Starting Over....

Hugging mommy's belly goodbye as we get ready to head to the hospital!

IT'S A GIRL!

So it has been forever since I had time to sit down and blog (obviously) and I should be doing laundry (always) however, I feel like now is the time to start over. On April 2nd, Jay, McRea, and I welcomed Hollis Page to our family. Boy was I surprised to have another little girl. I was so excited for McRea to have a sister, but I was sure hat this baby was a boy, so it took a while to sink in! Hollis was smaller than McRea, weighing in at 7lbs 3 oz, and lost some weight, but hopefully will be back to her birth weight soon! She is such a sweet thing and is a wonderful addition to our family.

Admiring my baby sister!

McRea loves "baby Hollis" and has been a great helper. However, the terrible 2's are showing their loveliness lately and she is testing Jay and I in every way! She just transferred to the 2s room at school and gained a baby sister, so she has had a ton of change in the past 2 weeks. We know that she will settle in soon! However, she loves her sister and although she isn't always as gentle as I would like, she truly can't wait to love on her sister. She won't remember life without Hollis and I know that they will have an incredible relationship as they grow up together!

Happy Birthday to me!

On April 10th, McRea turned 2! She didn't know the day was special, bu Jay and I tried in every way to make it a wonderful day. She has had so many presents since we have celebrated her birthday several times, the Easter bunny came, and she has been showered with baby gifts. She now sings Happy Birthday randomly, so I suppose she wants the celebration to continue a little longer! I was a little sad on the morning of April 10th when it hit me that my baby was becoming a little girl. Jay and I have commented on how big she now seems since we brought Hollis home. Boy, how the past 2 years have flown by! She is a fabulous little girl and has the personality of her funny daddy! She makes us smile every day and we truly enjoy watching her grow up. If only we could slow it down just a bit!

Well that doesn't sum up all of the past months lost, but I hope that I can keep everyone updated for a little while at least. I can't make any promises when I am back at work!

McRea!

The summer has been very busy and I can't believe it's almost fall! Doesn't feel like fall around Columbia, but I can tell with the school buses on the road, the stores with Halloween decorations, and the talk of football, it's coming soon! Fine by me, as I love the cooler weather! I can't believe that McRea is already 16 1/2 months old. Boy does time fly! She's in the full blown almost 2 stage and boy does she keep us on our toes!
McRea has developed such a personality over the last month or two. She is quite hilarious to say the least, and Jay often has to leave the room, as he has no discipline when he laughs out loud!
She is interested in everything, likes to tell me all about what she sees in books, loves to "vroom, vroom" her cars, loves dogs more than life, and her DaDa and Mama just as much. She gives the greatest hugs and occasionally if in the mood she will give some pretty special kisses too! She loves balls, shoes (whether they are her own, mommy's or daddy's!) and will try and walk in them all. She loves hats, the bathtub, her blankie, lovie, pillow, and anything else she can cram into her crib. She loves her friends at school and has even said "Parker" and "Sam" that we have heard, so she is learning names. She love to brush her teeth (for hours if we would let her) she loves to brush her hair when mommy is trying to use the brush, and boy does the girl love to dance! If there is music, she will dance!
She has expanded her vocabulary and loves to tell me all of her words. Some of her favorites are dog, ball, bubbles, hot (everything is hot!) MaMa, DaDa, whoa, wow, hey, pop, more, thank you, shoes, teeth, ear, nose, head, eyes, belly button (although it's a little off), duck, moo (cow) and she does an incredible rendition of "cock a doodle doo!" She tries to repeat everything you tell her, so she'll have too many to list before long!
McRea was a little bit of a trouble maker in school last week by being a bit of a bully. I have been most concerned, and although the teachers correct her, they find her hysterical and always tell me that she will never be a follower, but always a leader!
She has had a great week thus far and every morning we talk about being sweet to our friends and giving hugs. She understands "not nice" and is quick to tell you that too!
Yesterday morning while in the bathroom she tried to unplug my hairdryer. Plugs are off limits and she is fully aware of this. She looked directly at me when I called her name, smiled and said "No!" as if she were telling me what to do!
Like I said before, McRea is hilarious, she has quite the mind of her own, but she brings joy to our lives everyday, even when we collapse into bed exhausted at night!Wearing Mommy's shoes!

Loving this hat outside with Daddy!

Brusha Brusha Brusha!

I'm pouting at Mommy because I don't want to get in the car to go to school. I want to play!

Summer 2009 thus far...

I have been horrible about blogging so far this summer, and to be quite honest, I make no promises for the remaining hot months. We have been running wide open, and it appears that we will continue to do so until the end of summer. We have upcoming weddings, family reunions, and to top it all off, we have some schools to open!

