celebrating family!

what a special celebration we had last weekend! brian's grandmother's 90th birthday and his grandparents' 69th wedding anniversary was last sunday, and we spent the day with them on saturday to celebrate. what a blessing to commemorate the faithful marriage of brian's precious grandparents for all of these years and to wish his wonderful grandmommy a very happy birthday. grandmommy is one of a kind, to say the very least. :) she has had a rough year after suffering from a bad fall last summer, which required brain surgery and therapy afterwards. she is one tough cookie, and it is so good to be able to hug her neck every time we visit. God is good!

it was also perfect timing to introduce amelia to brian's extended family! everyone was there except uncle tom and aunt pam... (we missed you guys!!) amelia just relaxed while i handed her off to the relatives, though she did give me a "where in the world am i, and who are these people?!?" look a few times! haha!

here's a peek into our busy day of celebrations. i only took one of these pictures, by the way. the number of dslr cameras in our family is growing, so my new pasttime is mooching pictures off of the people with better cameras than ours! so thanks, aunt joanie and jeff & kristie!

the kids had fun singing happy birthday to grandmommy and blowing out her candles for her! she didn't even get a chance to blow out the candles before the kids beat her to it... so we lit them again and sang again. (the kids didn't mind!) so then she called granddaddy over and asked him to blow out her candles for her. you know, the ones we relit so that she could blow them out?! well, then the two of them ended up in this huge discussion over who was going to blow out the candles. :) and now i can't even remember who ended up blowing them out. probably the kids! i love this picture-- it looks like grandmommy is telling caroline, "get back, girl! it's MY cake!"


here are the lovebirds after 69 years of marriage! one of my favorite memories of the two of them is from when we stayed at their house shortly after ethan was born. as granddaddy and grandmommy went to bed, i could hear granddaddy singing to his bride. i will never forget that. oh, to still be so in love after all of those years. :) what a wonderful example of faithfulness they are to us.


we managed to pull off a family picture, even though the kids were missing a very much needed nap! (we bribed them with cake.. works every time!) i realized after we left that i did not get a picture of aunt joanie holding amelia, but she did get to hold her for the family picture. :) so i thought i'd highlight her here!


here are grandmommy and granddaddy with their grandsons and great-grandchildren. this is such a keepsake of a picture to me. i have heard grandmommy say on several occasions that they have always prayed for brian and jeff every night. what a blessing i bet it is for them to see their prayers answered and to see these little boys all grown up to be such godly husbands and fathers!


granddaddy and grandmommy loved meeting amelia. grandmommy was the first to hold her when we arrived, and she probably got her hands on her at least 3 other times after that!


mama hawkins also came over to join the festivities and to meet baby amelia. she gave her the cutest little red tennis shoes that i need to put on her before they are too small!


and aunt glenda and uncle joe finally got to hold amelia! those great grandmothers can be awfully stingy at sharing babies, ya know! :) uncle joe is one of those men that just loves holding babies, and it is so sweet to see him with my kids.


it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and the kids had a ball playing outside with nana while i stayed busy passing around amelia to everybody inside. after (a million rounds of) ring around the rosy, the kids kept themselves busy in grandmommy's backyard garden. that's when kristie captured those sweet pictures of caroline. isn't this a great picture of nana and the grands?! too bad she's not any fun.



so it was another fun-filled day with brian's wonderful family...we're praising God for so many reasons to celebrate!

baby of mine

still for a minute

aunt kristie captured these precious pictures of sweet caroline this past weekend. i love how the color of the flower pops against caroline's black and white shirt. i love how the sun makes her hair almost glow. and i love how this little girl steals everyone's heart that she meets...




oh, sweet caroline... what ever are we going to do with you?

amelia is 1 month old!

our baby girl is already one month old! in some ways, it feels like so much longer than a month (especially at 3 AM!)... but most of the time it feels like yesterday that i was waddling around wondering when this baby would ever get here! amelia has been on an incredibly wonderful routine the last couple of weeks, and i was just hoping it would stay that way. welll.... the last few days have been a different story. she is sleeping well at night, but she has been really off during the day. i'm wondering if it's a growth spurt, if she's suffering from a little congestion after the rest of us have all had colds, or if she's just tired of being such a great baby! (i vote for the first option!!) i'm gonna make this short so i can get some rest. amelia finally fell asleep a little while ago--i should get in bed while i can.

despite her cranky napping lately, amelia is still a sweetheart of a baby! we are loving every day with her, and we are so humbled and thankful to be called by God to take care of her. happy one month birthday, baby girl! we love you!

my little valentines!

these are my favorite pictures since amelia has been born... brian had to be at church early on sunday, so i was in charge of getting the rest of us to church all in one piece. WELL, we were not only all in one piece. we were dressed in red for valentine's, we were ready a little early, and we took cute pictures before heading out the door! go mom! (nevermind that caroline fell on the way to the car and ripped her tights... but that is pretty much par for the course. her tights last an average of 1.3 weeks these days! she doesn't realize that they're not supposed to be disposable!)

anyway, i just thought i'd share these sweet shots of my sweet children. hope you had a wonderful valentine's weekend! brian and i were able to have a date night saturday night, and amelia did GREAT without us! ethan fed her a bottle for the first time, and i will have to share those pictures soon. too cute. alrighty, well, enjoy these pictures of our blessings.


i can't believe i got all three kids looking at the camera at the same time! (of course, amelia is more than cooperative at this point!)


amelia is absolutely adored by these two...

my little valentine!