Our Baby will be a....

A Sweet Little Girl!!

We found out today that the Lord is blessing our family with another daughter! We are so very excited and feel very blessed! Simms and Cope are thrilled. Now if only we can come up with a name! My sweet Simms has already drawn me a picture of "us girls" as she said. She will be SO good with a little baby girl in the house!

More updates to come..hopefully a name update soon!

Cope turns 3!!

Our precious baby boy turned 3 on December 30! I just cannot believe it. Time has surely flown with this little boy in our lives! He woke up bright and early the morning of his birthday, which suited me just fine! I was ready to hug that neck and kiss those sweet lips. We did our tradition of singing on the camcorder and he blew out his 3 candles! He was so excited!

We had his birthday party Sunday afternoon. It was a very small family party. I know this is probably the last year that I can get away with that, but in all honesty, this is how Cope prefers it. He doesn't like a lot of fuss or people. I'd ordered all of the cowboy stuff a while back, and the plan had been to see about "borrowing" Sissy's MIL's ponies for riding around the yard, but it was freezing! And our cowboy theme got hijacked by Cope about a week before the party. He began telling me he wanted a DQ ice cream cake with dinosaurs on it. OK. Sweet thing never requests things so I couldn't let him down. That is the reason you will see a DQ dino cake, decorated by yours truly. And obviously so.

So excited to have his family singing to him.

Simms was so excited to finally eat a cupcake since she helped make them!

Opening some presents!

And no party is complete without the hysterics of a pinata...

Cope had a wonderful party! He was truly the happiest little boy on his birthday!

The next best thing to turning 3 was potty training! I stuck to my theory of waiting till the day they turn 3 (well did it the day before with Cope) and it has been the easiest thing ever once again! He had 2 teetee accidents that first afternoon, and that has been it! He's been sleeping in underwear since night 2, and he wakes up dry every morning! And he has done great to and from Columbus too in the car! I am SO SO proud of him! We gave him an early birthday "Cars" potty that has a gear shift on the side and really makes a Vroom Vroom noise. It is hysterical.

We also had his 3 year checkup this week. So thankful for a healthy, BIG boy. He weighs 36 lbs (Simms weighs 39 at 5, and weighed 30 at THREE years old) and he is 39 inches long. 85% and 67%. We found out one of his tubes has come out at some point over the last year. He isn't having any ear issues though so we are just going to watch it closely, and I also found out our ped (whom I LOVE and TRUST) isn't referring Cope for speech. She said she understood every word he said, so another answered prayer there!

Happy Birthday to our sweet, fiesty, one-of-a-kind 3 year old! We love you Bubby!

4 New Post Below!

Christmas Day 2012

The kids woke up right around 8 on Christmas morning. I, however, had been up since 7. Making coffee, casseroles, getting the tree on, Christmas music playing, really just ready for them to wake up :)

Santa came!!

All Simms wanted was a bike with a baby seat (well that and a pink Jeep but she started asking for it a little too late)! She got it and loved that it was purple and turquoise!

She also got the perfect sized little kitchen and she is obsessed with it! It was reallly left for both of them, but you know, she thinks it is just hers. Santa had hidden kitchen accessories behind the curtains and she loved finding those!

Cope got all things pirate and dinosaur. Both fit him perfectly! He LOVES his tent. And his tool box full of tools!

Hard to make this picture out, but that is the pirate in his tent looking through his PirateScope!

My sweet girl..so excited!

Ready for an early, cold, Christmas morning bike ride. Notice her cabbage patch twins. They ended up being girls, Stephanie and Emily.

I knew she wouldn't eat what I made for Christmas breakfast, so on our way through Montgomery Sunday we stopped and got doughnuts. She was so excited to have a chocolate glazed one on Christmas. She LOVES them!

Our pirate on Christmas morning!

