Name Change

Well, the St. Louis Days (or our days in St. Louis, depending on how you read it) are no longer. I'm not going to change our blog name until I am 100% certain about where we'll be next. We are currently in Texas preparing for Josh to start the prerequisites to go to vet school to be a large animal vet! It is looking like we will be in College Station, but there is still time for things to change, so I'm not making any big plans yet. :)

Aubrey's Latest Quote

"I'm SO peetty!  Wiff my hat AND my yeetard!"

..... I love the honesty.

Also some of her favorite things to say right now are...

• "Das okay!"    Which she says very sincerely either when she gets a little bit hurt, or when she has just done something she shouldn't have.  :)
• "Beeful" (beautiful)     Which she applies to many many things such as her beeful swimsuit, beeful cheerios (the fruity ones), beeful pictures and so on. 

Taylor's "Best Day Ever!"

One of the days we when Josh was in Haiti and the kids and I were staying with Greg and Kristin we had a very fun-filled day. Towards the end of the day, while she and Aubrey and her cousins Caitlyn and Kendall were dancing to the Strawberry Shortcake soundtrack, she came up to me with her eyes wide open and a huge grin and said "Mommy, this is my best day EVER!"

A few Texas pictures from April

Our Little "Abu"

Aubrey's quotables:

What she says when someone is leaving,    "Bye, bye.  Have soon!"

(An easier way to say, "Have a good day.  See you soon.")

What she says when someone calls her any nickname,  "No, I am Princess Mommy." - a name she made up herself.  

"Campbell and Friends"

This is Campbell with his cousin Sam.  He is 2 months older, but you can only tell by looking at their faces!..And Sam is so much more grown up- he has a lot to teach Campbell about life.

      The coordinating jammies were just a funny coincidence.  :)

Oops. Bad picture and I can't seem to delete it.

This is Campbell with his second cousin, or first cousin once removed, or something.  My cousin Kelly's daughter Skylar.  (I know I'm not spelling that right. Anybody know how she spells it?)

And here is Campbell playing with Caily, our good friends Darin and Jody's daughter.  Actually she is the only one doing the playing right now, but I think he is enjoying himself.  

Like the spit-up going down his chin?  That is pretty typical. :)

From a Mom on Mother's Day

I know I haven't posted much recently, so I don't even know if anyone checks my blog anymore.  But I recently downloaded a bunch of pictures and these were among them.  I just thought these faces were too sweet to keep to myself!  I am so blessed and grateful to get to see these faces every day!  I know it is a rare blessing to get to say that my family is truly the joy of my life!  Thank You, God, that I get to be a mommy!  

Campbell 2 1/2 months

It is after midnight and I really should be taking advantage of this time to sleep while Campbell is, but I finally got some pictures to show!  I'll have to make this short, though. 

Campbell is still growing like a weed.  He is smiling so much now.  He smiles just about every time he sees Taylor, and she just loves it!  Aubrey especially likes his "tubby teeks" (chubby cheeks) and when she talks to him her voice gets really high.  It is super cute. 

Aside from that we are all doing pretty well.  Please pray for guidance for us as we have some big decisions to make in the near future.    

Capmbell, the past couple weeks

Campbell had his one month check up today. He already weighs 13 lbs. 5oz.!  That would explain why he is in size 3-6 mos now and wearing size 2 diapers.  Everything looked good in the exam and he got one shot. :(  I don't have much else to say.  I just wanted to share these pictures since I haven't put any up in a while, and I thought it would be good to post some with his eyes open!   

"Campbell" cont.

Well, I was about to introduce Campbell when I looked at the blog and saw that Josh beat me to it by about two weeks!  But being a man of few words he left the "words" part up to me.  So here are the details....

After starting the induction at about 12:45 am on December 19th we waited in the hospital for 13 hours.  Yes I had contractions every three minutes the entire time, but they were mild and basically unproductive.  So we watched a couple movies, got a little sleep and tried not to get too discouraged, which was getting harder and harder to do as the hours slowly passed.  Then at about 2:40 pm to doctor said I had finally progressed to the point were she felt like we could break my water.  Once that happened, things suddenly became exciting.  Campbell was born 41/2 hours later at 7:22pm after a very smooth labor.  He weighed 9lbs 9oz and was 21 inches long.  Everything went beautifully.  

    We are all doing well, except for the cold that went around and got everyone but Campbell- thank God!  My parents came up for a week to meet him and to help us out.  They were a huge help and fun to have around.  It seemed like every time I saw my Mom she was either doing laundry or washing dishes! The girls love their baby brother and do everything they can to help take care of him.  As far as sleep goes, every night is unpredictable.  Some are good and some, well I just hope they are "character-building" somehow.  I'm just glad God made him so adorable and lovable, because I think that makes it easier to deal with him when he brings out his frustrating side!  

    Speaking of sleep, he is sleeping now, so this is my chance to get some of my own sleep.  Good night.

Campbell

Baby News

We have officially scheduled an induction for the 19th!  So if little Campbell isn't born before then, he will- Lord willing- be born on Wednesday, Dec. 19th!!!  And we are so grateful to my mom who will be coming up to stay with the girls while we are in the hospital.  Please keep us in your prayers.  We are very excited and ready to meet our son, but there are always so many unknowns- even when you induce. 

Merry Christmas to you all if I don't write again before then! 

SNOW!!!

I don't have a picture of this, but today was our first snow flurry during the day!  We have supposedly had some snow at night already, but we haven't seen any until today.  Taylor was beside herself with excitement!  It is always fun to see what kinds of simple things can make this girl soooo happy. :) 

4 more weeks and counting...

Creating Memories

Once again, I messed up and you have to look at the next set of picture first, then these. Sorry 'bout that.

One of my favorite fall memories growing up was carving pumpkins with my dad. So when my parents planned to come up and visit us in October I knew that was one thing we were going to do with them. The best part was always getting the gooey, slimy insides out. That proved to be Taylor's favorite part too! We let the girls help decide what kind of pictures we would carve out of the pumpkin. So after many good- yet advanced- ideas were given, we settled on a butterfly, a flower (which looked more like a maple leaf) and a fish. It wasn't beautiful, but it was fun!! :) Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the good memories of childhood that I now get to pass on to my children.

This One's for Mom (Nana)

The Past Six Weeks (or so)

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted. So I just posted a bunch of pictures so you could kind of see what we have been up to! The only thing is that you have to start from the bottom or it will be backwards. Sorry about that! So you want to start with the pictures of Aubrey's party and go up from there. I hope it makes sense! I'll do better next time. :)..............


Taylor had SO many great ideas for the photo shoot. One of them was that I should take pictures of her dancing. Because this is one of her favorite things to do, I thought that was a pretty good idea! So here they are.

The Bronx Zoo
Broadway, New York City!