Lucky Little Ladies

Life at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon...

My girls are so blessed with this man for their Daddy.  He spends so much time with them and he's such an amazing daddy.  They adore him.  But they will never realize how much he loves and cares for them or how much time he spends praying for them-their hearts, their salvation, their future friends, spouses, that their lives and ambitions would always be to glorify God.  Although they love him to the moon and back, they have no idea how blessed they really are to be his daughters.  

It's a .....

Matt and I have had a gut feeling from the beginning that this baby was a girl.  All three of my pregnancies have been so similar. Too similar, I felt, for it to be a boy.  But, we wouldn't know for sure until my doctor's appointment at 18 weeks.  We were great with either sex, of course.  We have LOVED having girls and thought if it was another girl, "we've kinda got the hang of how to do girls" and "we have EVERYTHING we would need for another girl".  If it was a boy we were both excited about getting to experience a boy and all the boyish fun things.  I wondered if Matt secretly wanted a boy.  All three of his siblings are boys and I wondered if every man, deep down, would like to have a son to do "guy" things with.  One day I asked him if he would be at all disappointed with another girl. He responded with "Of course not. We have two of the most precious girls in the whole world.  Why wouldn't I want another one?" That made my heart at ease because like I said I was very confident this was another girl. 

We decided to do a small gender reveal with friends and family.  So we went to the ultrasound at my 18 week appointment and got to see the most precious baby moving around but asked the ultrasound tech not to tell us the gender.  Everything we could see looked perfect!  We praise God for another healthy baby!!  

We left the ultrasound with the gender tucked away in a sealed envelope.  It really killed me not to open it and I was so thankful it was sealed, otherwise I would have been really tempted just to peek inside. If I ordered a cake it would take a few days to get it and we wanted to do it that night.  We had waited long enough.:)  So, I immediately took the envelope to Gigi's cupcakes and had them box us up some cupcakes according to the gender hidden inside the envelope.  They told me they put either pink or blue icing inside each cupcake.  They were so sweet about it and excited to do this for us and they put them together perfectly.  

 I wasn't certain we wouldn't be able to see pink or blue bleeding through when we opened the box so that's the conversation we are all having at the beginning of the video.  But like I said, Gigi's did a perfect job on them!  

The Reveal! 

It's a GIRL!!!!!!

We are so excited and feel so blessed and honored to get to welcome another sweet girl into our family.  In keeping with our "family name" tradition, her name will most likely be McKinley.  That was Matt's great-grandfather's name and we both like it for our girl. We haven't decided on a middle name just yet. We are anxiously awaiting the time we get to see this precious girl for the first time.  Can't wait to meet our newest little angel!

Family Beach Trip 2013

In June we got to take a week-long vacation with my family.  We have been to Carillon Beach for the past three years and absolutely love it!  It's a quiet little beach community with so much character and so many fun things to do.  With four toddlers, we knew it would be an interesting week.  Although they definitely kept us entertained and on our toes, they all did great!! And had so much fun.  

Little loves ready for a ride behind the bike. 

One night a week Carillon has live music. We enjoy hanging out and listening to the music and the kids love to get out in the middle and dance. They are so precious. Hoping this family tradition will continue. 

Sweet cousins.

Daddy and his little angel. 

Ivey Kate needed a little break from all that dancing.

Love this one of these precious girls. They are so sweet to each other and play so well together.  Hope it lasts. 

Mattilee's face and arm make me laugh! She was on a mission. We were walking up to the amusement park and they were so excited! 

Both girls riding the Scrambler with Daddy.  They loved it and wanted to do it again. I was so surprised that they both liked it.  It's like the Tea Cups on steroids. 

Sweet mommies feeding their babies. 

 Mattilee "jumping" in the pool. It was more of a "step off" but still very proud of her!  

Sweet thing playing in the sand. 

 She just makes me smile. :)

The best family picture we could get. Ivey Kate was not interested in having pictures taken at all. 

This captures how she felt about taking pictures that afternoon. Haha!

But this little one was ready and willing. :)

Love that face. 

The whole gang.  And two on the way!  We are SO blessed.  

Thank you Pop and Gigi for a wonderful week! 

Little Ivey-18 Months Already

Love this little head nod when she hears music. She loves all music like her Daddy.  She either dances or nods her head at the sound of music every time. :)

At Ivey Kate's 18 month checkup she was 33 inches (90%) and 23 1/2 lbs (50%).

Favorite things about sweet Ivey at this age:

If I'm sitting in the floor, she loves to come up and hug my back.  She'll just stay there a while with her sweet little arms around me and head on my back.

Says "Sorry Sister" with a kiss and a hug if she does something to offend Mattilee.

"Hold you?" All.day.long.  I really don't mind...I know that one day she won't want me to hold her anymore and I will miss the days I could just pick her up, touch her soft cheek to mine and deeply breathe in the smell of her hair.  But it does make preparing meals difficult (and washing clothes and cleaning and a host of other chores). When I can't hold her she stands beside me and cries a broken-hearted cry or holds on to my legs. :(

She's just started singing "Jesus Loves Me" and it's the cutest thing ever.