It was so nice to not have to rush and pack up the car to travel on Christmas. It has been a few years since we were able to stay home and just relax on Christmas morning. We did lots of playing with our new things and enjoyed the day with just us. Later that night, my parents, Miles and Katy, and the Kirks came over for dinner and to swap more presents. It was so much fun. Once again though, just like last year, I didn't get a single pic. Ugh! We went to bed exhausted and happy! This was a wonderful Christmas season for our family. I smiled every time Cope would point to Mary or Joseph, or his favorites, the Kings, and tell me who they were. Or when I would hear Simms telling the story of the birth of Jesus to Cope. The presents are fun, but it means way more to us that they know the true meaning of why we celebrate, and I love seeing their little hearts and minds take all that in!

So glad to be caught up so far! One precious rascal turns 3 on Sunday, so as soon as I blog about his birthday I will be back tracking with Halloween and Thanksgiving. See, told you I was behind!!! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!

Christmas Eve 2012

Our little family was up bright and early on Christmas Eve to help deliver gifts with our church for Operation Empty Stocking. Simms understood what we were doing, as we had "adopted" a little girl to buy gifts and clothes for, so it was important to us that she be a part of it! It was a rainy morning but I am so glad we got up and did it. The rest of the day we spent getting ready for Christmas. Simms and Cope baked cookies for Santa and had so much fun doing that!

Simms and Cope put the cookies and milk out before we left for Meme's that night. She and Cope also sprinkled reindeer food out!

Cope in Dru's outfit from the 80s. You will notice in the above picture he had it on with wallabees. I have to compromise with Dru when we dress Cope now.

We hardly heard a peep out of Simms on Christmas Eve at Meme and Grandaddy's. That is because the child was obsessed, and I do mean obsessed with my cousin Jimmy and his wife Amanda's new mini schnauzer puppy, Harvey. She babied this thing all night long. It was precious.

Cope enjoying dessert. We caught him licking the plate shortly after I took this..

Cousins at Meme and Grandaddy's. This was my 30th Christmas Eve there. So happy my children experience the love and excitement that Christmas Eve's are full of their house! Cope is holding his DreamLite. Meme got them each one and they love them. You know you want to sing the song from the commercial...:)

Glad we put out cookies and milk before we left, because we didn't get home until almost 11 and the kids were fast asleep. Dru and I had lots of work ahead of us when we got home and we didn't get in bed until 1 AM. Here is Cope asleep sitting up before we headed home..

I was so excited for Christmas morning that I couldn't sleep anyway :)

Christmas at the Lake

We did Christmas with Dru's family a few days before Christmas this year. We went to the lake on Friday, the 21st and came home that Sunday, the 23rd. The cousins were so excited to be together and to be celebrating Christmas at the lake together!

They woke up Saturday morning so excited to open up their gifts. I must say they had a great Christmas! We all did. The Goodwins did way too much for us!

Ready to open gifts and go through their stockings!

All dressed in their matching outfits and ready to go to lunch. Simms was thrilled Catherine's was open even though it was Christmas. She associates it with her summers :)

Cope playing on his new Innotab. All of the kids got one and they all call them their iPads. Whatever works.

They are great!

Before we all parted ways on Sunday the kids made Christmas cupcakes and had so much fun!

It was a wonderful Christmas with the Goodwins & Allgoods!

Things we did in December

Trying so hard to get caught up..hoping to complete 2 more blog books soon, so I HAVE to get updated. Here are some of the things we did this December, beginning with visiting Santa and then mailing him our letters!

Not sure what happened to this picture :(

We made our family's Advent wreath at our church's annual family Christmas night..

We celebrated with Uncle Miles and Aunt Katy at their wedding on December 8. Simms was a beautiful flower girl and did so good. This was the first wedding she'd been in.

We made a gingerbread house and a gingerbread train. Simms & I did the house and Dru & Cope did the train. Good thing Dru has the mind of an engineer, or maybe an architect. I was glad ours was easy :)

We also had Simms' preschool Christmas party and program. Such sweet songs that they sang. Santa surprised them and then they enjoyed milk and cookies with him. All in their Christmas PJs...

December has been a fun month for us! We will wind it up by celebrating Cope's birthday on the 30th. Can you believe he will be 3? I can't. That means time to potty train him. Ugh. Dreading that one!