Needless to say, take what you can get, and hopefully we'll post again before anyone can believe it!

FOR STARTERS!

McRea is quite the character these days, and she does not like clothes one bit. Not sure if it is becasue she doesn't want to slow down long enough to get dressed/undressed or if she just likes to bare it all, but here's a picture where she does just that! She was dancing to the song on the commercial for the Great Wolf Lodge. I told Jay that she was trying to tell us that she's ready to hit the water slides!

EARLY SUMMER 2009!
Fun in the swimming pool! After 6 swimming lessons, we are working hard on survival skills and our dolphin dips!

McRea loves the zoo and "monkeying around!" We went with friends to the member night at the zoo recently and had hotdogs and Icees for dinner. It was way too hot for Mama, and it definitely wore McRea out! She truly loved this gorilla and I think she thought he was going to have a conversation with her. She patted his head, and kept looking around at him for a reaction!

Sometimes she loves the carousel, other times, not so much. I think she was trying to decide about riding on a zebra in this one!

CASHIERS

We traveled to the Cashiers for Web's Baptism and could not have asked for a more beautiful weekend. The weather was perfect and we got to spend time with good friends and lots of babies! We had fun at the park, got to enjoy a nice dinner out with adults only (thanks Nessie!) and overall really enjoyed the outdoors. Web's Baptism was beautiful and he did great. I think he would have bathed in the water if they let him! The reception afterward was at a gorgeous clubhouse overlooking the mountians, and the food was delicious. McRea really seemed to enjoy the scenery! Here are some pics of McRea's first real trip to the mountians! She seemed to love it!

4TH of JULY

We traveled to Beaufort this past weekend to spend the long weekend with Erin, Blake, and McKinley. We had a wonderful time and once again, had wonderful weather. McRea enjoyed swimming in the pool for hours at a time and playing at the pirate ship playground with Blake. And what a good helper he was. They had a blast together!

That's it! Hopefully the 2nd half of summer will be as much fun as the 1st. Maybe just a bit more relaxing....oh yea, we have a 15 month old! He He!

The Pebbles 'do!

This morning, McRea and I decided to try out a new hair-do to help tame the top of her verycurly head! Here's what the result was. She didn't seem bothered by it at all, so we left it. Jay's comment, "Did you take her to school like that?" The answer, Yes!

Beach Trip

McRea got her real first taste (literally!) of sand and sun this past weekend when we went to meet Jay's parents and sister at the beach. Last year McRea was still in a carrier asleep when we went to the beach, so she missed out on the fun.

Despite being a little under the weather, she had a great time. She is fearless of the water and wanted to go in head first! Hear are a few pictures of her enjoying the sand!

I'll post more as we download them!

More pictures from April

Trying to catch up...

So the days pass by like minutes and the past year has flown by light a flash of light. We try to soak it all in and we seem to miss another week in the meantime! I've been slack on posting, but figure that I will try and catch up with some pictures and updates of the last month at least!

McRea is a budding one year old. She is very busy, but still loves to snuggle and likes to sit in your lap just long enough for you to open a book and get started, however she loves to carry her books and open and close every page. Most likely she'll be just plain brilliant!

She decided that she had enough of crawling and officially "Stepped" into the world on her birthday. She went to school having taken only a step or two here and there and came home and literally ran across the porch. Jay and I had to pick up our chins. We figured that she didn't want to do it until she really knew how to do it! Now there is no stopping her.

On top of walking, McRea is a climber. Her "GiGi" claims that this is a generic trait that she was passed from her mother. She climbs on tables, chairs, stools, into things, and anywhere that she could possibly throw her leg on top of to get a good start. So far we have only fallen down 3 stairs one time, and that was because Hatteras tried to come down the stairs as McRea was going up. No serious injuries thusfar!

McRea got to have 2 birthday parties her 1st go around! Not too shabby. We had her first birthday party with Jay's family in NC while we gathered to celebrate many other birthdays, and her "friend" party was held at our house the weekend before her birthday. Although a little choatic, everyone seemed to enjoy the party and McRea was worn slap out afterward!

I can understand why parents rent jump castles to entertain 2 year olds...

We spent Easter weekend (also McRea's birthday weekend) at the beach with my family and had a great time enjoying the sunshine and spring weather.

The past year has been an absolute joy and blessing, and Jay and I are both enamored with our little girl. We thank God on a daily basis for blessing our family with such a beautiful, healthy child. She brings a smile to my face every single day, and I cannot imagine life without her!

Thanks for keeping up with us. Hopefully we'll have more to share really soon!