Move back to Texas, Y'all!

Megan, Nate and their kids stopped by on their annual Tour of Texas!  Nate and Mark went to high school and college together, and Megan and I did too!  We just love them, but hate that they live out of state.  When they got married and moved away, military retirement sounded SO FAR away.  Eeek!  It's getting closer!  Our vote is for a move back to Texas, y'all!

How cute are these babies!  They were driving their car.  A little foreshadowing to a prom date??

I don't remember what they were doing in Tatem's crib, but I think you can sense just a tad bit of their excitement!  haha!

Our babies! 

Love it!

Thanks for making the trip!!  It was great to see y'all!

Happy Halloween!

Oh my goodness.  This Halloween was SO fun!  Last year we felt a bit ridiculous taking Landrie around, when it was pretty obvious that we were going to eat all of our non-walking baby's candy ourselves!  haha!  The girls looked TOO CUTE in their matching costumes.  Both were fairies, but Landrie called herself a butterfly because of her wings. :) 

Yup.  This is the best picture that I could get of both girls before we headed out!  Maybe when they are 4 and 6 they'll be easier to bribe into taking pictures together. :)

Tatem was NOT thrilled with my timing of the pictures.  She was ready to eat!

(Happy 2 months, Tatem!)

Landrie, on the other hand, was happy to prance around the yard and let me snap away!  She was so excited to get all dressed up and to have a star wand!

Daddy with his tiniest love!

I love this.  The girls look beautiful and Mark looks cute as usual, but I look like I just rolled out of bed!  I remember Halloween pictures from Landrie's first Halloween, and I look exhausted there too!  

See, Mom, I'm much happier after I eat!

(See that adorable little head tilt?  More on that later this week!)

We went trick or treating with some of Landrie's little friends.  She was so adorable!  She kind of just followed what the other kids were doing at the first house and was at the back of the group.  When it was her turn and the lady gave her candy, Landrie squealed with delight at the top of her lungs!!  She couldn't believe that people would just hand her candy for no reason.  She kept giggling and squealing as she got more.  She was so cute with her little "tank-oo!"

We brought the stroller, but Tatem wanted to be in on all the excitement.  Between a two-year-old and a two-month-old we were always at the back of the group!  Mark had to hang Landrie's bag around her neck because it was slowing her down!

Landrie was all smiles the whole night!  I was never a huge Halloween person until this year.  Seeing how much fun Landrie had makes me ready to do it all again next year.  Christmas is going to be outrageous!

I hope you had a great time and are enjoying lots of candy!

Sister Wives VS. Sister Friends

Have you seen the disturbing/addicting show called Sister Wives??  It's about a polygamist family that has 4 sister wives.  The dynamic is so weird and there are so many reasons why it's wrong, yet the women often try to sell the lifestyle.  Hmmm....I think that Landrie and Tatem's "sister friendship" is a MUCH better way to go!!  Let's check out all the benefits of having a Sister Friend!!

Your friend will play with you, even when you're not that into it!

She'll give you a big GRIN on days when it's hard for you to smile.

She'll share her toys with you!

She'll even give you a turn talking on the phone to Daddy!

A sweet sister friend will help you with your beauty routine and make sure you always look "Koot!"

And she'll stick close by, even when you're having a bad day!  haha!!

(This one took about 2.2 seconds to happen!!)

Isn't this one that my friend took precious?  I love that Landrie is already SO excited about having a friend!  Tatem gave away her very first smiles to Landrie, so I think she's ready to be best friends too!

Oh, and happy 1 month birthday, Tatem Rose!!

Sweet friends!

My friend Megan and I planned this trip months ago, having no idea what my last week of pregnancy would hold!  I'm so thankful that it worked out that they could come.  We've been friends for ages and were roommates in college and after.  They live out of state, so I was thrilled that they came up to see us on their tour of Texas. :)

Out to lunch with all the kids!  

