My latest project

So I mentioned in my playroom post a few weeks ago that I had been using my sewing machine a little bit. I found some super cute fabric on clearance at Hobby Lobby when we were in Greenwood after Christmas and I really wanted to try my hand at making clothes for the girls. All I had done before was pillowcase dresses, which are cute, but I wanted to try something a little different. Well, one of the ladies in our church offered to come over a couple days last week and show me a few tricks of the trade. With her assistance, I made my first little A-line outfit with ruffled pants for Anna Kate! I had some scraps leftover, as well as some scraps of a white with pink polka dot fabric that I just could not let go to waste, so I put together a little coordinating dress for Caroline too! Unfortunately, my little models refused to take good pictures after church yesterday, so these might possibly be the blurriest pictures I have ever put up on my blog, but oh well.

I tried to get a couple of shots of them together...



Then we tried one at a time...


And then I figured I'd just wait until they went to bed and take pictures of the outfits themselves...at least they don't wiggle and run away...


So, it may just be beginner's enthusiasm, but I had so much fun making these outfits that I just might have a new hobby! Luke's not sure if I'm going to save money by making them clothes, or if I'm going to spend more money buying fabric all the time, haha! Now if I could only get my children to sleep more, I could have more time to sew...

Happy 2nd Birthday, Anna Kate!

Happy birthday, Anna Kate! How on earth can you be TWO years old? Wasn't it just yesterday that I was 9 months pregnant with you and thinking you would NEVER come? And here you are two whole years later! To say that we love life with you would be an understatement. You are such a special little girl and you always keep us on our toes! You are so much fun right now that sometimes we wish we could just make time stand still and keep you at this age forever (and then you throw a tantrum and we change our minds...haha!). But since we can't freeze time, I am going to attempt to take a snapshot (using words!) of what you look like right now. We never ever want to forget these sweet days of your little life.


~ You are such a sweet and loving little girl. You love to give hugs and big fat slobbery kisses to your Mommy, Daddy, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. We have to remind you to be careful when you hug your sister and your friends though or you will just plow right through them!
~ You talk constantly! Whether you are singing, telling stories, or just narrating life, you are very rarely quiet! You have quite the vocabulary for a two-year-old, and are very good at putting long sentences together. Now, if we're honest, sometimes Mommy and Daddy have to translate for you to other people, but most often you make yourself pretty well understood.
~ You have just started to develop a little sense of humor. You love to tell "jokes"! The other day you heard your daddy mention in passing that the brand name of our coffeemaker was "Mr. Coffee" and you thought it was hilarious. Now you have a little game you like to play multiple times a day where you say, "Mr. ________" and then crack up! Usually it's food, but it can be anything! Another "joke" that you think is funny is rhyming words. Your daddy and I go back and forth rhyming words like "cat", "sat", "hat", etc. and you just laugh and laugh. Sometimes you even come up with a rhyming word yourself!


~ You are almost completely potty trained except for naps and nighttime. And even naps sometimes you wake up dry. You never wear diapers during the day anymore even when we go out (and you only occasionally have accidents!).
~ You can count to 12! I actually didn't know this until yesterday. You had been getting pretty good at counting to 10 and then yesterday you just decided to keep going to 12...I don't even think I taught you that!
~ You can recognize 16 out of 26 uppercase letters consistently and the other 10 are hit or miss. You love working on singing your ABC's, but can't quite do it by yourself yet.
~ A few songs that you do know all the words to by yourself are: "Jesus Loves Me", "Twinkle Twinkle", and "You are my Sunshine"
~ You are now sleeping in a big girl bed! It's a twin bed with a railing and you are doing pretty well in it (at least no worse than you were doing sleeping in the crib...haha!).
~ You LOVE to read books. You would sit and let us read to you for hours I think. You love regular books, but you also love to read books on your favorite electronic devices (Grandma and Grandpa's HP Touchpads and Daddy's Kindle Fire)! Your favorite book of the week is "Wacky Wednesday" by Dr. Seuss.


