A Fun Day of Shopping

My friend AC and I decided to take a trip to the Vicksburg Factory Outlet Mall yesterday. We had a great time just getting away. We commented on the way over about how we didn't have to spend allot of money and it was kind of an excuse just to get away, but of course you know that once we got there that we found more than enough that we liked. In fact, you could say we did our part in helping out the economy at the Vicksburg Outlet Mall. We went to the Gymboree and Carter's store first and when we got through we looked at our watch and realized that we spent 2 hours in just those 2 stores. Needless to say those were our favorite and where we spent most of our money. We did get a few more things in the Bass and Children's Place stores. We went in a couple of stores that we could have bought something for ourselves but we were both not interested in that. We just wanted to buy for the kids. We did try on some stuff in the Bass store but neither one of us liked what we tried on. You know, the kids are just so fun to buy for and they look cute in just about anything. :) I told AC on the way home that if you would have told me 5 years ago that I would go to a mall and not buy one thing for myself and not be interested in buying anything for myself... I probably wouldn't have believed you. I LOVE to shop and I don't see it as a burden or challenge, but as THERAPY.

Of course I showed SLH all my GREAT DEALS and he liked most of them. I like to tell him how much money I saved us, HA! He has always liked what I get for AEH (his favorite store is Gymboree for her) but if you have girls then you know how easy it is to shop for them. We are having a little disagreement on some things I get EMH. He likes for him to look all boy. The smocked boutique clothing is just not what he likes for his boy. I asked him to let me have fun this first year and then he can get more involved in choosing what to buy EMH. I understand what he means about how we dress him and I'm glad he cares.

I had to be back for a tennis match at 3:30 so we actually didn't get to look in all the stores. It's amazing because that mall is pretty small and you would think that it wouldn't take long to shop, but I guess our first 2 hours took up our time. Ha! We laughed and said how in the world we could spend that much time there and still not see everything. We did make it to the Pizza Inn that was around the corner for some lunch before we headed home. It was a fun day and I highly recommend making the trip to Vicksburg. They have some great kids stores and of course some GREAT DEALS! :)


My loot...AC bought just as much :)







I found some of AEH's favorite kind of pajama's.

Pictures...Pictures...Pictures

Well as you can probably tell, I like to take pictures. I just realized that all of my posts have at least one picture in them. I'm sure my family gets tired of the camera sometimes, but I love to go back and look at old pictures. It is fun to relive past moments. In fact, we made a home video of Audrey's first year and we got it out the other night to watch it and we all enjoyed it so much. Audrey has watched it several times. Just wait, once SLH gets me a new cord to hook up my video camera to the computer...I'll bore you with some videos. :)

I take allot of pictures because we send them periodically to EMH's and AEH's birth parents. I realize that this may bother some people because you may think this is not good for us or the birth parents. We are obligated to send certain times throughout the year (per an agreement that we made at the time of adoption), but I always send more. I put myself in their shoes and I think that I would want to see how they (the kids) are doing. They have always accepted and taken everything that I have sent... we don't send directly, but via Bethany. I don't see it as a burden at all, but as a way of letting them know how great the kids are doing. I mean it seems so minor to send them this, compared to what they have given us. The birth parents send things to the kids periodically too, and we treasure those special things.

Well, not much has been going on around our house this week, other than me having the stomach virus...ugh. I think I got it from the kids. Let's just hope I don't give it back to them or to SLH.
AEH has a bowling birthday party on Saturday. I am sure SLH and I will get some tennis in, and of course church on Sunday.
Hope you have a great weekend, and yes I am leaving you with a couple of recent pictures . :)

Here is AEH in her favorite pair of pajamas (she likes the footed pajamas like her brother's)...eating her marshmallow rose from valentine's, and no she didn't have this for breakfast. This was one of our pajama days.



AEH and EMH watching a Baby Einstein video. Notice, EMH is doing one of the things he does best, spitting up!

