To The Bride And Groom...

My brother and now sister-in-law got married today in England, where the bride's from and where my brother has been living and going to school. It was too big of an expense for our whole family to fly out there for their special day, as well as John being in school currently, so I wanted to post this in honor of the Bride and Groom!! Welcome to the family Michelle - although you were already considered family to us from the start! :) We love you both so much! God bless you today and always. xoxo

Spring Break in D.C.

Well, Spring Break has rolled around again and we all wanted to do at least ONE fun thing this week (besides Aubrey's weekly soccer and piano of course). So we drove up with some good friends of ours (my visiting teacher and her family) up to Washington D.C. to go through the Air & Space Museum. Their oldest daughter is close to Aubrey's age and they had a blast all day paling around. I could tell she was enjoying herself. Especially when she got to ride with her friend and her friend's dad in front of the rest of us in the Lexus convertible. You should have seen those two sweet girls in the back seat swinging their arms around with the top down on the freeway. I should have taken a picture - it was really funny to watch. It looked like they were having the time of their lives! And I'm sure they felt like it. When we got to the museum, it was very crowded. But I expected it, being spring break and all. Not to mention already that it's a huge tourist attraction. We spent a few good hours there, saw some really interesting things and then decided it was time to get some breathing room and jet out of there. Before going ALL the way home though, we all made a pit stop at the Cracker Barrel for some yummy breakfast for dinner. YUM. Never been there before but it sure won't be our last!!!

Happy Easter

This year, Easter snuck up on us really fast - we didn't dye eggs or have our own Easter egg hunt (which I know isn't what Easter is all about anyways but it's still so much fun). We did enjoy going to church and remembering what this day is all about: Christ's resurrection. Makes me really grateful for our lives and all that we have to be thankful for individually and as a family. We were invited to our friend's home for Easter dinner, which was really fun, and then topped the day off with a huge Easter egg hunt in their backyard. (about 15-20 kids). Boy did they have fun! And just look how adorable they look in their pretty Easter dresses! :) They sure do make great sisters.

So Blessed To Have Family

I never made it on our blog to post that my sister and brother in law had their first baby January 3rd of this year. They named him Owen Nicholas and he is just the cutest baby boy! Our family of 4 missed his special arrival day by just 5 days after we flew back home from Christmas. My sister had the opportunity to fly out on March 14th with little Owen to spend a few days with us so we could finally meet him in person and we're so glad that they did!

We had so much fun with them here. Owen is such a great baby. I loved being able to see my sister again and to finally be able to hold Owen. I know that both of the girls also loved having their cousin and Auntie around. Just see for yourself...

Both Aubrey and Jocelyn loved having a baby in the home. They were big helpers and whenever Owen cried (which wasn't often) Jocelyn would run over and try to calm him, whether with his blanket, finding his pacifier, or playing him music from her toys. So cute to see them love him so much. We were really happy to have them come visit but really sad to see them go. Bitter sweet moment I guess you could say. We really look forward to seeing them again and we're grateful for the opportunity to have them out and stay with us. And a note to Uncle Nick...while Jocelyn still isn't able to say your name yet, you were still missed by us all. :) Thank you for sharing them with us. You guys are always welcome here - and hey, maybe next time we'll finally go see some history here in Virginia!

Jocelyn's 18 Month Update

March 14, 2008 - 18 months old
Stats: *29.5 inches (5 percentile) *18 lbs 14 oz ( below 0 percentile - explained below)

*Walks so well she's starting to run
*Refuses milk but still loves her water
*Brings brightness to our family
*Loves to hug
*Loves story time
*Loves going to the park to swing
*Loves to ride on her toy lion
*Loves music and dancing (Really likes us singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider to her. She waves both hands in the air for us to know she wants it sung. So cute!)
*Both a Mommy and Daddy's girl
*Loves playing with sister
*Goes up and down stairs (with supervision obviously)
*Loves the bath
*Loves animals - especially cats and dogs
*Learned to give kisses
*Loves to play with bubbles
*Words she can say: Mama, Daddy, Aubee (for Aubrey), Ball, Eat, Eee-Uuhh (for clean up), and Go. She knows so much more than what she can say though.
*Favorite comfort item: Still her soft blanket
*Loves to sit on the floor, rip off her socks and inspect her toes. I don't know where she gets this but it makes all of us laugh. She prefers barefoot over socks any day. She's so silly.

Jocelyn's 18 month check-up went pretty well. She's a healthy, happy and active little girl and I couldn't ask for anything more than that. Her weight is slightly low for her age but I'm honestly not concerned. Aubrey was actually the same way and it took her forever to get to 20 pounds. Who knows...maybe she'll be short like her mama. Most likely not! :) We're going back in a month for her 2nd dose of the flu shot and to also recheck her weight. The doctor also has referred us to a speech pathologist. For some reason she's again concerned (besides the weight) that she's not saying enough words. Again, I'm not worried about it. Granted, I would be if she didn't say the words and jibber jabbering that she already does. I think mothers know their children best, but I'm still going to take her to double check if there really is a concern. We'll see come May 8th how it goes. All in all though, she's great! :) And my oh my she's growing up FAST!!

Sweet Moments

I know. I know. I'm eternally behind in the blogging world. I feel guilty about it in a way but things have been seriously busy with our family life that I have had to tell myself time and time again to just adapt to the day to day routine of things and I'll get to write about what we've been up to when the time permits. It may be baby steps but I will catch up someday. :)

I have been reflecting on one of the days I was recently cleaning like mad in our home (killing head lice). I was busy doing LOTS of laundry. I felt bad that I wasn't spending my normal time with the girls and Jocelyn was basically hanging on my legs and whining. I was sitting there trying to fold the laundry as fast as I could so I could throw in the next load and be able to take a break to be with them. It went downhill for Jocelyn at this very moment though. She started to cry while tugging on my pants. I felt horrible but I am only one person with a million and one things to do that were recently thrown onto my list. It then occurred to me: A clean home may be nice but it isn't everything. My girls (and John) are everything to me and I need to treat it as such. So I stopped in the middle of folding, got down to her level by sitting on the floor and she then wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug for the longest time. She then sat in my lap and we sang songs for awhile. Aubrey was busy off in the other room practicing piano but she wasn't forgotten in this sweet moment. She received lots of hugs soon after. I love my girls so much and this day made me realize (again) that my children are a gift to me! A beautiful and special gift. They are way more important to me than a clean home. It's great to relearn things like this. I hope to be able to ponder this day for a long long time so when life gets thrown around, which it usually does from time to time, I'll be able to still notice the important things...MY FAMILY! This was such a sweet moment for me.

Show And Tell

Aubrey has been doing so well in school (nothing new really - she's always doing so well) and has been bringing home many art projects and awards for how good she does on them. Here are just a few that I thought you'd enjoy.

Every year, children choose one piece of their artwork that they feel really proud about and use it with this company that can turn the child's artwork into a pot holder, pillow case, journal...you name it. She was so proud of how it turned out that she wants it framed in her room.

A piece of Aubrey's artwork was on display for a week and was awarded a free kids meal at Chic-fil-a

For Aubrey's Social Studies project on China, she gave a great presentation and made a word search for her visual. She was awarded this certificate for how well she did.

"Good Job Aubrey!" :)