~ You know your first 6 catechism questions and answers as well as your first official memory verse, Genesis 1:1.
~ You love going to Sunday School, library storytime, and anywhere else that you know you are going to see your friends!
~ Speaking of Sunday School, your teachers (Ms. Tammy, Ms. Mandy, and Ms. Tonya) are always so complimentary of your behavior and your attentiveness in class. You listen so well to the Bible story time and can always tell us all about your story at lunch on Sundays. Sometimes you get a little confused about what the main point was (focusing instead on little details!), but you still are doing really well!
~ You are still a very good eater! You usually eat two helpings of whatever we are having at supper. Your favorite breakfast/lunch foods are yogurt, cheese, grapes, blueberries, and smoothies!
~ You are wearing all 2T-3T clothes. I can't believe you are getting so big! Every time I look at you, you just seem to be more and more grown up.
~ Your hair is finally starting to grow a little bit longer, but still not all the same length. Oh well...it's still really cute with two little pigtails and a hairbow on top!
~ We are still working on your jumping skills. About two weeks ago you jumped up into the air and it shocked you. We know you know how to do it, you just won't do it again.


~ You have quite a full bed when you go to sleep. You have to have your pink pillow, sock monkey (Molly the Monkey), lovey, lamb, blanket, paci, and unga (your extra paci)
~ Yes, you still have your pacis, but only when you sleep. We keep talking about you giving them away and let's just say you are less than enthusiastic.
~ Personal pronouns are pretty confusing to you. You think that the word "you" is another word for Anna Kate. In other words, when you want Mommy to hold you, you say, "Hold you, Mommy!" Or, if you want to do something yourself, you say, "You do it self, you do it self!"
~ Your favorite thing to play is baby dolls. You love to snuggle your baby, rock your baby, nurse your baby, sing to your baby, bathe your baby, put your baby night night in her cradle, and the list goes on. You also love the new baby sling that Mommy made for you to carry your baby.
~ Other playtime activities of choice are serving tea from your kitchen, drawing on your Magnadoodle etch-a-sketch, playing dress-up, playing with all your furniture and people in your dollhouse, playing in the sandbox, and driving your John Deere Gator "tractor".
~ You are so funny and finicky about certain things. For example, you are adamant that whoever is driving keeps both hands on the wheel. You say, "Daddy, TWO HANDS!" from the backseat.
~ Your best friends right now are (in no particular order): Nora, Friend Alice (not to be confused with Aunt Alice aka Allison), Aubrey, Stormy, Izzy, Gemma, Peyton, and baby Annie
~ You have a couple of favorite Bible stories that you always turn to in your Big Picture Story Bible. The first is the "marching" one (Jericho and the walls coming tumbling down), and the second is the one where "God came down in a cloud" and filled the temple. Not sure why those are your favorites, but they definitely are.
~ You amaze us every day by the things you say. For example, just a couple days ago we were outside and you looked at us and said, "It's a beautiful day!"



Anna Kate, we love watching you grow and learn and develop your sweet little personality. You keep us going and going and going and we collapse when we fall into bed at night, but you are so much fun and so worth it! We are so thankful for these two precious years since you joined our family and look forward by God's grace to many many more. You are loved.

Love,
Mommy, Daddy, (and baby Caroline!)

Two under Two

Well, tomorrow is the big day. I will no longer have two children under the age of two. So, in honor of this occasion, I thought I would share a little about what life has been like these past 4 months of having two under two (not that anything is going to magically change tomorrow, haha!). While in some ways it has been very difficult to have two very young babies, it has also brought more joy than I ever thought possible! So...I'll start with the hard parts =)

1. Sleeping. Should I even go here? Now ideally our almost two-year-old would sleep through the night every night. Unfortunately she does not. Whether it's a bad dream, or some noise she hears, she does wake up on average once a night. And never does this coincide with the two or more times that Caroline wakes up to eat! if they could at least coordinate these, it would make our lives a lot easier!
2. Diapers. Lots and lots of diaper changing. Until the past two weeks in which AK has been nearly potty-trained, she went through 4-5 diapers a day and Caroline still uses 8-10. That's a LOT of diaper changing! At least they are cute little cloth-covered bottoms =)
3. Leaving the house. It takes FOREVER to get both of these children ready to go anywhere. There's just so much that you have to pack along for two babies. And once you finally get it all ready to go and both kids dressed, one spits up. And by the time you get that cleaned up, the other one needs a diaper change. And once you change that, by that time the other one needs to nurse again. And once you finish that, the other one needs a snack. I could go on, but you get the point. I am finally starting to figure out what time we need to get up and moving in order to be where we need to be on time (which thankfully for us is only a couple days a week)!

Ok, now the wonderful parts!

1. Sisterly love. I love seeing my first baby love on my second baby. There is nothing sweeter than hearing her say, "I love you, baby Tarry-yine," or listening to her sing "Rockabye Baby" or "You are My Sunshine" to her baby sister. I love that Anna Kate is so little that she won't really remember being an only child and therefore I never really felt like she had any jealousy issues.
2. Matching outfits. I absolutely LOVE dressing these two baby girls alike. And I love that right now one of them absolutely loves it too and the other one is too little to notice!
3. Naptime. They are both so little that a couple hour naptime in the middle of the day happens at the same time. And hopefully we won't have to get rid of that for quite some time!
4. Snuggles. I think I get more snuggles in a day than I ever thought possible. I love rocking and loving on these two sweet little babies.

I'm sure there is a lot more that I can say, but I'll just finish by saying that even though it's a lot of work to have two baby girls under the age of two, the joys that they bring make it all worth it!

Caroline's Baby Dedication

While yesterday was a special day for Anna Kate, today was Caroline's day! It was baby dedication at Malvern Hill and we dedicated our sweet Caroline Hope to the Lord and pledged to raise her in a family that knows and loves God, with the hope that one day she too will respond in faith to Christ's gift of salvation.

Listening to our pastor as he spoke about the blessing and responsibility of parenting these precious children.

Each child received a certificate and a special book from the children's ministry.

Our little family


And we couldn't be more grateful that both sets of grandparents were able to be here for this special day.


And just for fun, here we are a year and a half ago with Anna Kate in the very same little dress!

Anna Kate's 2nd Birthday Party!

We had a FANTASTIC time yesterday morning celebrating Anna Kate's 2nd birthday with all four of her grandparents and seven of her best little friends! I decided I was not going to get teary or sentimental in this post about my little girl growing up and turning two (I'll save that for a post on her actual birthday on Wednesday!), so I will just jump right into the party!

It was pretty easy to decide what the theme of this party would be. Ever since Caroline was born, Anna Kate has been very into baby dolls! She loves to take care of her baby, "nurse" her baby, burp her baby, change her baby's diaper, bathe her baby, make sure her baby gets "tummy time", and the list goes on. So of course we decided to have a baby doll party! First off, here is the picture we used on the invitation.


I really didn't do a whole lot of decorations...just the Anna Kate birthday banner I made last year and a couple of Martha Stewart Pom Poms...love those!

The spread!

And the party planning committee! I really don't think I could have done this party without my mom...or I at least would have had to stay up all night on Friday!


Anna Kate's friends were all instructed to bring their own baby dolls with them to the party. Here is Anna Kate greeting her first guests. The party favors were little baby doll slings that I made for each little girl. They put them on when they arrived so they could carry their babies!

Oh, and thanks, Dad for catching this on camera...Caroline decided to spit up on me, right at the moment that the guests were arriving. She just wanted to make sure I paid her some attention too!

Enjoying the snacks!

After we ate we began our baby doll activities. We had four stations set up around the house for them to take their babies to: the doctor, the spa/salon, the photography studio, and library storytime!

Baby doll spa and salon (Mom was the hairdresser!)



Photography studio (thanks Dad for the great pictures of the little girls and their babies!)

Note: A couple of the girls were more interested in the doctor's office and the spa and they didn't make it to the photo studio!

The doctor's office was quite a hit! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Dr. Luke attending to his patients, but he did a great job weighing the baby dolls, checking their heartbeats, and giving them bandaids! (He also made this sign all by himself!)


And library storytime! We read a few of AK's favorite stories: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Jamberry, and One Little Hippo.




Then it was time for cupcakes. Anna Kate requested strawberry, so that's what we had!




After all her friends left, we opened a couple special presents from family. Grandma and Grandpa gave her a sweet (locally made in Camden!) pink sock monkey that she has already named "Molly the Monkey"!


Mimi and Papa gave her a beautiful little white wooden cradle that she can use to rock her baby dolls. She loves to rock it and sing "Rockabye Baby"!


Aunt Allison and Uncle Jonathan know how much Anna Kate loves to drive her tractor in the backyard so they gave her a John Deere t-shirt and rain boots!


And here are a few family pictures we took after Anna Kate woke up from her nap...that party wore her out!


Thank you so much to everyone who came and helped us celebrate our special little girl!