It's A Girl!!!

Our new baby girl was born on January 30 at 6:14 p.m. She weighed 7lb 1oz, our smallest baby yet, and was 20 inches. She is doing great and we are so excited to have her here. She was a surprise for us since she was a week early and we are used to a week late, but will take it.
Hello world, here I am.
Mom and Baby
Josie and Payton meeting there sweet new sister
Landon and his new woman, I mean the baby of course
We still have not decided on a name, so if you have any suggestions speak now or forever hold your peace. We once again have been blessed with the miracle of bringing another spirit into a world and want to express how grateful we are for this. We love all of you and wish you could be here.

Happy Birthday Payton!

Payton's favorite gift, surprise it was a train!
Josie was so excited for Payton and a good helper all day. She loved wrapping the presents and keeping secrets.
The Train Cake
Fried Chicken Anyone?
Payton got the PJ's for his birthday and I still can't get them off of him.

So first of all lets just say I am no good at being a mom and a photographer at the same time. Thus no Christmas pictures. Actually I was so excited this year, because Landon gave me a video camera for Christmas on christmas morning before the kids got up. I was so excited to tape everything, because lets face it, they are so cute and these are probably some of their sweetest days. Unfortunately I couldn't get the thing to read the discs and I was to preoccupied most of the morning trying to get it to work that I completely forgot to use my digital camera that was working. So although the pictures are scarce and won't prove much we did have an amazing Christmas. I love this time of year as we are focused on Christ and for us Family.

I finally finished the stockings on Christmas Eve and I'm still quite proud of them.



Josie with her new kitchen

Payton with his 'Choo Choo', it's his new favorite word and my new least favorite word

The kids got bubble bath in their stockings, this was their first experience with it and they were so cute!

Trying out their new towells, Josie's is a frog and Payton's is a dog.

The Tree

We headed for Dayton to collect our yearly Christmas Tree, but the infamous tree farm must be going out of business soon. Instead of having a bunch of trees ready to go, they told us to go ahead and tromp through a field and pick a tree. This was a very lonely field of pine trees, like little orphans, and lets just say unique. It was also very cold and we were packing two toddlers. So this hurried the process, Landon saw a tree said this is the one, a man pulled up on a four wheeler to confirm our selection and then proceeded to start the chainsaw, which made the kids cry and tadaa we had our tree. Our massive tree. It completely covered our Explorer and our living room. I commonly referred to it as the bush as it wasn't exactly pine tree shaped but was actually blessed with five tops. I never did put a star up because I couldn't decide which top to put it on. Landon still claims its the best tree we've ever had. I say maybe the best forest we've ever had. Unfortunately I never could get it to fit in the frame of my camera so you'll just have to imagine...

Some things never change.....

I long for friends often. Just ask my husband, I'm always saying I wish I had a friend. I crave for the type of friendships where you can completely be yourself and never worry about being accepted. It's a rare and precious thing, this I know for sure because I have lived in the same house for 6 years and have yet to find a friend like that here. But over the Holidays I was blessed to see two of my very best friends and my cup runneth over because I realized that that type of friendship never ends. First Rachel and her mom came and spent some time at moms and we all had a great time. After years of trying to connect, we also FINNALY got Marti to come visit us. It was a short visit but so fun

Confessions of a Pregnant Woman

This post is actually for me, because right now I need a little reminder telling me how cute my kids are and how much I love them. I came downstairs today to find a huge mess because it is their new thing to get into my messy 'storage' closet and pull everything out. Then I shove everything back in it and the closet continues to get messier. It is a vicious cycle. I have threatened them, screamed at them, ignored them and nothing works, they are still drawn to the closet. When I walked in today I didn't even need to say anything they knew they were in big trouble and hid under Josie's bed while I shoved it all back in. And now they both feel asleep, which it is a little late for a nap but I'll take what I can get. They have also drove me to eat half of a big Symphony bar to calm my nerves and hey I think it's working.

Happy Birthday Josie!!!!

It took us awhile to convince Josie but, it's true she turned 3. It was so much fun watching her this year and to see her so excited, I guess she gets it now. Actually the night before her birthday I was in charge of a YW/YW Combined activity and had ordered 6 dozen donuts that came in a huge box. Well I ended up bringing home plenty of left overs and the kids were already in bed. The next morning, Josie's birthday, Josie came upstairs and said, "Santa brought me donuts for my birthday." It was so cute. All of her excitement is making me excited for Christmas. She got a tent and insisted on sleeping in it that night. I think she thought everything was going to disappear, becasue when she woke up this morning she saw her loot and ran to me and said "My toys are here, it's magical." She did get the selfish birthday bug and poor Payton was at the other end of that, until she opened up the Leap Frog toy. She saw that it wasn't pink or purple and handed it right over to Payton, she's still not claiming it. So I'm guesing that Payton will be more intellectual and not as shallow as his sister who is more interested in Fashion Fever Barbies and pink Barbie cars.


The look on her face basically sums up how she was all day. She just couldn't contain it.

When she opened an Arial nightgown she immediately started stripping down in front of us all.

Well, here's the masterpiece. Ha Ha!!!!!

Happy Birthday Josie!