Nana and Papa!

I decided at the last minute to bring the girls to Georgia to visit Nana and Papa. We left on Monday and of course the drive was not fun. However, once we get here it is always so great to relax and hang with the fam. i have gotten up with Anna every morning to feed her, but then I have gone back to sleep. It is such a rare event that I love it! I think I am really tired and it doesn't catch up with me till I get a chance to relax. I have taken a nap every afternoon when the girls have gone down for a nap. Ellie is loving seeing Nana and Papa. She can now say their names and recognizes them. We went swimming in their pool today. Ellie is slowly enjoying the water more, but we are not in the pool to long before she says "all done". We took Anna to the Target Portrait studio today and she did so great! I love this place cause you can get a whole package for $7.99. Ellie is not into pictures and hasn't been since her first birthday. She did like trying to make Anna smile. It is so great to have a helper with me when we do things like pictures etc..! Tomorrow, we are taking Ellie to see Happy Feet at the free kids movie. We'll see how it goes with both kids at the movies!
Mike has been busy this week with church work and working on our investment house. He has taken over the house and is now the project manager etc....a long story. However, I think he is secretly loving being like Armando from "Flip that house". I am really proud of him and he is doing a great job. He is picking out the paint, door knobs, cabinets, doors, etc....I am letting him handle all this while I am away this week. We've come a long ways in our 6 years! I hope everyone is having a great day.Blessings upon you all!

Mike's 28!

Well, today is a big day for Mikey! He is now 28 years old. It makes me feel a little better cause I will be turning 30 in 6 months. So instead of a card that he won't read I decided to do a little surprise blog for him. I know this may be a little long, but here goes 28 things I love about Mike in no particular order....Happy Birthday Babe!
1.)He loves me
2.)He loves Jesus
3.)He adores Ellie and Anna
4.) We met in the midwest as very young naive college students, but we've survived!
5.) He did college in 3 1/2 years and seminary in 2 1/2 with very little effort. Secretly, he is really smart and can get any job done.
6.)You have gotten so many free things it is not even funny.. to name a few: timeshare gifts, macbook pro, iphone, ipod hifi, airplane vouchers etc... very few people will put forth the effort will they?
7.) You let me pick the music on the ipod most the time which we mainly agree upon. Lately, we are addicted to Hillsong United (you should all check them out.)
8.)You have very strange things happen to you that you just laugh about and never even worry about them (ex: sea lice, staph infection, fake colon cancer ha ha)
9.) You have a very good pallet for food. I really do think we eat more than most couples.
10.) You love college basketball and somehow we end up in great cities for it!
11.) You challenge me daily to grow in my walk with Christ.
12.) There is no dream to small for you.
13.) You have a moonwalk company (enough said)
14.) You love to travel. We have been on some amazing trips together (many before children). Some of my favorites are: Disney, Breckenridge, OBX, Williamsburg/D.C.,Charleston, Hilton Head, The Cruise(ha ha)
15.) You are really good at student ministry and still have a desire for it.
16.) You are not afraid to work and figure out how to make money.
17.)You are growing and maturing daily. I really respect how you are making decisions a little more slowly now and desiring what's best for your family.
18.) You are a very loyal friend. You can keep in touch with almost anyone.
19.) You are very good at technology and put up with my lack of technological skills.
20.) You are compassionate and caring toward those who need help. You will try and find a way to help those in need.
21.)I can't wait to one day finally take a really cool anniversary trip with you without our babies.
22.) You are an amazing father who has really helped me transition into having two girls under two years old.
23.) You still want more children even after the past couple months of insanity and "you've even said I don't mind if they are girls"!
24.) We are laughing more today than we did 6 years ago I think. I have a lot of fun with you.
25.)You are really calm during stressful situations. I am thinking of when it is 2 a.m. and I'm telling you I think we need to go to the hospital so I can have Anna. I am dying in pain. Our bags are not packed and you ask me if you can take a shower? However, we made it to the hospital in 19 minutes from N. Raleigh to Cary.
26.) You love to research all kinds of things. You are really good at finding good cars, houses, etc... aka NACA! (inside joke)
27.) Your birthday gift is coming in one week. The anticipated IPhone. Will our world ever be the same?
28.) Happy Birthday Mike! I hope you've had a great day!
We love you,
Holly, Ellie and Anna
ps- these 2 pics I thought were a good image of Mike.

