Build-A-Bear

On Saturday night, before Andrew came home on Sunday, we took Genna to Build-A-Bear Workshop to make stuffed animals for her and Andrew. She had a great time doing it and she liked the idea of getting a gift to give her baby brother.

Picking which animal was definitely the hardest part. She ended up picking the same dog for both of them (not the one in this picture, though). We figured they would be wearing different clothes, so it would still be easy to tell them apart.

Here she is rubbing the heart on her funny bone to make the dog laugh. She followed everything the girl was telling her to do.

Now it's time to pick out some clothes!

The final result: "Pearl" and "Michael" (Genna and Andrew's middle names)
So far, she has slept with Pearl every night and with every nap.

Pictures of Andrew

Okay, here are lots of pictures! I'm sorry, some of them are turned wrong, I just didn't have time to fix it, but I will later. Brian and I got home late last night and we HOPE Andrew will be home tomorrow. He is doing very well, but we are working on getting his feedings more consistent. He just gets too tired when he's eating. He had a good night, though! We think that if he keeps it up today, we will get to bring him home tomorrow afternoon. These pictures are not in very good order, but I will post the whole saga later when I have more time.

Thank you everyone for your prayers, thoughts, calls, visits, gifts and everything else!!! We are so blessed to have such wonderful family members and friends! We can't wait for you to meet Andrew!

first time wearing clothes!

Genna loves her baby brother!

Exciting news!

Most of you probably know this already, but Andrew Michael was born Monday, April 13, 2009 at 4:12 p.m. He weighed 5 lbs. 12 oz. and is 19 inches long!

He has spent some time in the NICU due to being 4 weeks early and his lungs not quite being mature enough, but he is doing well and we hope to bring him home in a couple of days. I am going home tomorrow and will be able to upload some pictures then (I tried to do that from here, but it didn't work).

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!

Easter pictures - Aldridge Gardens

After church, we went to Aldridge Gardens to see all of the flowers and enjoy the beautiful day. We had a fun time and took some pretty pictures, too!

We did NOT pick this tulip. It was laying on the ground when we got there!

Easter pictures - Ready for church!

Probably the only picture that anyone will find of me 36-weeks pregnant! I figured it was mandatory on Easter.

More birthday - Family party

Yes, I realize this party was almost 2 weeks ago and I am just now getting around to posting these pictures...better late than never, right?

Genna was SO EXCITED about sharing her birthday with Grandaddy this year. Hers is March 23rd and his is March 31st. We had already had a little party with friends, but we still wanted to have one with our family that she could share with her Grandaddy. Memama and Grandaddy were there, as well as Grandma Judy, Aunt Anda, Uncle Kevin, Charlie and Mary Frances. We had a great time visiting with everyone and were very sad to see them go home.

Here is the birthday boy and girl before their party...

Grandaddy with all of his grandchildren...it's very hard to get a really good picture of all of them.

Genna feeding her baby in her new highchair.

Genna declared that her favorite color was purple and Grandaddy's was yellow, so the cake had both colors of icing.

Glamour girl likes to wear her sunglasses upside-down.

Birthday at the park

Yesterday was Genna's 3rd birthday. Since we are so close to baby brother's arrival and it is tax season, I had decided that we were just going to have a family birthday party this year. I changed my plans when I realized just how excited Genna was about her birthday this year. For the past 2 years, I don't even think she knew that it was even a special day even though we had parties, but THIS year, she has been talking about it for over a month! She told me that she wanted a purple cake with Peter Pan (I figured Tinkerbell was close enough) and that her friends would sing Happy Birthday and she would blow out candles. So, we decided to have a small get-together with our friends from our Monday morning Bible study at the park on her actual birthday. She loved it!
Here she is waiting to blow out her candles...

Obviously, blowing out the candles...

Baby Shelby, the youngest friend at the party...

Apparently, Genna only liked the purple icing...

Trying to get a good picture of the birthday girl....it didn't exactly happen.

close-up of her birthday shirt...

After naps, we played outside and ate more purple cupcakes with our neighbors. They were in school during the earlier party.

Genna showing me her Strawberry Shortcake DVD that Jack and Sam gave her.