The Jackson Family

Thank you, Grandpa!

2012-02-12T11:51:00.000-08:00

A few days before our already planned trip to Michigan for my sisters bridal showers, my sweet grandpa "JB" Vann passed away. As incredibly hard and sad as it is to lose someone you love, we all know that death is inevitable and when it is my turn to go I pray I go the way he went and leave behind a similar legacy. I was also incredibly thankful that in God's perfect timing, I was already planning to be home with my family and could both attend my grandfather's funeral and spend time with my dad as he was grieving.

One of the hardest things about losing my granpa was that he left behind my grandma. Married for 66 years, it was a very rare occassion to see them apart. My grandpa has always taken such great care of my grandma and it is painful to know that she no longer has him in this world.

This is them on their wedding day and I am so thankful I got a copy of this precious picture to bring home.

It was such a beautiful service and reminded everyone so clearly that my sweet grandpa is now standing in heaven with Jesus Christ. I can know that for certainty because of the life he lived and the testimony of those he loved. A very dear friend of my fathers, Roy Southerland did the service and one thing he said is that Jesus quiety whispered my grandfathers name and that it was time to go....and my grandpa was ready. When he passed, he just closed his eyes....no sickness, no waiting around, no calling of the family together...he was ready to meet His Creator. My prayer is that whenever Jesus calls me home, my heart will be ready to respond to his call.

These are my ADORABLE grandparents this past Christmas. Aren't they beautiful???

I am SO thankful and incredibly grateful that my grandfather chose to live a life that honored Christ and raised his 3 boys to do the same. His choice to live a life for Christ is what has provided me a solid foundation to know my Heavenly Father and now to teach his great grand daughters about the God I personally know and love.

My sweet grandma after the service. This was so precious and special that I got to spend that day with her.

Thank you grandpa for living a life of truth, integrity and most importantly one that mirrored that of Jesus Christ!

What a week!! (picture heavy post!)

2012-02-10T06:56:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday evening the girls and I embarked on a big adventure. I flew with both girls by myself...with a layover...at 9pm in Chicago...landing in Detroit at 10pm! It was seriously set up for epic failure, but my girls were troopers!! I wish I had pictures of our traveling adventure, but me by myself with both of them did not provide much opportunity for picture taking. I felt like by the end we had a really good system, which is good because I have to do it again by myself next month to Las Vegas!
Needless to say when we got to my moms at midnight we were exhausted. And most of the next day was spent like this:

But by Thursday evening we had great visitors!! My neice Kristyl, her husband Jaap and baby Tyce came to play and have dinner!! We were so excited to spend some time with them!

After a quiet Thursday we had a CRAZY Friday and Saturday in store. I don't want to go into too many details, but I attended a beautiful military funeral in honor of my grandfather (I will blog about his passing soon), two bridal showers for Vanessa and a fun evening with high school girlfriends. The reason we headed to Michigan was to celebrate Vanessa. So here are some pictures of the shower one of the bridesmaids, Megan and I hosted.

It was an evening shower and everyone got a white mug with a ring on it with their initials. We drank coffee and had some yummy treats.

We used my moms chocolate fountain and had all sorts of yummy things to dip!

Megan has THE cutest little place and it was a perfect spot for the party!

Here are all the cute little mugs lined up and ready to go!

Vanessa opened tons of really great stuff!

One of the coolest things she opened was a hand painted picture for her and Evan's new place, which was painted by her friend (and bridesmaid) Megan.

Here are Megan and I before the party began.

A super big treat for me was that two of my high school friends, Hayley and Jessie were both at the shower. Jessie drove in from Maryland just to celebrate with us!!

And the next day was shower number 2. This one was MUCH bigger and my beautiful girls got to attend!

The ladies from the church I grew up in did such a beautiful job decorating and making it such a great event!

And of course since Clare was present, she had to help open presents and be a part of the day!!

One of my most favorite ideas ever is that Vanessa is making her bridal bouquet out of brooches. She had all of her guests bring a brooch that she will have someone in Vegas put together for her. I cannot wait to see the end result.

Then after the shower (I know, are you tired yet??) we went to my friend Hayley's house to play with all the babies. Clare was also there, but by this point was having a slight meltdown and opted out of the picture. But here is Elle, Roman and Ava!!

Finally by Sunday and continuing until Wednesday when we headed home we got to play at Grammie and Papa's house, with no interruptions!!

As usual, the girls love just being outside on the "farm"

We took lots of walks and made plans for Vanessa's Michigan reception in June!!

I think my parents home in Blissfield has turned into one of all of our very favorite places!

And we were so thankful that after an incredibly busy weekend, Vanessa got to stay and play with us too!!

Both Grammie and Grandma Jackson drove us back to Charlotte....

But not without leaving Papa with lots of goodbye kisses!!!

My sometimes sweet, sometimes sassy 15 month old

2012-01-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

I honestly have no idea how to begin this blog or how to sum up my 15 month old and all that emcompasses who she is. In this last 3 months since Elle turned 1, a force has emerged that our entire household was not quite ready for! Elle is incredibly sweet...when she wants to be, but I mean INCREDIBLY sweet. She has an opinion about everything and is extremely stubborn. There truly is no comparison between her and her big sister. One of my concerns when Elle was a baby was that she would be a shadow because Clare has such a big personality...nope, that will never be a concern again. These two little girls are very different, but Elle has made her place known in our family!

I took a few pictures this morning of Elle and caught her never ending energy in the fact that all of these pictures were taken in 10 minutes or less! To give a little recap of Elle at 15 months, she is sleeping 12 hours at night like a champ, a short morning nap, and a 2 hour afternoon nap. She is a decent eater, but when she doesn't feel like eating what you offer, she makes it known. She has had tummy issues with milk, so we are sticking with almond milk, but she has a little dairy in her diet without a problem. She is slowly starting to talk and says, bye bye, mommy, dada, bella, clare, and gone. Gone is our favorite. If any of us finish anything she shrugs her shoulders and flatly says "gone." I dont know where it came from, but its cute! We've been working desperately on please instead of the grunt we currently get, but so far...no luck!

Clare and Elle have already begun their constant loving, constant fighting relationship. You would think Clare steals toys from Elle, but nope, its 95% the other way around. If Clare is playing with anything that Elle desires she runs full speed at her squealing, which startles Clare who then joins in squealing while Elle falls on top of Clare. There is a LOT of squealing in our house!

We have started the whole discipline thing with Elle. I realized it was over due when on a nightly basis Elle would try to eat dog food and we would say no. Poor LD said, so I'm guessing this is all we've done to fix this? It was a subtle hint it was time to begin discipline!

I think compared to Clare, Elle is going to give me a run for my money, but I wouldn't have it any other way!! She has so much spunk and is hilarious! She mimicks everything Clare does, so she is always carrying a baby, playing tea party...and my personal favorite, singing into a pretend microphone while watching herself in the oven!

Oh sweet girl, I love you so very much! I just wish you would slow down so we could all breathe!

Best Christmas Present!!

2012-01-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

LD's mom and dad got us a super great Christmas present this year....and today we finally got to use it! They got us a year membership to Discovery Place and the Nature Museum!! I have been so excited to take the girls now that Elle is walking and playing so much. This was Elle's first adventure to the hands on children's museum, and she loved it as much as Clare does!

Everyone's favorite is always the huge water table.

I honestly wish I could build this thing in our backyard. It keeps everyone busy forever!

And Elle looked so cute in her apron!!

Isn't she so big?!?!

Clare found lots of fun thing to play. It's hard to tell but she is standing in front of a huge fan that blew her hair.

Then we were off to the aquarium. This picture doesn't do justice to just how great the aquarium is!

And to our surprise there was a MLK Day parade uptown. So we sat at the window and watched part of the parade since it was a chilly 40 degrees outside.

Side note: Can you tell this poor girl is really cutting her molars?

Clare went back and forth many times along this rope bridge...

And Elle practiced her stairs over, and over, and over!

It was a perfect Saturday to spend as a family!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for such a great gift!

LD and I also purchased an extra visitor pass, so we can take a friend anytime!

Little sweet treats!

2012-01-14T11:32:00.000-08:00

LD came home from work with a sweet surprise for the girls. Ms. Pat, a sweet co-worker of LD's had saved these cute little penguin cake pops just for them. She KNEW they would be a hit...and they were!!

Even Bella wanted a sniff....and you can see Clare was having a hard time even taking her eyes off the yummy chocolate treat!

They really were so cute!

And yummy!! Thank you Ms. Pat!!!

Just another night with the girls!

2012-01-07T12:18:00.000-08:00

This is pretty much what every night at our house looks like...music, dress up and dancing - every little girls perfect day!

First trip to the Dentist

2012-01-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

Today was a big day for Clare...her first trip to the dentist!!! I am one for always over informing my girls about what is going to happen, what we are doing that day, etc so everyone is prepared...it may not have been the best route for this one. Clare has been worked up about how things will work at the dentist office for a few days and it usually ended in some tears. We tried to just stop talking about it, but the damage was already done and she did not want to go!!!

Before heading out the door I offered her 1 million (NO LIE) incentives: ice cream, play time at McDonalds, a cupcake, a movie....anything I could think of! She was not into it at all, she just did not want to go.

I was feeling a little caught off guard by this response from my very "up for anything" 3 year old and was wishing I had planned better and gotten a sitter for Elle so I could focus on Clare. But, it was too late, so off we went...with me a little nervous.

But to my great surprise as soon as we got out of the car, Clare changed her tune and was a little curious about what was in store!

It was a great pediatric dentist recommended by a friend, so there were lots of toys in the waiting room, which really broke the ice!

And then we met Tara (SIGH). She seriously made our day wonderful. She was so incredibly cute, sweet and patient with Clare. I could not say enough great things about her!

Clare was not wanting to lay down, even though they had tvs with cartoons on the ceiling, so Tara had no problem cleaning her teeth with her sitting up (did I say she was great!??)

Her is Clare and her new friend Tara!!

The great news was that Clare has no cavities!! YAY!! The not so great news is that we have to help her break her bedtime thumb sucking habit, which I am fearfully dreading. The dentist told us she has a slight over bite and its starting to affect her pallet, so he recommended painting her nails with some bitter tasting stuff called Mavala. We ordered it today so very soon we will start the process. (I AM SCARED!!!) He said if she is crying and we get no sleep for 3-5 nights we are doing it right and are on our way to breaking the habit...sounds fun huh???

But...back to celebrating Clare and her success today!! Before leaving home, in my attempt to ease her fears I showed her a blog of her friend Sophie from ballet class and her trip to the dentist. After Sophie's trip, her mom took her to SAS cupcake, so Clare gave up her very favorite treat (ice cream) and opted for a cupcake, just like Sophie! Looks pretty good huh?

I am happy to have that first behind us! So proud of Clare for being such a big girl today!

It's Christmas...again!!

2011-12-31T11:52:00.000-08:00

We are incredibly blessed that this is the second year my parents were able to make a trip right after Christmas to come and celebrate with us. My girls are going to start thinking its normal to wake up multiple days in a row with presents under the tree. My parents arrived on Monday evening and the girls opened presents from my Aunt Tina and Uncle Terry...which of course had lots of fun surprises.

Can you tell Elle is super cautious about opening presents? She takes off each peice and makes sure you have it in your hand before moving on. It's sweet, but I'll be ready for this stage to be over. It takes forever!!

Clare got a beautiful new dress up outfit that had to be tried on immediately!

Then after everyone went to bed Grammie and Papa unloaded the car and it looked like Christmas all over again!!!

Clare came bounding down the stairs in the morning saying "There are so many presents...AGAIN!!!"

LD got this I love Michigan, I hate Ohio State book and its like it was written just for him!

It was fun slowly opening presents and playing as we went.

Clare got Tangled!!! Of course her, Grammie and Papa had a movie night while LD and I had a couples massage, which was a present from LD for me!

Clare also got an under the sea Bingo game, which was played nightly during Grammie and Papa's visit.

Then...we decided to go on an adventure! My brother had given Clare a gift card to Chuck E Cheese for her birthday in Sept. I had been holding it waiting for the perfect opportunity to use it. I knew I could not do that crazy place by myself with the girls, so this seemed like a great time since there were more adults than kids!

This picture really sums is up. Notice Clare's spaced out look and Clare already plotting where she will run next as soon as she is released.

But, even with the chaos...we had fun!!

And even got to meet Chuck E Cheese himself!

We worked hard to play games and earn some tickets. I will say we started with 55 tokens and brought home 40...so I think its safe to say my girls would rather play toys and run around than play games. Clare got two peices of candy with her 35 tickets we worked so hard for. But she was happy.

My parents left our house and drove to Missouri to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Vann. My grandpa has been sick lately and we are praying for a quick recovery for him.

We are so thankful Grammie and Papa came to spend a few days with us!! We love you both very much!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

2011-12-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

I truly think Christmas gets more and more exciting every year with the girls. This was the first year Clare knew the story of Jesus birth and spent a lot of time acting it out with her nativity set. She was very excited to celebrate Jesus birthday on Christmas. I think LD and I were as excited this year as we were when we were kids!!

Of course we started with stockings

Elle was so into it....wanting to be a big girl like her sister.

No, Elle did not get nail polish, but she sure was excited about it!!!

She did get a new laptop

and some anti slip socks, which were a challenge to walk in.

Clare got a keyboard,

And her highly requested Olivia house. This is the one present she asked for from Santa!

And we had to stop all the present opening to assemble and play with Olivia!

We had such a fun day just playing in PJs!!

And being super silly!!

LD got a beautiful straw hat from Clare, which she was incredibly excited to give him. Clare had $3 to spend on LD at the dollar store and he ended up with a flashlight, this great hat and a jumbo sized pen for work. I know they were on the top of his wish list to Santa!

And the girls got a ball pit!! When LD and I set it up on Christmas Eve we were very sad to see the pitiful number of balls they give you. As you can see they don't even cover the floor. So...we have a little work to do, but the girls were thrilled!

It's fun thats its big enough for our whole family to play in!

After all the presents we spent lots of time relaxing before heading over to our fun dinner plans!

We were invited to our great friends, the Aquaros for dinner. They had a few family members and friends joining them...and they were all from Michigan! This is Clare and Annie, their middle child at the kid table. As you can see it was set up with candy and "kids juice" which Clare LOVED!!

We were so blessed to spend Christmas day with this sweet little boy and his family. They truly have become one of our Charlotte extended families and are such a blessing to us!