We had quite a car full!  (The two little ones were too busy watching a movie to smile) :) 

Since it's ridiculously hot, we headed to an indoor play place at a local church one day.  Seeing how much Landrie loved having a house full of kids made me even more excited about her new little sister joining our family.  She'll have a built in playmate!

After we got all 4 kids in bed each night, it was like old times!  We got to stay up and chat.  Tatem's bedding was just not working for me, because I was having the worst time sewing with the minky fabric.  Anyone else have that problem??  Well, Megan is super crafty and after a quick fabric switch, we got started.  This preggo mamma stayed up until 1:15am for the first time in a long time, but we finished all the crib bedding!  It's so stinking cute!  THANK YOU, MEGAN!!!  

Baby Shower!

Last Sunday, my sweet friends from church threw a beautiful shower for Tatem and me!

Jenna, Jenny, me, Tracy, Amy, Kimi, Shari, Amber and Renee did a FABULOUS job hostessing the shower for us.  Lindsay and Bethany aren't in this picture, but they did too! I love you girls!

Look at all that yummy food!  I love that they also had a dessert table for this sweets-loving girl!

My niece Adelynn, Kimi, Amber and Summer

Wendy, Amy and Amber

As with any party, the kitchen is the place to be! 

Bethany and me

I think this was one of the first things I opened.  How can you not love a precious baby on a box of diapers?!

Tatem's Aunt Christy, Aunt Beth, Aunt Megan and GranJan 

Beth and Megan are checking out the adorable bag Megan made for Tatem!

Tatem is going to look so-so cute in this!!

Bethany made this gorgeous board for Tatem's room that matches her bedding.  I love it!

I loved the precious cookie favors that Renee made!!  Landrie later figured out where my stash of cookies was and kept bringing them to me, nodding her head and saying, 'nack??  Why, yes, Landrie, I'd LOVE to share a snack with you. :)

Many of us remembered 2 years ago when Brianna went into labor with Landrie DURING my baby shower! We are thankful that didn't happen again, although I think those Braxton Hicks were about 5 minutes apart through the whole thing!  

We are so, so thankful for our sweet church family!!  We are so overwhelmed by the blessing of your friendships!

32 weeks Pregnant!

32 weeks=8 months!!!

Belly update: Well, it's growing, but not like my doctor would like it to!  At my appointment last week, she measured on the outside of my belly with the measuring tape, and after being the perfect size each week,  for the second visit in a row, I measured smaller than I should.  I told Mark not to take off any more work to come to these quick appointments, so he was SO disappointed to hear that my doctor ordered a sonogram to check on Baby Girl!  He had to miss it, but the good news is that the sono showed she's perfectly healthy!  The doctor just said since I'm so tall, I must be a "baby hider!"

What's Baby Long up to?: Well, this time I get to tell you actual stuff, since we got another peek at her with the sonogram!  She measured 3 pounds, 5 ounces.  My doctor said that could be off by a full pound though!  She's also about 16.5 inches.  Her head is DOWN (woo hoo!), and she's still a GIRL!

Cravings:  Hmmm... I'm still not so hungry, but I am loving the frozen treats!

Best part of these 2 weeks: My parents just left today, after a whirlwind trip of  crossing items off of our LONG to-do list!  It was great to spend time with them and be pampered.  Of course I'll do a post full of pictures of our time with them and all we did, but here's a sneak peek of our former guest room...

PINK!  Don't you love this soft pink color?  I do!!  I can't wait to show off what the room looks like today!

The other best part had me tearing up.  We did lots of switching around, and on the 4th of July, Landrie officially declared her independence from the CRIB!  My baby is getting so big!

I'm looking forward to: A name for this baby.  Seriously, that is so hard for us!!  Was it hard for you?  If you are one of my sweet friends waiting to get pregnant or for an adoption placement, pick your names NOW. :)

 32 weeks down, less than 2 months to go!!

Look straight down the columns to see a real change!!

