The birthday girl!

She fell at the beach right before her birthday and scraped her face--nice look for all of her birthday pictures! :)
Birthday outfit and crown (thanks, Gee Gee and Papa!)
She dug right into her cake!

Messy girl :)


Birthday present from Mommy and Daddy---a favorite, for sure!

I know I keep saying it, but I just cannot believe that Emma Claire is a year old already! She is now walking more than she is crawling, although she does still fall down quite a bit. She gets a little more steady every day, and always walks around with a huge smile on her face because she's SO excited and proud of herself. We finished nursing a couple of weeks ago and she's now on 100% cow's milk...I was sad to end our breastfeeding journey, but we were both ready to finish and we enjoyed the time we had doing it. She doesn't have much interest in sippy cups yet so I'm not pushing them too much, but she's doing great with her bottles of milk. She is babbling and says a few "words", but not sure if what she says really means anything (except for "bye bye"). Her favorite activity is climbing the stairs, and if the baby gate happens to be taken down we know exactly where to look for her. She adores her big brother and follows him everywhere he goes, and they are both learning how to play together and get along with each other.

She's just such a joy to have in our lives, and we are so thankful that God blessed us with our sweet Emma Claire!

Happy birthday, Emma Claire!!

Today is my beautiful baby girl's first birthday! I remember June 21st, 2007, like it was yesterday...I had a scheduled c-section, so Ben and I were at the hospital bright and early. We were both a little nervous and very excited to finally meet our daughter. She was born at 8:09am and I fell in love with her the minute I laid eyes on her. This past year has been so much fun and flown by so quickly---she has changed from a tiny little peanut into a gorgeous little girl who toddles around and lights up a room when she smiles. It's hard to imagine life before our sweet baby girl. Happy birthday, Emma Claire!

We've had a great day and I have lots of pictures to share once things calm down. Here's a picture of EC when she was 3 days old---how things have changed! :)

Blog makeover...

Isn't it so pretty? Thanks, Jennisa!!!! :)

P.S. Click on Jennisa's name above if you are interested in getting your own blog makeover. She's the best!

Coming soon!

Sorry I've been a bad blogger lately! We have two laptops---one that works well but doesn't recognize cameras for some reason, so I can't upload pictures onto it; and one that recognizes cameras but crashes upwards of 10 times a day. I got it to stay on briefly when I posted the pictures of our new house, and haven't been able to revive it ever since. Hopefully we'll have a new computer soon and I'll be able to post pictures as often as possible!

Coming soon...

Emma Claire turns ONE on Saturday, so stay tuned for a birthday post!

Also, my blog is getting a makeover, so come back in a few days to see the new changes...

Happy Father's Day!

I've been sick in bed all weekend with strep throat, and in true Ben fashion, my fabulous husband has spent the entire weekend doing EVERYTHING---feeding, changing, dressing, and playing with the children, cleaning the house, and waiting on me hand and foot. He went to the store when we ran out of milk, got me Dairy Queen when I hadn't eaten in 24 hours because my throat hurt so bad, and comforted me when I laid on the couch in tears because I felt so horrible. He hasn't batted an eye or complained even once--not that I think he would. I am so, so lucky to be married to such an amazing husband and father. Grayson and Emma Claire don't know it yet, but they are so very blessed to have him as their daddy. :)

Our new house!!

Entryway

living room

powder room
Kitchen--we picked out the yellow but aren't happy with it, so it will eventually be painted another color
Still need to get a stainless steel oven---it's the only white appliance in the kitchen and kind of stands out!

master bedroom

master bath
guest room
guest bath
playroom (with our redneck ball pit--the pack & play filled with balls)

other side of playroom
den---where we spend most of our time


back porch---where we spend the rest of our time

backyard
Grayson's bedroom

Emma Claire's nursery


bonus room/extra guest room---just had it re-carpeted and not sure what we're going to do with it yet

I've had several friends emailing and calling requesting pictures of the new house...okay, we've been here for over 3 months now, but it's still "new" to us. Maybe one day I'll post the "before" pictures---we really didn't have to do much except have the entire inside painted and replace most of the lighting and fans. We have a few little projects in the works, but for now we are pretty settled and happy here. We're having a ton of fun doing projects around the house and yard and making it our home. :)

Another day at the beach

We try to go to the beach at least once every weekend, and this past Saturday was no exception. Grayson learned how to fly a kite for the first time (thanks for the kite, Nanny and Granddaddy!), and Emma Claire enjoyed shoveling sand into her mouth and splashing in a tide pool. :)

Sweet boy

We visited Ben's parents last weekend and had a blast. They live out in the country and have a pool, tractors, big trucks, and acres of grass for the children to play in. Grayson loves visiting Gee Gee and Papa, and always sleeps well while we're there from being so worn out during the day. I took these one evening after we'd spent the day in the pool, and I just love those flushed cheeks and sweaty hair! My sweet Grayson makes my heart melt every day!!

As promised!

I took this video before EC really "took off", but it does show her walking. I could just eat her up!!!

...and she's OFF!!!

Emma Claire is officially walking! She's been taking a few steps at a time over the past couple of weeks but yesterday she all of a sudden just took off. I absolutely love this stage---it makes me so proud to see how proud of herself she is. I've got a couple of videos of her walking that I need to post, but we have a busy day ahead---running by church to pay for a retreat we're going on in the fall, mailing EC's birthday invites, playgroup and lunch at the park, visting Gibson (who had tubes put in his ears this morning), picking up dry cleaning, going to the grocery store to prepare for a Junior League event we're going to tonight, and possibly stopping by my favorite shoe store where I hear they're having a nice little sale. :)

Stay tuned for some more cute videos (glad y'all have enjoyed the one of Grayson's ABC's---he asks to watch it daily!).