Mother's Day & Jonathan's Birthday

We celebrated Jonathan's 37th birthday on the Saturday before Mother's Day. His birthday is usually on or very near to Mother's Day so he has to share his celebration. This year he asked if our mom's would come to us for Mother's Day so he could be home for his birthday; they agreed. Mom came earlier in the weekend and his parents on Saturday night. We had a relaxed visit with everyone and mostly just stayed around the house playing with the girls. We are so thankful for both of our mother's! I'm blessed to have a mother who would do anything for me as well as a mother in law who treats me as if I'm one of her own. We love you both!! (Didn't get a good picture with my mom so I'll have to post one in the near future).

Dad's birthday

We celebrated my dad's 60th birthday with him on April 10th. It's hard to believe that my parent's are entering their 60's and Jonathan and I are getting closer to 40--my how time flies! We spent the afternoon at my Dad & Marty's house and then out to dinner. My dad is banker by day and a Harley rider by weekend. He wears a suit and tie all week long so when the weekend rolls around he is all Harley gear! It's been fun to see him so into his bike and have something outside of work that he enjoys but I do worry about his safety. We don't see enough of each other but I'm thankful for the short visits we get! Anna especially loves to go visit and eat goldfish with grandpa because he'll give her as many as she wants :) Love you dad!! The girls and I with my dad.

Dad & Marty.

Kevin, Abby & Tyler

Jonny & Anna

Easter (and before)

We've been celebrating Easter at our house for a couple of weeks! Anna's preschool had a picnic and egg hunt to start us out. It was cold! We all had long sleeves and coats on but still had a fun time. A family from Anna's school had everyone come to their farm for the morning. The kids hunted for eggs, rode their bikes, could take horse rides (Anna didn't want to do this), sat on the tractor and then had a picnic lunch.

Last weekend we had an egg hunt at the Isaac's house. Anna really got into finding the eggs that day and it was fun to watch them run all over the yard looking for them. We dyed eggs at our house with these same friends this past Friday. Anna had blue dye all the way up her hands :)

For Easter weekend Jonathan's parents came to stay with us. We had fun playing and relaxing on Saturday. On Sunday we all enjoyed church together, lunch and more playing.

We also had an unplanned event thrown in the mix last week. On Anna's first trip to the dentist (just a routine appt) we found out that she had an abscessed tooth. She had to have it pulled. You will notice in the bottom pictures of Easter morning that she is minus one front tooth. We were very concerned but she did better with it than we expected and looks really cute!! She is very proud actually and talks about her big girl tooth coming in quite frequently (she doesn't understand that it will be a LONG time before she actually gets that big girl tooth)!

God is so good to our sweet family. Easter is only celebrated one day each year--what a shame-- Jesus gave his life for us and three days later rose from the dead. HE LIVES! HE LIVES! HE LIVES! This is reason to celebrate EVERY day!!

Jonathan and Anna on the tractor on the day of her preschool egg hunt.

Anna just after the preschool egg hunt, showing off the eggs she collected. She could have had an overflowing basket but after a few minutes she looked at me and said she was finished :)

Anna with her friends Jesse & Kendall after the egg hunt at their house.

Can you tell she is enjoying herself?!

Proud egg hunter!

Easter morning--my happy, sweet Emma!!

Anna was so cute looking at all of her Easter goodies! Look closely and you can see her missing tooth :)

Loving my Emma!

Family shot--impossible to get everyone looking in the same direction!

Papaw & Mamaw with the girls. Their second set of granddaughters. Our neices are already 14 & 12 years old--wow!

The Latest with Emma...

Our sweet Emma is 8 months old! The time is just flying by with her but I'm trying to soak up as many of those sweet baby kisses as I can. She is such an easy going little thing and happy most all of the time. She loves to squeal and is making more sounds. She started with dada and now will even say mama sometimes. I don't know that she associates it with me yet though but I like to think so anyway :) . She's not crawling or walking yet but she loves to stand up (as you'll see in the bottom pictures). If we are playing on the floor and she's near one of us she grabs on and tries to pull up. She'd much rather stand than sit. She will roll some if she's on her stomach and looks like she's about ready to crawl when she's on her belly but mostly ends up sliding backward (which frustrates her). I'm posting a few pictures from today. She road in the wagon for the first time and the others are of her playing inside. I did include one with Anna in it. She's doing great as well and growing up way too fast. She wrote a letter A all by herself the other day and I was so shocked. I'll have to start recording some of the things she says and do a blog just on her. She has some pretty good "one liners" and keeps us laughing around here! Emma's first wagon ride! Not a very long one though...it was pretty windy and chilly outside today :)
Our future basketball star (daddy hopes) with little sister.

