Am-Munner

My sweet baby girl cant quite say "Grandmother" yet. But you wouldnt know it! We pass by my Mommie's house and Rhyan instantly says "Am-Munner" over and over. She loves her grandmother :-) And I'm pretty sure her grandmother loves her.

And, Rhyan loves her "baaaaaby Mack". And thats how she says his name.

She loves to help her "Am-Munner" feed "Baaaaaaby Mack"

And then she loves to be cuddled by her Grandmother like she's the baby :)

Mack has been hard at work lately... filling up diapers is top priority!

And after such hard work, someone cleans his little tooshie and he rests quite nicely! "Praise Jesus!"

I love how Rhyan says some words lately. Here are some of my fav's:
"Pish"=fish (sometimes she says it super country and its more like "peeee-ish")
She can count to ten but "Pour"=four and eight has two syllables
"Bight Back"= Right back
"Onna Wook"= I want to look
"Ammy"=Grammy
"Dran"=Gran
"Jep"=Jeff (what she calls her daddy a ton~)
"Passic"=passie (for mack)
"Are-ange"=orange
"Brue"=blue
"Straw-berrrr"=strawberry
"Sharddy"=sorry
"See Bay"=Excuse Me
These are just a few. She's also a diva here lately and is pouting something fierce. Man, we're in for some rough teen years. Lord, please draw Rhyan to you at a young age!

Jeff's Garden!

Frugal Farmer Jeff is at it again :-) Growing a garden! He does a great job each year tending to his garden each night, taking time to water all of the plants. He actually collects water from our air conditioner condensation run off. He gets between 5-7 gallons per day! The upside is the obvious... water conservation. The downside? To be getting that amount of water each day, we are running the air conditioner a lot! (b/c its hot, not because we're running it to get the water.)

Yellow Squash! YUM!

Zucchini.Cant wait to grill this!

The 2nd section of the garden

Cucumbers... they're trying to take over the whole garden!

The front section of the garden... Tomato's!

When these little okra grow big enough, they're getting FRIED!

Tomato's!

Okra rows :-)

Cant wait to start reaping the harvest. Rhyan, in particular, loooooooves squash casserole! We enjoyed our 1st of the season this past week and ate it up! And she'll eat a whole cucumber if you let her dip it in ranch (yum! girl has good taste!). I'm very much looking forward to putting up more tomato's this year for soups this winter.

My man rocks :-)

Mack's Newborn Pics

A sweet friend of ours from church is also a super talented photographer. And we are the beneficiaries of her incredible talent because she gifted us with a newborn session with her in her studio! WOW!

We had a great time enjoying her company, along with that of her youngest daughter "Kenzie" who ended up at the age of 6 being Rhyan's babysitter for the majority of Mack's session :-)

I would DEFINITELY recommend that if you are in the market for some new family pics, baby pics, graduation pics... ANY pics!, give Terrilyn a call. She and her husband own a company called Orpheus and Aphrodite Music and Photography and are available for weddings and party's as well. Kris is a DJ and also has a full band thats available. Plus, he has his own professional recording studio in their basement (where Terrilyn's professional photography studio is housed). These are some talented friends.

But more than talented, they are generous. They are kind and honest. They love Jesus and it shows!

Hope you enjoy our pictures as much as we do! (and this is just the sneak peek!)

Plug for a Friend...

Y'all! My friend, Kristy, is married to a super talented writer, Russ. And he has written a book that is coming out in about a week. It's going to be available for purchase to put on your kindle or ipad, etc.

Anyways, here's a link to his blog that tells more about it. Read up! And get ready to buy it! :-)

The Day Mack was Born!

Just a few pics from the day Mack was brought into our lives. My incredible sister in law, Liz, was kind enough to come in right after he was born and take these for us. The original plan was for her to come in literally before the cord was cut (she promised not to look "down there"! haha) but Mack's entrance into this world was not quite as easy as we'd hoped and with the special nurses team being in there, they wouldnt let Liz in until Mack was for sure doing ok. So she captured pics of him being about 5 minutes old and beyond :-)

Our big boy weighing in at 8lbs 14.6oz (officially 8lbs 15oz!)

We are so grateful for Dr. Pohl who took wonderful care of us when Rhyan was born, and now again with the birth of Mack!

First family pic (oh, how I wish Rhyan could have been there...)

My sweet boy.

We are doing pretty well around here. We've had some feeding/formula issues with Mack but now that we're on "liquid gold" (aka: alimentum) he is doing very well.He is up to 9lbs 10oz at 2 weeks old! His tummy is settled, he's content and sleeping so much better. He's been giving us one 4 hour stretch at night before getting back to a 3 hour routine for the day time. We've finally been able to see a little bit of what his true temperament is this last 2 days and I truly hope i'm not speaking too soon, but he seems so easy going and sweet.

We let him cry it out to go to sleep last night for the 1st time. It was so much harder than i remembered it being with Rhyan. Jeff was such a huge support, reminding me that seeing as how he calmed every time you walked in the room and simply spoke to him that he's fine... just learning how to be okay by himself... well, I dont know what I would have done without that support. Today, for naps and night time we let him work it out on his own and he cried less than a minute each time. Wow. Lets hope that continues. We are trying very hard to be consistent so that this little process will be as short as possible.

Mack is also doing great at staying awake for about 40 minutes with each feeding. He shows obvious signs of sleepiness with some wild arms and slight fussing which lets us know its time to change his diaper, swaddle him and lay him down.

Its so nice to feel like you're getting to know each other, finally :-) I love when that starts to happen. It takes away some of the uncertainty of having a newborn.

