Happy Birthday Finley!!!

Today, 2 years ago, my Fin was born.

12.18.07

6:34am

7# 7oz

Her BIRTHday was very different from Gabbie's. Both Grandmas were in the delivery room, (I say that Jas & I gave them a gift that day). ;) We had LOTS of visitors. And having Gabrielle to share it with was AWESOME!

This is Hadley and Fin just last weekend. SO CUTE!

Finley's first visit to Reptile Gardens

March 2009

Evening with Santa 2008

Finley's second Christmas


Finley's first crawl
August 2008



Swinging!!!!





Tummy Time with Gabs
April 2008

Just so CUTE!

Merry Christmas Mama!!!

How could 2 years have gone by?

I am longing for those sweet, tiny baby days, but then I see her Independence blooming and am excited to see her grow.

Camera Download....

Well, it has OFFICIALLY been OVER two months since an update and it has been almost that long since I have down loaded my camera. (Yes, I have a large SD card.) I also was not happy with some of the blogs that I added to my Blog List, so I have edited them, & I think you'll enjoy some I have added...I DO!

Here's what we've been up to.

Here's my Fin enjoying the horse at Chuc-E-Cheese.

(Yes, we go to CEC!)

Here are the birthday kids.
Gabbie shares a birthday with her cousin, Brayden, who turned 8.
In order to celebrate this special day, we try to go to dinner and to CEC for a smaller party with just family. This was the second annual 9/9 celebration and there is something so fun about seeing all the skeet ball spots taken by members of our family!



Fin...being SWEET!


Gabbie had a fall off of the swing set at my mom's house one day while I was working. My mom was so freaked out that when she called the ER to talk to me, she asked for me by my maiden name...it was a good laugh.
We had x-rays and Gabbie likely broke a small bone in her elbow. Kids are amazing, because if it was hurting, she took it easy and she only did what she could. It seems fine now.

I hosted a baby shower for our good friends that adopted from Ethiopia.

This was only 4 days before they left to get her. The shower was one that I had been looking forward to for a VERY long time.

Check out their story here.

This was Gabbie's first day of school...OK it was only pre-school, but it is at a public school and it is 4 afternoon's a week and it felt like the real deal to me!!!

She LOVES it and she does great with using the daycare van for transportation, if needed.

She's just my BIG girl!

SOOOOO SASSY!

We went to the local fair (much to my protest) and REALLY enjoyed it. It seemed a little cleaner this year. The kids had a blast and next year maybe we'll even get dad to go.

Finley had a little sugar high after this.

I could not believe Gabbie did this AND liked it.

Gabs & T-man at Reptile Gardens. We LOVE this place. The bird show is great!

More fair pics. Brayden got to help Keith the Magician. You'll get to hear more about Magic Keith later.

Grandma Diane with her hands FULL!

Fin and Hadley weren't as impressed with the magic???

On the lake trying out the paddle boats at Grandma's company picnic.

I Gabbie liked them.

This was our VERY LAST DAY @ the pool :( :(!!!!

We knew it was the last day and that made it a little bit more OK.

See you next year pool...sniff, sniff.

Summer celebrations with new & old friends!

This is the day our friends adoption became official.

We had a nice dinner and it was fun to see all the pieces of their lives come together to celebrate!

Another group of ladies, just hanging out :)

This was Gabbie's last Ballet dance camp for the summer.

The theme was "Royal Tea Party" with lessons on etiquette.

What an AMAZING gift this was....

My friend, Cody Lynn and her boyfriend Ryan, came to visit during their 17 day road trip from California.

She came to RC to be in my wedding and we had not seen each other in 4 years. We reconnected on Facebook and she added our home to her destination list!

THANK YOU FRIEND!

Baby Showers!!!

Yes...I said SHOWERS! You know when people joke about "not drinking the water" in a work place because there are so many pregnant women...well, I think there is something to that in the ER this year. One of our nurses had THE New Year's baby this year and I think we are on schedule to have 13 babies born to our staff before the end of the year!

