Calling all Prayer Warriors

I am pleading with each of you to begin praying for the Wims family @ Faith, Family and Friendships. They are the cutest and the sweetest little family ever. I only know Brad from my childhood, we attended the same Church Camp together every summer as kids. Our cousin Bryan Carnes also went to college with the Wims and their families are good friends. Brad comes from a family full of educators and Christ Loving people. I have been following their story for sometime now and it is a remarkable one.

Brad was diagnosed with a rare form of Cancer 2 years ago and Hospice has been called in to care for him in the last couple of days. It simply breaks my heart. There is nothing more for me to do, but to pray for this family and ask all of you to pray with us. You can read more about his story, by clicking on the link above.

Please feel free to pass this on to all your prayer warriors and leave them a comment, just letting them know you have joined them in asking God for a Miracle on their behalf. Please keep Jenny, his two children and his extended family in your prayers as well.

Fingerpaint for Gavin

When we started planning for Gavin's Nursery, I thought it would be really awesome if we could put something in there that his Big Sister made (wow, that sounds strange). The HOTY and I decided that we would let Emma do some finger painting on a canvas for a little wall art. It was so cute to watch her do this project. When we got all the supplies out and asked her if she wanted to paint, she began running around the house so excited saying paint, paint, art, art, paint and paint. It was the cutest thing. We were really surprised to hear her saying art, art, art. Guess that money we are spending at MDO 6 hours a week is paying off, huh?

The HOTY painted a base coat on the canvas a few weeks back, so it would match the color scheme of his nursery.

We pretty much let her do whatever she wanted, except rub the paint on the walls of our house.

The HOTY had to hold the canvas up for her to be able to get to the center. She was so proud of herself, look at that smile. She kept saying, pretty.

We don't like to post pictures of Emma with no clothes on because of the crazy folks out there, but if I could...we have the cutest ones of her covered in paint from head to toe. I had to share this one with you ~ oh she was so PROUD!

At the end, she decided to just put it on her hands and slap the canvas, which we thought made for a great finishing touch.

We were all so pleased with how cute this turned out. Now it is going to a lady who will trim out the edges in a cheetah print, put a thin dark brown border around the canvas and add Gavin's name pretty large across the front in chocolate brown. We plan on hanging it over his crib by a brown ribbon.

Remember his nursery is going to be Jungle themed...I can not wait to see the finished project, but it is going to take us about a month to get it complete. Most importantly, I can not wait to hold this sweet boy in my arms...I am already in love!

Gettin' my groove back!

The Holidays are behind us and we are still recovering at our house. Long time no blog, huh? We had a wonderful Christmas at our house and got to spend lots of time with loved ones.

Emma in her Christmas Pajamas ready and waiting for Santa Claus. Her Daddy said she looked like a little boy in these PJ's, but I could not pass them up. They have dog-dogs all over them with antlers.

Pouring the milk for Santa Claus with Mommy's help.

Looks like there is a little something for the Reindeer's too.

Spreading the Reindeer food in the yard before she goes to bed.

Christmas takes on a whole new meaning when you have little ones around and it was a blast to watch the "itty bitty's" face light up every time she unwrapped something. She was so appreciative, oohing, awing, saying thank you, cute and loving every gift she was given. Yes, she got way too much and I am feeling a little guilty after the fact. The HOTY and I have already talked about our efforts to scale back next year in hopes of always having a grateful child. It just seems to be so hard...I think the key is shopping from a list and staying out of the stores after all the items are highlighted off.

Looks like someone has been a good girl this year.

When she first got up Christmas morning.

This is as far as she got and we nearly never got her to look at the rest.

I have enjoyed my time off with my sweet little family that is about to grow in 9 short weeks. I can not believe that! The HOTY has been off for 9 days so we have had coloring contest, painted Gavin's sign, played Kitchen, cared for 4 new baby dolls, tended to the animals in the Little People Barn, brought Fairy Tales to life in the Little People Castle, watched Air Buddies, read lots of new books, kenneled about 8 new dogs that arrived from Santa and other family members, played Dr. and so much more. It has been big fun around here for all of us and I must admit, I am a little sad that Daddy is going back to work tomorrow (but thankful he has a job to go to with the way our economy is these days).