Pool Time???

Well, this morning I realized that it is almost July and we have yet to make it to the YMCA pool. We have been gone quite a bit in June and the weather last week was not good. Today, it is supposed to be 97 degrees. So after an hour or so of getting both kids ready we are in the car! I know that I cannot handle both kids so I check Anna into the YMCA playhouse(glorified childcare). I get there and Ellie is screaming cause she wants to go play in there with Anna. I'm thinking I did all this work to get us both in swimsuits, sunscreen, towels, extra clothes, toys etc... We are going to the pool. So we get there and Ellie is more interested in walking around the pool and maybe getting her feet in sometimes. We did this for about 30 minutes and went into the indoor toddler pool. She liked this much better which was encouraging and was actually kind of sad when it was time to go pick up Anna. We go into the family locker room to change clothes. I wouldn't have done this, but we had a few errands to do for awhile. I'm changing clothes and Ellie has her hand in the YMCA toilet. It is so gross cause there are on average probably 2,000 kids that go there everyday during the summer. She also almost throws my swimsuit in the toilet. We go to get Anna and once again Ellie is really upset about not getting to go into the playhouse. I decided next time I think I'll pay the $4 and go lay by the pool without the kids. She seems to like the indoor world more than outside these days. Anyways, I just had to laugh and share my time at the pool. We'll try it again sometime soon, but I might take Mike with me next time. The only good thing is that the pool induces an extremely long nap. Enjoy your day in the sun!

Father's Day.......

Well, this year Mike is the daddy to two girls! Wow! I have been kind of distracted lately from the blog world. I haven't been to motivated, but I figured Father's Day would be a good topic. We are doing well. We actually celebrated Father's Day on Friday night. Mike wanted to go see a movie and to dinner without the kids. We have quickly learned that to really enjoy ourselves at dinner or especially a movie that taking the girls would not be a good idea. We had a couple in our small group watch the girls. It worked out perfectly cause they have a 20 month old girl and a 6 week old girl. So they had 4 girls under two at their house. We have done this for them and it is not to bad! Ellie loved it. She loves her friend Cana. She actually was not to up for sleeping in her pack and play so they just kept her up till we got back at 10:30 P.M. We ended up staying there and talking to Jonathan and Kelly till midnight. Ellie was quite the night owl. She fell asleep on the way home, but ended up sleeping till 11 A.M. the next day! So we went to our favorite chinese place Pei Wei. It is PF Chang's fast food place. We love it. If you haven't been you should see if you have one in your city. We saw the movie "Ocean's Thirteen" after that and it was great. We both really liked it.
Yesterday, we went to a birthday party for a friend of ours from church. Her family cooked a feast. It was so good. We love these kind of parties. Ellie ended up getting kind of sick yesterday. She had a fever, runny nose, etc... last night so I stayed home from church this morning with the girls. I was motivated to clean so the downstairs actually looks great... the upstairs is a different story. Even more of an incentive to remind myself to look for a one-story house one day. Today, we are just relaxing at home. We are watching the US Open. It is one of our favorite things to do on a Sunday afternoon. I know we are strange, but it is pretty exciting. I got Mike a new Timex Ironman watch. He lost his a couple months ago and it was also from high school. It was time for a new watch! We put both girls down for a nap at the same time. We took a 2 hour nap. It was very nice. I think tonight we are going to go out for dinner near the mall somewhere. There is a new shopping area with a coldstone creamery there. (Mike's fave and Ellie likes to look at the water fountains!)
Anna is quite strong we have decided. She rolled over last Sunday. She's 4 1/2 months old. Ellie did not roll over till around 6 months and she is already loving her exersaucer! I am so glad she likes it as well. Anyways, we miss everyone. We hope both of our father's have a great day. We are very thankful to have such great dad's.

Anna Katherine

I am going to try and post every month what our sweet Anna is up to these days. It seems to be that I post more about what Ellie is doing probably because she is doing so much these days! I might be tearing up by the end of this, but I hope to print these off one day since I don't scrapbook!