One of her favorite toys to play with these days. It was Anna's and is getting great use for the second time around. Anything she can stand and play with is a hit!

I thought this was funny. Another new thing Emma likes to do is to stand at the toy chest and play. I think she likes the standing part better than any of the toys. Here she is picking something out to play with.

Looks like she's waving :)

Snow 2010

We finally got snow!! Anna has been waiting all winter for it! Jonathan and I laughed that we had to move south to get it. We lived in SC for 3 years and then in Rome, GA for 4 and didn't have anything like this...just kind of funny that we got so much in south GA. The girls and I went out as soon as it started to catch some snowflakes (in our hands and mouths)! After nap time Jonathan, Anna & I went out to play and made a snowman. We came in for a break when Emma woke up from her nap and then went out again with her. This was both of the girls first real snow experience. Anna has seen flakes but not had enough to ever play. Lots of fun--hope we get some again next year!!! The girls when the snow was just beginning to fall (you can't really see it in the picture). Anna & I had to get out and taste the snow as it was coming down!

Emma under the jogging stroller cover. We let her get out in the snow some with us but during the snowball fight I put her in here to stay a little warmer!

Jonny helping Anna make a snow angel. She got the arms but wasn't so good with her legs :)

Anna's snow angel.

Jonathan's snow angel.

Anna was so thrilled that we were able to make a snowman! He looks kind of silly but it was fun!

Jonathan and the girls.

Me with the girls.

Anna and I during the making of our snowman.

Jonathan and Anna getting ready for a snowball fight.

October 2009

The last few months have gone by so fast! Having two little girls is so much fun but the days are non-stop!! Basketball practice started officially on October 15th so Jonathan's schedule has gotten more hectic recently. We are adjusting to our new home and being back in Columbus. Anna LOVES her preschool and goes two mornings a week. It gives me a little extra time with Emma and time to work on my online classes (also a chance to go jogging with only the single stroller two days a week). Anna is really into playing pretend these days. It's quite entertaining to watch and often she wants her daddy and I to play right along with her pretend friends. Of course we join right in! Emma is such a blessing! She is a very happy and content baby. Thankfully she is ok with just going with the flow. I drag her around with me on all my errands, jogging, chasing Anna around, etc. and she doesn't seem to mind at all. She's so cute, I could just eat her up--she's a doll. Anna loves her too and thankfully is really sweet to her and not showing much jealously even up to this point. We are so blessed to have a happy, healthy family! Our sweet little pumpkin, Emma (4 months).
Anna dressed as Snow White; not the best picture of Emma but the only one I got with Anna smiling.
Sweet sisters!
Jonathan loving on his baby girls. He is such a sweet daddy and takes every moment he can to love on these two!! This one was not on Halloween but Anna loves to dress up like a princess :) we think she makes a beautiful one!
A rare picture of me with my babies!

Anna's 3rd Birthday

I'm trying to play catch up a little with my blog. Anna's 3rd birthday was on September 20th. She had a princess birthday party this year (that she'd been planning since last year)! We rented an inflatable for her and her friends to jump in. The origninal plan was to have her party at our house but there was rain that weekend so we ended up having it at CSU upstairs in the basketball gym. It really worked out great and since Jonathan ended up having a stomach virus that same day it was ideal not to have everyone at our house. The one glitch was that the blow up we rented was supposed to be princess but the company gave us the wrong one. We were all disappointed at first but it didn't stop Anna and her friends from jumping their little hearts out! I still can't believe how fast three years has flown by with her. She is a beautiful little girl but not so little anymore. I don't know where she gets her height but she looks more like a 4 or 5 year old. She's already outgrowing the new fall/winter tops I bought her. Not b/c she's big around but b/c she's so long in the waist. I guess if she keeps her height she'll make a great basketball player at some point :)

Anna with her cousin Sarah and a couple of friends who came to her party.

Anna (sweaty after jumping) in front of her cake.

Our sweet little angel. This was the morning of her birthday party at her pre-school.