Early Christmas and 2 Special Birthdays in NC

Keith and I went to NC for an early Christmas and birthday celebrations, because we are spending Christmas with his family this year. It was great spending time with Nana, Papa and my sister Tara and her family! We celebrated an early 1st birthday for Samantha and Dad's 60th! We will miss them SO much over Christmas, but felt so blessed to have this time.

Nana and my little Diva - yes, I know this kid wears a lot of different hats and headbands --heck, why not until she begins fighting me! ;)


I love this picture - what a sweet moment.

"Mom, seriously!"

After MANY shots, we finally got a few pictures where everyone is looking at the camera. Whew, that is a challenge. :)

Our little snow bunny

Showing off her 1st birthday outfit. Thanks to my friend Kendra for making her adorable tutu!

Dani and Grace were there to help Samantha celebrate.

"Up there" -- Samantha favorite thing is to point - now usually nobody is sure what at, but it is cute nonetheless. ;)

Typical Sami - God help you if you wear glasses in her presence. Sorry Dani! :)

YUM!!! She LOVED the icing, but could have done without the cake (Tara -- she must get that from you! :) )

Happy 60th birthday Daddy! What a year to celebrate God's blessings, after the scare we had around this time last year.

Great to get some sister time - I miss both of my sisters SO much! I just wish Tia and her family could have been here too.

Looking good Daddy - 60 is just a number!

Thanks everyone for making our early Christmas and the birthdays SO special! Thank you Nana for putting together an amazing birthday party for Samantha -- it meant so much to us!

I loved waking up to you all - having coffee with my parents in the morning, going out shopping, hanging out with the neighborhood ladies at the PartyLite party, seeing Dani be a reindeer in her school play, and just soaking up every minute I had to laugh and be in your presence. I am so blessed to have such an amazing family and Samantha is so blessed to be surrounded by so much love!

I love and miss you all. Have a Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving with Friends

This year we couldn't go see family, which we missed dearly! So, since we could visit my sister's family in CO, we decided to spend Thanksgiving with our dear friends, Heather, Freddie and their family. We split up the food and had a feast - including a 20lb turkey (yes, I know), various delicious sides, pumpkin and banana cream pies. yum. Why so much food -- why not!! ;)

While nothing replaces family, it is nice to have such special friends to share the holiday with. We just adore this family and got to meet another wonderful friend of theirs, Wei.

Instead of taking the pictures myself, I put my camera in the trusty hands of Heather's oldest, Kaitlyn. So here is the evening through her eyes. And to be honest, I think it captures the evening better than I ever could. :)

Kaitlyn - the girl behind the camera! :)

No, I am not sleeping on the job, but rather being climbed on by my daughter!


Keith - stop trying to scare the children. hehe

This is an intense competition of Mario Cart on Wiii.

No makeup and a whole lot of food -- so be nice!

Porter even got in on the Wiii action.

Heather - aka - "Super Mom." I keep asking her to write a book. ;) Seriously, one of the sweetest people I know.

Freddie - finally giving in after being chased by Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn - what a goof! :)

Sadie - tons of cute poses in her arsenal

Okay Keith might kill me for posting this - so it might be a limited time viewing.... here is Keith doing the Hula-hoop on the Wiii that night. At least I didn't post it with a suggestive title, like my brother in law Brian did of Tara. tsk, tsk. :) However, I am not above blogging it and laughing at my dear husband's crazy hips - it is like the beast has been unleashed. (I do love you bunches hun!)

Weekend with the Newbroughs

In early November we went to WV to see Keith's family and to celebrate a belated birthday with his dad, Ken. Logan surprised everyone by coming in that weekend to see Keith and his family. No one knew that he was coming - including his parents - but what a wonderful surprise it made!

Here are the 3 Musketeers - Keith, Logan and Randy - hanging out. It is always nice to seeing them bonding - despite the grotesque humor and football marathon that often accompanies these get-togethers. ;)


For bath time, we took over Ken and Karen's sink. Samantha still loves bath time and now that she is coupling that with brushing her teeth (okay, sucking on the brush and eating off the toothpaste) she really is starting to look like a big girl.

