My Little Fashionista

We have been incredibly blessed by the generosity of all our friends and family who have sent us clothes for Caroline. It's so fun to dress her up in girly things! Here are a couple recent shots of her wardrobe:

A little preppy...

A little sassy...

A little "crazy eyes" for her Papaw...

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Time for the annual Christmas card picture. I really don't know how our parents did it. How did you know that you'd gotten a decent picture when you just had to trust that it was somewhere on that roll of film?! Just one more reason I'm thankful to live in the digital age! Thankfully this year we already have our family picture from a professional after Caroline was born. Now I just have to get them designed, addressed and in the mail!

I have always used Shutterfly to make our family Christmas card. Their site is always easy to use and has fantastic designs. Plus, I love that any photos I upload to their site are stored there for me. (So when our computer crashed a few years ago and we lost EVERY SINGLE PICTURE on it I still had all my Shutterfly uploads!) This year they have made the deal even sweeter! Bloggers can get 50 free Holiday cards just for blogging about their experience with Shutterfly. All you have to do is sign up here.

If you haven't checked out their new designs you should. They are very well done and you can order everything from simple photo cards to folded stationary cards. And don't forget about all the gift items like calendars, mugs, wall art and photo books. We made a photo book of our trips to Disney World last year to give our grandparents for Christmas. It was a huge hit and way to help them experience a trip they couldn't be a part of.

Do you send Christmas cards? Have you started thinking about them? There's only 37 days until Christmas, you know?

Ignore the Thanksgiving decorations in the background and the fact that my children refuse to look directly at the camera!

Maybe if Mom would stop being goofy Luke would look at the camera and smile...

Now it's Dad's turn to look goofy...

As you can see... it's not easy to get a good shot around here. I'm sure adding one more baby will only make things that much easier!

4 months in a nutshell...

Bad blogger! Bad, bad blogger!

Sorry everyone! I know it's been forever, but sometimes you are just too busy living life to blog about life! But I'm back. I can't promise I'll be posting everyday but I do have every intention of posting "regularly".

The biggest change since July is the addition of sweet baby Caroline Grace. She joined our family on August 23rd. At 12 days early she was my smallest baby yet, weighing in at a whopping 6 lbs 2 oz. Here are a few photos from early in August before she arrived and then from the first two weeks.

The boys meeting Caroline for the first time at the hospital

(All the professional pictures are by Julie Paisley Photography. She's amazing! Check her out!)

It's been quite an adjustment going from 2 to 3, but we are doing great. Caroline is a precious baby who's a fantastic eater and pretty good sleeper. We feel incredibly blessed to have her in our family!

Here she is this week, weighing in at 12 lbs. (I told you she was a good eater!)

More to come! (No, really! I will be blogging more!)

Happy Birthday to Eric Carle!

It's belated now, but we celebrated one of our favorite author's birthday a few weeks ago. The boys love Eric Carle and Luke's current favorite book is The Very Busy Spider. We read it at least once a day. So, we made spider webs with glue and spiders with oreos to celebrate.

Luke's spider (with a little help from Mom)

Mark's spiders. He's very literal these days and wanted his spiders to have a nose, a mouth and eyebrows to go with their eyes!

Is this a Good Excuse...

I know, I'm a terrible blogger. But I think I've got a decent excuse for now! Here's the belly as of 2 weeks ago. We are doing great and I have lots to catch up on. Look for more posts in the next week or two.

Military Spouse Appreciation Day

I wrote this post last May, but it's still as true as ever. I hope you get the chance to thank a military spouse today for all that they do.

Do you ever stop to think about your freedom? I mean, really. Our country is far from perfect, but we enjoy a tremendous number of liberties that many in the world don't have. I get so tired of hearing people talk about what's wrong with America. There are so many people who just want more and more from our government. And there is a seemingly general attitude of dissatisfaction toward the blessings and privileges we do have. But even worse than that, there is little gratitude for those who have served and still serve to provide those blessings.

You probably don't think about it much, but when you get up and go to worship in the place of your choice on Sunday morning someone is serving to protect that freedom. When you blog about how much the stimulus package disgusts you, someone's husband is missing their anniversary to protect that freedom. When you choose to watch one news channel over another, someone's Daddy just missed their miraculous entrance into this world to protect that freedom. When you go dove hunting on September 1st every fall, someone's son is missing their birthday to protect that freedom.

I'm not asking you to do anything for me. I'm not even asking for sympathy or a pat on the back. I just want to remind you of the sacrifices military families make for the freedom we all enjoy. Our lives are filled with months of being single parents, more missed holidays, anniversaries and birthdays than you could count and weeks without any contact with our husbands. We do it gladly because we love our husbands and our families, but it's often hard and lonely. May is Military Appreciation Month and today is specifically Military Spouse Appreciation Day. So if you know a military spouse, thank them for all that they do today. Or thank a former military spouse who made sacrifices years ago for our freedom.

And in Belated Baby News...

21 Weeks

We will be learning a whole new language at our house in September. One filled with princess-this and pink-that. I can still hardly believe that we aren't having another boy. Tim and I are both beyond thrilled that God has blessed us with a healthy pregnancy and baby girl. As for the name, well, "we know but we aren't telling." (If you haven't seen the video of "Pregnant women are smug" you should look it up on YouTube. It's great stuff!)