Valentine's Day At Our House

We have had a fun Valentine's weekend at our house! We started it off with AEH's school Valentine's party on Friday. She had allot of fun and of course got allot of candy (her favorite thing in the whole wide world) :) The weather was pretty yucky so we headed to McDonald's with some friends after the party and she got to get some play time in.
Friday night MeMe and Ampy kept AEH and EMH while mommy and daddy went to Amerigo's to eat! The food was great! We had reservation's so they got us in and out pretty quickly...if you know SLH then you know how he does not like to wait. We had ordered a new baker's rack for the kitchen and it was ready for pick up so we went and got that. It was nice to spend time just the two of us for a change. I am so glad he's my Valentine!

AEH and EMH got lots of Valentine's Happy's from their grandparents. JuJu brought over some goodies on Thursday from she and Granddad, Granna and Grandaddy sent a package in the mail and MeMe and Ampy had some things for them on Friday night.

We opened our gifts today. SLH gave me a gift cert. for a pedicure which I so desperately need and I got him a couple new shirts. We gave EMH a swing for the swing set and some wrist rattles. AEH got a new Strawberry Shortcake video and some new praise music for the car.

I'll never forget what my mom and dad did for me all throughout my high school years on Valentine's Day. They sent me some flowers and balloons every year and the only thing on the card was "Keep Smiling Keep Shining"...if you remember this song from the 80's, it was one of my favorite. I never knew until my senior year who had been sending me these. It was a big deal at my school to get something sent to you on Valentine's Day. Some years I got flowers from boy friends and the years I didn't, I always at least got these, and of course the more you got the better it was. You know they really thought this out, because had they told that it was from them then it would have seemed very corny, but by not knowing, my friends and I thought I had a secret admirer. That was something very special that I will never forget. Thanks mom and dad!

We are staying home tonight and cooking some shishkebabs on the grill. It has been a great Valentine's weekend and I am so glad that I have all my "loves" to share it with. Hope you have had a great one too!

Jumping Is So Much Work

This is one of EMH's favorite toys. He LOVES his jumperoo! This is him last night. He finally got over his little stomach bug. However, you wouldn't have known he was sick other than his symptoms...he was still his happy, easy going little self.




We have found him like this a few times. He just jumps himself to sleep.




I realized I never updated about his 4 month checkup. Everything was great! He was in the 75th percentile for height and weight. His doctor said that we could start him on cereal so we did that night. He smiled and thought it was fun. He is getting better each time we feed him. He still hasn't totally grasped how to push the food back with his tongue.


He is laughing so much now and even squealing when he gets so excited. He hasn't rolled over yet but his doctor said it is probably due to his weight. :) He actually hates being on his stomach so I guess he figures why try. He's 5 months old today and we are loving every minute with him. AEH says all the time, out of the blue, "I'm so glad God gave us a baby brother". She loves him sooo much!

Some Off To Church & Some Home Sick

Ready for Church... On Such a Beautiful Day!

SLH and AEH were the only ones who were able to go to church this morning.

EMH has some kind of virus. He has not run fever and he seems to be doing better this morning, but he had some issues :) during the night last night and yesterday. He also didn't take his bottle well yesterday, which is not like him. He threw up his whole nighttime bottle last night (all over himself, daddy and his rocker) before bed and you could tell that it wasn't related to his reflux. So we decided to spare the other babies from our bug.

I had extended session today, but my WONDERFUL husband said that he would do my duties today so that I could stay home with EMH. I am so thankful for a Christian husband and father who leads his household and makes sure every Sunday we can be there, that we are in God's house. AEH never asks when it's Sunday if we are going to church today. She just knows if it's Sunday, we are going, and that is just what you do on Sunday's. Thank you God for this Godly man who takes care of his family!

No Room

This is what I walked into the other night , as I was thinking that I was going to go to bed. However, there was no room. Audrey had gotten scared, as she does a couple of nights a week and well, Belle has somehow started sleeping in our bed again. When I redecorated our bedroom back in the summer, I got the dogs out of the bed and made them a pallet on the floor. Belle only weighs 7 pounds and she gets cold in the winter so she has made her way back into our bed. Now, I know this probably grosses some people out to have a dog in your bed, but Belle will be 13 years old this summer and she has some health problems that are getting worse. We know that we probably don't have much time left with her and so I guess we're just going to have to let this one slide.