little slice of life

Life has changed so much, but not really much at all since this little guy came into our hearts. I still can't believe we have two kids, but yet I can't remember life without him.


This is 1 of 2 onesies that Kelle made for Lily and love to see him in it too. The other one says "I'm a Little Miracle" and it's so true about every baby born into this world that they should pass those onesies out at the hospital with the handmade booties and hat.

And our little guy likes to sleep thanks to the miracle blanket. We wrap him up like a burrito every night and it truly works like a miracle. I don't know how or why it works, but I think they should pass these out at the hospital too. Momma and dadda need their sleep! Thanks Allison and Stephanie for letting us borrow your blue ones so he didn't have to wear Lily's pink ones every night. ha.


Lily went to meet Elmo and Dora for lunch last weekend and when it came time for a picture, she gave Dora's big head a little kiss I caught on camera. So sweet. I happen to know Amy who was inside Dora, but she couldn't talk so it was hilarious to see her in character. Check out David and how it looks like he's for sale for $24.99. LOL!


I love this picture; especially because a code 5 tantrum followed minutes after this picture when she saw us packing up our stuff getting ready to go. We weren't actually leaving just yet, but I was putting some stuff in my purse/stroller, but she lost it anyway so needless to say it was a quick exit stage left.



So we went home to calm down for some r&r...I love this sweet picture of Grady - it epitomizes his nice little heart. And how I love this blanket made for him by my friends at MOPS.


and Grady has been welcomed with open arms from his cousins. It's crazy that my 2 sisters and I all had 1 boy and 1 girl each! What are the chances of that happening? Grace is like part of the family when she's here and she kept whispering to Molly "he's so cute" all weekend.





Lily and Grace of best of friends too. Grace got her face painted so Lily was next in line which I didn't think she'd do, but the positive peer pressure of seeing Grace do it got the best of her.

This picture was taken at Baby Kian's fundraiser. He's a 9 month old baby boy who needs 3 open heart surgeries and is having his first one tomorrow, 12/1! Please pray for him that everything goes the way it should! He's a sweet little baby with such amazing parents who have been incredibly strong through all of this. Your prayers are greatly appreciated.


We sing "Love Can Build a Bridge" with the book at night and Lily wants to hold hands at the end in a circle; she insists on holding Grady's hand while I grab the cat's paw. It's 2 parts cheesy to see, 3 parts funny, and 5 parts adorable. I'd love to get it on video, but Lily probably won't let me leave the Kumbaya circle. ha

I love taking pictures of little people in a big space to show how little they really are.



Here's a close up of the little guy in trucks! Honk. Honk.


See? I like to do it a lot. Where's Grady?


He's a little doll inside and out...

This is one of Lily's favorite past times. She'll go through the hundreds of loose pictures I haven't put into an album yet, talk about each one, place them methodically out in front of her then stack them back together like a deck of cards and start over. Rinse. Repeat.


Going for a train ride at Taste of Bonita with daddy. This was a highlight for her.



She wanted to go up a pretty big gerbil-like playground, but got stuck at the top. She literally froze in fear and couldn't get down no matter how hard she tried and we coached from below. I was in a skirt so Daddy was the next choice to rescue her. I can't tell you how funny it was to see a 6'3" David scurrying t hrough the different tubes and netted ladder to get her.




ahh, rescue caught on camera, but now we have to get out of this place...

the tube part of the playground was definitely the most challenging...and funniest. Ahhh, the memories we're making!


life is good.

Scrappin Away...

So I'm just doing random pages and not sure how I'm going to package them quite yet as I go back and forth and over and over more than I should and my OCD rears its ugly head. Actually OCD and I get along pretty well for the most part, but when it comes to things like this, I wish I could let go or kick its booty into the corner. I really thought Lily was going to be an only child so I went all out on so many levels with her and want to do the same for Grady so he doesn't get the short end of the stick. I was the 3rd born so I think I'm overcompensating in the process and WAAAAY overanalyzing the equalness of everything. Everything!! Holy balance batman! Like if I take 3 pictures of Grady , I need to have 3 of Lily and I could give you 1,029 more examples like that where I try to keep it balanced like a scale and its next to impossible. No, it's impossible. Well, here's a little look at October and not sure what will happen from here on out, but I'll just keep scrapping away and figure it out later.
thanks for the awesome B&W picture Kelle. I love it!



still have to add captions to these pages which is the hardest because my heart just explodes thinking about what I want to write and feel like words somehow cheapen it, but it's better to write anything rather than nothing at all.


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These seems like 6 months ago and not just 2 weeks ago. Life is flying by way too fast!








here are 2 cute videos from just before Grady was here. Lily gets so excited when daddy comes home and he knocks like he's a visitor and she has to go find him. I love her spirit. dont think embedding is working so just click blue link ...