She'll share anything if you ask her for it.  Anxious to see how long this lasts. She'll also take anything you have without reservation, but at least she shares in return. :)

She still loves baby dolls and purses. Such a little momma already.

She still loves Lovey and those two fingers.

She's already started pretending, which is adorable.  Mattilee and Ivey Kate will play "restaurant" often and Ivey will pretend to eat her food and drink her drink and then ask for "More, please."

I love how loving she is and she's definitely a cuddler. She'll just sit with us and let us cuddle her often.  Sometimes she'll just come up to us and pat us or lay her head on us just for a few seconds then she'll go back to playing, almost like she just needed a quick refill of her love tank.

She's just started repeating EVERYTHING! Our favorites to hear her say are laffy taffy, bumblebee, watermelon, and I yuv ew too!  

She's going through a phase where she doesn't care to eat much. I honestly think it's because she doesn't want to sit in her highchair.  I hope this is short-lived.



It's neat to see the differences in personalities with our two girls.  Ivey seems to be much more "determined" and strong-willed than Mattilee.  This makes parenting a little more challenging.  But, I hope she'll use that strong will and determination for good one day. :)

We LOVE Summer!  With it just comes a laid-back feeling.  We had just met precious friends for dinner and hung out outside the restaurant for a while. It felt so nice out!

I love times like this!!  With two toddlers, a lot of my time is spent refereeing and addressing heart issues (selfishness most frequently) but here they were just playing together happily and sharing without being prompted or reminded to.

Spring has Sprung

I love, love, love when the weather starts to warm up!  I'm just not a fan of cold weather so I always look forward to the warmer weather.  And now that I have kiddos, I appreciate it even more.  The park and outdoor outings are so much more enjoyable, to me,

when it isn't cold. And hopefully with warmer weather comes healthier babies.  We've had our share of sickness this year.  The girls and I both got two different awful stomach bugs. Hoping we got our share of them this year and maybe we'll be exempt next year. :)

The girls are both at really fun ages.  Mattilee plays with baby dolls 85% of her playtime.  She's such a little mommy.  Diapering, feeding, burping, singing, strolling, and even disciplining her dolls. And Ivey Kate has just started to get really interested in whatever Mattilee is doing.  So if Matti is rocking a baby, Ivey Kate wants to as well.  Mattilee has one really big baby doll and it seems like Ivey Kate always chooses that one to carry around the house.  The doll is bigger than she is! It's really cute. They both like to carry purses too. Such girly girls.

Zoo day with Jackson and Cooper. 

Jackson helping Mattilee across the rope bridge. She was a little apprehensive about doing it but Jackson took her hand and helped her the whole way. He was so patient with her.  What a gentleman and a sweetheart. 

Fun on the slide. 

Ivey Kate was filthy when we left this area but she had fun. 

She liked sitting on the frog. 

Three sweethearts, minus Cooper. I didn't get one picture of that precious boy from the day. 

During my mom's spring break, she rented Parties on the Move for the kids to get-together and play.  We all had such a great time.  I think places like that are almost as much fun for adults as they are for kids.  

Mattilee and her cousins. Sweet girls. 

Lyla did not care for the wind tunnel. Look at that pitiful face. It's funny, it didn't bother little Cooper. 

 Gigi and Ivey Kate sliding!!

 Having fun!

These girls like to pose. :)

And these little ones loved these cars. It looks like my nephew King is trying to get Ivey Kate out and she doesn't want to. 

We had a snack and Ivey Kate felt so big at the table with other kids.  She loved feeding herself this ice cream and was the last one to get up. Everyone else wanted to get back to playing but she just wanted her ice cream and cupcake.  

I kept a precious little boy a few days a week this semester.  We took lots of wagon rides around the neighborhood.  

Celebrating warmer weather with ice cream from Top-it-Off.

Ivey Kate at Top-it-Off.  She didn't get to hold her's and she had to share with me but she didn't seem to mind. 

Easter

"And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name. " Romans 1:4-5

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Romans 6:8-11

Easter egg hunt with our small group from church.

Hunting eggs before bed at home. Matt and I were amazed and kept laughing at how great she was at finding eggs.  She loved it! 

Mattilee loved it too and would ask to "hide eggs" all the time. 

Dyeing eggs. Ivey wasn't happy that I put them out of her reach but it would have been wearing the colored water or she would have tried to drink it. 

Decorating with stickers. 

Mattilee looks so happy, Ivey Kate looks scared sister is going to pick her up. 

Silly girl. 

This little one loves to carry a purse...and wear jewelry.:)

Easter Sunday.  It was pretty much impossible to get a good picture of these two together. Ivey Kate doesn't have the love for the camera that Mattilee does. 

Our little "lady" :)

Sweet little one. 

This is probably the best pic we got of these two in their pretty Easter dresses. 

Family pictures didn't work out either. :)

Ivey Kate and those two fingers.  

Even harder to get 4 toddlers to smile for a picture.  :)