Happy Birthday to Me!

While I worked on Friday, she hung out and watched me
She loves her Aunt BB

Bryan & Casey

Austin & Brooke...aren't they cute?!

Brandon and my girl

My family...aren't they sweet

Saturday was my birthday...so we began partying on Thursday night and didn't stop until Sunday. It was a fun, fun weekend with the most gorgeous weather. On Thursday, we met Kara and Tim for dinner at our favorite Irving restaurant, on Friday, we headed to Southlake for my family birthday party. Last year on my birthday, we had a Halloween party and I wore a bikini...less then 6 weeks post baby, I wasn't wearing a bikini this year :). We then spent the night with my parents and then spent my actual birthday hanging out with them. I did a lot of Christmas shopping and ate yet again at one of my favorite restaurants, Joe T. Garcia's. With gorgeous weather, you can't not go to Joe T.'s. Thanks to my friends and family for making 27 so special...and a special thanks to mom and dad for hosting another wonderful birthday party.

Cozy Fall Days

Getting all warm & toasty for our morning walk...gotta love the K-State hat
Our little Strawberry Shortcake sticking her tongue out

Thank goodness Fall has arrived! This time a year, I miss living in Michigan SO MUCH! Andrew and I talk about it every day...we're always saying "if we were in Detroit today, we'd be doing ____" or "the high today in Detroit is only ___". (By the way, the high today in Detroit is 57!). So, when fall finally rolls around down here, I'm thrilled. We've had a very nice week and enjoyed pulling out our toasty, warm clothes. Hopefully, this weather will continue.

New Things Every Day

I love sitting in my vibrating chair while mama folds laundry
I nap peacefully just knowing my binkie is close by

Mom put me in my Halloween outfit even though it's still way too big
I love when Daddy reads me a story before bed. Look, I'm holding on to him.

I love my Bumbo! It's a whole new world from the sitting position

We took Nanny and PawPaw to Patrizio's for dinner

I get smarter every day lying on my activity mat

We also took Nanny and PawPaw to Southlake to shop


Mommy's girl

Dinner at Joe T. Garcia's


I just discovered myself in the mirror in the car...I'm so pretty!
Watching football with Daddy after a very full day!

Kensington's Box

Anyone who knows my dad, knows that Jay doesn't do anything small. When he gets an idea (which is often), it's a BIG idea and he always follows through with what he sets out to do. Growing up was always interesting because he was either chasing hurricanes, breaking Guinness Book of World Records, traveling to third world countries to share the Gospel, etc. I could go on and on (and on and on and on). But one thing he always did was make sure my mom, Sean and I knew we were the most important things in the world to him.

One of those acts of love was to bury a time capsule up in the Rocky Mountains for me to find one day. When I was a baby, he went backpacking in Colorado and burried this capsule. Then when I was ten, we went up there and I dug it up. Inside, he had written the neatest letter to me. It talked about me being a baby and how much he loved me and my soon to be brother or sister ...which turned out to be Sean.

Well, 2008 has turned Jay into a grandpa and he's not going to let Miss Kensington not have a capsule too. But this time, it's a box. Inside this box, everyone in my family has placed a letter and an item for her to read and have when she turns 16. It was very, very hard for me to write this letter. I kept thinking, what if I'm already with Jesus when she turns 16 or what if Andrew is...and then I started looking at the items my family was putting into this box and it was so special that it made me cry (yes...even Shay cries and can sometimes be sentimental!). I didn't read any of the letters...those are for Kensington to read 16 years from now, but just watching my family put their items in the box and comment on what they had written, made my heart full. My 83 year old grandfather put a poem in there he wrote for Kensington, my aunt Pam said it took her 3 drafts to write this letter, my grandmother put a piece of jewelry in the box, Casey's envelope jingled, there were photographs, and my dad put his pocket watch in.

We took a family picture of all of us with Kensington and that is going in there too. As I looked at the picture, I kept thinking...what will this picture mean to me 16 years from now? I'm not naive...I know my heart will break when I look at it 16 years from now because life will be different and some of the most important people in my life won't be with us to see her open the box.

The most important thing this box represents to me is that I have a dad who loves me so much that he would fly to Colorado this Saturday, drive up in the mountains, camp outside for 2 days in the snow (yes, there is already 9 inches of snow on the ground where he is going) and bury this box of memories and letters for my baby to see when she's older.

You might be crazy Dad, but you're the best dad in the world. We love you.

13 Months of Infertility Treatments, over $20,000...Waiting on God's Timing...Priceless

Today my baby is one month old. Yesterday we took her to the State Fair of Texas. Going to the fair is a tradition Andrew and I look forward to each year. Last year, I was standing in line waiting to order my onion rings when my cell phone rang. It was my infertility doctor letting me know that my 4th Interuterine Insemination hadn't been successful (a.k.a. I wasn't pregnant). We would go on to do two more unsuccessfully before we stopped using all infertility drugs and "accidentally" got pregnant. God blessed us when we weren't even trying. He knew when we needed to get pregnant, not us. And he knew that if any of the 6 Interuterine Inseminations had worked, we wouldn't have this beautiful little girl today. She is my miracle from God. God's timing is not often our timing...but it's ALWAYS the best timing.