Ken was suckered into buying a moving/barking pup for Samantha that she was enamored with at the mall. She is still fascinated by it, but I think she enjoys Sadie freaking out about it as much as anything.

"How do you get this thing to shut-up, Mama?"

Looking sweet together, but this was just mere moments before she had a diaper blowout that Keith and his mother were left to deal with while I was at a craft fair that day. Keith told his mother to let it wait for me - yes, he truly said that - but when they did change it, it was SO bad that we even had to clean that area of the carpet -- ewww. However, what this does show is how much my husband avoids diaper changes -- just wait till #2 dear Keith, for your avoidance will have to end. ;)

Of course, I put her in one of her many head-bands before we headed out to Red Lobster for Ken's birthday. I swear it looks like she is posing -- do I really take that many pics of her. :)

Haley and Samantha

Ken & Karen

Too many cameras flashing - I swear we all looked at a different one. :)

Vicki and Randy

Sadly, we didn't get to see Tammie, Mackenzie, Mallory or Jeff. Mallory couldn't make it home from college and Tammie was home with the flu - thus, meaning she was kept from coming to visit. Sorry Kenzie -- you can slather her with kisses and hugs over Christmas. We sure did miss seeing you guys, though.

Thanks everyone for a great weekend!

First Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!!

We just celebrated our first Halloween with Samantha. All of these "firsts" are bittersweet - so exciting and wonderful, but they go SO quickly. So, we took lots of pictures - shocking, I know! ;)

The evening was even to eventful for Miss Sadie, who joined us in trick-or-treating, with her pumpkin t-shirt. She was completely worn out. What a sweet doggie!

Even before Trick-or-Treating we had to wear the Halloween outfit and headband Nana got us. I swear this child will wear anything on her head!

It is getting harder to take pictures of Sami, because she tries to get you and the camera. :)

It looks like she is growling, but she is actually giving us a piece of her mind - do you think "bababa" means "get that camera out of my face." Oh well. ;)

No goodies in there Sami, you are too young - this year Daddy gets to eat all the candy.

We only got a few pics of us with Sami at the end of the night - she is so tired. It was just too much excitement for one evening. Of course she had no idea what was going on, but it must have seemed exciting, because after the first several houses she would clap and giggle after we went up to the doors and got candy - coincedence, probably - but precious nonetheless.

Daddy was her buddy this evening - he went up to the door with her. I have to admit that despite how much I wanted to take her around, we both felt a little silly going to the doors when everyone knows she is too young to eat the candy. Oh well - rite of passage - right?!

She was so darn cute in her monkey outfit. Thankfully it was a warm outfit because it was cold outside...brrrrr.

What a wonderful Halloween! Kids really do make all of these moments better. I am so excited for Christmas I can hardly contain myself. Yes, I know that is getting ahead of myself (and sadly blowing right past her first birthday)...but God help those of you that follow this blog - it will be picture overload. What can I say, I am a woman in love....ahhhh. :)

Special Time with Nana

We were all blessed with a special visit from Mom last week. We had a great time together. We did a lot of Christmas shopping, bonded over movies and great food, had impromptu dance jams with Samantha, and shared in a lot of great laughs.

Mom witnessed the crazy changes in Samantha just since she saw her in July. Already she is pulling up on everything and is trying to figure out the stairs. She even broke a top tooth - though it isn't a front, but rather a side top tooth - so she has been named "Snaggle-tooth." Mom believes that my fascination with vampires has yielded me a fanged child. If her next top tooth is on the other side, this might actually be true. ;)

It really was great sharing coffee with Mom in the morning and just having that restorative time together. Nothing compares. Of course, every else thought I dropped off the face of the planet - but such happens when I am around my Mom. I try to just soak up every minute. I truly hope Samantha loves me as much as I love her.

Samantha sends her love and thanks!! We miss you already Mom/Nana. Wish you could have been here too Papa, but we can't wait to see you all in December for an early Christmas. :)