Clare bounced all around Joey all afternoon while he worked hard on his lego set.

I am so thankful for my friendship with Maggie and the example of a Christian woman she is.

We could not have asked for a better Christmas weekend! We were not with family this Christmas, but the friends that we spend the holidays with have taken up residence in our hearts as family and we are blessed beyond measure God has allowed us such amazing friendships!

My parents are heading down as I type this and tomorrow will be Christmas morning all over again! The girls have no idea what is in store. I am THRILLED they are spending a week with us!!

T'was the day before Christmas!!!!

2011-12-24T19:20:00.000-08:00

This little story of our Christmas Eve actually starts the night before on the eve of Christmas Eve. I panicked on Friday morning when I realized our oven was not working and was showing an error. After a visit from a repair man, it was determined we would need a new oven. I was a little worked up thinking we would be eating cold cereal on Christmas morning and how sad that would be, when LD came to the rescue! Friday evening we went and purchased an oven in stock, loaded it in our car and he came home and installed it!!!

Of course he had the girls help every step of the way! Thank you LD for saving the day!

Christmas Eve we woke up to David, our elf sitting in our tree and a few presents under the tree!! Clare was thrilled that presents were here early, but David had brought everyone pj's and a book on the story of Jesus birth.

Then, it was time to get ready...we had a very fun and special lunch planned!

We headed to Quail Hollow Country Club to meet the Schmidly family (the family that I helped with their children for four years prior to having our own chidlren). The Schmidly's are like family to us and a big treat was that all the grandparents were in town! The boys had a men's lunch to attend, so all of us girls ate together. (The poor girl that took this photo really struggled...she actually cut someone out of the left side and you can tell I had to do a lot of cropping, but at least we have the memory).

Henri, who is now nine took great care of the girls, as always!

Aren't they such a beautiful family? We are blessed to have them in our lives and thankful that they allowed us to be a part of their Christmas Eve celebration!

After we ate lunch, all of the children headed outside to run...

And run....

and run...

And RUN!!!!!! My girls were exhausted after this fun playtime!

We came back inside for a few family pictures....and of course some presents!

Then after a very long nap, it was time to get all dressed up again and head to the Christmas Eve service at church.

This was the best pic of the girls together I could get. They were definetely burning out on smiling for the day.

We grabbed some take out and had a late night dinner.

And then put on our new pjs to get ready to wait for Santa to arrive......

We are all so excited for morning!!!! Merry Christmas!!!!

Holiday Storytime

2011-12-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

The girls and I planned to head uptown to ImaginOn the Children's library today, which is one of our very favorite places ever. It's a huge treat when we go! It is a very rainy day in Charlotte today, so it was a perfect plan. I was praying the whole way up there that the parking lot below the library would not be full...and it wasn't...so we didn't have to head outside in the rain at all!!!

As you can see...Clare thinks storytime is just for her. She has no problem with choosing a front row seat so no one is a distraction to the story!

It was especially fun today because all the stories and songs were about Christmas!

Then afterwards we played and Elle found a perfect little reading spot.

And of course we read lots of books!

Which is a challenge with Elle...even if in this picture she looks like she is just quietly reading. I promise this vision lasts 2.5 seconds before she is off and running.

Clare was a perfect big sister helping Elle stay close by.

We packed out lunches and ate them upstairs. Halfway through lunch we heard beautiful music...and there was a little harp concert put on by children. We had the perfect seat!

Clare informed me she would like a harp so she can have her own concert. This comes as no surprise to me at all!

Such a fun day and my girls are worn out and sleeping peacefully while the day is gloomy and dark!

Spreading Christmas cheer!

2011-12-20T12:07:00.000-08:00

Growing up my dad was the king of spreading Christmas cheer! He loved buying Christmas presents for people and EVERYONE got something! As a landlord he purchased gifts for all of his tennants, passed out gifts to every service worker he possibly could, and loved to surprise people. It was always a great reminder to me that Christmas is a great time to love of people who serve us...and who better than our trash collectors!! I'm sure they don't get much love over the holidays, yet they work the week before and the week after, in any type of weather....they always haul away all of our trash.

So Clare and I wrote and decorated cards and taped them to candy filled candy canes.

They we got ready to leave them as a surprise for the collectors.

Elle was all about the morning adventure!

We found the perfect place to leave them! We were getting in the car when the recycling truck came and Clare RAN to the road to yell to the men "Merry Christmas, don't forget your candy canes!" They were very thankful and it was a fun lesson to teach Clare to be thankful for those who serve us!

10 days til Christmas!!!

2011-12-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

Oh, I love this time of year with kiddos!! The Christmas festivities are definetely running out days at the Jackson household and we are loving it! The mornings are usually when Clare and I try to get in a project or two while Elle is taking her morning nap. I know that time is going to be so short lived and I only have about 6 months left to enjoy an hour with Clare before I have both girls to manage during craft time...so we are savoring it!

This morning we decided to decorate our gingerbread house. I learned last year to assemble it the night before so it was all ready to decorate!

Here is the finished product....beautiful!!!

Next, we were headed to meet friends at the Billy Graham Library. For those not in Charlotte it is an awesome place! It is free and there is a guided tour that of course we skipped with 4 kids 3 and under! You can also walk through Billy Graham's home and at Christmas they decorate the grounds. They have a live nativity at night and carolers and sleigh rides. But I had read online that from 12-2 you could pet the animals, so that is why we were headed there!

When you first walk in there is a talking cow...which looks quite real that tells a little story.

Elle was free to roam and that was such a huge highlight for her. I cannot believe how big she is!

Clare is standing in front of where the nativity is at night, but you can see the animals roaming in the back and also Billy Graham's house.

We packed a picnic lunch and on Dec. 14th I am happy to say it was about 65 degrees...perfect!

Clare finally got brave enough to pet a few animals!

Elle wanted to so badly, but never quite worked up the courage!

Such a fun day with my sweet girls!

Here are a few other decorations adorning our home :)

Change of scenery

2011-12-10T11:47:00.000-08:00

I am not one to normally take on a challenge or adventure with my girls on my own. I play it safe, stick to the routine, honor naps and bedtimes and life is pretty calm. But...even now and again its nice to have a change of pace. LD had to travel to Asheville overnight last week and invited us to join him, a decision he quickly hesitated on once he realized we may take him up on it. After a little encouragement from my mom and a close friend...I decided to go for it. My two hesitations were....a hotel room is always hard and LD's work committments meant he would be out until 11pm and working the next morning, so I really was on my own.
The two hour drive was cake for my two travelers after the 12 hour trip to Michigan. We stayed at Biltmore Park Square, which is where LD's Asheville office is, as well as the hotel and lots of restaurants and stores, so we were in good shape!

We started out exploring the shopping center and found lots of fun decorations!

And..a huge soldier standing guard by a BIG toy store...jackpot!

This toy store had so many fun things!!!

And it was set up for kids to play...

And play some more!!

Then we headed next door to Barnes and Noble and spent a lot more time playing there!

After our playtime we headed back to the hotel room with a pizza from Brixx. Since they didn't deliver I walked with my pizza, pushing a double stroller through the shopping area and to our hotel room! As you can see the girls were really engrossed in something great on tv! The Hilton does not have family friendly tv stations, so we were watching Cartoon Network, which is really not that great for a preschooler and toddler, but as you can tell they were entertained.

After dinner we changed into our bathing suits and swam all by ourselves in a big pool. I would have loved to take pictures, but when you are by yourself in a pool with a preschooler and toddler, I promise the last thing you are thinking about is pictures!

The next morning we headed back to our two favorite stores until LD was finished working. We got to meet a few people from the Asheville office that he works with and then headed home, with a quick pit stop at McDonalds...or Mickerdonalds as Clare calls it :)

So...we all survived...mission complete!!

The singing bears!!

2011-12-07T17:52:00.000-08:00

Every year we have gone to see the singing bears uptown at Founders Hall. I have learned the best way to do it with lots of practice! It is a free event, plays every hour, parking can be validated, you walk across the skywalk so you are never outside, and there is a Chick Fil A in the building, so we can get lunch. Seriously...what more does a mom need! It honestly is a LOT of work for me to take my girls, but someday when I don't have a stroller it will be CAKE!

This is in the Bank of America building by an enormous tree!

My friend Jenni and her two sweet boys Cooper and Graden (who is 4 weeks!!) went with us. Cooper and Clare were good at being buddies and sticking together.

Elle loved it!!!

And of course Clare was front and center!

Clare, Jenni and Cooper waiting for the next song

Here we are eating lunch. Let me just say that the Bank of America building at lunch time is not kid friendly. I TOTALLY forgot there are 3 small flights of stairs, yup...thats a problem with 2 strollers and 2 preschoolers. There are like 800 people walking all different ways and people kept volunteering to help us with our strollers. So random people in their business clothes would offer to hold an end of the stroller and carry it down. We didn't have much to say except thanks because we really needed their help.

On the way back up to the bears after purchasing our lunch two nice men offered to carry up Elle's stroller, which is a sit and stand, so its quite big. They lifted it so high and in the process tipped it spilling all of Jenni's lunch on the floor. There were at least 20 people helping us and the guys felt so bad offering to buy us more lunch. We were quite the spectacle, but I feel like with 4 kids 3 and under it is bound to happen. We did learn next year one of us will go purchase lunch!!

Needless to say, lunch was still super yummy!!

This was Clare's first year at the bears....

And last year :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

2011-12-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

I absolutely LOVE our home decorated for Christmas. I think decorating for Christmas is so much fun because you normally don't spend much money to do it since you have all the things...yet you get a totally new look. And as a stay at home mom....I get tired of looking at the same things all the time. It's nice to change it up a little! We spent ALL day Saturday pulling out our Christmas gear!

I am so ready to curl up with a book after all the work!

Clare loves talking about her stocking and how Santa is going to fill it. She cannot wait!

This is a wreath I made from Pinterest. It was my first real pinterest project!

And of course we pull out the nativity set, which Clare was extremely excited about. She kept telling L.D. that Jesus was in the attic and she need him!

And this is my second Christmas "wreath" from Pinterest. I really wanted a new wreath for the door and loved that this was so different. Worlds easiest and fun project!

This is from a few days ago, but I thought it would be a good demonstration at how hard it is to get a picture of my girls......

"Ok Clare, good smile, just put your hands down"

"Elle look at mommy"

"Clare keep looking at mommy"

"Clare that is not a happy face, and Elle stay seated"

"I guess that will have to work"

We are so excited that it is FINALLY the most wonderful time of the year!!!

Thanksgiving in Michigan...Part 2

2011-11-28T18:06:00.000-08:00

After being in Reading until Tuesday we were headed an hour away to Blissfield to see my parents. Also, Auntie V and soon to be uncle Evan were flying in from Vegas!!! So we were excited to get there.

It has become a sort of tradition for Grammie and Clare to decorate the tree when we get there on Thanksgiving. Before we gave hugs Clare had her coat and shoes off and left in the middle of the floor and was waiting patiently in front of the tree.

I love this picture of her decorating.

While we decorated Elle entertained herself with other decorations ;)

After a good nights sleep this is how Clare spent EVERY morning...reading LOTS of new books.

And as son as breakfast was over Clare was BEGGING Papa to take her fishing!

By evening everyone started rolling in. My aunt Tina, uncle and their 3 kids stayed Wednesday night with us so it was a full house. It was so fun to have everyone together getting ready for Thanksgiving. Aunt Tina is a preschool teacher and brought lots of crafts for Clare.

And of course...more reading before bedtime....

AND a puzzle with Papa!

Elle also got lots of snuggles with Papa

This year we were feeling adventurous and decided to see both families on Thanksgiving. My sweet friend Teresa made these turkey shirts for the girls...and they came out SO cute.

Back at the Jacksons we finally got a four generations picture!!

And it was a FULL house for Thanksgiving dinner. I think there were 20 of us!

By Friday morning Clare was ready to head back out to fish!

While Elle stayed inside and enjoyed new toys!

My older sister Debbie surprised LD with THREE Michigan tickets to the big Michigan vs Ohio State game on Saturday. We were supposed to be having our big family Christmas but we worked around the game day schedule. LD took my dad and was planning on taking his dad, but he came down with a cold so a college friend met them at the game.

And Saturday evening we all bundled up and headed to the Blissfield light parade. Here Clare is with Auntie V and Uncle Evan.

We left all the little babies at home. Here is Elle with her sweet cousin Joseph.

And here's our crew awaiting the parade. It was really nice out and so nice we weren't all freezing.

Can you tell Clare was having a hard time patiently waiting?? ;)

But the end result was seeing Santa, so whats better than that??

When we got home we took a family photo. Yup, this is my immediate family!! I LOVE when we are all together and love the chaos of all the kiddos and conversations.

We celebrated Jayden and Anthony's birthdays before we celebrated Christmas. We aren't together often so we had a LOT to fit in!!

And then we celebrated Christmas!!

Everyone was so sleepy. This is my sweet nephew Joseph. Don't you think a little boy looks good on me??

Man, we packed a LOT in to our week! We really did have a great Thanksgiving and are so incredibly blessed to have a loving and supportive family. It is hard being far away, but it makes being together incredibly special!

Thanksgiving in Michigan...Part 1

2011-11-28T17:39:00.000-08:00

I think LD and I both agree this is one of the best trips we have ever taken to Michigan. It was just great all around!! We headed out the Friday before Thanksgiving ready for our big adventure. I have to admit I have gotten pretty good at packing us and packing our van to have everything we need for the trip. The girls handled the 12 hour drive with ease and were great! We arrived early evening in Reading at LD's parents house and set up shop for the first half our trip.

We got to spend a lot of our time in Reading with our sweet great nephew Tyce. He will not be one until December, but he is bigger than Elle as you can tell and all over the place. They had so much fun together and it was incredibly sweet to watch them play.

On Saturday evening LD's sister, Lei and her husband Greg treated us all to dinner. There was a big group of us with lots of kiddos at a nice place, but everyone did great.

That night was our neice Kara and nephew Evan's semi formal dance at school. So we got to see them at the restaurant all dressed up and ready to head to the dance.

Then we had a big treat and got to visit Greg and Lei's house and their farm (Gunthorp Farms). Their farm has turkeys, ducks and pigs and has grown a TON in the last few years. This year they butchered 4,800 turkeys!!! LD was incredibly into wanting to see all the insides of where they butcher and things and the girls and I had no interest in that..haha. Their fam is all free range, organic and they sell to a lot of high end restaurants in Chicago and Detroit. LD and I are both so proud and in awe in all they have accomplished! It was so fun to be able to be there.