Enjoying a burger for breakfast this morning with her little apron on.

Cooking up something with some salt.

Our focus is on Baby Gavin's nursery now. Curtis is on his way to Lowe's to buy some paint to begin tackling that job as I sit here and blog. It is going to be a chore, but this Daddy can do ANYTHING! I can not wait to see this nursery finished ~ I know it will be every bit as cute as Emma's.

All of Emma's big girl furniture has been delivered, along with her bedding. Our goal is to make that transition at the end of January. I am sure it will be a piece of pie with this "witty itty bitty", although we might find her playing kitchen all hours of the night. She has never before had toys in her bedroom, it has always been for sleeping only. For now, she has her kitchen in there but I think I have about convinced the HOTY that we need to forgo our guest room and make it a playroom for the the 2 littlest Frazier's. We currently have it all in our family room, very organized but as we grow something is going to have to give. It will be months down the road before we can make that transition, but it is a thought around here for the time being.

Looks like we will be back in the swing of things around here tomorrow, however I still have 8 more days before I return to work ~ Yippee!

Will he make it?

The Christmas festivities began last weekend for the Frazier's. We celebrated Christmas with the Frazier side of the family at my SIL's house. It was very enjoyable and the kids had big fun. We will be traveling to my MIL's tonight for Christmas, have Christmas Eve tomorrow night with my family and my BFF's family at our home and Christmas Day with the Carnes Family (MIL's family) at our home. Now that is alot of Christmas Celebration and I am already feeling a little tired. I am just thankful that we will be at home on Christmas Eve and Day.

Well, we are just praying that the Turkey makes it here for Christmas Day. Since we will be hosting Christmas Day at our house we ordered the Turkey and the Honey Baked Ham...can we say convenient. Convenient if it shows up that is...we ordered the Turkey from Greenberg, which happens to be the best Turkey ever! This poor guy is scheduled to show up on our door step this week. Needless to say, we don't have a tracking number on him or anything so we are hoping he is on his way. I asked the "HOTY" last night, "what are we going to do if he shows up on Friday"? He responded with, "I guess we will buy two Hams". Uh, we will have about 30+ unhappy guest if that is the case.

Am I the only one that finds it a little strange that our Turkey is arriving via the UPS man? Kinda strange to me.

MDO Christmas Party

Yesterday was Emma's Christmas Party at her little MDO program she attends on Tuesday and Thursday for a couple hours. It was so cute to see all the little ones gather around the table for some fun.

There are only 10 kids in her class when she attends, however some of these sweet babies go on M, W & F.


Okay, please make note in this picture what all the other children are doing and what my baby girl is doing.


The HOTY & I could not stop laughing because we only allow Emma to drink milk and water and have instructed her teachers that she is not to have juice during snack time ~ hence the sippie cup with water sitting beside her.

Well, it got better from there... we could not stop laughing because she sucked that Capri Sun down in 30 seconds or less. Notice how flat it is and she is still trying to get more out of it. The HOTY just looked at me and said, "uh, she is drinking juice at school".

She quickly moved on to sampling that good ole cookie next after flipping her pizza upside down.

Each kid had to bring a wrapped book and the "itty bitty" really liked the one that she ended up with ~ POOH!

I forgot my camera at home yesterday and one of my friends at work loaned me hers...thank you Therese.

We were so proud of Emma when she came into the room for the party, she barely acknowledged us and kept on going with the flow of things. Remember, this is the kid that screamed and cried for the first month at MDO and almost became a "Preschool Drop Out".

My Favorite & Great News

As I have shared previously, our Christmas photo session this year was a challenge with a 17 month old strong willed child. However, our wonderful photographer managed to get some good shots of the "itty bitty" despite her lack of cooperation. This just happens to be one of my favorites. This picture could put a SMILE on my face any day of the week.

Now for the GREAT news. I had my diabetes testing done at the first of the week and I am so excited to report that I have KISSED DIABETES GOOD~BYE! The Dr. called yesterday and reported that all of my test looked wonderful. I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Emma and I really wanted to avoid that this time.

