Our 2 year old sweetheart...RUBY

On a much lighter note, we celebrated Ruby's 2nd birthday last weekend. It sure does seem like she's been around for much longer than that. I had fun making a bone cake for her. As you can see in the pictures she got a hold of the bottom of it before we even had a chance to sing "Happy Birthday." Of course the girls appreciate any reason to get to enjoy cake or any sweets for that matter. I did let Ruby have one cupcake, without icing. Although, she ate the whole thing in one bite I wasn't fast enough to get a picture. Happy Birthday Ruby Girl!

Prayers for Jaouad

Last week was another challenging week for our family. My brother-in-law, Jaouad, was rudely greeted by severe chest pains Wednesday evening while hanging out with his buddies after work. Gratefully, one of his friends avoided listening to him say he would just go home to sleep it off & called 911 to rush him to the hospital. Cassie went to the rescue to go watch the kids & Rose drove Tina to the hospital. Thankfully, Rose was there at the hospital with Tina when she got the awful news that Jaouad had actually had a heart attach!!! The surgery that was supposed to last 15-20 minutes ended up taking over an hour. Jaouad spent the entire next day in ICU trying to recover & get his blood pressure back up. Many prayers from our family helped move the process along to get him home. He is now home with his amazing wife, my sister, Tina who is not only taking care of Jaouad but also doing her usual job of caring for their 3 kids. If you wouldn't mind keeping their family in your prayers it would be greatly appreciated. Mainly for the obvious, Jaouad's health. But a close second; financially this is going to be very difficult with the hospital bills, medication, & the fact that Jaouad will have to stay home to recover for quite a while they will have no income between the two of them for their family of 5. We are so blessed that once again God has answered the prayers of our family and brought Jaouad safely home.

The boys stayed the night on Thursday while Tina was still at the hospital. On Friday we started the morning off with some story time & when that wore off all the kids made a sweet card for Jaouad to take to him on their visit to the hospital.

***A little side note: This was the first time Isabella has written her entire name by herself. (A very proud moment for a mommy.) Of course the "b" is a little off... looks more like an "o" & "l", but for the most part I think she did pretty good. Jaouad, you should feel special. She did it for you.:)

20 weeks & kickin'

I had my 20 week appointment last week. Things are moving along rather quickly this time around & growing even faster than you could imagine. I don't know if it was all the yummy food from the Christmas holidays or the fact that I had been sick for almost a week straight when I had my last appointment & was losing weight, but I gained 12 pounds this past month! Crazy, I know!!! So far at 20 weeks I am just starting to feel a little bit of kicking around. This is my favorite part of pregnancy. Everything starts to feel so much more real & the thought of having another sweet little miracle begins to really set in.

We got to have another sonogram to see our little one moving around, busy as ever. He/she will fit in just great with Isabella & Mackenzie. Looks like we have another little monkey on our hands. While watching the sonogram Anthony & I both stated how this baby looks a lot like Mackenzie. (Well, from what you can tell with the ultrasound pictures anyway.) Once we got home I pulled out Mackenzie's sono pictures. Looks like the same baby!

our newest little miracle at 20 weeks

Mackenzie at 20 weeks

This is my favorite picture of our little miracle so far. Ellison, our amazing ultrasound tech, was very excited because he said this was a first for him as far as the picture goes. The face, both hands, & both legs all curled up in one picture. A true little bundle.

How sweet!

Merry (very belated) Christmas!

I know we are extremely behind on our blog these days. What can I say, so far 2009 has been a pretty busy year. We had a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of family, but as usual, not everyone was here this year. My one BIG wish for Christmas next year is that our entire family can be together. How awesome would that be!?! I wasn't very on top of things with the camera either. So, the majority of our pictures are from Christmas day here at our house. We had a fairly little Christmas at home this year which consisted mainly of stocking presents. With the girls' reactions you never would have known the difference. They loved every minute of it. We hope everyone had wonderful Christmases & more than anything that you have all had a great start to 2009! I have to say, so far it's looking to be a pretty good year. Our family is so extremely blessed! Love & Hugs to all!!!

the girls enjoying their stockings

Even Ruby's stocking was filled with goodies.

Mackenzie & Tyrone

Isabella's favorite gift from Cousin Fabian.... a bike!