Basically, he's precious. Rhyan adores him and has shown NO jealousy whatsoever towards him. She kisses him, gets diapers for him, puts his empty bottles in the sink and offers him a paci all without being prompted. She's been a huge helper and is just so loving with him. I pray that they share a sweet relationship forever!

We are loving the sweet, gracious timing that the Lord granted us for Mack's birth. It's been wonderful to have Jeff at home this summer so far and I'm sure its a huge part of why Rhyan has adjusted so well.

God is good, regardless of the blessings He grants, but He makes his goodness so obvious with miracles like our children :-)fa

Fathers Day

Oh, my slackness :-(

Fathers Day, we had big plans of going to sunday school!

Unfortunately, Mack had big plans of waking up every 2-2.5 hours throughout Sat night.

So those plans took a back burner to our desire to sleep, instead. *sigh*

I had big plans a week before Mack was born of getting Jeff cards from me, Rhyan and Mack.

Unfortunately, I totally forgot and so he had NO card waiting on him for Fathers day, despite the fact that I made 2 trips to walmart and target the week OF fathers day for diapers and formula.

Ok, on to the good stuff. I'm tired of beating myself up :-)

Jeff's family all came over for Fathers day lunch. His parents provided all of the food and we provided grandbabies. Nice trade! HAHA!

We enjoyed some bbq, cantaloupe, broccoli slaw and oreo pie (yum!) and of course one anothers company.

It may also be true that I was cleaning the house, thinking I had plenty of time to get ready when they showed up and i'd NOT had a shower (nor had i even donned undergarments at this point! haha). Lucky for me, my in-laws are great and didnt mind my rudeness of having to take a shower while they were here :-)

I forgot, also, to get any pics of the day. I'm going to regret that one for a while.

Back to some positives!

Jeff,
In lieu of a card, you're getting a blog shout-out :-) Thank you for not minding!

I absolutely could not ask for a better daddy for my children. You are patient and kind, playful and fun! You are creative and always look for a way to make the most mundane kind of days interesting with an impromptu bike ride or some toddler skinny dipping (b/c she slides down the slide of the pool better w/o clothes on, he says! LOL!). You also lovingly discipline your children, just as the Lord does for us.

You basically show Christ to our children on a daily basis. The way you love them warms my heart and makes me so grateful that I get to spend my life watching you be their dad. They are some blessed kiddo's, and i know that for whatever time their time should be here on earth, they will be well loved by their Daddy. Which, we hope, will help them to understand just how vast and deep and true the love their Heavenly Father has for them.

Thank you, too, for being a wonderful husband. I could go on about how great you have been since Mack arrived, but I wouldnt want your head to get too big all in one post :-)

I sincerely adore you. I love you. I treasure the gift that you are to me and our kids!
Kelly

I also want to give a big "Thank YOU!" to my father-in-law for being such a great role model for his sons. Andy, Jeff is just like you in so many ways! His playfulness is such an "Andy" trait! He's laid back like you are. He's flirtatious with me, just as you still flirt with your wife of "30 something billion years!". He is a good man. Just like you. So thank you.

Finally, this week my mind has been filled with memories I've shared with my own Daddy. As Rhyan and I sat on the back porch one evening this week, counting the airplanes that flew by, I was reminded of the countless evenings that I shared this exact memory with my Daddy. There are so many wonderful memories I'm blessed to cling to and it's amazing how sharing these moments with my own child makes me so grateful to have those moments with her (and one day with Mack).
But what makes me the MOST blessed is the fact that i know without a shadow of a doubt that these memories, while precious, will one day be replaced by a homecoming like no other when I will get to see my Daddy again, made whole! What a sweet promise we have in Christ for those who love him, and boy, did my Daddy love Him!

Point is, I'm one blessed lady. My kiddo's are 2 very blessed kids. And I like to think that the "Dad's" in our lives are pretty blessed themselves.

Hope your fathers day was spent with those you love, as well!

These are the Day's of Our Lives...

We are totally Young and the Restless fans... I've not watched Days of our Lives in FOREVER, but it seemed an appropriate title :-)

These days, the ball pit is even more fun than ever! And the static in Rhyan's hair from it makes her look a little crazier than ever :-)

These days, making a meal for everyone in the family is just something that must be done!

These days, taking phone calls keeps Rhyan quite busy!

These days, we've been super blessed to have been brought dinners by friends for almost 2 straight weeks, giving our family time to bond and learn one another with our new addition! And when we thought we were blessed enough, our doorbell rings and we were treated by Archer's Math Department to this yummy little treat!

These days, Rhyan and Mack have been bonding :-) (ps... this is her new "smile")

These days, Mack has also been bonding with his super handsome Daddy!

These days, Rhyan has been looking super cute!

And these days, we've been a little obsessed with this Mommy "Birdie" who has built a nest under our deck and thinks we're not supposed to come close to her babies... except that its under OUR deck and we do enjoy our deck on a daily basis, no matter how much that bothers her!

These days, Rhyan has to make SO many meals it keeps her busy a couple times a day!

And these days, we all spend lots of time finding a "passic" and offering it to a fussy Mack.

... only for him to spit it out again! *sigh* lol

Finally, these days we *hope* the evenings end like this... and stay like this for more than 30 minutes :-)

OH yeah, and these days, Mack is healing from a bad rash caused by detergent his bad Mommy used on his clothes and a bad rash on his tooshie caused by formula that doesnt agree with his tummy. It's hard work for such a little guy :-)
What are your days filled with lately?