Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Emily's 2nd Birthday

It's hard to believe our first baby girl is two years old.  She had a great birthday full of fun celebrations!  We started out the day with donuts and her very first set of pigtails!  We had a fun day together with lots of playing and plenty of nursing (for ten day-old little sister) and ended the day at Emily's two favorite places- Chick-a-lay and Mimi and Papa's house.

The girl's first piggy tails!
If that's not a look of love...

So excited about her gift from Auntie K and the Crandall clan.

Precious little love, ready for her birthday dinner!

Nothing better than chicken nuggets, chocolate milk, and fruit!

The sweet people at Chick-fil-a brought Emily a balloon and a cow.

Celebrating with a few of her favorite people.
Mommy and Daddy with the birthday girl

Living it up on the slide

Blowing out her candles...and Mommy's ten day post-partum tummy. :)

Birthday cookie cake
Our little family of four
Reading "the Bible" with Papa

Playing with Mimi
Happy Birthday to our little love!  You are the light of our lives!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Ashlynn Kate is here!

Our sweet little Ashlynn has arrived!  She was born at August 9 at 8:07 am, weighing 8 lbs, 5 oz and measuring 19 inches.  However, the pediatrician thinks they were a little off in the OR because the next day, she was 7 lbs 6 oz and 21 inches.  So, we aren't totally sure, but either way, she is here!  She is perfect, just like her sister Emily, and we are in love!

Waiting to have this baby!

She's here!

Our newest angel

First feeding

Emily meets "Baby Ashlynn"


Loving on her sissy

Ashlynn and Mommy

Ashlynn and Daddy

Mimi and Papa  with their babies

Takala cousins

Our little family of four

Monday, June 24, 2013

Ashlynn Update

It's hard to believe that in just a little over six weeks, Ashlynn will be here!  This pregnancy is still going great!  For the most part, things with Ashlynn have been pretty similar to things with Emily.  The biggest difference I have noticed is that Ashlynn tends to move much more than Emily did.  According to my doctor, that is due to the fact that with Emily my placenta was on the front, whereas this time it is on the back.  Because of that, Ashlynn is right up against the outside of my tummy which makes it easier to feel her.  I am thankful for that, because lack of movement was something I remember constantly worrying about with Emily.  Another minor difference is that so far I have had no blood pressure issues (which I had already begun to have at this point with Emily) and no real swelling to speak of.  I believe both of these are due mostly to me having been much more active this pregnancy.  I've been doing Jazzercise three days most weeks, whereas with Emily I really wasn't doing anything.  I have gained a little bit more weight at this point with Ashlynn than I had with Emily, but it's pretty minimal.  I am so thankful for another healthy pregnancy.  We are almost to 32 weeks and have the birth scheduled for August 9 at 7:30 am unless she decides to come sooner!  We love you little Ashlynn Kate and we can't wait to meet you!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Show Us Your Singles Link Up!

I've been reading Kelly's Korner for years and after seeing the awesome stories of singles finding each other through Show Us Your Singles.  I finally decided to take the plunge this time and write about one of my very favorite singles, my cousin Krystal!

 
Krystal is almost 27 years old, from the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  She grew up in Euless and now lives in Bedford.  First and foremost, Krystal is a follower of Jesus whose faith is the most important thing in her life.  She comes from a very loving and stable family with parents that have been married for over 30 years.  She has one older brother and a sister-in-law, with one nephew and another soon to be born.

Krystal graduated from college at a Christian university in Abilene and now works as an oncology nurse in the Fort Worth area.  She is an absolutely beautiful girl and lives a very active life, running and doing Cross-Fit.  She loves cooking, traveling, her job, her friends, and spending time out and about in the DFW area. 

I know there is plenty I am leaving out, but I wanted to make this short and sweet.  Krystal truly is one of the sweetest, most genuine people I know and that's not just because she's my cousin!  Also, she didn't ask me to do this.  It was all on my own!  If you are a interested in meeting Krystal, please leave a comment here with your email address and I will see that Krystal gets it!  Christian men, only, please!

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

20 and 21 months


It's hard to believe two more months have passed with our sweet little Emily.  I know I am biased, but she is nothing short of amazing.  She's this huge personality in a tiny little package.  Emily is sweet, silly, loving, strong-willed, independent, smart, social, and happy happy happy.  Of course she has her really stinkerish moments, but what almost two year-old doesn't?  Her favorite thing to do that drives us crazy is run on the couch.  We're still trying to figure out a discipline that works for that one.  Can't exactly remove the couch or the child from the room.  She is still tall and thin, but we're starting to see a little more chub on her.  During her 20th month, she went through a week or so where she wasn't too interested in eating, but she's eating really well again these days.  She loves to eat Honey Nut Cheerios with milk and a banana for breakfast.  On Fridays, Daddy makes pancakes (or "cakes" as Emmy calls them) and she loves those as well.  She also loves macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, and chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-a.  She loves fruits and swings back and forth on which veggies she likes.  Typically she likes broccoli, carrots, corn, and green beans, but some days she will refuse what was her favorite the day before.  She has also begun LOVING Mexican rice. 

The biggest development these past couple of months has been her verbal skills.  I can't believe she is talking as much as she is!  Just a couple days ago, she said her longest sentence to date- "I go under my mommy's legs."  Typically she said lots of three and four word sentences, so we were very impressed with six words!  This month she has started saying I love you ("Luh loo Mommy.")  All of her Ws come out as Ys.  She loves to drink "yater" and milk, but not juice.  She says "Nanks" and "Yelcome" for "Thank you" and "You're Welcome."  She repeats most of what we say and it's always surprising to see what she is going to come up with next.  We never know what she is going to say.  She knows so much more than we realize.  She can count from one to eight, skipping four.  I don't know where she learned it, because I didn't teach her!  She is also learning her colors and consistently gets pink, blue, and red correct.  Green and yellow are right about half of the time.  She loves to sing and can tackle almost all of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  She also likes to sing "Jesus Loves Emmy" and has recently begun trying to sing parts of the ABCs.  I continue to be impressed with what she picks up without us having intentionally taught her.  She loves the Bible.  They each have their own in Sunday School and when it is time to put them away, she never wants to let go.  At home, any small book is deemed a Bible and she likes to sit and flip through the pages.

Emily is a great sleeper, but had an off week during month 20.  Fortunately, we are back to normal.  At this point in time, we only use the paci during naps and at night.  Hopefully this will be diminishing soon.  Recently she has started asking for covers when she sleeps.  She also likes to carry the covers around in the house, but isn't attached to a particular blanket.  She will take anything.  We had our last day of MDO on Thursday, but she will be starting the summer program on June 4th.  She will go two days a week instead of just one so we can keep her in the groove of school and not upset her by giving her the summer off, then sending her away two days a week after Ashlynn arrives. 

Emily is FEARLESS!  I am ready for her to learn a little bit of healthy fear.  :)  She feels safe wherever she is for the most part and has been known to take off running if I don't have her hand.  Every once in awhile she pretends to be shy around new people...or even certain familiar people...but it is all an act.  This little girl is NOT shy.  She is very opinionated and likes to say "no" quite a bit.  In short, she is our precious perfect darling angel baby.  I am really going to treasure these next couple of months with just the two of us at home. 

Emily, you are my love, my angel, and my little best friend!  I love spending my days with you and watching you grow.  I can't wait to see what God is going to do in your life!  Love you more than life!

A little early morning coloring

Modeling her new outfit

Easter morning

Hunting eggs at church

Dropping them in the basket

Doing a great job!

The Easter bunny's loot

Finding eggs at Mimi and Papa's

Beautiful easter egg hunter

Giant egg!

The best family picture we could get

Playing with Mimi and Papa's foster bunny

Posing with Grandma and Grandpa Brazil

Hanging out at Mimi and Papa's house

Hanging out in the wagon

Having fun in Uncle Ken and Aunt Gretchen's pool

"Read the Bible"

Yumilicious!

Corn on the cob

I'm a bunny!

Finally loving the bumble bee rocker after a year and a half

 
Singing the Kindermusik Bluebird song

Friday, April 5, 2013

Favorite Children's Books

I'm linking up with Kelly today at Kelly's Korner for Show Us Your Life.  Since I am a children's school librarian...or was up until a few months ago, I've got all kinds of opinions about children's books.  I'm going to share a few of my favorites with you today.

