A few videos

Here are a few videos mainly for the grandparents and aunties. The first one demonstrates the fearlessness and exuberance of our youngest and the second highlights olders's first attempt at singing his ABC's. Sorry for the lack of pants in the last one. It couldn't be helped.

Happy Easter!

Jesus is risen! We are so thankful for that every day and especially on Easter. We celebrated by having our community group over for a brunch and then hid a few Easter eggs. The eggs were confusing for Carter. We definately wanted to put the emphasis on Jesus and not eggs. However in an effort to reconcile both of them he decided that Jesus came back from the dead and brought us eggs and bunnies. Oh, well....we tried :)

Same goofy smile!? Must run in the family :)

Siblings?

I have never done a post yet comparing both of my kids to see how much they look alike. To make up for the fact that the camera battery was dead when we went to the petting zoo last week (boo!), I will take this opportunity to make the aforementioned post.

(Carter)

(Piper)

February

The last couple weeks have been super busy and super fun. Britty and Uncle Benny came for a visit for two whole weeks! We tried to show them the sights around here and keep them busy.


We also celebrated the third birthday of a very handsome young man! Here he is below doing his "birthday" (or age). What a fun crazy little man! Carter-boy facts:
He talks all the time now and asks questions non stop. He comes up with his own words. Two of my favorite are "narbled" (hint: squishing monk's face all up produces this: "Look Mom, Monkey is narbled") "boof" (hint: "I just boofed baby over"). He calls his sister a variation of babe, babers, babes. He brought me flowers of Valentines day. All his own idea. He tells me at dinner (most dinners)- "I really like this food you made". His favorite meal is spaghetti and meatballs, which he requested for all three meals on his birthday. He still carries Monk around. Besides his top three (blanky, puppy and monkey) he has added Big Monk, birthday blanket and Christmas Bear to the entourage. He weighs thirty pounds. He does not know how to smile.

Carter-boy, I love you so much. I can't imagine life without you. You are a gift from God. I pray with all my heart that you grow up to be a powerful man of God, who loves Jesus with all his heart.

Some of the highlights from Ben and Britt's visit were Chattanooga:

Ben and Jerry's in Chattanooga:

The Parthenon in Nashville (full size replica, who'd a thunk?):

Opry Mills:

We also visited some caves near here called Cathedral Caverns which were awesome. My camera battery died at that outing, so you will just have to take my word for it.

The weather has been gorgeous lately. I am definately going to like Alabama in the spring. We have been out discovering new trails and various hikes around here. This Sunday we went out and I was finally able to get some decent pictures of the kids. It is sooo hard to get them both looking and smiling and in the picture. I was pretty happy with these.

Rollerball

We finally did something blog worthy. The last month was pretty slow for us. We spent a good portion of it being sick, trying not to get other people sick, and trying not to get sick again. In there somewhere we visited Birmingham and Cullman...neither one was very noteworthy unfortunately. Andy had a business trip to Puerto Rico for a couple days. That was nice. For him:)
Other than that we have just been up to all the normal stuff.
Last Saturday we went on a fun little outing. We took the kids out to go bowling. At this alley they have kids bowling that is miniature! It was super cute and Carter loved it. It was too loud for Piper. She did not care for it.

A Merry Merry Christmas

What a wonderful Christmas! Our best present by far was Nana and Papa and Nae-nae's visit!! Two weeks with them flew by. After they left Carter said, "I kind of just want to go home with them"....me too, bud, me too.

Christmas morning:

Christmas breakfast:
(We made our classic breakfast: raspberry soup, butterhorns, and egg casserole...hmmm...so yummy).

After Christmas we drove to Cloudland Canyon, Georgia and stayed in a cabin in the state park there. We took a day trip to Chatanoooga while we were there. The cabin was quaint and rustic with a fireplace. The boys try to build a "fire" with soaking wet wood- it was heavy on the smoke, light on the fire.

We drove from Georgia to Nashville to meet the Carpenters, our friends from Seattle. It was so much fun to see them and catch up. We walked around the Opryland Hotel together and stayed the night in a cheaper hotel.

We are still here!

We are still here, you wouldn't know if from my blogging though. Our computer crashed and then I got busy with Christmas preparations and here we are...
Let's see, what did you miss?
Car: We finally bought a second car. Yay!
Piper walks: she looks way to tiny but she motors!
Thanksgiving: We had a wonderful time visiting long time friends in Nashville.
My birthday: I turned 25. I'm in my mid-twenties. Yikes! Our friends from Nashville came down and watched the kids for most of the day so that Andy and I could go out. First date in 3 months! Woohoo! I also got a Phil and Ted's double stroller. It's amazing.
Piper's birthday: She is one now! My friend Emilie made a tutu for her, which she wore for her party. She looked so cute. She demolished her cake; dug in with both both hands and snorted it. It was that good.

Right now we are anxiously awaiting my parents and sister's arrival on Sunday. They will be here for two weeks! We are all so excited.

Here we are cutting down our Christmas tree:
(I do not know what to do about this kid's smile. I honestly think he doesn't know how to smile. I have tried giving him lessons, but as you can see it has done little good.)

Eating birthday cake:

My beautiful little one year old: