I'm not a huge fan of forwarded email, but this one seriously made me pee my pants...

You NEED speakers to get the full affect, but just try not to laugh when you watch this video (thanks, Aunt Rennie for the email!)

What's in a Name??????

To all you curious friends/family/stalkers....

I'm going to reveal PART of "new baby's" name. I'm only doing this out of desperation to find the perfect name....so, here is what we know for sure, well...kinda for sure, well....what we're leaning toward anyway.

She will be named:

"Kathryn/Katherine" which means "pure" and probably be called "KATE". That is set.

If you like the name, that's wonderful. Negative opinions can be happily kept to your self.


What we don't know is if Kathryn will be the first or middle name.....so here is where I need YOUR help. What names go with Kathryn??? We've thought of a few, and there is one front runner, but no decisions yet. So here's your chance to give me your ideas :) and having bragging rights forever if we choose your name.

If you ask Blake her sister's name she will tell you "Ho,Ho,Ho" and we'd rather not fall back on that.

It's a good possibility that the full name will be kept quiet until her arrival. But wouldn't it be fun to know you had a role in naming sweet "new baby."

Love,
Nick, Sarah and Blake

Post-Nap Routine

Every day after naptime Blake and Benson cuddle up on my bed to watch Dora the Explorer....to think we were so worried about these two getting along when Blake first came home...

More or Less?

More - baby name talk.  I think we have a winner and the strange thing is it's not a name we had even talked about before. But we both like it and I'm hoping it's a keeper.  I'm going to give it a few days to make sure it "sticks" then will post for everyone to know.

More - time alone with God.  The sermon and small group lesson we had a church this past weekend was very powerful.  I'm convicted to spend time in complete silence alone with God.  For now I'm doing atleast 5 minutes (timer and all) of quite solitude with God.   It's such a short time and I've been looking forward to it every night.  I've always been so hit and miss with my quiet time and this is holding me accountable.  If I can't give Him 5 minutes am I really showing Him how thankful I am for His son, My family, His sacrifice for me?

More -  reading God's word to Blake.  We are doing a mini quiet time at 7:30 every night. I've set my alarm on my phone so I can't forget.  We read a short story from her Bible and prayer and then go to bed.  Her little Bible is her new comfort item. She wants to take it everywhere she goes (she even sleeps with it.) It's so precious.

More - Big girl bed time!  A few weeks before Christmas we moved Blake to her new room complete with a big girl bed.  She really transitioned easily, except at night she would get up once right after we put her down to be rocked, then would lay down and go to sleep. THEN, she started sneaking in our room aobut 6 every morning. So, to remedy this we put a child safety knob on the inside of her door.  The first time she got to try it out I felt SO bad.  But she just crawled right back up in bed and went to sleep. Sucess!!!  I'm working on getting her room picture ready for the Blog.  My Grandma made her curtains which are now up and we will get her new bedspread/dust ruffle/shams when we get to see her again, THEN I will post pics.  No use in posting the unfinished room :)

More - Quality time with Blake.  I get tons of this already.  But I just want to soak up every minute of it being just us.  I'm excited about this new little one, but all I've ever known is me and her and I want to take in every day of it left. 

More - years married!  January 5th marked Nick and I's 9th wedding anniverary.  It came and went without much hooplah, but that's pretty standard for us.  We had dinner while our family watched Blake and that was that.  Actually Nick was hunting in teen weather on our actually anniversary, but I honestly didn't mind.  I'm so glad we have a marriage where we support each other's "fun" time. 

_-----------------------------------------------------

Less - Time till "New Baby" makes her grand arrival. I'm officially in my 3rd Trimester.  Whoa, it's flown by.  My nausea is but a distant memory but is replaced by back/leg/hip pain and a constant need to feed myself.   I had to go about 2.5 hours without food (including breakfast) on Monday and you would've thought I hadn't eaten in days.  I'm gaining a constant 4-6 pounds wiht each month....but now starts the every 2 week appointments, which is where I really went out of control last pregancy and asked the nice nurse to please stop revealing how much I had gained.  

Less - worry.  Less worry over my house mainly.  For some reason knowing that in less than three months I will be juggling a baby and a todder is making me MUCH less type A about my home.  I honestly consider this a good thing.  I'm enjoying not stressing to clean clean clean during nap time and taking time to enjoy reading and napping myself.  So here are my aplogies for the dog hair and toys all over the house...

My Utmost

"The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him."

This quote came from yesterday's reading in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.
I really needed to hear it and thought maybe you did too...
If you want to read the whole excerpt go to www.myutmost.org and it's the reading for 1/6

Quote of the Day

"The grass is greener where you water the grass."

Amen :)

An Arkansas Christmas

We drove through an ice storm in Fort Worth to make it to Arkansas Christmas Eve night. I was a nervous wreck, but we made it safely with a car packed full of luggage, presents, Blake and Benson (our dog).

We woke up Christmas morning with Nick's parents. Here is Blake opening her new Barbie car from Grammie.  


She  didn't waste one second before putting her new dress up clothes on. (And, yes, if you are wondering, her hair looks like this every morning and after EVERY nap!!!)




My favorite gift, a joint effort from Nick and his Mom.



Nick opening a model helicopter.

Christmas lunch we went to my Grandma's.
Here is little Nathan in all his sweetness...I could eat him up.


Blake got a new pair of roller skates!

We spent the day after Christmas with my Dad and the family. 2 years ago we had NO babies, this year there are three sweet little girls to play with!

Me and Charleigh Anne


Blake


Layla





Nana with Charleigh and Layla. I do believe Layla is a Nana's girl.

We spent the rest of our trip traveling from house to house.  Literally.  We didn't stay two nights in a row at the same place. 

Here are pics from the rest of our time with the Barkers.

These two girls LOVE to help their PaPaw cook.

A Grandmother's Love

I have an amazing Grandma. I hope I'm just like her someday.  She loves the Lord first and foremost.  She and my Grandpa spent their lives as owners of a sewing machine/vacuum store (since I was alive anyway) but their passion always was in mission work, specifically in Central America.  Since my Grandpa's passing a few years ago I've seen what it looks like to gracefully get back to a "new" life for her.  

This year she decided to make homemade quilts for every person/couple in our family.  A HUGE endeavor and a HUGE labor of love.  She presented these quilts to us on Christmas Day.  It was so special to get to spend Christmas lunch with her and watch everyone open their quilts (and handwritten letters) from Grandma.  

I wanted to brag a little and show off a few of the quilts here... I didn't get a picture of everyone's but here are the ones I did get.

Derek (my brother)



My cousin Ben and his family with Grandma.

Aunt Nita



Aunt Shelia

My Mom and Stepdad

These are only five, but if I'm counting right she made 10 quilts!  I really thought I did better than that at getting a picture of everyone's...

Our Texas Christmas

We had a Texas Christmas with our Texas family before we traveled home to Arkansas. We had a great night. The girls fed our neighbor's reindeer some reindeer food (i.e. oatmeal and glitter), we had a spaghetti dinner, openend presents, and cooked and decorated cookies. It was definately a FULL night of fun! Blake and Lexi are at the perfect age to be friends, they both get so excited to see each other.


Blake and Lexi feeding the reindeer, It was 70 degrees two days before Christmas and Lexi didn't feel like wearing pants.


Blake feeding the reindeer.


Opening presents, we got Lexi a "Blake and Lexi" snapfish book.





Making sugar cookies











Ready to decorate! This was the best part!







Blake thought Daddy could use a little color, too.









Blake enjoying the frosting!