But, our big highlight were these incredibly cute and sweet blue heelers. There were 8 of them and they were so fun. They all run around the farm like pros and hop in with the pigs and the turkeys.

Here are the many many turkeys.

And this is where the chicks live. It was in this little building and Lei told us not to go in because it was so smelly, but LD insisted and I wanted to see too. We got Clare in there and after one gag she announced she could not stay. We are definetely city girls who were on an adventure.

Here's LD and Clare with a few of the pups

Then on Sunday we went to the church where LD grew up and also where LD's mom and grandma both go. It was fun to be able to be in church with them.

And after church we had our first Christmas of the season!!

Clare got a Noah's ark and this is where she sat for the next two days. Seriously! She loves her Noah's ark and has spent a lot of time with those animals!

Another picture of such sweet and cute cousins!! Love them. Elle doesn't realize how blessed she is to have a cousin so close in age. I have no doubt it will be a highlight to see Tyce every year when we go to Michigan as she gets older.

At the Jacksons the girls share a bedroom. I have to admit, I was incredibly nervous about how this would work since they have never shared before. You can see at the bottom of the picture Clare's big girl bed is right up against the crib. The first night was rough because Elle kept touching Clare's hair through the bars. But by the last morning I woke up to sweet giggles and walked in to find Clare, her blanket, and her pillow all in bed with Elle. It was so sweet to see them playing in bed together. And also some encouragement that they will be able to share a room down the road.

More to come......

Young Love

2011-11-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about this post and somewhat dreading it for about two months. The second family we had to say farewell to tonight was our great friends the Ho Family. Kimmy and I met at our mutual friend, Jenni's baby shower in the winter of 2009. Our children were two months apart and we instantly hit it off. I thought the best way to describe what our families have been through together in our short friendship was through pictures.
Clare and Ayden have grown to be sweet little friends and watching their friendship has been one of my very favorite things. Here is how it all began ....

This was our very first "playdate". We went to ImaginOn and thought it would be fun to take the light rail uptown. All was great until we were on our way back and a man decided to CHASE us with our strollers and babies!!! Yes, fully CHASE! We are protective mamas and it was incredibly scary, so we did what any sane mother would do....called the police and stopped traffic on a major road and asked a sweet lady to wait with us until the police were there. Yes...that was our first time together and I'm amazed Min ever let Kimmy hang out with me again!!!

This was before the scary chase when we were safe inside the library.

This was our next playdate where we went to an indoor swimming pool at the Y. So fun!!

Sweet friends playing at our house together!

One of my favorite pictures of the two of them. They had been playing outside and their clothes were all wet...so they just hung out in diapers :)

And Clare got her first kiss ... haha

Fourth of July Parade in Indian Trail...I mean what else do you do on the 4th of July?!?

For Clare's 2nd Birthday the Ho family went with us to Lazy 5 Ranch to celebrate! As you can tell I was very pregnant. Kimmy is also pregnant, but not quite so far along....or so big!

This began the hand holding...its so cute...and it continues :)

They were sleepy after a big day at the Ranch so they snuggled!

Then....Elle was born!! And we hung out on Halloween at Trunk or Treat!

Sweet as ever...

Kimmy, Min and Ayden spent Christmas with us last year, which was a huge blessing. With their family in California and ours in Michigan it meant so much to spend such a special day with them!

And Kimmy made Clare and Ayden these super cute shirts!!

Clare LOVES Mr. Min. It is going to be hard for her to not have him around :)

Then sweet Azariah was born!!!!

And we were invited to spend Easter at the Ho's house....another HUGE blessing!

I remember shortly after Azariah was born a few weeks went by that we didn't see Ayden. Clare was having major withdrawls.

I totally remember this day, meeting at the park and it was like the two of them had so much to catch up on now that they were both older siblings. Clare was just laying it all out there.

And here we are back celebrating the 4th of July at the Indian Trail Parade!!

In September we went to the zoo and Clare and Ayden got to ride horses!

And we celebrated Clare's THIRD birthday!

When Clare had her first ballet recital Ayden showed up all dressed up....bearing sweet flowers for the ballet dancer :) It was seriously one of THE sweetest things EVER!!

Kimmy grabbed this pictures of Ayden and Clare on a rainy day before we headed into a craft or story time...its one of my favorites and is on Clare's wall.

Then we celebrated Aydens THIRD birthday!!!

And our two little peanuts, Elle and Azariah had such a fun time playing together!! Aren't they so cute??? I think one of the saddest things for me is that they won't have the sweet friendship that Clare and Ayden share.

So now you can see the difficulty our family is having with the Ho family moving to California. In our short friendship we have experienced a LOT of life together. We are so blessed by their friendship and have no doubt we will remain great friends (thanks to Skype!). Tonight we had a final dinner them and shed a few tears (I shed a lot on the way home), knowing and trusting God has ordained this new journey.

We love you Min, Kimmy, Ayden and Azariah and you will forever hold a dear place in our hearts! Ayden will always be Clare's first sweet friend (and first love...shhh!)

Change is inevitable....

2011-11-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

But that does not mean it is always easy. I always say that change is so much easier for the person doing the changing than the people who are affected by the change. For me change is really exciting...when I am the one whose life is being taken on the adventure. I don't always love change when its forced upon me because of someone else's adventure!
Today two sweet families that we love very much are moving!! How are they moving on the same day?!? The first family, the Harrisons are made up of mom, Mamie, dad, Pete, their 4 beautiful girls and 1 little boy. The children range in age from college to kindergarten and they live in our cul-de-sac with us. Over the time they have lived in our little community Mamie's older daughters have both baby sat for our girls and were some of their very first babysitters! Mamie and I served on the women's conference, RefresHer team and grew to be very close. And her younger 3 children and Clare have a very sweet bond. I've posted before about Clare's cul-de-sac friends...and they are sweet. They are older than her, but treat her so kindly and always invite her into their imaginative games.

The Harrisons are not moving far, only about 10 minutes from our house. I'm sure we will stay in touch, but it will change our relationship so much as Mamie and I have gotten used to kid swapping, picking up needed ingredients at each others house for dinner or just helping each other out.

Clare is REALLY going to miss "her friends!" Whenever we get home from an errand she asks if she can see if "her friends" are home and knocks on their back door hoping and hoping someone will answer. If they do, Clare usually waves to me and runs inside to join the family with 5 children! I usually will pick her up an hour or so later and she will be fully dressed up in dress up clothes sitting at the kitchen table coloring while the kids do homework. Since the weather has been nice, almost every afternoon Mamie and I sit outside while all the kiddos play in the cul-de-sac making imaginary houses with chalk and riding bikes.

This is Audrey, the second to oldest...Clare's first babysitter! Clare was only about 14 months

This is one of my favorite pictures of the summer. The middle little girl in blue is Rebecca, the middle of the younger children.

One of their favorite summer acitivies...restaurant. Emily, the older of the younger siblings is in blue and was giving me a detailed account of all they had made.

We had the Harrison family over for a pizza and movie night. David, their son is in orange.

No one could agree on a movie, so the boys watched The Incredibles while the girls watched Cinderella. But as you can tell the girls really couldn't pick....

The newest cul-de-sac fad is chalk houses. This is Emily and Clare's bedroom...they were sleeping..comfy huh?

Emily and Clare are best buds right now!

I'm telling you they are super creative. This is the restaurant. All of their cul de sac towns are complete with a Bi-Lo, church, school and mall. Where else do kids go???

This is the cul-de-sac crew!!

No, no, we are not losing them forever...and yes, I know this probably seems so trivial. But I promise this is going to change especially mine and Clare's daily life! Thank you sweet Harrisons for being friends and neighbors we can count on! We love you all :)

The second family deserve their own post....more about them later~

Halloween Festivities!

2011-11-01T12:47:00.000-07:00

We love Halloween being close to the weekend. It gives us an entire 3 days to celebrate! On Saturday our friend Henri came over to play for the evening so it was a great time to carve pumpkins.

For whatever reason it has become a "tradition" that mommy cleans out the pumpkins and then daddy does the carving. Clare is still very unsure of the pumpkin goo...so Henri and I worked on it by ourselves....with Elle constantly attempting to eat seeds of course!

Then we gave poor LD and difficult task....carving Cinderella!

I was incredibly impressed by his carving skills. Clare said "Hm...I think something is missing." I think she had a hard time seeing her face. We should have taken a picture right away, but we forgot and put it outside. So this picture was night two and it was already a little warped.

Then Sunday we headed to church and Elle wore this incredibly cute and sweet dress. I have a confession to make...I am a good will shopper. And I will make a bold statement that I think we have THE best Good Will at the end of our street, a mile from our house. This sweet little dress came from Good Will for a total of $3.79!!

Then Monday we got to dress up and go trick-or-treating!! And my girls looked so cute in their sweet Michigan cheerleading outfits!

We headed to our great friends, the Aquaros house, which was so fun to have older kids to trick-or-treat with!

I must admit, while we were out one family said "Look they dressed up like Yankees" :) It was fun and LD was thrilled with our "costumes".

Clare was hilarious and really got into it. The first 3 houses she was hesitant and then she was all for it. She would knock and yell "trick or treatin" every time. Then she would say "ok, lets go to the next asile" Any spooky houses she opted out for and asked the big kids to get her some candy.

Elle loved riding along and stayed cozy in her stroller!

It was a very fun evening with her two little cheerleaders!!

Elle's big celebration!!

2011-10-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

I'm sure by now anyone who has read our blog has realized we celebrate birthdays by the week instead of the day! If family is coming down...there is definetely going to be a celebration. And we were so excited that Grandma and Grandpa Jackson came to be a part of Elle's first birthday celebration!!

And of course she had super fun pajamas for the girls as well!!

After celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa, there was a big party planned with Elle's many friends!

I saw this sweet idea on Pinterest and LOVED it!!

Our whole family was ready for FUN!!!

And Elle looked cute as a button in her little shirt made by our friend Teresa!!

There were 4 babies under 1 and 3 children under 3. It was crazy!! And so much fun!

It was so fun tearing through presents!

And Elle loved her cake!!

I mean REALLY loved her cake!!

And then decided to give her cake a hug :)

Dear Sweet Elle - It has been such a joy to be your mommy during this last year. We started your life off a little rough with all sorts of medical glitches and sicknesses...but you pulled through like a trooper. I loved seeing your first smile, your first laugh, your first kisses and your first steps. You are a little firecracker as a friend mentioned the other day and that is a perfect word for you. You have no fear and are CONSTANTLY on the go. You love to give your sister a run for her money already and are so determined to keep up with her. You have an infectious smile and love getting attention from everyone we come in contact with from the grocery store to a restaurant. You LOVE playing with other children and are Miss Independent, not often needing your mommy or daddy around. I am so excited to watch yours and Clare's relationship continue to grow...though I have no doubt we will have our battles in the future with the two of you. I cannot wait to teach you how much Jesus loves you and see the plan he has for your little life unfold. Thank you for being such a sweet little girl and adding pure JOY and laughter to our home. I love you sweet girl!! Happy First Birthday!!

Myrtle Beach in the fall!

2011-10-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

We were offered an incredible blessing last week! Our church staff was invited to Myrtle Beach for some R&R and even our families were invited to attend! We have never been to the beach in the fall and I had a hard time packing or knowing what to expect....but it was perfect!!!

This was our beautiful view from our room. The girls loved standing on the balcony and watching the ocean!!

Elle found lots to play with and "help out" in our hotel room!

A big highlight for Clare was sleeping in this huge bed!

The mornings and evenings were so beautiful! I am just in awe of the beauty God allows me to experience!

The best part was that it was 80 degrees while we were there and we actually got to swim in the pools...they were a little warmer than the ocean. I couldn't believe mid October we were in our bathing suits on the beach!!

You can't tell from this picture (which I totally love!) but Elle really loved the ocean. Clare was incredibly apprehensive. Clare really liked finding seashells, but she wanted nothing to do with the waves. Elle on the other hand crawled straight for them!

It was so fun playing on the beach with very few people around.

And I could get so used to doing this every afternoon! It was such a great time to spend with family. But I have to admit....there is no such thing as VACATION with kids!! We were all sleepy by time we got home!

Pink tutu's everywhere!!

2011-10-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago Clare had her very first ballet recital. I have to admit I was not expecting much. I tried to prepare her for all the people that would be watching her as she showed us everything she learned. I also kept encouraging her not to cry or daddy may not let us do this again..haha. No pressure right?? I didn't care if she danced, I just didn't want a melt down ;) The fun part was that some family was in town for a women's conference that my sister, Vanessa was doing....

Grammie was here for the big performance...

And so were Aunt Cissy and Kristen!!

Here is Clare's little class with her teacher Miss Nicolette before they started.

Truth be told I am incredibly proud of this picture. I promise you Clare is doing exactly what the teacher is doing....and no one else is..haha. Clare definetely had her days in class that she was not into it, but when it counted she was ready to perform!!

And she danced her little heart out!

Even Elle enjoyed the show.

This is Clare and her sweet friend Sophie that she met in class. They were best buds on Fridays!

And then sweet Ayden walked in looking so handsome and brought flowers for Clare!

It was seriously one of THE cutest things I have ever seen!!!

I mean seriously, how can you not melt when you see this????

They are one cute pair that is for sure :) Sweet sweet friends!!!

5K for Isabella Santos

2011-10-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

This blog post is extremely overdue, but we had a broken computer last month so I was unable to download these pictures.
LD recently ran in a 5K for a sweet little girl who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma (a type of cancer that affects mostly toddlers and babies). In the last 4 years we have learned more about neuroblastoma than we would have ever liked to know as it hit close to home when dear friends of ours, the Aquaro's little boy Joey was diagnosed at the age of 2. I have blogged in the past about Joey Aquaro and his battle with this awful disease and as we have walked with our sweet friends Matt and Maggie. Isabella is a friend of Joey's and LD was happy to be able to run in this 5K for her.

LD has not ran in a timed race since college so after 3 weeks of prep he felt pretty good about. I was extremely proud of hm as he crossed the finish line in 25 min and 8 sec! Great job babe!

Here is daddy and Clare before the race

And they were off....

Clare and Joey patiently waiting!!

Clare sporting a special tshirt for daddy!

They were such great cheerleaders!

And then LD came!