CRAZY!!!

Because of this baby boom, we have become pros at throwing baby showers. Mostly it's just good food, lots of chatting and baby holding, of course.

These are just a few of the pics from just a few of the parties.

Gabbie & Morgan

Which one is the Queen and which is the Princess?

Trista (due in Sept) and Renee (Brody, born in March)

This was Angela and Baby Chloe's shower in May.

These kids were so cute!

Kris (the hostess) and Angela (Chloe, born in April)

Steph & Amy
Pretty Girls
At Angela's Shower in May






Kris, Brandy & Baby Jackson
at Brandy's Shower in July




Laura (Max, born in July), Brooklyn, Brandy (Jackson, born in June)

Finley and Novalee

@ Trista's Shower in July

They played so nice!

The whole gang @ Trista's Shower.

Her baby girl is due in Sept.

Trista, practicing holding babies.

Alexandra, Finley, Keelin, Novalee, Gabriel, Jackson and Gabbie.




We have MORE baby showers to come, but we have a couple of Murses (Male Nurses) that will add to their families soon too, so no baby shower pictures from them.

This is enough to make a girl want another baby...

First Things First...

I have been blogging about Fin's birthday for awhile.

She is ONE!!!!!

Time has flown by. Finley is sassy and devilish, which is totally different from Gabbie, but we love it! She starting acting older the day after her party. She loves her new toys and plays so nicely with them.

This is Fin's own little cake! Her party theme was very "SUMMER-Y"...Lady bugs, butterflies and bumble bees. The red frosting actually came out of her clothes!

(PS Piece of Cake made the cake. It tasted good and looked cute but they NEED to get organized!! Don't count on them to get you order correct!)

After the cake, came the presents. Finley is not timid. It was good practice for Christmas morning.


We had a small party, but the kids had fun and look how cute they are!

CLASSIC!

My baby is growing...

I also have to give a mention to all of you that have holiday birthdays...It sucks!

I will always try to make Finley's birthday a SEPARATE event, so I hope she does not resent it.

Happy 4th Birhday Gabbie-Girl!

We had Gabbie's 4th birthday party at Just Jymnastics. Gabbie goes to class there once a week and we thought it would be fun for ALL the kids.

Gabbie decided on a Tinkerbell theme and her little flower girl dress worked perfectly.


Another family pic: Imperfection, but pretty cute and Gabbie looks so happy!






Just has a 50 foot trampoline in the floor that ends in a foam block pit. These two things were very popular!!! The kids were exhausted after one hour of play:)! You're welcome parents.

The ice cream cake was a hit and the kids were so good! Look how nicely they sat and ate.

It was very nice to have this party outside of our home. We had SO much fun and thank all of you that came!

All I can say is...WHEW!

J's bro got married to a his long-time girlfriend over the holiday weekend. They had a lot of very unique elements to their wedding and the end result was beautiful. We stayed in these huge, hotel-like cabins and the weather was AMAZING! (That is my kind of camping.) The girls were SOOO good. I was so proud of what a big girl G was.

My only request was that we get ONE family photo, since we were all dressed. All I can say is that I am VERY disappointed with the end result. This was the best we could do. I think that with the beautiful surrounding and all the HARD work, we could have slowed down and gotten a better shot. OH WELL!

This was G's debut as a flower girl. There were 3 of them and they did GREAT! The bride's mother made the dresses and they looked like woodland fairies, which fit perfect with the theme.

This is the entire wedding party in the heat of the moment. It's official...another female has been added to the Love Family:)

Whew...we made it through the weekend. I told J that I am praying that our girls hire a wedding planner when the time comes. Weddings are a lot of work and this one was worth it.

Well, I made a drastic change to my appearance this weekend...

Wait..

TAA DAAA!

What do you think? My stylist flat-ironed it for me, so don't expect it to look like this ever again, but it is fun!