Click here to see video



and this is of her practicing to be a big sister...
click here to see the video

life is good.

round the house

I feel so behind in the blog world and can't possibly summarize everything we've had going on, but they say blogs cover 20% of one's life so here's about 15%.

I've gotten the couponing bug others have told me about for ages, but never realized how rewarding it could be. I used to spend $150 a week on groceries, but now I'm buying the same amount of groceries and spending $25-$50 a week! It was a big learning curve and a lot of work in the beginning, but it's so much easier and less time consuming now. I put some of my go to links/tutorials on my blog, but my favorite strategy is to go to http://www.iheartpublix.com/ and go to the weekly ads link where Michelle (couponing site guru) has matched up anything on sale with the coupons. It's genius and she makes it so easy to save money.

My total bill here was initially $101, but after coupons, the total was dropped dramatically to $24! After following sales and couponing, Publix figured I saved $102! Zowie!


my receipt was almost as long as my couch. lol


Thanks to Jen K, Allison and my other couponing pals for helping me learn all about strategic shopping.

In kid news, Lily thinks she's a little photographer like her wannabe mommy. She was holding this camera backwards and I told her to turn it around and instead of flipping the camera around, she twirled herself around. lol. Talk about literal thinking. I just love her hilarious personality and the way she laughs with her whole body, doubling over when something makes her laugh really hard.


Here she is playing pin the tail on the donkey at Jill's house. There were a bunch of excited boys before her and I didn't think she'd let someone else she didn't know put the blindfold on her, spin her around and play the game, but she proved me wrong yet again and before I knew it, she was spinning like a top. I love when she does things that I don't expect her to.



can we please have a moment of silence for this adorable boy? I can't tell you the sweetness that oozes from his every pore. I remember feeling this way when Lily was born and didn't think it was possible for lightening to strike twice here, especially when everyone says your 2nd is the exact opposite of your first, but we're not seing the differences; just so much love coming from this little 10 pounder. So much love.



look at those little chicken legs...we have to pull his socks all the way up so they don't fall off and he looks like he could be Revenge of the Nerds.




and Mother Hen Lily and I have gotten into verbal disagreements, elbowing each other out to help Grady when he's crying. He's usually hungry when he cries, but Lily always thinks he needs a nuk. I think she secretly enjoys when he cries so she can be the hero and save the day.



she wants to play with him so much but he can't do much yet so she just pushes him in the swing while sharing her favorite balloon with him.




and here's the video of Lily meeting Grady for the first time at the hospital. I was so nervous for this meeting. I pictured her running from the room in tears, but as soon as she said "hold him" I knew I could breathe again.




Can't see video? Click here

She's acting a little more temperemental at home to get our attention, but we gave her a "big girl bracelet", which is just a princess shaped silly band and we hype it up to help her use her big girl voice and it seems to be helping. She picks out a new one every day and wears it proudly, but loses it for a bit if the baby voice comes out. It's not a cure all, but it's getting better. I never expected this type of behavior from her so we're trying to brainstorm different strategies. I expected more behaviors like pinching Grady, putting blankets over his head or other behaviors showing her distaste for his arrival, but she couldn't be sweeter or more loving towards him so I guess we should thank our lucky stars. ( knocking on wood) We were at B&N last week and she accidentally bumped his head with a book and he started crying. Once she saw he was crying, she started wailing too. She kept saying "sorry gravy" through her tears while kissing his head. It was sweet to see her show so much empathy for him and boy was it loud by the tree house at B&N! I didn't know who to comfort first.

And check out this amazing announcement my talented sister made for us. She 'baby-napped' him for a few hours and worked her magic putting him in the coolest poses and I was shoo'd away whenever I tried to see what was going on! I actually gnawed on the announcement because I was so in love with them. See more of her yummy, almost edible pictures here.
Look at Grady snuggled in a blanket knitted by hand from David's Grandma Lilley (our Lily's namesake). I just love the meaning behind it all when I look at this picture and then I see his cute little vulnerable face looking back at me, my heart just swells.
and all the little parts that make him so special and our little miracle.


life is good.

pumpkin patch

The theme last post was cows and pumpkins so this time it's just pumpkins. we took the trip to the pumpkin patch last week and lily's eyes were blown away by all the pumpkins and scarecrows. Grady's eyes were closed for most of it. I wish you could see his shirt and I didnt have my hand over it. It's an orange striped tie and absolutely adorable. I thought it was perfect for church that day; until David pointed out it said AC/DC on it and probably wasn't the best choice. oops. But, boy did he look cute.


