec 2010 and she was clear of any allergies but they did start on her a maintenance inhaler for suspected asthma. It has helped her night time cough immensely!

She has a personality bigger than she is! She love to agitate her sister but goes crazy when she's the only child here! She loves her papaw and daddy very much...well she love everybody but those two are her favorite people. She LOVES to be outside...helping daddy with his trucks and just swinging! Her favorite food now is a "dot dog" or hot dog. She sleeps with the same blankey that Annslee does and hasn't had a bottle since right after her 1st birthday. Her favorite cartoon is "wow wow wubbzy" but Minnie Mouse is her favorite character! She isn't a fan of cake but LOVES gummy snacks! She eats...and eats...and eats...she's a endless pit! They are definitely opposites on many things but they love to dress a like! She talks more than Annslee did at this age (20 months) but she doesn't suck a pacifier either. She knows what she wants and she will let you know. A few words she says are, "Gracie," "Mine," "Sissy," "daddy," "papaw," "nana," "pee-pee," "poo-poo," "dot dog," "drink," "tea," "phone," "pete pete," "No," "stop that," "wow wow," "church," "God," "snow," "play," "want," "bye bye," "coke coke," and many many more! She even puts them into short fragment-y sentences.

She's also taken a interest, early on, to take off her diaper (wet, dry, dirty), and her clothes! She doesn't like shoes or socks and usually takes them off as SOON as we get her buckled in her car seat. She also doesn't like her hair up..even though when it's down it hangs in her eyes! I try to keep it and she does wear bows to church...even if I have to put them in again right before she gets out of the car! She is going to be my cleaner..she loves to put things back where they go. She puts her shoes on the shoe rack when she takes them off...clothes in the clothes basket and diapers in the trash. She is my little helper! :-)

She also does the cutest little thing...she pats you. She will give you a hug and then pat your back. She loves to give kisses but she can be a little rough! She bites and bangs her head on the floor when she gets mad!

I've been blessed with two AMAZING children. I pray that God gives them each other for the rest of the life and that they always cherish the relationship that they have and that they continue to stay close throughout the years. I know they will fight, they already do, but I pray that at the end of the day they still know that they have one another.

Just born. Already showing off that temper! 

Just a few weeks old. 

1 month 2 days old. 

1 year old. At her birthday party 

19 months old. 

Christmas Day.

Tomorrow is January 25 so I figured I better go ahead and post our Christmas day events before it was a month plus past Christmas!

On Christmas day, for now, Marshall and I get up and get diaper bags packed and get clothes laid out for the girls and work on getting us ready and then we wake up the girls. This year I think Addison woke up on her own, but we didn't let her tear into any of her gifts before we woke Annslee up. After I got out of the shower, Nana had made it down here. She takes pictures for us so that we can enjoy Christmas morning with the girls without having to worry about missing out on pictures. We woke Annslee up around 8:00 am because we had to be at Ma's house by 11. The main gifts that the girls got where a doll house and Sketcher's light up shoes and clothes! They also got a baby stroller and a baby a piece! Below are pictures from that morning at home. (Prepare yourself..there's a lot of pictures)

First look at Santa gifts! 

Stocking stuffers. 

This year she liked to pose with all her gifts. She would hold it up and say, "cheese." LOL 

She saw Addison doing this...monkey see..monkey do! 

A monkey bow! Thank you Santa! 

Picking up the paper! 

"What you go there, sissy?"

"What is it?"

Christmas aftermath!

Favorite gift..out of ALL of the gifts! 

Christmas Eve...after santa came! 

After opening all the gifts! 

After opening all the gifts and putting together a doll house, we all got dressed and headed to Ma's house in Warren. We ate steaks and baked potatoes there, open gifts and visited for several hours. Below are pictures from Ma's house. (Don't worry..it's not as many)

Ma's tree. 

Eating ice cream

Took this picture with my iPhone when Addison was lounging in my lap

She played with this van all through opening gifts at Ma's. She didn't open on single gift here. Thing is..the van..was Annslee's!! :-) 

Around 4 o'clock that afternoon, we left Ma's and headed to daddy's house. We hung out for awhile before we opened gifts. Kaylee was dropped off around 4:30. We opened gifts, ate deer steak for supper and then watched the girls play on the Wii!  (More pictures below...again..not as many)

After we left daddy's at close to 8:30 that night, we stopped by Marshall's moms and opened gifts...then we packed everything in the car and headed home! Kaylee, Annslee and Marshall all had to hold a box on the way home..I drove :-)