Dear Anna,
You are now 4 months old. I cannot believe you are no longer our little tiny newborn who slept all the time. You are developing your own little personality. You love for people to talk to you and you love to smile back at them. Your sister is obsessed with you. She loves having a new playmate all the time with her at home. She loves to bring you toys or try to feed you a bottle. You put up with her trying to climb on you and poking your eye. I am very busy now taking care of you and Ellie. My favorite time though is when I put Ellie down for her nap and I hold you in my lap. I love to see you laugh and smile. Your dad normally spends time with you at night. Your eyes will follow him all across the room. We have a new routine of putting you and your sister to bed at night at the same time. Ellie loves to pray with you and say "Amen". You roll over on your side, suck your thumb, and watch your aquarium mobile. You are now sleeping from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.! I don't know how we are so blessed, but you have loved to sleep from birth. We've been busy so far this summer with a trip to the beach and going to the pool as much as we can. You look so cute in your swimsuit and I know this time next year you will love the water! You weighed 11 lbs. 13 oz. at your 4 month appointment. You are 10 oz. bigger than your sister was at 4 months. However, it looks like you are going to be kind of small like Ellie. One day you will love being the small girl! We love you so much Anna. I can tell you are going to be an awesome girl one day who will shine brightly for Jesus. We picked your name as we pray that one day you will be like Anna from the Bible who loved to worship Jesus! I look forward to many more days of being your mommy. You are a special gift to us.

Summer Time.....

I think summer has arrived in Raleigh. It has been in the 90's the past couple of days which makes things interesting with 2 kids! We had a great day yesterday cause my play group met at a girl's neighborhood pool. It was such a great pool cause it had the little fountains for the kids to play in and there were parts where the water was only a foot deep. Ellie is obsessed with three things. Water, Anna, and Daddy are the highlight of her day. She is trying to play games with Anna. She takes her toys like the play phone and puts it up to her ear. She also loves to try and put a bottle in her mouth. She gives her hugs all the time and says "Ahhnnnaaa" in this russian like accent all the time! I've also started to notice that by the end of the day she really wants to see her daddy. She loves it when the garage door opens and she knows that daddy is about to walk in the door. Mike has been really busy this week. It seems like he's had something almost every night that he had to be at so I've been creative in trying to get out at night till bedtime.
I've also decided I no longer have a newborn. Anna is for sure becoming more like a 4 month old who can no longer be on our schedule. It is going to get interesting. I normally do all my errands, seeing friends, etc... in the morning. She is really fussy if she doesn't get her morning nap. Which means on most days we can go somewhere around lunch time, but have to be back by 2:00 because of Ellie's nap and then Anna also needs a nap at that time. It is great that I can put them down at the same time in the afternoon and at night now. It allows us to have a break and spend time together. I can just tell that I am going to now have to organize two kids schedules instead of Anna just sleeping in the car etc...A stay at home mom really is like a home/baby manager. It takes a lot of organization and energy that is for sure! Anyways, I hope you are all doing well. We miss you all!

More OBX Pictures!

Here are some more pictures from our week at the OBX. There are so many cool things to do there. I think our favorite was driving onto the beach. They have one section where you can drive your 4wd onto the beach. Mike was all about this of course and our goal was to see the wild horses. We've heard lots about them, but didn't know if we would actually see one. There were two out on the beach this day. It was amazing just seeing them roam on the beach. I also wanted to get one good family picture. We have yet to do this since Anna was born. The picture session lasted about 5 minutes cause then Anna had a "blowout" all over Mike. I think this was his first experience of having baby poo on him. Welcome to my world! It was a great week and we will always look back on the memories of having family out on the East Coast with us. Today, was church and it was awesome. Our pastor and worship were great today. A great way to start back into the "real world". Ellie cried for the first time today when we dropped her off. It was sad. She was fine though after about 5 minutes. I saw her playing on the floor with some of her little friends. Enjoy the pictures!

OBX!

Well, we returned from a great vacation on the Outer Banks. We stayed in Duck, NC. I think it is the one beach area that I could actually live at year round. It is so nice and we both love it. I am tired so I am going to only post these pictures for now. The girls did great, but today has been a different story. I think they liked all the constant attention, ice cream, Barney, pool, etc... so now it is back to reality. However, it is the first week long vacation we have taken in a long time. It was so awesome! We had a great time with Mimi and Granddaddy Shelton! Aunt Kathy and Uncle David made the trip even more great! It was so great to have everyone come East instead of us go West. The sun could not have shined more bright all week. A huge blessing cause it seems like many beach trips I have been on the weather has been horrible where all you do is sit inside most the time! God was so good to us and we both feel very refreshed and refocused for the busy summer months ahead of us! Have a great Sunday!