January happenings

My sweet girl is growing fast! She is almost 2 months old here.  She is as pleasant as babies come.  This Hubert baby factory is totally closed, but she sure makes having a baby a JOY!

Loey and I were bored and decided to paint our nails. Loey chose rainbow toes!  I like her spunk!

Um...it's January.  Do we seriously have a tornado warning???  Into the closet we go!

Graham has his first sleepover!  Ezra's Mommy was out of town and his Daddy was working, so we got the privilege of watching Graham's sweet buddy.  They had a great time sleeping in their sleeping bags on the floor in Graham's room.

This baby...oh my...her cheeks might just be chapped because I can't stop kissing them.  She is sleeping through the night and falling into a great daytime schedule.  We are blessed! 

Daddy is so funny!

Loey and I were heading out to run some errands together.  This girl loves to shop with her mama.  =)  She wanted to wear her winter coat "like Mommy".  Fur girls!!!

 

Stretch baby!

 

Winter Jam Rejects! We attempted to go to Winter Jam after a yummy dinner at Biaggi's. We totally underestimated how popular this event was going to be.  It was sold out!  We snapped a few pics and headed out for coffee and dessert.  It was still a fun night- FREEZING but fun!

 

Visits

In January, we got a visit from some dear friends and their beautiful twin girls, who were born just 2 2 1/2 weeks before Emmalee. 

I feel like Emmalee truly resembles Graham, but has a little bit of Tucker mixed in their too.

Here are a few pics of our visits with Aunt Laura while she and Luke were staying in the parent rooms while at the hospital. We tried to go and visit them as often as we could.  Our kids are addicted to Aunt Laura's phone and the bus song she shows them. =) 

 

 

My kids...

Mimi and Pop got the kids Pottery Barn doggie sleeping bags.  They love them!  We have a new family tradition of "movie night" every Friday night.  We take a bath, put jammies on, eat a treat while watching a movie in our sleeping bags.  They LOVE it!  Graham and Tucker actually watch the movie while Loey runs around and stays busy the whole time.  =) 

Loey absolutely loves to be a big sister.  Emmalee is the celebrity around here!  Loey has not displayed jealousy of Emmalee and the attention she takes away from her.  She just wants me to include her in everything and Loey is a happy big sister.  I'm go thankful! 

I've been trying to get Graham to want to write his name, but the uppercase G was intimidating him for a while.  Finally, after Christmas I was able to get Graham to practice writing his name. He is so proud of it.  Now he wants to write words all the time. 

Graham is really into making lists and using old checks to make all kinds of "coupons" and "cards".

 

I remember when the twins were first born and Adam and I talked about him doing this one day...that day has arrived!  Piggyback rides for 3!

We can't forget my sweet Emmalee Claire...she is happy, happy, HAPPY all the time!  Truly a wonderful joy!  She first smiled for me on December 26th, about 6 weeks old.

The twins are TWO!

December 28th, 2012

Happy 2nd Birthday Loey and Tucker! 

I would love to say that it was a special, glorious day...but it wasn't.  We were in a hazy fog after just losing sweet Brady the night before, yet didn't want to totally neglect the twins on their birthday so we headed to do some birthday traditions at the mall. It was an INSANELY busy day at the mall with after Christmas sales, but we managed to each some Chic Fil A and do the traditional merry go round ride.  Loey was SO excited about it and as soon as she sat down on the horse, she freaked!  Loey, Emmalee and I watched Tucker, Daddy, and Graham ride.  We hardly took any pictures.  :(  I regret this, but once again, we were not functioning normally. I'm so glad we decided that we were going to have 1/2 birthday parties for the twins since their birthday was only 3 days after Christmas.  So, we are actually gearing up for a birthday party for Loey and Tucker sometime in June.  They are already excited about it and frankly, I am too!  We need a summer birthday celebration in this family.  =) 

The freakout...

blurry phone pics of Tucker!

Birthday dinner at home that night...good picture, right?? 

Gigi popped over to say happy birthday to the twins on their real birthday.  =) 

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012

It was a Christmas that we will never forget for very bittersweet reasons.  Christmas Eve brought us 2 sick kiddos so we had to split up so Adam and I and the healthy kiddos got to spend time with extended family.  Graham, Emmalee and I headed to my Grandads house for Christmas Eve brunch while Adam took care of feverish Loey and newly feverish Tucker.  Tucker was all dressed and ready to go and got a fever right before brunch. :( Adam allowed me to attend the Christmas Eve service that afternoon with Graham and Emmalee before we traded places and I stayed home with the twins and Emmalee.  I was feeling sad for our family that day and a little pouty.  Little did I know that things were going to be put drastically into perspective the next few days.  Around midnight I received a phone call from Laura saying she felt really weird and was having some issues (I'll leave the details out of most of this...) She ended up going to the hospital and was going into labor!  AH! Oh my word. Laura was only 22 weeks pregnant with her twins and we were really scared.  As I was up nursing Emmalee that night, I was praying for her labor to stop.  At 4:00am, we found out it wasn't stopping.  Adam and I stayed up praying and in shock and disbelief.  We waited on the couch for our kids to wake up (I'm pretty sure that might be the only time we are awake on Christmas morning before our kids).  We were able to enjoy opening presents with our kids for a half hour or so before we found out more news.  Here are a few random Christmas morning pics.  Most of our pics from Christmas are no that good- our minds were elsewhere. 

Here is a pic of story time before bed a few nights before Christmas.

Loey was cracking us up by wearing a backpack and snow hat around the house all night.

 

Funny, spunky girl

All the stockings were hung with care... (and fishing wire...we had to make sure no heads were sliced open from stocking hangers)

 

Look closely, there is Zippy the elf with his goodbye letter to the kids.  He'll be back next year!

Santa left the kids a note!

Surveying the goods!

I think Loey's favorite gift was a sucker in her stocking.  She wouldn't stop talking about the sucker Santa Claus gave her.  Another funny story...Loey was nervous to come downstairs on Christmas morning until she realized that Santa Claus was not ACTUALLY in our house at that moment.

As a parent, Christmas morning is so much fun to see your kids light up with excitement! 

That is, until you realized you forgot to buy your eldest son a "toy" for Christmas.  Oops.  He wanted a Christmas village for Christmas so he got several pieces of that, but he wanted some toys like Tucker got.  Mental note for next year: get the child a TOY!  He got a picture frame, clothes, cool towel, train table windmill and several other non toy items.  Parent fail.  Haha- although I'm not too sad for the kid.  He's pretty blessed to the MAX!

 

 

Every girl needs a stroller for her babies.  =)  Loey uses this all the time!

Our Wildman loved the rocker, that is until he rocked so hard it tipped over. Tucker man is always pushing the limits when it comes to safety. 

 

Adam and I spent the majority of Christmas day at the hospital with Laura and Luke and the family.  My parents watched the kids at our house until that night.  We headed over to their house for pizza dinner and Christmas at Gigi & Gpa's house.   

Amazingly, Laura held off going into labor on Christmas Day.  On December 26th, sweet Bexley Rose was born around 8:00am and sweet Brady Wade was born around 5:30pm.  I was blessed enough to witness the birth of my tiny nephew and I'll never forget it.  Brady passed away the next evening on December 27th.  What an emotional time for our whole family, but obviously for Laura and Luke.  Christmas will always be a time where we remember our Lord and Savior's birth and soon after how we were blessed with Bexley and Brady.  Even thought Brady is in heaven now, he made a huge impact with his tiny life.  We look forward to seeing him again someday.  I'm so confident we will!!! 
Bexley Rose is now almost 8 lbs and only 1 day away from her actual due date, April 25th.  God has been SO GOOD in answering so many prayers for her.  She is a miracle.  Plain and simple. Doctors can't explain her rate of development and statistically she has surpassed the odds for her! God has big plans for her life.  We look forward to the next phase- Bexley and Laura returning home to Evansville to be with Luke and begin their journey as a family at home.