I like when others post how they looked at the same point in their last pregnancy.  Here I am just 8 weeks from Landrie's due date.  My belly looks so little!  HA!!  Brianna chose us to be Landrie's parents when she was 32 weeks, and here we are a few days later at a sonogram appointment.  Such joy!!  The crazy thing is that Landrie was born just 5 weeks later.  If this baby tries to emulate her big sister, she will be born August 10th.  Oh my!  

Gender Reveal Party!

On Friday, April 1st, we went to the doctor for our BIG sono!  We are so thrilled about this baby, and we did so many celebrations for Landrie and her adoption, so we decided to go all out.  We threw a little "What's it gonna BEE?" gender reveal party!  At our sono, we found out we had a healthy baby (thank you, God!!!) but asked the nurse to keep the gender a secret.  I gave her my phone, and she texted my friend Bethany "PINK" or "BLUE" and Bethany got to work!  I dropped of cupcakes and all the supplies before our appointment, and she filled them with the correct colored frosting.  SO FUN!!!!

The wreath on the front door started the theme.  I loved the black and yellow because there were no hints!!

Everyone wore pink or blue depending on what they thought the gender would be.  That morning, I explained the rules to Landrie, and she picked the blue outfit 3 times in a row!!  (Her outfit is different in the party pictures because Aunt Megan was babysitting, took her shopping and found her a blue outfit with a BEE on it!!)  We had a princess costume, grown men in pink shirts, two with blue shirts and pink undershirts (so they would be sure to win!) and one of my nieces even brought a baby doll dressed in pink.  We took pictures of each crew, and there were a LOT more blue votes than pink!

We had chocolate dipped marshmallows in bumble bee colors.

Yummy Junior Mints, springtime colored Oreos, and Butterfingers completed the yellow and black dessert table.  YUM.

I recovered Landrie's birthday party cupcake tower with coordinating scrapbook paper.  I used this blog post

 to learn how to make it.  Michaels had all kinds of cute cupcake wrappers!

After all the sweets I've craved, we had to have lots of desserts!  The cupcakes had yellow frosting and mini chocolate chips on them. 

In keeping with the color theme, we had lemonade and Sonic ice and this delicious Touchdown Dip that Noelle introduced us to. :)

Our family of 3 is growing!  Mark hadn't changed into his navy shirt yet...  He was thinking girl for months, but got swayed in the end. :)

We all bit into our cupcakes on the count of THREE.  We are so thrilled with the results!!!  There's a short video at the bottom of this post of this moment. 

WOO HOO for a baby sister for Landrie!!!  Bethany used this "cone method" to fill the cupcakes.  We had no idea how to do it, but were glad to find out it's not too hard!  

Okay, no one likes to see themselves on video, but a lot of our family couldn't make it to the party, and I wanted to share this with them.  I love the excitement of the moment!!!  Thank you, Jody, for thinking to take it for us!

I feel like I won the lottery and I keep having to go back to the lottery commission to tell them that there's been a mistake.  We only signed up for a 100 million dollar lottery, but we keep getting even more than we expected!!  

The JOY that is in our hearts is nearly overwhelming.  It's such a night and day difference from the deep sorrow that we felt during those years of waiting to be parents.  I love that our precious God was loving us the whole time, knowing what was to come.  I can just imagine Him turning to Jesus saying, "I cannot WAIT for a few years to pass. Mark and Corrie are going to hit the roof when they see our perfect plan unfold!!"  There were so many days when I felt like we were not just in the valley, but in some bunker way underground at the bottom of the lowest valley.  Today, we're at a rooftop party on top of the tallest building in the world!!!  As I type this, we have one precious baby asleep in her crib, and another wriggling in my belly.  God is so faithful!

So many of our friends are at that valley point right now, for many different reasons.  I can't wait to celebrate with you when your moment of joy comes!  We are praying for you, and can't wait to see what miracles God has in store for you!!

I got lots of ideas for my party from this family's gender reveal!