"Gobble Gobble 2008"

We had a very busy Thanksgiving Holiday this year. We feel like this was probably one of our busiest holidays so far. We're not quite sure if it was the activities, traveling, or just having two kids to keep up with that made it feel so busy. Below are the list of events that we had throughout the holiday and weekend...

Thursday around noon - Thanksgiving Lunch (prepared by Bobby)
Thursday around 6:00 - Thanksgiving dinner (prepared by Nana)
Friday morning - Black Friday shopping
Friday afternoon - Thanksgiving leftovers with the Baber Family
Friday night - Birthday dinner for Nana
Saturday morning - travel to Plymouth
Saturday afternoon - Thanksgiving dinner (prepared by MawMaw)
Saturday night - quality time with the Garrett/Farr/Crank families
Sunday morning - breakfast prepared by MawMaw
Sunday afternoon - return home from Plymouth

We're tired again just from thinking about it all! ;) Regardless though, we feel like we had a GREAT Thanksgiving and we're very thankful of precious moments with our families! We have posted some pictures above that we managed to take during some of the events but there were lots of other 'photo opportunitites' that we missed out on because of not remembering the camera! :) We hope that each of you and your families had as blessed and safe Thanksgiving too!

Thankful

'Thanksgiving' - noun -
the act of giving thanks; grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially. to God.
These two pictures show what we're most thankful for on Thanksgiving and every day of the year! Parenting is not an easy job, but it's the most rewarding job we've ever had and a day never passes when we don't sing praises to God for all that He's done for us but especially for making us "Mommy" and "Daddy"!!!!

Our Birthday Boy

We've been meaning to post some pictures from Brenden's birthday for awhile now so we apologize for the delay. Above are some pictures from his party including fun gift opening and enjoying the cake. (Bobby made the cake himself for Brenden's party...it was a race track with cars...AMAZING! Brooke made the plain cupcakes for Brenden's special snack at school...this picture was taken before she dropped them...AMAZING again!) Below are pictures from Brenden's actual birthday where we went to Build-a-bear for the first time. Brenden made a cute dog, "Heels" that was wearing a Tarheel hat and shirt. He loved all of the birthday festivities and we loved the opportunity to spoil him a little bit more and remind him of how special he is to all of us!

Bryleigh - 4 months old

Today, Bryleigh is 4 months old! 4 months...wow, that time flew by! She is adorable and we're still so excited and easily entertained with every smile, coo, and new accomplishment. She went to the doctor yesterday for her check up and for her shots. She weighed 11 lbs. and 6.5 oz. and 24 1/4" long. She is very alert and loves to laugh and talk to anyone that will make eye contact with her...including herself in the mirror. :) She rolled over from her belly to her back 4 times this weekend, so that was a very exciting but sad time for us this weekend. It's scary to think about how fast she has grown and changed. She sleeps through the night (from 9:00 - 5:00 most nights) and loves to hold things in her hand and then suck on them. Yummy! The doctors were very pleased with her check-up and thinks that she is growing and changing right on target.

Brenden is still being an awesome big brother. He is finally saying Bryleigh's name more now and not just "baby sister". He loves to tickle her and gets so excited when he sees her smiling at him. It melts our hearts to hear him say "Mommy he thinks I'm funny!" "Daddy hims laughing at me!" (Yes, he still calls Bryleigh him but we're working on it!) He still doesn't want to hold her very often but he enjoys laying down beside her regularly and he reads with her just about every night before bed. We're very proud of how well he has done with adjusting to the new addition! Overall, he has really done a GREAT job!

We've included a few pictures of Bryleigh from this month and of course we had to throw at least one of our Bug in there too! ;) Enjoy!

Bryleigh's first snow

On Tuesday, November 18th, Bryleigh experienced another first.

It was her first snow!!!! She was at Nana's house at the time so Nana was good enough to think of bundling her up and taking her outside for a picture. Now, It may be true that you have to pretend to see the snow when you look at the picture, but it was definitely her first which is very exciting! We hope you enjoy and happy flakes to each of you! :)

Our Big Boy

We are so excited! Our "baby boy" is now 3 years old!!!!!!!

It has been an amazing 3 years filled with many ups and downs! We prayed very hard for our little boy and we feel so blessed that God picked us to be his parents! We wanted to post some our favorite pictures on here of Brenden from the past 3 years for all of you to enjoy! We're so proud of him and can't wait to see what the year ahead holds for him! :) We love you Bug!

Bryleigh's Dedication

We are so proud to say that today Bryleigh was dedicated at our church. With this dedication we are saying that we will work to raise our children in a God-centered home. We will strive to keep our eyes focused on Him so our children will learn how to do the same in their daily walk. We are saying that we trust the Lord to be the leader in their lives and that we will be willing to move out of the way to let Him work in their life according to His will. We are saying that they are ultimately His kids and that we're thankful that he has blessed us with the best job ever as their parents. Also with this dedication, we asked that everyone pray the following prayer for Bryleigh: "Please pray, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to give Bryleigh spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that she might grow in her knowledge of Him." Eph. 1:16-17

Halloween 2008

We had a blast with all of the Halloween festivities yesterday! We spent some time with Nana and Papa before going trick-or-treating with some of our great friends! Brenden was a cute little cowboy complete with a hat, bandanna, and boots. (His chaps never even made it out trick-or-treating. Ha!) Bryleigh was a cow-girl but she was sleeping too hard by the time we went trick-or-treating to worry about keeping the costume on her! We had a lot of pictures to share so, above are some from the day featuring Brenden, Bryleigh, Avery, Bryce, Hope, and Hailey (not quite sure why we didn't get a picture of Kendall-bug?!)

We hope you all had a "Spooktacular" Halloween as well! :)