During the run since Matt, Maggie and their girls Annie and Olivia were running, Joey, Clare and I hung out together. Joey is incredibly sweet to Clare and she just adores him. They were cute climbing trees and playing silly games while we waited. It was a sweet time together!

We LOVE fall!!

2011-10-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

Oh how I love the fall!!! In Michigan summer was always my favorite, but in the south it is definetely fall! 80 degrees and still having leaves change color is perfect! LD and I took the girls to the mountains today to Sky Top Orchards to pick some apples! We were when Clare was 14 months, but we had not been back since!

We had to start the day with some famous cider donuts as requested by Clare!

Followed by some serious play time!

Then it was time to get serious about the apple pickin'

And of course we had to measure to see how much we've grown before leaving!

I wish so badly there were more pictures to share.....or to say that was the perfect ending to our day...but we had a little drama before heading home! As we prepared to eat lunch and head home I realized I had lost my small purse. It must have fallen out the stroller and it was gone. At this point we had been there for an hour and 45 minutes and had covered a good mile radius between playing and apple picking. The next 2 hours were spent retracing all our steps on the side of the mountain, while carrying 2 very sleepy girls. As we were both about ready to give up hope I found it!!!

The funniest and sweetest part of the day was when I was a little...ok, a lot teary eyed about the whole ordeal and Clare asked me if I was crying. I told her I was very sad and she was extremely persistent about my emotions and asked if I had "raindrops running down my cheeks." (Which I did not as I was not crying quite that hard!) When we found my purse she told me it was a great surprise because she prayed I would find it. She is the sweetest!

It was a great day, but extremely exhausting and the girls were in bed by 7:15...sleeping sweetly with dreams of apple pickin!

Happy 3rd Birthday Clare Bear!!

2011-09-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

My little tiny baby is THREE!!! And boy did we celebrate!! We were incredibly blessed to have my parents, Vanessa and Evan here for the week of Clare's 3rd birthday and she had a week long celebration for sure!

First my mom was insistant that we needed a "family party" since so many of us were together and Clare has not experienced many family parties in her short little life. So we did an ice cream cake, presents, the whole thing!

Clare got her first my little ponies!

And a new bike from daddy and mommy...that we still have yet to master riding

But Elle REALLY loved the bike!!

And even some Princess bedding!!

Grammie and Clare made some treats in her new easy bake oven.

And Clare went to sleep dreaming about all her fun toys in her new princess bed!!

THEN...it was time to get ready for party number 2! Clare's very first kid party which was a carnival theme!

Everyone chipped in to help in the preparations!

And we had 3 little stations: balloon animals, face painting and dress up/photo area

We made yummy clown cupcakes instead of a cake

And though it was a rainy day and we couldn't be outside

We still had SO much fun!!!!

Everyone participated in being a little silly!

And even playing pin the nose on the clown..though Clare had a hard time not peaking!

We had yummy carnival food like corn dogs, apples and carmel dip and popcorn. I mean what kid wouldn't love that for lunch?!?

And by the end everyone was into wearing their silly faces!

My sweet little 3 year old clown :)

And everyone took home a whole bunch of carnival treats!

It was a super fun day all around!!!

Sweet Googly Eyes :)

2011-09-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

This past week has been a complete whirlwind. To even think about how to document this last week seems like a mountain of an issue...but I will do my best because there is too many great things happening to not celebrate!

Last weekend my parents and Vanessa came to visit with plans of Vanessa's boyfriend Evan to come in at the end of the week. Since LAST May Evan shared a plan with LD and I to come in early, surprise Vanessa and propose. Let me just say when Evan originally told us this plan in May and LD realized I would have to keep this secret until October...he told Evan he was taking a big risk by telling me.

We had a wonderful Monday and part of Tuesday with our family but I knew Evan was flying in on Tuesday evening and I was almost sick with anxiety about his plan working and keeping it from Vanessa. I also began to tell little lies about a pretend birthday party for my friend Teresa that our family was going to. The lies just kept going until I had a whole story that I could barely keep straight myself!

On our way to Amelie's a little french bakery where this was all supposed to go down, Vanessa said "Melissa, there are no extra seats in your car..." Who says this?? Why do we need more seats??? And when I had originally told Vanessa it was Teresa's birthday her quick response was..."Didn't Teresa just have a birthday??" Teresa's birthday is in January, so how would Vanessa remember this?!? All of these little comments was making me a nervous wreck! Also, Evan's flight came in to Greenville, SC at 7pm and LD had to pick him up and get him 2 hours to Charlotte while we were waiting by 9pm..there were a lot of things that could go wrong!

Here is a clip of the absolutely perfect proposal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M0nVM5vCXY&feature=share

Though we had met Evan it was the first time LD and I have seen Evan and Vanessa together. A friend of theirs in Vegas says they have googley eyes and I would agree! They are cute and definetely in their own little world of love right now :) I am SO thankful that Evan allowed my parents, LD and I to be a part of their proposal and also spend a week interacting with them as a newly engaged couple.

Now comes the fun part...in a short SIX months our family will head to Vegas for a wedding, and we cannot wait!!!

Congrats Evan and Vanessa! We love you both!!

While Daddy's away, the girls will play

2011-09-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

This past weekend marked a big day for LD. Seriously, for over a year LD and his best friend Derek have talked about going to the first night game for Michigan football. As time got closer they didn't make any plans...until the weekend before when LD was searching for tickets...all day! After a little encouragement (it didn't take much) they decided they were going to make the trip. Anyone who heard about the game knows it was epic and LD and Derek both came home with hoarse voices raving about their adventure. I'm sure LD would not be happy that I am not including more details about the day..but seriously, thats all I've got. I know that had fun :)

But while they were gone the girls and I had some big plans! We headed to the Riverbanks Zoo in South Carolina with 2 other moms and kiddos. We had 5 children under the age of 4...it as an adventure.

We all loaded up and were ready for some fun!!

They were all so good sticking together...

Me and my girls enjoyed the beautiful day!

Clare and sweet Ayden waiting their turn for a pony ride.

This was Clare's very first pony ride. Her pony's name was Spooky!

Such great friends....they were so sweet!

Everyone was too tired to walk back to the car, so I gave them a ride.

All were in bed by 7pm and I was short to follow...missing watching even 5 minutes of the big game.

We missed daddy...but us girls had a great weekend!

Getting in the groove

2011-09-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

It is so hard to get back into the groove once fall activities start...and I don't even have anyone in school yet! This month Clare will be three...which is so hard to believe. We decided to keep her home one more year, but we definetely needed a few activities to look forward to in her week.

This week we started Community Bible Study, which we truly LOVE. There are 300 women and 120 kids. It's Thursday mornings and a huge blessing to me to get some adult coversation in, and Clare and Elle both have such a blast! I knew this year would be difficult for Elle because it is during her morning nap time, but she slept for an hour while we were there and her teachers said she was a joy the entire time...way to go Elle :) Here are the girls before we left!

Last week Clare had her very first ballet class! She has been really looking forward to ballet! A friend of ours gave us a ballerina video and it has become a favorite..plus Clare loves dressing up so that helps too! Her little class at the Y has to be one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. 15 little girls in their pink leotards and tutu's all ready to dance. She loves it of course and I'm anxious to see how her little recital pans out in October.

We also signed up for library classes which start after Labor Day. These girls are busy :) We are loving having a few structured mornings together!

"No one likes you"

2011-08-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

My sweet little Clare was sitting in the stroller yesterday while we were walking, listening to my Ipod when she yelled so loud, this is my favorite song, its called "No one likes you." I quickly realized it was also one of my favorite songs, but she had the title a little off. The song is by Chris Tomlim and there is a line that says "There is no one like you, none like you." It was a perfect song to help me get through the week we have had.

I didn't promote this much and truly did not intend on writing a blog post about it, but we are in need of a some prayers for Clare. Two weeks ago Clare was diagnosed with salmonella. We had eaten the dreaded recalled ground turkey two nights before it started and are pretty sure that is where it came from. I had a nice long chat with the public health dept where they promised to send me literature on better hand washing and disposing of diapers (thanks guys!), and left me feeling extremely frustrated. The best reminder that came out of the whole ordeal was that I bought a ridiculous amount of bleach kitchen cleaner and spent a day cleaning out our fridge.

By day 5 we had seen a bear emerge from Clare. Gone was our sweet little girl, and I dont know if I can even begin to describe who came in her place. We attributed it to the awful salmonella and attempted to be more patient with her. By day 10 both LD and myself were ready to throw in the towel. Yesterday morning all of a sudden I realized Clare may have a UTI that developed from the salmonella that may be adding to her not so pleasant mood. The doctor confirmed that a UTI was indeed what she had. As he was writing out the prescription he casually said "Has she had a heart murmur before?" which totally caught me off guard. After listening one more time he confirmed that he did hear a heart murmur.

We are going Thursday morning to a cardiologist and are praying that what the doctor heard is not there tomorrow. This morning after breakfast Clare asked if we could dance to "No one likes you" and it was quite a fitting reminder that God is bigger than the week I have had.

Water You turned into wine
Open the eyes of the blind
There’s no one like You
None like You

Into the darkness You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There’s no one like You
None like You

Our God is greater, our God is stronger

God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power
Our God, Our God…
And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us

And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
What can stand against?

Celebrating 7 years and 9 months

2011-08-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

There are two great things to celebrate with this blog post. The first is very overdue, but much needed. Sweet Elle turned 9 months on July 21st. And as a mother of 2 I have not been staying up on my blogging as I should. So I wanted to take a few minutes to celebrate the sweet little girl Elle is and all she is doing these days!

When Clare was 9 months she was just starting to become mobile and Elle has been very mobile since about 8 1/2 months. I wouldn't be surprised if she was walking very soon. She crawls...FAST and pull up on anything and everything. She's gotten her fair share of bumps on the head from pulling up on things that are not very stable. I attribute her quickness to having a big sister she desperately tries to keep up with. She also became very verbal in the last two weeks. It always sounds like she's yelling at Bella, which she very well may since that seems to be who we are most often yelling at. She can wave and play peek a boo with a blanket and loves, loves, loves her pink horse wub-a-nub that has become her lovey of choice. She is so sweet and everyone is always complimenting her cute cheeks (something she will not like having complimented in a very short time)...but boy, that girl has a little temper. She does not like to be messed with and if you do mess with her you are most likely going to be kicked. The thing she HATES the most is getting her finger nails clipped. We could stand on her head to entertain her and she kicks her feet and screams the entire time! My very favorite thing now...and probably will be forever is watching the girls make each other laugh. They sure crack each other up! Happy 9 months my sweet little girl!

The second reason for celebration is mine and LD's 7 year anniversary! We talk all the time how we are blessed and living our dream. We have beautiful, happy children, a house that we have made a home and the biggest blessing...we truly love living our lives together. It has been since mid June that we had gone on a date, so dinner to celebrate was long over due. But even though it was overdue we definetely celebrated to our full potential. I'm sure no one really cares how delicious the food was or the great conversation we had....but I do want to celebrate how wonderful my husband is. And here is a PERFECT example...

My friend Kirsten started a little business making clutch purses among other things. A few weeks ago I asked her to make one for my neice Kara. I sent it to Kara for her birthday and she loved it! I commented when we were sending it to her that I really wanted one myself. Today LD handed me a box at church that was all wrapped and so cute....he had Kirsten make me a clutch as well! Not only that, but he had her sew a #7 on the inside since it was for our 7th anniversary. Yes..I know, I am both very spoiled and very loved!

Happy Girlfriends Day!

2011-08-01T18:37:00.000-07:00

My great friend Hayley from high school decided to celebrate a holiday every day for a year. She created a blog http://www.happyholidayhayley.wordpress.com/ and has documented how she is celebrating the holidays. It's been super fun to participate with her and watch her journey. Today is Girlfriends Day and to celebrate she invited all of her girlfriends over to her house yesterday. Being in North Carolina of course I could not participate, but she asked that all of her out of state friends do something to pamper themselves in celebration. Also, I received a card last week from my friend Michele that said to open in on Girlfriends Day when I was celebrating. So yesterday I did two of my favorite things..ate chocolate and watched the Bachelorette (I know, exciting life I live!). I definetely am thankful for the girlfriends I have in my life! I am thankful for my girl posse from high school who is still incredibly close, my K-10 girls in college, and my wonderful friends/family in Charlotte who have supported LD and I as we have started a family. I am blessed beyond measure by great friends in my life.

It has also been incredibly fun to watch Clare develop friendships with little girls. There are a group of girls are our cul-de-sac who are very unique. There are two sets of sisters, one set are from Romania and are going into 1st and 3rd grade, the other set are going into 2nd and 4th grade. The girls are much older than Clare, but they have accepted her as an honorary part of their little group. It's precious to watch. When our garage opens they all come running and Clare asks where her girls are if they are not around. Clare looks out her bedroom window often checking to see if she is missing in the action. I am amazed at how sweet they are to her and how patient they are given the age gap. I took this picture of them yesterday as they were playing in the sandbox with Clare. Emily, the oldest girl was not home, but I love how much this picture is a perfect example of the start of girlfriends.

Happy Girlfriends Day :)

Summer Days

2011-07-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

We have continued our busy streak since we've had our two trips to Michigan, but thankfully our business has all been at home. My cousin Emily flew home with Elle and I after our last Michigan adventure and stayed with us for 2 weeks. Of course since I had an extra pair of hands for two weeks, we made sure we kept busy!!

After my first trip alone with the girls to the pool this summer I decided we would just try again next year. It was HARD, not in any way relaxing and I was exhausted when we got home. Since I had Emily with me I decided we would get in our swimming for the summer while she was here! It really is a lot easier with a second set of hands. I also really loved little errands during the girls nap or being able to fix dinner in the kitchen alone.

During Emily's stay it was also LD's 29th birthday! We decorated with balloons and a little banner and made brownies. Clare was so excited to wake up daddy to show him her decorations. Emily also watched the girls while we went to a movie during naptime and dinner in the evening, so it really was a big birthday treat! He even said, "This is what we used to do before having kids" as we sat in the theater at 2pm on a Saturday!

While Emily was here we also continued doing our "Camp Tiny" that a friend sent us at http://www.camptiny.blogspot.com/ We have loved doing camp tiny at our slow little pace whenever we have a need for an extra activity, craft, snack or story. It's also worked very well during Elle's morning naps since we are home.

