My Beautiful Birthday Girl

Is it possible that my baby girl is already 2?  How have 2 years flown by so quickly.  

2 years ago we welcomed this crying little baby into our lives.  Oh the blessing of a good hearty cry.  I cried too, and then asked repeatedly if she really was a girl. 

 Marley was and is beautiful.  She gets comments wherever we go about how pretty she is.  It's not just her outside appearance,  her inside is just as beautiful and she has a personality that attracts people to her. 

She's a rough girl.  Her brothers have helped her in that area.  She can carry and purse and a baby and in the next moment be tackling her brothers on the floor.

Her brothers love her so much.  They look after her and protect her.  And she loves them.  As we dropped Shepherd off at school Marley yells "I wuv you Sheppy! Bye!!"

We're starting to get a taste of the girl drama.  Marley can pucker her bottom lip with the best of them.  She is sensitive to correction.  Quick to forgiveness.  And loves to snuggle.

For her birthday we got her a bike so she could keep up with the boys.  She does a pretty good job!

At 2 years old:

• you speak in complete sentences all the time.  I can actually carry on a conversation with you and I love that.  You pronounce most things very accurately.  We love to ask you to say "water bottle" "just joking" "it's raining". 
• you love sweets, especially gum (which you always swallow), icing, coke, etc.  We've probably given you too many sweets, but you are the third!  
• You love baby dolls the most.  You are a good momma, feeding, swaddling and rocking your baby Diane.  
• At night you lay in bed and say good night to everything and everyone.  "Good night Rusty" "Good night eyeshadow" "Good night Aunt Jess" etc. etc.  This lasts for at least 10 minutes.
• You are everyone's friend.  I'm amazed at how many people know you that I don't even know!  This is especially true at church.  People remember you.  You call most people by name and yell hi across the street to the neighbors.  You're very friendly.
• You love animals, especially dogs.  Jackson, the mean dog next door, is nice to you and only you.
• You're smart.  You notice things that I don't notice.  You love to draw.  You'll actually sit and listen to a whole book.  You're very different from your brothers in the area of sitting still.  
• You are 34" tall and weigh 27 pounds.  In the 50 percentile for both height and weight.  You were so excited about the 4 "pretty bandaids" that the nurse brought in before your shots.  You quickly figured out that those bandaids came at a high price. 

Marley,
I'm so blessed to be your mom.  You are the perfect addition to our family.  You are fearfully and wonderfully made and God is going to use you big.  He's gifted you in so many ways and I'm excited to see you grow.  You are beautiful inside and out.  I'm so proud of you.  I love you forever.  Mom

Father's Day

It's no surprise to anyone that my kids have the best dad ever. He constantly amazes us with his energy and patience. He works hard and plays hard and he loves his kids! Each kid has a special relationship with their daddy. It's been fun to watch their relationships grow. I'm thankful that Nate's the dad he is to our kids.

This year for Father's Day we had some very special friends come for the weekend. Reagan and Kristy and their 2 boys came all the way from Pittsburgh for a fun visit. Owen and Byron are the same age and they always have so much fun together. It was a great visit and we wish they lived closer.

Arkansas and Easter Eggs

Grandpa gives Marley some egg hunting advice.

Marley pushes her cousin, Sadie, who's actually older than her!

Grandpa takes over.

Shepherd and his loot.

Owen and his loot.

Marley hunting.

Very difficult to get a good picture with so many kids!! Here's Grandpa and Grandma with all their grandkids.

Hemingway Christmas....

Marley's hair is getting so long!

watching the first annual Christmas video that Laura made.

Christmas Day at our house with my sweet little family:
We read the Christmas story and then put baby Jesus in the manger.

Can you tell he loved his trumpet???? He carried it around for days, even sleeping with it. It was so cute!

Tis the Season...

Has it really been almost a month since I updated? Shame on me. I try to update often enough so that I don't lose my readers. Now that I only have about 5 readers, I'm not sure I should stress about it.

I love this time of year! Last year I kept reciting Luke 2:19 "But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." I think that's just my Christmas verse in general, because it has spoken to me again this year. I just don't want to get so busy that I miss it. I want to sit and play with the kids. I want to drink hot chocolate and talk and laugh. I don't want to be so stressed and running around that my kids just remember that instead of peace.

Does a Christian Christmas and Santa mix? The great debate. Nate and I grew up thinking different things about Santa. Neither way was right or wrong--just different. Now as a family we get to make our own traditions. We're very excited. Concerning Santa, we tend to take a relaxed approach. First and foremost we want Christ to be honored and at the center of our Christmas. We do this several ways: birthday party/cake for Jesus on Christmas eve, went to a journey to Bethlehem live nativity, Family Life's What God Wants for Christmas every night before bed, obviously talking about Jesus' birth, and reading the Christmas story, baby Jesus isn't in our nativity manger--we will open him as the first gift on Christmas day. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the drift.

Secondly, we want this to be a magical season with lots of fun traditions. That's why I did the Elf thing. We have fun with it and it adds suspense and surprise. We talk about Santa---you can't really ignore his existence. I ask the kids if they think he's real...and leave it at that. We don't really say our gifts are from Santa, but Nate's parents do and we think that's great. We do stockings, we don't do pictures unless it's free (I'm cheap like that), at the same time I don't want my kids to "ruin" it for other kids.

We know lots of people that did Santa...and obviously now know that he's not real...and they aren't scarred and they love Jesus...I think there's a balance.

Hummm...what are your thoughts?

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Sisters!!!


yippeee, snow!!!

The Hemingway family

The 6 Originals

My family...do Owen and Marley look like twins?

White Christmas...it was a little too cold for Shepherd and Owen, and yes, this was in Fort Worth area!!

The kids and Nate's parents.

bikes from Santa

New clothes!!
The Dallas Cowboy Gnome.
My cutie.

We've had a memorable Christmas for sure! Marley's been battling RSV. Let me tell you croupy cough, labored breathing and major conjestion are not fun for an 8 week old...or her momma. We almost took her to the ER because we were so worried for her. Thankfully she's slowly getting better. God used RSV to slow me down and appreciate things that matter. Instead of rushing around getting ready for Christmas I held Marley. Instead of worrying about what I was going to get everyone I was blessed by friends who loaned us a breathing machine and brought us dinner. Others offered to run errands, wrap gifts and even clean!! I was reminded of how blessed I am. Thank you, Lord, for good friends.

We didn't travel to LR mainly beause it's a 7 hour trip turned into 10 hours with our 3 little ones. I'm glad we didn't travel since everyone was sick and then DFW had a lot of snow which made the roads more difficult to travel. Nate's parents came to our house for a couple days and we celebrated together. Then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we recovered from sickness and then headed to my parents for a White Christmas. It was beautiful! We had a great time.

This week Nate's on call every other night this week. So the kids and I are having fun!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!