Olivia 
by Ian Falconer

 

Hands down, my most favorite book of all time is Olivia by Ian Falconer.   It is about a precocious little pig who, I am quite certain, was based off of me as a child rather than the author's niece Olivia.  Olivia is imaginative, helpful, bossy, creative, and even a little bit sweet.  I highly recommend this book.  It has several companion books that go with, so if your child falls in love with Olivia, you have many more books to share with them.


Chester's Way
by Kevin Henkes



Chester's Way is one of Kevin Henkes best mouse books in my opinion, although they are all quite spectacular.  Chester and Wilson are BFFs who do EVERYTHING the same.  They are absolutely inseparable and to the adult reader seem to be old soul soulmates.  Their friendship is perfectly precious and the two are quite content...until Lilly (of Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse) comes along.  In addition to Chester's Way, I also highly recommend Julius, the Baby of the World; Chrysanthemum; and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse amongst others.


Officer Buckle and Gloria
by Peggy Rathmann



Officer Buckle is a policeman that goes out to schools and gives safety tips to the kids. Officer Buckle, bless his heart, is actually quite boring and the kids never seem to pay much attention until Gloria, the department's new police dog, begins to accompany him on his visits. While the story never talks much about what Gloria does on those visits, the pictures show us without even needing words.  This story is just plain fun!


The Hallo-Wiener
by Dav Pilkey


 Aptly named Oscar has a hard time fitting in with the other dogs at school. Oscar is a sweet and svelte dachshund and his classmates are just a bunch of mutts. Regardless of that fact, they feel the need to poke fun at Oscar any chance they get for his "unusual shape and size." Things just get worse when Oscar's mother makes him a hot dog costume for Halloween. Kind dog that Oscar is, he saves the day when they find themselves in trouble on Halloween night.


The Rhyme Bible Storybook
by Linda Sattgast



This is an absolutely wonderful children's Bible, set as a book of rhyming stories rather than the traditional book, chapter, and verse Bible.  We found this to be an awesome Bible to read to our young daughter at bedtime.  Not only are the stories told succinctly and interestingly to children, but the pictures are beautiful as well. 


I have so many more books that I would love to recommend, but simply don't have the time!  Here are a few more titles/authors listed below.  All of these books are for pre-school/early elementary children.  

Old Bear/Kevin Henkes
Brown Bear, Brown Bear/Bill Martin Jr.
I Want My Hat Back/Jon Klassen (Funny!  Probably more for elementary aged kids.)
Knuffle Bunny/Mo Willems
Scaredy Squirrel/Melanie Watt
A Bad Case of Stripes/David Shannon
Skippyjon Jones/Judy Schachner
George and Martha/James Marshall

If you are the parent of a young child, consider checking out the list of Texas 2x2 books.  These are the best books selected each year by Texas librarians for children ages two through second grade. 

Boy or Girl?

In my blog hiatus, I have missed blogging about most of the pregnancy thus far!  It is so different being a second time mommy because you're so busy with the first baby that you don't have time to document what's going on with the second one.  Fortunately, this pregnancy has been almost an exact replica of my pregnancy with Emily, so if I want to remember what was going on with this one, I just need to look at the documentation from the first one.

Everything has been going great!  As I said in my last post, I was absolutely exhausted all the way up to 16 weeks, which is certainly longer than I felt exhausted with Emily.  This is a whole different kind of tired.  How do you rest when you're chasing a toddler around all day?  I'll tell you how.  You don't. 

Typially our doctor can tell the baby's gender at 16 weeks, so we were expecting to find out about this little one over a month ago.  Unfortunately, baby wasn't cooperating and the doctor guessed boy from that she could see.  We went back a week later to confirm, and this time the doctor was pretty sure it was a girl, but still not 100% sure.  We were a little frustrated because we were planning a gender reveal party while Lucas' parents were in town, but we decided it was better to wait until we knew for sure before we told people.

At our 20 week appointment, we met with the sonographer who specializes in 20 week ultrasounds.  This is the big ultrasound where they take extensive shots to measure everything and make sure everything is growing and developing right.  And fortunately, our little one looked perfect.  We are so thankful to God for the health of our growing little one.  Not only that, but we were also able to finally find out our little one's gender.  See the pics below from our little party to find out!

 Emily getting ready for the party!

 Our little family of three...for a few more months!

 What do you think?  Boy or girl?

 Almost everyone voted boy!

It's a GIRL!  Ashlynn Kate is on her way and Emily is getting a little sister!