Last week my aunt and uncle came to get Emily and also brought my mom with them! It was a treat to have them all hear, but an even bigger treat for Clare who went to their hotel every morning for breakfast and swimming. She has finally mastered swimming around the pool in her little swimmies without any assistance...so maybe at some point we will try the pool again on our own.

Emily's big goal of her time here was to teach Elle how to crawl and I would call it a success. She does 3-4 little crawls and also pulls up on our storage cubes. My favorite is when she puts both feet on the floor and puts her little booty in the air. I have a feeling she'll be flying around here very soon!

I have no idea what the next half of the summer will hold and I'm kind of loving it.

Trip to Michigan....again ;)

2011-06-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last week Elle and I flew to Michigan, just the two of us. It was a very sweet time because anyone who has multiple children will attest to the fact that you rarely get one on one time with your younger one...at least right now. It was fun, and easy, to just have one little peanut to worry about. The purpose of the trip: bridesmaid in my college roomie's wedding!!

Friday morning a great friend of mine picked Elle and I up at 7am and took us to the airport, so LD could take Clare to another great friend's house (yes we are blessed with friends!!). Clare spent the day with our friend Jodi and her twin 3 year olds swimming. Needless to say, she did not miss me at all! Elle and I were all ready to go when we were delayed an hour. Elle handled the delay and the flight with ease, not a peep. She even fell asleep as we landed for a quick cat nap.

We spent the weekend at my parents house and my mom and dad watched Elle while I participated in wedding festivities. It was very fun being back with my college girls and having some girl time. I also loved my parents having special time with just Elle to really see her personality and what a joy she is!

The wedding was very fun and Clare met a new boyfriend, Landon! He is 14 months and the two of them were just loving each other..it was very cute, though daddy may not approve of their open mouth kisses;)

We headed back early Sunday morning after giving a Father's Day hug to my dad. Emily, my cousin headed home with us for 2 weeks, which has already made life easier and fun! We have lots planned during her time here. Of course we were delayed another hour on the way home and were thankful to be back as a family by Sunday afternoon.

Trip to Michigan Part 2

2011-06-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

The second half of our trip was spent with LD's family in Reading. Our families only live an hour from each other now, which makes it really nice! The highlight of our trip to Reading was LD's neice Kristyl was getting married. There were a lot of reasons why we were excited about this wedding but the two biggest were: 1. Kristyl and Jaap came to visit us in Charlotte last spring and we really had a great time getting to know him. Jaap is from the Netherlands and his family came in for the wedding, which made it exciting for him. 2. Clare was asked to be the flower girl!

Clare has been practicing being a flower girl since Christmas and we have talked a lot about it...but she's 2 1/2 so my hopes weren't extremely high that she would carry out her duties ;) The day of the wedding LD's mom, Clare and I had spent the morning at the campground where the wedding took place helping to set up. Clare was so tired so after lunch I took her home for a much needed nap. Clare fell asleep in the car and took a 10 minute cat nap and then played in her bed for 2 hours deciding that was all she needed. Since no nap took place my hopes really were not high. But...when it came time, Clare pulled if off! She was incredibly cute and she knew it. She kind of forgot to throw flowers down the aisle, so when she got to the end, right in front of Jaap she just stood there and emptied her basket...pretty slowly, but it was cute.

Elle rode in a little wagon down the aisle with Tyce, Kristyl and Jaap's 5 month old. Both of the babies knew they were so stinkin cute and grinned ear to ear. The girls were up til 10:30 playing and dancing that night, and thankfully we were headed home the next day.

Before heading home I was able to attend my college roomie and dear friend Renee's bridal shower. It was great to see some of my college friends and Elle and I will be heading back to Michigan next weekend for her wedding! The drive home was LONG. We left at 3pm and got home at 2am. Both girls fell asleep about 10pm, but Clare woke up at midnight and talked the next 2 hours straight..about everything under the sun. I would just hear this little voice say "hey mom, come here I have a question..." and it would be about Santa or her birthday or Michigan, something totally random. Thankfully both girls slept til 10am the next day.

Two weddings and a bridal shower within a week is a lot! We are all still recovering from our big adventures!

Trip to Michigan...Part 1

2011-06-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

My nephew Joseph

Who wants to read a blog post that starts with Part 1?? That is definetely not an encouraging title, but our week long trip to Michigan definetely deserves 2 parts considering the events we participated in!

Right before we left for Michigan we joined the mini van club. L.D. was not a huge fan in the beginning, but I won him over. I LOVE our mini van, and that could probably be a blog post all on its own. But, I was truly looking forward to this 11 hour drive knowing that everyone had their own personal space (even Bella had her own seat) and we had a DVD player built in. Life was good! The ride up was not nearly as blissful as I imagined and Elle was not happy with her rear facing seat after about the 5 hour mark. The biggest highlight of the trip up was that we only stopped 2 times and Clare had no potty accidents...pretty impressive!

We went to Blissfield to my parents home for the first half of our trip and it was the first summer trip we have ever made to Blissfield. They have a cute little pond and lots of space to run around. We LOVED being there! Clare played outside so hard and was dirty the entire trip. I loved seeing her play in the dirt, try to fish, eat outside and pretend she was a farmer in the barns. We set up Elle's exersaucer outside and that is where we spent the majority of our time.

One of the reasons we headed home when we did was for my high school friend Rachel's wedding. I have a very unique group of high school girlfriends that are still very close. We all drove in from different parts of the US (minus Michele who JUST had a baby) to celebrate Rachel's big day and it was so much fun being together. They definetely had a super memorable wedding day with the power outage during the ceremony and the tornado sirens going off. Thankfully Rachel handled it like a champ!! During the tornado warnings, my poor parents were watching the girls and had the girls stocked up with snacks hiding out in the mudroom.

On Memorial Day my parents had about 40 family friends, plus our immediate family over for dinner. It was a huge highlight of our trip to just spend time with people we love but don't get much time to see. I also got to meet my newest newphew, Joseph on Memorial Day! He is so so sweet! The day before we left my high school friend Hayley came over with her little boy Roman, which meant so much to me that she would drive an hour just so our babies could meet and we could spend some time together. LD even got to squeeze in a trip to see our neice Kara play softball...we seriously did it all!

It was one of the very best trips we have ever had! I wish we could spend a lot more time at "the farm" as my parents call it. It's such a peaceful place and so much fun to watch Clare just be a kid!!

Next is Part 2...which is also wedding #2!

Clare's big surprise

2011-05-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

I've already posted about how much Clare loves Barney. It's quite an obsession. She talks to him when she's in her room by herself and when she's allowed to pick a video, its always, always Barney. So when we heard from a friend that Barney Live was coming to Charlotte, how could we resist taking her?!? ;)

We didn't tell Clare about it until the day of event. The biggest reason...I did not want her asking about it 1,000 times a day, and we also thought it would be fun to tell her together. So I woke Clare up from her nap a few weeks ago and told her she was going on a special date with just mommy and daddy. We had a sitter for Elle and we went up to LD's office to meet him. We went to Panera for dinner and told her we were going to see Barney. Her response? She said without much enthusiasm, "oh good, lets see VeggieTales too." She totally did not get it.

When we got there of course there were Barney items for sale everywhere. All growing up my parents took me to see Sesame Street Live and I always got a souvenir to take home. So, much to LD's disapproval I got Clare a wonderful $15 wand with a star on it. Clare also asked for cotton candy and a $5 balloon, but we refrained.

So the show starts and Clare kinda freaks out because its dark and the lights are going and then she says, "oh look its Barney, I need to go say hi" and hops into the asile like she's just going to walk onto stage. Clare did not sing every song (which she knows all the words to), nor did she clap her hands or stand and dance in the asiles like every other 2 and 3 year old. She said as still as a statue for an hour and a half and I don't think she even blinked. Not the response we thought we would get, but she definetely enjoyed the show.

As soon as we left, Clare sighed happily and said "Lets do that again tomorrow!" It's so fun to spoil our kids from time to time and it was a good little surprise date :)

PS, the wand broke before the end of the show, go figure!

2011 Home Makeover

2011-05-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am so incredibly blessed to be a part of Next Level Church. Two weekends ago we completed our FOURTH home makeover. You think a church does a home makeover and you assume 50 -100 volunteers get together and paint and give them some new furniture, but seriously....this ends up being more like the tv show than people realize! A team of 11 people start in January by selecting the family and plan for the next 4 months! The family selected is sent on a little vacation where all of their meals, activities and lodging are paid for from Thursday til Sunday. While they are gone 300 volunteers seriously tear apart their home and put it all back together! The home was re-roofed, torn down to the beams inside, new floors, new ceilings, new walls, kitchen, appliances, light fixtures, heating and air system, bathroom, carpet, paint, furniture....and even restocking her cupboards and fridge. It's an incredible thing to be a part of and I seriously feel like a kid at Christmas every year the weekend of the event!

Just watching so many volunteers come and give themselves away, working through the night with tents set up in the yard, coming and bringing meals to the volunteers...all so one woman can know that Christ loves her. The thing I love best is that there are no strings attached. The woman selected did not have to fill out an application, nor did she attend our church, nor does she ever have to. The best part....she has been coming every Sunday, not because she has to, but because she experienced selfless love!

My parents came in for the week/end to watch the girls and if they had not been here I would not have been able to be a part of it, so thanks mom and dad! Also, a huge thank you to my husband who allows me to serve and be a part of the things God has called me to, even when it takes away from time with my family. I am blessed beyond measure and so thankful I am able to live life with people who understand that God created us to give love away...selflessly...

Here is the video...it may make you cry :) www.vimeo.com/23441011

Easter 2011

2011-04-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Easter was always a big event at our house growing up...lots of family, food, celebrations, egg hunts, easter baskets...the works! When we moved to Charlotte we always had a ton of family here for Easter and the traditions carried on. The last few years it has not worked out for family to be with us, but our family has grown and we've loved to create and carry on the traditions we have always celebrated! The most exciting part is this is the first year we were able to explain to Clare the true meaning of Easter and what Jesus did for us when He died on the cross. Yes...it will be a few years before she gets it, but I love hearing her sing her little songs that she has learned at Bible Study about Jesus being alive.

We had so much fun Easter morning watching Clare search for the eggs she had decorated. Her and LD had numerous practice hunts during the week to prepare for the big search, so she had gotten pretty good. Then of course she found her Easter basket and ate a LOT of candy at 9am. The girls looked beautiful in their matching dresses all ready for church. I am a bit frugal in the clothing department so its not often the girls have matching outfits just because I won't spend the money on them. But these dresses they will be wearing in our neice Kristyl's wedding this summer...and I LOVE them!

In the evening we went to our dear friends Kimmy and Min's. We are so blessed to have them in our life and consider them part of our family. We celebrated Christmas with them this past year as well and we truly are thankful for their friendship. They recently welcomed a second little boy, Azariah into their home 13 weeks ago, so now Azariah and Elle will be able to grow up together!

Here are some pics of our Easter adventures!

"Singing" six month old

2011-04-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

My dear sweet Elle,

It is incredibly hard to believe you are 6 months old! I remember the time going by fast with Clare, but I truly think it got even faster with you! A part of me gets so sad because I feel like you have mastered some great tricks and hit some big milestones without the celebrations you so deserve. You are the sweetest baby I have ever seen, truly. You bring so much joy to anyone who has the honor of spending time with you. My favorite thing ever is to pick you up from the nursery at church or come home after you are with a baby sitter and listen to them gush about how happy, smiley and sweet you are! You have a joy for life that is very contagious!

One of my other favorite things is watching you interact with your sister. My prayer everyday is that you and Clare grow up to be very best friends like your Auntie V and I are. I know there will be days when you don't get along, but the two of you will always have each other to lean on. My prayer is also that you will one day you will give your heart to Jesus. Every night when we say our prayers and I sing "Jesus Loves Elle" to you I pray that the words of the song already begin to shape your heart for Him in the future.

It has been so fun watching you learn to roll both ways and learn that rolling gets you to where you want to go. You've learned that you can participate in dinner time by grabbing the spoon and making a huge mess. You've learned when you squeal really high and really loud everyone laughs and pays attention to you. You've learned how to scoot on your back using your feet, moving you backwards and causing a beautiful bald spot on the back of your head. You've masterfully learned how to sleep through the night 8 out of 10 nights. And thankfully you have also learned how to play sweetly in your crib when you wake up until someone comes to get you.

Thank you so much sweet little girl for being such a blessing to our family! I am so very excited to continue to watch you learn and grow. I am so thankful God has allowed me the privilege of being your mommy and teaching you all about His creation in this beautiful world!

Happy Half Birthday Elle Adair!

New Cousins!

2011-04-12T18:49:00.000-07:00

Joseph Wesley Vann :)

Last week was very fun for two exciting reasons!

First: We welcomed our new nephew: Joseph Wesley Vann into the world!! My brother and his beautiful wife Patti welcomed their 4th boy into the world! We are traveling to Michigan in May and are so excited to meet him!!

Second: We met our first great nephew Tyce! LD's neice Kristyl had a sweet little boy who is two months younger than Elle, but you would never know it! He is 2 lbs heavier and is incredibly strong! They were so cute together and Clare loved having her new cousin around for a few days. LD's sister Lynette came with them for her first trip to visit us in NC and it was fun having an extra baby in the house!

Busy Days = time going too fast!!

2011-03-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

I really wish I could slow down the days right now. Elle is a little over 5 months and Clare just turned 2 1/2 and I feel like everytime I blink we are one month ahead. We are so over the crazy newborn days and have settled into an awesome schedule. I love my days with the girls and am SO blessed to be home with them!

Right now Elle has gotten really good at rolling from tummy to back and can scoot on her back across the floor. She has sweet high pitched squeals that she loves to practice too. She eats 2 meals of "solids" a day, has dropped her dream feed and sleeps 12 hours a night...unless the teething fairy decides to visit! No teeth yet, but I dont think it will be long before one pops through!

Clare is busy busy busy. Her sweet little mouth never stops, which is quite like I was at this age (or still am LD would say). She has started the "why?" game, has learned the art of procrastination and also the game of negotiation. Every night at dinner she'll ask for ice cream, when I say no, its how about a cookie, and then she widdles her way down to an M&M and by that time I usually give in. She knows very well how to work the system! She is really into shapes right now and her newest one is an octogon, which she learned from the stop signs while we were on walks. She sounds like a little dictionary when she says, "Mom, look there is a stop sign, it is an octogon, it has 8 sides." But when we were watching LD's basketball game and she noticed the clock was shaped like an octogon I was quite impressed. Every now and then when she doesn't recognize a shape she'll say "Look a rexagon" or some other combination. I love love love this age. She makes me laugh all day long!

We have been incredibly busy lately! We were blessed to have LDs sister, Lei, her husband and their 3 kids down for a visit last weekend. Clare just called Kara, Evan, and Cassidy, the cousins when speaking about the entire group, but was extremely fond of Cassidy. It was SO great having older kids here that wanted to play with our girls and love on them. As always, I am so thankful when they have the opportunity to come and visit us. Clare and I took Kara and Cassidy to a little ballet, which was cute, just LONG. Clare made it through the entire 1 hr and 45 min. show, whith just a few breakout songs. At one point it was so quiet and Clare just started singing "Mr. Sun" at the top of her lungs, but we made it through. She also told me numerous times when she gets bigger she would like to be a ballerina. Since we went she has been wearing her red tutu everywhere!

While they were here we also got to eat out lots of times, they made a trip to Monkey Joe's and got to play with Clare's new kite and baseball glove they brought for her. Life is busy, but it really is so fun!! I am praying these next 6 months don't go nearly as fast as the last 6 have!

Our giggly girl

2011-03-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

I should make a video of Elle laughing over the last few months because I have so much video of her sweet laugh....but this is cute :)

When mommy's away...

2011-03-01T17:56:00.000-08:00

The two year old melt down...poor grandma's!

I love this pic...the girls with their grandmothers!

And Vaness and I with a cowboy....

The Riverwalk is BEAUTIFUL!

This past weekend I had an incredible opportunity! My Alma mater, Spring Arbor University in Michigan had contacted my sister and I a year ago and wanted to do a video story on the ministry we are both doing in Charlotte and in Vegas. They flew camera crews down and put together an awesome video. Then they asked if they could fly us to San Antonio, TX where they were showing the video to donors for President's Weekend. Vanessa and I don't get a lot of time together so we were both ecstatic about this time!!

This 4 day trip took a major group effort. Both my mom and LD's mom drove down together (we are blessed they have become great friends) to spend 7 days with us and hang out with the girls while I was gone and LD was at work.

First my time away! Without rubbing in too many details we stayed on the Riverwalk in San Antonio at the Westin. Had mahi-mahi street tacos the first night, steaks the last night with great Tex-Mex in between. We took a boat ride, saw the Alamo, had pedicures, went to a rodeo, had presents on our bed every night and connected with some amazing people, both new friends and old! 'Nuff said, it was a GREAT trip :) You definitely don't need details about this, but my biggest challenge of the entire trip was getting Elle's "food" home with me...nuff said about that too!

I missed my girls terribly, but I highly doubt they missed me. You can't have much more love that two grandma's and a daddy in the same home! The grandma's did their fair share of spoiling and loving on the girls. Clare is still recovering from sugar, lack of sleep, and a case of getting anything she wanted for a week. Every two year old needs a grandma's spoiling at least once! They stayed incredibly busy eating out lunch everyday, trips to get ice cream, a new basketball hoop, visiting the nature museum, and daily walks! They were very busy.

Elle grew a TON in four days..its insanity. She is somewhat mobile at 4 months which is insane. She uses her feet to arch her back and scoot herself backwards. It takes her a while, but she can get around! She is also incredibly verbal and makes these cute crazy sounds!

It was such a blessing to spend some time with my lil sis, but I am thankful to be home with my wonderful lil fam!!

My four month old

2011-02-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

Elle is four months old!! She is sweet as pie and growing wonderfully. She is sleeping through the night 12 hours with 3 naps during the day. Life is good when there is order ;) Elle's favorite pasttime is watching Clare. If only Clare would give her a little more attention, but life is busy for a two year old!

At Elles well check she was in the 95% for height and 75% for weight. It was crazy because we compared her size to Clare's at this age and she is 1/4 of an oz different in weight and 1/4 of an inch different in size. It is going to be fun to see if she continues to follow her big sisters growth chart!

Here is a sweet video of the girls playing and of Elle's great laugh!

Family Weekend of Fun

2011-02-21T18:40:00.000-08:00

We had an extremely unexpected super fun family weekend. LD decided to take Friday off of work and already had Monday off, which gave us FOUR days as a family, which is extremely unusual, especially with having no set plans. The weather decided to cooperate with LD's long weekend and we got some 70 degree weather for four days in February! YAY!!

Friday we spent some time some time walking to the park to play and then LD and Clare had a big daddy/daughter date planned to go to ImaginOn library to see "If You Take A Mouse To School." During dinner Friday night LD asked Clare if she would like to dress up for their big date and her response was "Oh, just like trick or treat and I can be a butterfly." It was so cute and she was very bummed she was not going to be wearing her butterfly costume. She loved the play and they didn't get home til 9:15, so it was a big night for her.

Saturday we decided last minute to meet some great friends and their little daughter at the NC Zoo. It was a big day for us from the 2 hour drive to the zoo, to working around Elle's feeding schedule and pushing around the big double stroller. We didn't really have a plan and just figured we would leave if the girls started melting down. They both did so great. It was by far one of the most fun days we have had as a family. I was so proud of both of them! We were at the zoo from 1030am til 430pm, so Clare totally missed her nap and was hanging with us like a trooper. As soon as we hit the car she slept from 430 til we pulled into our driveway, and then went to bed an hour later.

Sunday and Monday were much more low key, full of my spring cleaning list (thanks to LD for pitching in to get it done), playing with friends at the park, eating out, going to church and just playing as a family. I'm so thankful for weekends like this when we get to celebrate the family we were blessed with!

The month of February

2011-02-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

Pics by Christine at Dimples and Curls

I feel like there is a lot going on and just have not blogged much lately, so here is all that has been happening in the Jackson world!!

-We are HEALTHY!! (whoo hoo, knock on wood!)

I had to take Clare to an ear, nose and throat doctor this week because she has had SO many ear infections (5 since Dec. 1st) and had some fluid on her ear. Of course when we went her ear was perfectly beautiful, but sadly the doctor said if she gets another ear infection in the next few weeks we may have to have her adnoids removed. Please pray we don't have to go that route and that God will keep her little ears healthy. I have become extremely paranoid and every time she touches her ear or has a bad nap I'm sure its another one coming.

- We had a great Valentines Day!

It is fun to have little girls and celebrate Valentines Day. LD and I have always celebrated with eating out or a card, but nothing huge. Clare and I made some heart shaped brownies, heart shaped Jell-o and she got a few packages in the mail (our next highlight). LD brought us home dinner too, which was a treat to me. And our great friend Christine at Dimples and Curls Photography took some awesome pics of the girls! We have our official 3 month photo shoot to get pics of them together the beginning of March, but these came out so cute, and Clare LOVED the cookie pop she got to eat while pics were being taken.

-We have gotten a LOT of fun mail!

In 3 short days we received a Valentines package from my Aunt Tina, a Valentines box from my mom, and Christmas presents from LD's sisters family. They all came on different days and when Clare would get up from her nap we spent all afternoon opening and playing with the fun things she got. On day 4 she woke up and said "I need a present!" and I realized she had been very spoiled!! Also every new book and stuffed animal she has gotten has taken up residency in her bed and there is not much room left for her, but she will not part with any of it!

-Clare is now very obsessed with public Restrooms...not so fun!

Clare is now leaving home in her big girl undies and has been GREAT at it. The problem is that she is very curious about public restrooms, and I hate to tell her to hold it and have an accident, and she always does really go. So poor LD had to take her by himself into the men's restroom at Best Buy, and I've had to make many stops along the way. She also likes to show off her cute little panties, which has lead us to many discussions about privacy. There is no modesty with a 2 year old!

We have a very exciting week coming up as my mom and LD's mom are both coming to stay for 1 week! I am flying to San Antonio to meet my sister and speak at a Spring Arbor University event, which I am so stinkin excited about. Knowing that daddy and both grandma's are with the girls will give me such peace of mind to really have a good time with my sis!! So I'm sure I'll have lots to post about their adventures very soon!

The girl loves to talk!

2011-01-29T17:22:00.001-08:00

When I was little I was a talker...I still am a talker. But when I was little my parents often tell me how I would talk to a wall. I just loved to talk. My sweet little Clare has been blessed with the gift of gab as well. She is to the age when she says some seriously funny stuff, and she is also to the age where she repeats things 80 million times even though you've patiently said, "Yes Clare" every single time!

Example #1 - We had to go to the doctors this week because I knew both girls had ear infections. Clare has been super into playing with her doctor kit at home and could barely contain her excitement while waiting for the nurse to call her name. When she finally did Clare stood up and yelled "hurry mom, its my turn"...and away we went. When the doctor came in and was trying to listen to her heart this was the conversation within about 35 seconds.

Clare: "Mom, that is Dr. Blanton. Dr. Blanton is listening to my heart. Do you see him listening to my heart? Mom, can I have a sticker? The stickers are in the closet, can I have one?"

Dr. Blanton: "Clare, sweetheart, I need you to be quiet so I can hear your heart.

Clare: OK, (giggle giggle) Dr. Blanton are you listening to my heart? (giggle, giggle)

Dr. Blanton: Clare, I need you to try to be very quiet.

This went on for about 5-6 min and I had to do everything in my power not to laugh because poor Dr. Blanton was so serious.

Example #2 - We are in Target and Clare is talking non-stop about the gum and candy next to the check out line. She is talking to no one in particular and I was ignoring her while I was loading my things on the check out lane. The cashier says "Hi sweetheart". Clare stops talking, flashes a sweet little grin and very sweetly says "Please don't look at me...I'm shy". What???? Where does this come from??

Example #3 - Today we took a family walk and Clare rode in her wagon. On the way back to the house she decided she needed to play outside and ride on her bike when we got home. The entire 10 minute walk back home this was the conversation.

Clare: Mom I need to ride on my bike.

Me: Ok, Clare when we get home you can.

Clare: Mom, can I ride on my bike?

Me: yes, Clare please stop asking

Clare: Dad, I want to ride on my bike.

LD: Yes Clare, mommy said you could.

Clare: Can I ride my bike?
Me and LD: Yes Clare stop talking about it!!

AHHHH...its sweet and innocent but seriously that girl just does not stop!

The other funny thing she does right now is mixes up words and I LOVE IT. LD tries to correct her often, but I think her words are much better. Here are some of her mix-ups.

Alligator when referring to an elevator

Rain drops when referring to ear drops

Lily Pop is a lollipop

Whack and cheese is Mac and cheese

She is the best and makes me smile everyday!

Sweet Elle is 3 months

2011-01-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

My poor second child does not have weekly or even monthly blog posts dedicated to her growth and development, so I thought it necessary for her to have her very own 3 month blog special!

I cannot believe Elle is already 3 months old. It goes even faster with the second one. I actually marked the date on my calendar so it wouldn't pass without us noticing it. I keep calling her a newborn and have to remind myself often that my sweet little 13 1/2 lb. baby is not a newborn at all. :)

Elle is pure sweetness, the happiest most joyful little thing you have ever seen. She has the biggest toothless grin ever and gives it to anyone who will stop to chat with her. She has this little fluffy hair that sticks straight up, which I love because Clare didn't have any hair at all at this point. Elle is a little chunk with more rolls that I have ever seen on baby legs and it is precious. She is already in 6 month clothes and growing like crazy!!

It is fun to watch Elle sit in her bouncy seat and follow Clare around the room while she plays. When Clare takes a little time to stop and talk to her Elle just glows...she loves her big sister so much! She is slowly learning to like tummy time but would much rather bat at her little animals hanging from her floor gym.

I'm so proud of her falling into her little schedule, much to mommy's sigh of relief given my type A personality. Our next goal is not waking up for the extra 3:30am feeding...praying this happens soon!

I love you sweet little Elle and am so glad God has placed you in our family!

Christmas in Charlotte

2010-12-30T17:17:00.000-08:00

This Christmas was a huge event for us...our first Christmas ever spent in Charlotte and away from Michigan. We have been very excited about it, but of course sad to not be participating in traditions and with our families. That said, we had a really great Christmas and were glad to be home! Both of our girls were deemed healthy by Christmas and that was the biggest gift we could have asked for. My sister Vanessa also flew in from Vegas and spent a week with us which was a huge treat!!

Poor Auntie V arrived in Charlotte 4 hours early and I did not check my phone. So after a red eye flight, she spent the wee morning hours waiting for us to wake up and come get her from the airport (oops!). That was not a great way to start a trip, but I promise it got better. We spent most of our time at home playing, dancing, and baking with little trips of shopping in there and even a trip to see the singing bears uptown. We also were able to go to Next Level Church's Christmas Eve service, which we are sad we normally have to miss. Santa came and left a whole bunch of fun stuff for everyone and it was fun doing the Santa thing with Clare. Everytime someone asked her what she wanted for Christmas from Santa she would tell them "baby Jesus." It was very sweet and I love that she knows the true meaning of Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birthday, even if sometimes her stories get crossed :)

The Ho family came over on Christmas Day with their son, Ayden (Clare's little boyfriend and best buddy) to celebrate with us. It was such a blessing to have another family to have dinner with and just enjoy the day. We are so blessed that even far away from family we have friends that hold such a dear place in our hearts.

Christmas night Charlotte got a lot of snow dumped on it. Being from Michigan I really had no desire to see snow this Christmas, but hey it made a lot of people smile...including my 2 year old. She woke up and she asked immediately if she could play in it. Her and LD spent a lot of time playing, making snow angels and even sledding down our hill in her plastic pool...while inside poor Auntie V was trying desperately to figure out how she would get home. The snow delayed her trip by 2 days...too bad right?!?! We were thrilled to have her a few extra days. And her extra days meant she was able to spend a day with my parents.

The day after Christmas my parents arrived and it was seriously Christmas part 2! They didn't pull in til 2am, but we put all the presents under the tree and did it all again. Santa showed up AGAIN and we got very spoiled! We had 3 great days with them playing with our new toys and seeing the bears...again...nothing gets old for a 2 year old! This morning they headed out and we sent out the signal that Christmas was officially over for us. We cleaned up all the decorations, organized the toys, and most importantly dumped every peice of sugar from the house. SIGH..and it feels good!

Our week of Christmas camp :)

2010-12-17T19:13:00.000-08:00

We have survived!!! Clare, Elle and I have spent the last 14 days inside the walls of our home to get everyone healthy. I really wanted to rebuild their immune sytems given the holiday season and with so much junk going around I wanted to make sure we didn't catch something else. After week 1 I decided we needed some fuel to get through the week ahead. After a quick run to Michaels an the grocery store we were ready!!

During our week at home we completed a gingerbread village with only one casualty when Clare dropped a side of a house and Bella ate it up real quick. We also made a paper wreath, a Christmas tree, Rudolph and ornaments. We had hoped to make many more treats, but at least made some blueberry struesel and Chocolate mint cookies. We have lots and lots more cookies to make next week, but we were busy!

Vanessa flies in on Monday from Vegas to spend the week with us and we are ready for her to be here to celebrate the week ahead. We could not be more excited to be spending our first Christmas ever at HOME, in Charlotte. It will be different and we will be missing our family terribly, but we are blessed to have a relaxed holiday to celebrate our Savior's birth!

Let me tell you about Elle....

2010-12-13T17:42:00.001-08:00

Our sweet newest addition is a complete bundle of joy. She is super content and a happy little girl. But for whatever reason....she has had a few challenges in her short 7 weeks of life. In the beginning they were just little bumps in the road, but as sad as they have become it is quite comical that one little girl only being in the world for 7 weeks could already face so many issues...I'm praying God is getting them all out of the way now ;)

Here's her little life thus far in a nut shell...

Birth - smooth and easy. Slightest concern she may have jaundice, but no major concern.

1 week check up - Still slightly concerned about jaundice, so we had to have blood drawn from her heel to have it tested. Also her cord had already fallen off and her belly button was not fully dried, so the dr. used a stick of some sort to close it up (not fun!). Also, Elle's little pooper was not working properly so the doctor had to "stimulate" her, which she did not enjoy.

2 weeks - Elle developed a seriously awful case of baby acne...poor girl will always wonder why there are no pictures of her from weeks 2-4 of her little life

3 weeks- take a deep breath, we got a break...except Elle is still not going number 2, so we are having to stimulate her every 48 hours at home

4 weeks - We were in Michigan and Elle developed thrush, which Clare also had so I knew exactly what it was and thankfully the dr. just called in a prescription for us

5 weeks - We went for our 4 week check up a week late because of our trip home and it turns out Elle has breast milk jaundice (who knew there was such a thing) and is favoring the right side of her head so we have to do neck exercises with her at home so she won't have to wear a helmet down the road. Also, the Dr. is highly concerned about her little pooping issue that has not corrected itself, so he sends us directly to a GI Dr. to have her looked at. The GI Dr. puts her on 1 oz of apple juice a day (much to mine and LD's dislike as we still don't have Clare much juice at all).

6 and 7 weeks - Clare gets a cold and passes it to Elle...and so it begins. (Clare's little runny nose and cough turned into bronchitis and a double ear infection after already being cooped up inside for 7 days). Right after Clare starts her little cold we notice that Elle starts coughing and sneezing. One morning LD wakes me up and says he can hear Elle choking and we both get up and she has vomited in her bed and then it turned into gagging and choking and then vomiting for the next 3 nights. To make a long story short we had 3 doctors visits and 1 ER visit in the middle of the night...not a highlight in my mommy days. With Elle sleeping in her car seat so she is elevated and Clare upstairs coughing and coughing LD and I decided to sleep in shifts and thought we made it through the worst, until today when Elle developed her own ear infection and an eye infection. Our counter has no lie--about 15 bottles of medication on it, each room has a vaporizer, we have a nebulizer for Clare and our laundry room is constantly in business.

I keep telling Elle...its a good thing she is so dang cute and happy! I have never seen a baby so happy and smiling constantly! We are looking forward to week 8...praying for some relief :)

Thanksgiving in Michigan

2010-11-29T12:21:00.000-08:00

We did it!! We did it!! We honestly went on a 12 hour road trip with a 26 month old, 5 weeks old, and dog in a 5 seater vehicle...it can be done. I was very stressed out about this trip and I was very unprepared for it, but we pulled it off. The trip itself was pretty uneventful, though a lot of work! We stopped 3 times each way, every 3-4 hours to feed Elle and when we stopped L.D. was incredibly busy getting gas in the car, getting food for everyone, changing Clare's diaper and taking Bella out. Each stop lasted about an hour no matter how fast we moved. We made both trips in 12 hours and usualy its an 11 hour trip, so we did really well, but we did decide a bigger vehicle will be purchased very soon.

Now the vacation....or family traveling I should say...LD and I decided it was not a vacation by any means. Of course it did not go as planned, but it was a huge blessing in a lot of ways. Before leaving we knew hospice has been called in for LD's grandmother and the family had gathered, so we were prepared that she would pass at some point during our trip. LD was able to spend 2 days with her and with his family before she left this life on Saturday evening surrounded by her children and grandchildren. The next two days were spent at visitation and the funeral, of course not a fun time, but we got a lot of time with family we would not have otherwise seen and we were thankful to be a part of all that was taking place.

A funeral home is definetely not a place for a two year old, but we made the best of it. At one point Clare asked about grandma and I explained that she went to live with Jesus and she was resting peacefully. I, in my motherly wisdom and concern was trying so hard to explain it correctly without causing Clare any confusion and the next words out of her mouth were, "Want to touch her?" She tried over and over throughout the evening to "touch her" and we all had to laugh at her sweet innocence.

We did have a great Thanksgiving dinner with LD's family and spent a few days with my parents at their new home in the country, right next to a little pond. Clare caught her first fish with daddy and papa and had no fear as she held it up for a picture. We decorated Grammie's Christmas tree, had Christmas with cousins from both sides of the family and got to love on Auntie V who had flown in from Vegas. Elle's big highlight of our trip was the day before we left she showed off her first grin, followed by lots and lots more!!

This Thanksgiving we are thankful for God's perfect timing and for the blessings He is continually pouring over our family!

Praise report about Vanessa!

2010-11-16T14:31:00.000-08:00

We are so thankful for a faithful God who continues to protect Vanessa and guide her as she fights this battle! Just wanted to share the news with you!!

Faithful Family and Friends,

Thank you barely seems like the appropriate words for the embarrassing amount of encouragement I've received from you over the past few weeks. I've been overwhelmed with care packages, encouragement, and unceasing prayers. After speaking at a Women's Breakfast a few weeks ago, I realized what an opportunity I've been given. It was after I finished speaking and sharing my heart with the women that I saw a miracle take place in the room before me as women shared with tears in their eyes that they too were fighting a battle. An amazing young woman in the room shared the same physical battle of cancer with me, yet I realized just how big the giants that each of us are up against on a daily basis truly are. Gathered around one another in prayer, I watched God take this challenge in my life and transform it into a platform to change the "what is" in our lives to the "possibility of what could be" in Christ. WOW - as I spoke the words I realized just how many moments I've been given as possibility!

I have never doubted the power of prayer, yet when I get to experience the fruits firsthand it always blows me away. This afternoon I received a phone call from sharing that my test results came back showing NO leukemia and NO cancer within my lymph nodes! What a faithful God! What this means moving forward is that we will continue with the steroid treatments I am currently on until my doctors appointment on December 14th to re-evaluate the progress and growth.

Thank you for your faithfulness to intercede on my behalf each and every day! I ask that as you pray for healing, that you would specifically pray for me to be a good steward of this opportunity and platform I've been given to shine the light into the lives of others!

With gratitude and love,
Vanessa

Elle's newborn pictures

2010-11-08T12:01:00.000-08:00

Our most amazing friend and photographer (and HUGE blessing to us!) Christine at Dimples and Curls Photography came over last week to get newborn pictures of Elle. I had no idea what went into a newborn photo shoot and I am amazed and the work that Christine and her mom Millie do! They came to our house and were there for 6 hours patiently waiting for Elle to fall into a deep enough sleep to position her in the ways they had in mind. They had a little heater so she wouldn't get cold, so many cute props and a sound machine to keep her sleeping. My mom and I watched in awe as they worked with her, rocking her head or patting her to keep her sleeping while they moved her. It is like watching art just to watch them work!!! Here are a few shots they are INCREDIBLE!!! I am so excited to see the rest of them!

We are so blessed that these two precious girls are our daughters!

Of course there are a few shots of Clare and a great "sisters" shot too!!

Look a like sisters

2010-11-07T17:27:00.001-08:00

A friend of mine recently sent me a picture of two brothers when they were both first born and their baby pictures looked identical. I wish I would have thought to take a similar picture of Elle to see how much her and Clare really look alike. I thought it was such a great idea so I found two pictures where they are the same age and they look just alike!! The funny thing is Clare doesn't look that much like her baby pictures...she was a chunky newborn with a round face and now she is a little peanut without much meat on her bones and its really changed the way she looks. But the two of them look just alike in their baby pics. See if you can tell who is who :)

Elle's first week

2010-10-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

I know I am not going to be nearly as good about blogging about Elle as I was with Clare, but I am going to try!! We have LOVED having Elle home with us. She has been such an easy, happy baby! I don't know if it comes from her being a second and us being more relaxed or with her just being a very content baby, but she has made this transition very easy for us thus far.

This week we have been blessed with meals from a few good friends, visitors coming to meet Elle and even a few outings. LD was home with us Monday and Tuesday and I think going back to work on Wednesday was a little harder for him than he expected. He has come home each night and lay with Elle on his chest while watching basketball (yes, unfortunately it is fantasy basketball time, which means there is ALWAYS a game on). We took Elle to her first week check up and she was up to 8lbs 13oz, which the doctor was happy about since when we left the hospital she was down to 8lb 10oz. She was a little yellow so they had to test her for jaundice and also do something to help her belly button heal since her cord had already fallen off. All of those little things made for a long not so fun day for Elle, but she is healthy so it was a good visit.

Our first big outing was taking Elle and Clare up to LD's office so he could show her off. It was my first time attempting to get showered myself, get both of the girls dressed, fed and get out of the house...and I still have my moms help. We didn't get to the office til 11 and I was a little overwhelmed by the effort it took to get there. We had a big surprise when we got there as LD's team had spoiled us with toys, clothes, blankets and wipes for Elle and a new baby doll for Clare. It was so incredibly thoughtful and Clare is so excited about her doll that cries ;) My mom treated us to Panera on the way home and we were all ready for a nap!!

Yesterday was a big day as our great friend Christine came over to take Elle's newborn pictures. Elle was not incredibly helpful as she was more awake than she has been since birth, but they got some awesome shots and I am SO excited to see them and show them off!

Life is good, we are blessed!! Elle is such a sweet addition to our family and Clare has been acting great in her new role as big sister!! Papa (my dad) comes on Monday and will stay with my mom til Thursday, then we switch grandparents and LD's parents head into town. I am So thankful to have help as long as I can! I'm sure in the weeks to come my posts may not be so "up" as I adjust to life with two little girls!

Elle Adair Jackson

2010-10-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

She is here!!! Our sweet little girl has arrived!! Thursday, October 21st at 7am I was induced. It was a picture perfect labor and delivery...seriously, that is the way to have a baby! For those who want a little more detail, the doctor broke my water at 8am, I started on pitocin at 8am as well, contractions started and by 1030 I had my wonderful epidural. From 1030 til 1245 I caught up on some celebrity gossip with my magazines, LD planned his picks for fantasy basketball and we just relaxed. At 1pm I told them I felt like it was time and we waited for the doctor to show up at 130...by 135 she had arrived. I could not have asked for any better of a day!

Elle was 9lbs 5oz and 22 inches long. No one was expecting her to be so big, especially not the doctor! She is absolutely beautiful and looks a lot like her big sister!

For everyone who has 1 child, you must have a second!! It is so much easier in delivery and recovery. I couldn't believe how much calmer LD and I have both been just knowing what was coming and what to expect. That said we are definetely in the exhaustion phase. Night 1 at home, our sweet Elle was very very hungry and up all night long...and 8am came quickly and Clare was not short on energy. I am so very thankful that my mom is here and will be until Nov. 3rd and that LD's mom was able to come for a short visit.

Clare has done incredibly well in her new role as big sister. She loves Elle so much and at times that is our biggest problem. She is always wanting to "hold baby sister", kiss her, give her toys, etc. We have to be very close by at all times, but I am so thankful this is the way she has decided to approach this new life change.

Thank you so much for all of the sweet well wishes and congrats! We are enjoying very lazy days at home and getting into our new routine in our family of 4 with two sweet little girls!

With a heavy heart and faithful prayers

2010-10-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is a big week in the life of my family. We have been waiting for more than just this sweet little baby to arrive. We have also been waiting in anticipation for my sister Vanessa's test results.

Some of you may know my younger sister Vanessa was diagnosed with a very rare form of skin cancer called Mycosis Fungoides as an 8 year old. Through prayer she was miraculously healed as we know only our God can do. We all moved on from that part of life without spending too much time looking back. About 8 weeks ago Vanessa had found similar spots on her stomach and walked back into the office of a cancer specialist to be tested. She has shown incredible strength that we know only God can give and has walked fearlessly through this process knowing God has an incredible plan for her life and that His promises are true...always! Below is an email that she sent out to friends and family today and I asked her if I could post this on my blog to share with my friends and ask you to join us in prayer for her.

Our family handles this situation differently than most in the world because of the relationship we have with our God and knowing His love for us. Vanessa is an inspiration to me that even as she lives in Las Vegas, far away from her family in the middle of "crisis" the love of her heavenly Father rings loud and true each and every day of her life!

Thank you for your prayers!

Friends and Family,
I want to thank you once again for your faithfulness in prayer, encouragement and love over the past week as we've waited in anticipation to hear from my doctor.

It is with an authentic faith in all that is to come that my results came back today indicating that my childhood cancer has returned. My doctor is out of town until next Monday however I had the opportunity to speak with those testing in the lab that shared that I have been diagnosed with Mycosis Fungoides. Without the ability to give further information without a doctor, they have scheduled me at the Skin and Cancer Center first thing Monday morning (10am PST) to discuss all of the details from treatment, growth and next steps from my doctor.

I called my family and shared with them the same thing I will share with you - God has called us on an adventure. And I don't believe He has called me to go alone, but for all of us to go together to experience a new side of His character than ever before! When I was 8 years old I learned the faithfulness and power of a God who heals! That God has not changed and continues to be just as faithful and just as powerful. I shared with you when I first started this journey that I may not know when, where or why...but I know my God! And that has not changed either...I know my God!

It's with that in which I invite each of you on an amazing adventure! An adventure to watch God at work within the life of a 24 year old girl who is ready to experience what the blind man experienced when he was healed, what Moses experienced when the Red Sea parted, and what Peter experienced when he walked on water- ready to experience what happens when our faith does not grow weary and tired, but instead moves forward expectant of a miracle!

Chasing Him,
Vanessa

Waiting, waiting on our sweet little girl...

2010-10-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

Oh how familiar this feeling is. Just a little over two years ago I had multiple posts on waiting for the arrival of Clare. I was SURE this time would be so different because my body "already knew what to do." Nope...I think somehow my body missed the signal on how to put itself into labor. I am now 39 weeks and 3 days, and thankfully the end is in sight. Since Clare was a 9lb baby and 7 days late I will be induced on Thursday...just two more days!!! I was certain that we would not make it to the induction date, and even though I convince everyone each night that tonight is the night...I wake up in the morning realizing it will most likely be Thursday.

My mom came in last Tuesday, she has already been here a week and we have all been loving it!! We have had lots of fun adventures in our waiting week! We have had a diaper shower for little sister, organized ridiculous amounts of clothing, went to see Toy Story 3 for Clare's first ever time in the movies, eaten at yummy restaurants, added a few scarecrows to our autumn decorated home and done lots of playing!

Below are a few pictures from our adventures. Two awesome friends offered to throw a diaper shower for "little sister" as we've all been calling her and I cannot tell you what a huge blessing it will be to have a huge stash of diapers since we currently have two in them. It was such a sweet and fun time to celebrate this little girl with some great friends from our church!

My mom and I had gone to see "Eat, Pray, Love" (which I was not a huge fan of) on Sunday evening and saw that Toy Story 3 was playing at the dollar theater. I suggested taking Clare which was a huge experiment for so many reasons...it was 3D so she had to wear glasses, she's never been to a theater, and she's never watched a full length movie. But with it being the dollar theater I didn't feel bad if we needed to leave an hour into it. Let me tell you, this girl is going to LOVE going to the movies! She wore her glasses the whole time and did not move an inch. She kept talking really loud in the beginning about Buzz and Woody, but once we got going she didn't say a word. I was truly impressed with my normal wiggle worm 2 year old!

As most of you know we keep our names a secret. Well, with Clare we had her name from the day I got pregnant and never looked back. It has not been the same with this little girl. We had one we were pretty set on, but not fully committed to. Two nights ago I freaked out a little and decided there was no way we could name her that. I just all of a sudden did not like it at all and I was sure I was going to go into labor without a name for our little girl!!! So at 11:30 on Sunday night LD and I both sat in bed with the baby name book. We still do not have a name...but we are working on it. This is SOO not like me!!! Say a prayer God reveals a name to us!

We have had fun, we are organized, house is cleaned, fridge is stocked, everything is in place...we just need our sweet little punkin to arrive!! So excited to share pics of our sweet little girl!

Happy 2nd Birthday Clare!!

2010-09-27T12:14:00.001-07:00

I am sure every year, every parent says it is so hard to believe their child is such and such age. But I'm also sure every year it is just as astonishing! I cannot believe Clare is TWO!!

We had an extremely fun filled weekend celebrating her birthday! Friday night we headed to Red Robin and had dinner as a family. Of course they brought over a huge sundae and sang to her. LD and I both were ready for her to start crying because her face was so serious, but she just took it all in...and loved her special dessert!

Saturday we went with our friends Min, Kimmy and Ayden to Lazy 5 Ranch to celebrate. Ayden is just two months younger than Clare and it is such a blessing for her to have a friend who is doing the exact same things she is! It was SO hot out, but everyone had a blast. As soon as we got onto the wagon a big elk stuck his head under Clare's feet and licked her arm and that was the end of feeding the animals for Clare. She loved the wagon ride and pointing to the animals, but she did not like when they were all up close to her. For our out of state fam and friends, Lazy 5 Ranch is this huge ranch where you can take a wagon ride or ride a car through where the animals live. You actually get to feet bison, elk, giraffes, ostrich, water baffalo...I can't even remember what else, right out of your hand. It's crazy! We were 2 feet from some beautiful zebras but you aren't supposed to feed them because they bite and I was a little freaked out about them myself! After that big adventure and some serious naps Clare opened all of her presents and she had a bunch that had come in the mail from our wonderful family and friends. We are so blessed that our friends and family want to celebrate our daughter even though we live far away and cannot celebrate with them! LD and I got Clare a kitchen and the rest of the day was spent playing with toys, and more toys, and more toys!

We are now less than 4 weeks from bringing home another baby girl!! My mom will be here Oct. 14th and they will induce me by my due date (Oct 23rd) since Clare was so big and so late :) I feel like we are ready and I have no doubt our big two year old will make an amazing big sister!!

Happy Birthday Clare!! We love you!!

She continues to amaze!!

2010-09-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

I have posted pictures every time we have had them taken by Christine at Dimples and Curls Photography and she just always always amazes me!! We talked about doing a maternity shoot and I was so unsure about it, but she made me feel so comfortable and incorporated so many family shots, and sweet shots of Clare and I. These pictures will always be such a sweet memory of this special time in our life! Thank you so much Christine for using your gifts to bless others!

Awful, horrible, no good, very bad....WEEK!

2010-09-05T11:36:00.000-07:00

Gross, I know. just in case you wanted to know what hand, foot and mouth disease looked like!

Beware this blog post may not be uplifting!!!

I am usually a very positive person. I'm the one who if you ask how I am I say "great" and I usually feel like its very accurate. Not this week... Thankfully I didn't see anyone to ask me how I was doing, but if you are curious, I was not good!

On Tuesday I found a spot on Clare's tongue and knew it was hand, foot and mouth disease...again! I don't know how we have gotten it two times, but it is gross. The first time Clare had it was not bad, didn't last long, and we powered through. This time, this no good sickness took us by STORM! Clare developed blisters on her hands, her feet and all over her mouth (cheeks, tongue, roof of her mouth). Also from having it once already we knew there is no medication...just some motrin and tylenol.

Clare would scream "teeth hurt" over and over during the day, all day. She is an avid thumb sucker at night and not being able to suck her thumb meant she couldn't sleep. So she would scream for an hour, sleep for an hour and then wake up screaming again. The first night I rocked her for 3 hours, and the second night she slept with me while LD slept on the couch since he had to work the next day. She also did not eat one bite of food from Tuesday-Sunday. During the day we didn't leave the house and she screamed all day long. I normally have a very easy happy baby and she turned into a child I hope and pray I never see again. It was not pretty!

After 5, yes 5 days of this craziness her mouth started to heal. At this point we were both running ragged and by time LD walked in the door from work I was usually already in tears (and I am not a crier!!)

Last night Clare actually slept through the night and is sleeping peacefully now during her nap. Right now she is not sucking her thumb and if this sickness cured her of thumb sucking I may have to erase this post and call it all a blessing, but time will tell!

Here are some things I learned this week (in hindsight of course):

- No matter how blessed you are, and I am mighty blessed, you still have days that bring you to your knees

-When your kids get sick living 12 hours away from your mom is not a wise idea

-An almost 2 year old girl who has no sleep or food for 5 days should not be seen in public

-With God as my strength all things are possible, even when they seem incredibly overwhelming.

Today I am so thankful for my daughters sweet disposition, her joyful heart and her love for people. I know that as we bring another sweet little girl into our home in the next 2 months we will have difficult days...but God will see us through. I have no idea how I would make it through difficult times if it wasn't for His love and promises!

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

My sweet Bella-boo

2010-09-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Look...someone's been sleeping in my bed!!!

The only furniture she's allowed to sleep on....

Searching for bunnies

Caught in the act!!!

Best friends :)

Anyone who knew me pre-Clare knows thats my sweet cocker spaniel Bella was my first baby. She was incredibly spoiled and treated like a human in many ways. I feel like she deserves a little love shout out on the blog for being such a great dog!!

Bella is the most maintenance free dog anyone could ever have. She has a little doggie door in the dining room and goes in and out whenever she needs to. We feed her twice a day and other than that requires not much attention. Bella is so so sweet with Clare and very protective of her when we are out walking.

I recently decided that Bella was no longer allowed to sleep on our bed during the day. She's never been allowed in bed with us at night, but would curl up on top of the covers during the day. Well all of a sudden I started finding her UNDER the covers of my made bed. Yes, she would seriously pull the covers back with her paws and crawl under. It was comical, ridiculous...and gross. So poor Bella is no longer allowed on our new couch or in our bedroom. So here is a pic of her new favorite place to sleep, even though she doesn't fit very well.

Thanks for being such a sweet dog Bella...even as you continue to get demoted as we add more children to our home!

Two baby bumps in one house!

2010-08-19T18:41:00.000-07:00

We have had so many visitors this month and have been loving it. For the last four days mine and LD's neice Kristyl and her boyfriend Jaap came to visit. Jaap is from the Netherlands and they are expecting a little boy in December. He is just in the US for a few weeks, so it was such a treat they spent some time with us. It was so fun for Kristyl and I to spend time together while being pregnant and also very fun to get to know Jaap.

When they first got to our house Monday night Clare was SO incredibly shy, which is unusual, but was upset when either of them would even look at her. It didn't last long. By the next morning Clare was snuggling in Jaap's lap to watch Barney and giving them both kisses and hugs. Kristyl and Jaap watched Clare for me while I went to the doctors on Tuesday (because I am on the every other week doctor visits now), and Clare told them that they could color "all day" her new favorite phrase. While Clare napped and went to bed at night we played card games and board games and just hung out. I learned a ton about the Netherlands and Dutch culture as Jaap was always telling us about new things. We also took them to our fav Charlotte restaurant, Mac's Speedshop for some BBQ and LD took them on a little tour of the city.

Wednesday we spent the morning at Monkey Joe's with friends and it was a great time to be there because Jaap (who is 6'5") climbed in all the slides and jumpers with Clare while Kristyl and I relaxed a little. He definetely had a hard time fitting in some of the tunnels! By time we got home everyone was ready for an afternoon nap!

By the end of their visit Clare was calling Jaap "honey"...not sure where she picked that up, and had almost mastered Kristyl's name, which is really hard for an almost 2 year old. It was such a fun week and we are so blessed to have family who desires to make the long haul from Michigan to come visit us!! Thanks for a great week Kristyl and Jaap! Love you both!

Clare loves Barney and Jesus

2010-08-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

My sweet daughter has an obsession with Barney. Before one year Clare didn't watch any television, then for most of her second year of life she was allowed 30 minutes a day. As she's approaching 2 she usually watches an hour. Our goal of this was just to limit her tv intake so she would have more focus on playing. Anyway..all that to say we thought it would help with her obsesson with tv. I'm telling you that girl has fallen head first off a chair, thrown up, and had bloody knees and if you ask her if she wants to watch Barney, the tears miraculously stop...instantly!!

Every night at dinner Clare says a simple prayer, usually like this "Dear Jesus, thank you for our food. Thank you for mommy, daddy, Clare and sister. Amen" Just this last week she started adding some new things...a friends name, chicken, etc. Well last night she prayed only for Clare, Barney, Baby Bop and BJ. And a few nights ago when I put her to bed she asked to sing Jesus Loves Me and I asked her if she loved Jesus and she said "yes, and Barney."

So.....yes, I am raising a very serious Barney lover! This is a little video of her this week singing her favorite Barney song. The funniest part is that she is doing the movements that the kids do in her video. The other funny thing is you can't tell in the video but she is doing her dancing facing the oven so she can watch her reflection. Yup..she's my daughter and I love it!

Sorry for the naked girl....she just started performing so we didn't worry about clothes!

Happy 6 year anniversary!

2010-08-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

We came home from Michigan just in time to celebrate our six year anniversary! My mom was here so we were even more excited for a free date night, a rare occurrance for us!! LD made reservations the same place we went last year, a super great place in Charlotte called Barrington's. It is so cute and little and is a treat to be able to eat there. We couldn't get in til 9pm, which is a very late dinner for us, but we were so excited about it we got there very hungry! We both oohed and ahhed over our entrees and had an amazing pudding cake dessert with homemade ice cream. I mean how many restaurants make their own ice cream for dessert?!? The whole way home LD wouldn't even talk about food and he went straight to bed. I think we overdid it a little, but it was worth the indulgence ;)

Happy 6th Anniversary love!!

Summer trip to Michigan

2010-08-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

Just mommy and Clare flew to Michigan last Monday for some time with family! This could turn into a very long post because of all we did and who we saw, but I'll try very hard to keep it to the basics. Clare did great on the plane ride and all of my prayers were answered with the flight being on time and no complications. It was difficult for my preggo belly and Clare to fit into the same seat, but we managed!

Monday evening we went to the church I grew up in just to say hi to a few people since it was VBS and Clare ended up playing in the 2 year old class and having a ton of fun! She would have gone every evening if we had time. Tuesday we spent the day at my parents and friends came over throughout the day to visit, which was so nice. I loved that most of our trip was spent in one place and people came to see us. It really helped on not feeling overwhelmed. Tuesday evening we celebrated my neice, Kristen's 17th birthday and it was fun to be with her to celebrate! Clare also got to play with her cousin Jayden who is 2 months younger than her. They are SO cute together and I love seeing them play!

Wednesday my mom, Clare and I drove to Reading to spend the day with LD's parents, sisters and our neices and nephew. By this point in the trip Clare had gotten very clingy and only wanting mommy, which is very unusual for her. She finally got out of her little funk and hung out with everyone. It was nice to have a day to spend with them, celebrate my neice Kara's 16th birthday and also celebrate my neice Kristyl who is preggo as well! From there we drove to Dundee for me to have dinner with my college roomie and also went to the church my dad is now the pastor of. It was a long day, but so worth it to spend time with so many people we love!

Thursday was another day at my parents with more friends coming to visit! In the evening we headed to my aunt's house to celebrate my cousin Kevin's birthday (are you noticing a trend here??). Clare had more birthday cake than she's ever had in her life!! There were lots more cousins to play with there so she was wore out by the end of the day. I ended Thursday evening with 3 great high school friends, which was a perfect end to my trip.

Friday mornng my mom, Clare and I headed back to Charlotte. We did incredibly well making the trip in 12 hours! Clare watched only 3 hours of Barney, which was very impressive I thought with no major meltdowns. It was a fun trip, but as you see in the pics, at 29 1/2 weeks I am pretty pregnant and am happy to be home and back to normal. We are so glad to have my mom with us for a few days as well.

Here are some pics from the trip!