Have I mentioned I love the way she is with him? So gentle and nurturing. She wants to know where he is, pushes him in his swing, and tries to share her food with him. He sneezes a lot and she says "bless you" every time. He sneezed 15 times in the hospital! In a row! It was right after a feeding so I thought he was allergic to my milk or something crazy like that, but the nurse said that's normal. I'm a big sneezer so it must be genetics. ha


All of this has been a big adjustment for Lillers and I think she's still trying to figure it all out where she fits in in all this. Some days she's extra whiney or attention seeking and then other days she's her normal happy-go-lucky self and I just wish I could help her understand she is still the center of our world and doesn't have to be or do anything different for our love; she's perfect in every way, but I know it's a process and one she has to go through to build her confidence. I just hope her precious little sensitive heart isn't hurting by any of this, but I think it might be a little and that tears me up. I know it's a phase, but I'm ready for this one to phase away.



because nothing is more important that protecting her and Grady and always making them feel loved. And telling them over and over and over. But, more importantly, showing them over and over and over.


nothing is more important.


so we keep playing, filling up their love cups and letting them know our love is unconditional. We felt that growing up and want the same for our babies as they navigate through this wild world.


It was such a gift to have growing up and now it's our time to pay it forward...


and laughing a lot because that makes life so much fun...


and nothing is more important than family and being together enjoying every minute savoring it like the last m&m in the bag. It hasn't been a month yet, but I still can't believe we have 2 kids! TWO!!?? and in talking to a friend yesterday she made me realize all that infertility nonsense is over and we've reached the finish line like we were in this terrible marathon that we couldn't finish, but finally did. It's such a sigh of relief to have our 2 babies we never thought we'd have and know that chapter is complete. It was a long, confusing, heartbreaking book, but with a happy ending. One I would read and go through again and again if I knew I could have these 2 special souls in my life at the finish line. Now the book starts over, we roll up our sleeves and we get to write anything we want on their slates of life. That's pretty cool.

Everyone who meets Grady... and I mean everyone says "oh, enjoy this time, they grow up so fast", "it seems like just yesterday my kids were that small", "I don't even remember my kids that little" or some version of these statements. I hear that 99% of the time and love it each time. I even catch myself saying these things to people when I meet their newborn babies. It's overwhelming and cool at the same time when they say that because on one hand you want to make sure you're doing all you can to enjoy them, knowing it's like a hourglass of time slipping away out of your fingers and on the other hand you know you're at the very beginning of this beautiful journey of ups and downs of parenthood, creating the best memories of their lives. And the lucky parents too.
It's crazy cool.

life is good.

Happy Halloween

I can't believe how cool it is to experience the holidays through the eyes of the kids. I knew we were missing out when we were trying for so long, but good thing I didn't know just how much. Is there anything better than seeing your kids so happy? I can't believe how much our happiness is so directly tied to theirs. I wish we could dress up every day like this. Ok, how about once a month? Lily was literally skipping around the house, squealing in delight running around telling us over and over what was going to happen for Halloween. I think she was half reviewing it in her mind and other half was confirming it that she was actually going to go door to door to get candy from strangers. It's kind of a crazy notion when you think about it. We even had her pretend to come to our door, ring the doorbell and I came out like I was surprised to see her and gave her candy when she said "twick er tweet". LOL! She was beaming.

Later, I told Lily we were going outside for pictures and she was behind me. I was putting Grady in the grass on his boppy while waiting for her. I didn't know what was taking her so long, but couldn't go back in to check since I was alone outside with Grady so I called for her. Then this little voice came back and said "wite heer mommy" and there she sat still as a pumpkin with the other pumpkins she painted.

So freaking hysterical. I swear she sat there with her legs crossed and didnt move for like 10 minutes like a mime! A real live prop.:)

Lily had a great time going door to door and would only go up to each door with the help of Uncle Jamie which was super cute. She usually wants mom or dad by her side for big and new things like that so it was neat to watch her from afar. I love seeing her confidence develop and becoming more and more independent. That's such a gift for me to see.

and our little cow. very symbolic since he loves his mommy's milk so much. oh he was too cute for words and slept in Jen's arms the entire night. what a love. thanks allison for the adorable costume.


have i mentioned how much I love his blonde fuzzy head?


Lily didnt want to take her hood no matter what she was doing...that is until we stepped outside in the Florida heat. I'll never understand why they make every costume in America and on the internet out of thick, heavy fleece. I know there are cold parts of the US right now, but send some variety our way please!




I love how she looks at him and can't wait to see their friendship evolve over time.



How in the world did this happen? How do we have 2 kids? TWO!?? Two hearts we get to mold, shape, and teach how to love. The ironic thing is that I think they teach us more about love than we could ever reciprocate.


Actually, I know that to be true.

life is good.