I have really been praying about this for a while now. To be honest with you, when I did my test I prayed over the blood, my Mom met me there and did the same and we even asked the Nurse to pray over it. Needless to say, I screamed yesterday when they called and told me I was good to go!

So I will be cleaning the cabinet out when I get home today and throwing that machine, alcohol swabs, testing strips, lancets and anything else associated with Gestational Diabetes in the TRASH! Oh, and I am not usually one that needs to be patted on the back...but I am so PROUD of ME!

Now, we will just wait patiently for our sweet & healthy baby BOY to arrive!

Christmas Card Carousel

What better way to share our Christmas cards with one another than through the Christmas Card Carousel hosted by Faith. I am so glad you decided to do this and I knew when I saw it, I must participate ~ Thank you.

The front of our Christmas card. Does she look like she is up to something in this picture or what?

The card we selected is actually 5x5 on Linen paper, so this is the inside and it has to be folded in half. I love the size of these cards, but the Post Office obviously does not because they charged me .59 to mail each one of them instead of regular postage. You can click on this one to enlarge...look at that look on my sweet babies face. I could just eat her up!

The back of card has a glimpse of Mommy & Daddy, but the focus is still on Emma. One of my Aunts called last night to tell me she got her card and I think she thought the photographer just chopped our heads off. I don't think she even realized this was the look we were going for (ha ha). She kept saying, "I could only see part of you and Curtis".

This is the 2nd year we had our photographer, Darla DiStefano do our cards and we could not be happier. She has to be one of the most talented people I know and her work is amazing.

I can't type this post without telling you that my heart is happy thinking of what my card will look like next year with both my babies on it, yep that's right...Emma will be 30 months old and Gavin will be 10 months old this time next year. Oh we are going to have so much FUN!

18 Months = 1 1/2 Years

Yesterday was a BIG day in our house, the "itty bitty" turned 18 months old ~ Yikes. Where has all the time gone? It seems like yesterday when we brought this baby girl home from the hospital. Oh sweet girl, the joy you have brought into our lives can never be put into words. You have filled our home with so much happiness and we are blessed to have you.


I could not get a smile out of her during picture time. Guess she has had enough of me following her around the house with a camera.

You are really not suppose to be touching the tree, but I let you because I was hoping to get some cute pictures of you smiling.

Today has been a long day, so I am off to do a little reading in the bed. Night ~ Night!

Christmas Tour

Seasons Greetings & Welcome to our home. I decided to participate in Boo Mama's Tour of Homes for the Holidays in spite of the fact that we decided not to completely decorate our house this year. For the most part we got all the big stuff out and decided to leave all the little sit around stuff boxed up this year. I just kept thinking, what gets put out must be put back up.

As soon as Christmas is over we will be concentrating on getting our Nursery together for our baby boy that will be joining us soon. Hope you enjoy our home as much as we have this Holiday Season.

Not a great shot, but here is the outside of our home at night during the Holiday Season.

Our front door with a Toy Soldier and Snowman.

This Jolly Fella stands as you enter the front door of our home.

Santa Claus is in our foyer.

My Nativity Scene that happens to be my favorite Holiday piece for many reasons.

Our formal dining room where the family will gather around for a great meal.

Our Christmas Tree with our ornaments that we have been collecting for a couple years now.

I will never forget when I saw this little Christmas Angel and fell in love with her. I had to have her so bad that I put her on layaway during Christmas time one year during my single days.

Our mantle with our four stockings and our new little "Elf" that joined us this Holiday Season. It is really hard to tell but the stockings are velvet green and red.

We put our family sign in the fireplace this year.

My MIL gave me this cross this year for an early Christmas gift and I love it. I collect crosses, so I was especially excited to get a holiday one.

Another portion of our foyer.

This cross hangs over the urn with the poinsettias and I place our picture Christmas cards in it for all to enjoy.

Little whimsical stocking that hangs on our office door.

The "itty bittys" Christmas tree all decked out in dog-dogs. There are about 30 little dogs on it. Our sweet baby love this tree in her room.

This snow family lives in our front yard through out the Christmas Season. Emma has really enjoyed seeing and talking to these guys this year. We were able to see them play in the snow last week and I must say, it looked BEAUTIFUL.

So from our family to yours....we wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR.