On the road again....

That's right, folks. I loaded up the girls, all the gear that goes along with them and we were off on yet another adventure. Our first stop was my parents house, but just to spend the night. We arrived Thursday (the 10th) for a little stop-over and to pick up my mom, then on Friday, we packed everything back up and were on our way to our old stomping grounds, Vinton, VA. My best friend from high school, Courtney Ross, was having her bridal shower so Mom and I decided to go and I am so glad we did. We had such a wonderful time and we got to see some people we haven't seen in almost 10 years. We stayed at Courtney's parents' house, which was so wonderful because that was pretty much my second home in high school, so I loved being able to spend time with Courtney and her mom and dad (not to mention, being called "Curly girl" again, which is what they called me all through school:) ) Although, I was definitely a little worried how the girls would handle all that traveling again so soon after our last road trip, but I must say, I could not have asked for better behaved children. They were both so great and so happy the whole time. They slept great, traveled great and I know had a really great time getting spoiled rotten by the Ross Family!

Marissa was having a great time at the shower and looked adorable thanks to Courtney's mom, Cindy, who got the girls these matching pink outits. They looked so cute!

This is when her love affair with icing began (remember the cookie cake?)...notice how at first she just stares at it....not sure if she will like it or not...

However, it didn't take long for her to fall in love...I'm pretty sure by the end of the shower she had the icing off at least 3 cupcakes. Can you say SUGAR RUSH?!

NeeNee and Allie

The girls in pink! Allie was out cold, it was just too much fun for her:)

The beautiful bride-to-be opening her gifts.

The whole gang.

The girls from High School. (most of whom I haven't seen since graduation.)

Allie's Sunday morning breakfast bottle with her Grandpa for the weekend, Papa Tommy.

Marissa figuring out the remote and Allie getting little fingerprints all over Mrs. Cindy's table!

On the way home, I rode in the back with the girls for a little bit while Mom drove, so I took a couple cute pictures of their view from the back:)

Miss Allie was all tuckered out from the weekend!

Marissa watching one of her new favorites, The Wiggles!!

So, for those of you who are counting (which would be none of you, I'm sure)....we've added 18 hours and 1000 miles to our road trip total for the summer! Whew...makes me tired just thinking about it....but a great time was had by all! For now, though, we are home and loving it!

Marissa-isms

In honor of her 24 month birthday...Russell and I decided to let you all in on 24 of our favorite Marissa-isms...
1.The way she says peek-a-goo instead of peek-a-boo
2.The way her schedule is sooooo easy, 95% of the time she sleeps 12 hours at night and takes a 2-3 hour nap. She has always been a great sleeper.
3.When you ask her if she wants juice or milk she just says "juicemilk"...like it's one word.
4.If you ask her to show you how old she is, she holds up her 2 index fingers because she can't figure out how to hold up just two fingers on one hand.
5.The way she would eat shredded cheese all day, every day. But it has to be shredded....
6.Speaking of food, if you give her something with breading on it (chicken nuggets, popcorn shrimp) she will peel off the breading and only eat the meat.
7.How stinkin' cute she is when she has pigtails in her hair.
8.The way she imitates her daddy gagging when he changes a poopy diaper.
9.When we sit down to eat a meal, she will say "Amen?!" so we hold hands and Russell will begin to pray and she will pray along with him:) (we have no idea what she is saying, but I'm sure God does and I'm sure He loves it!)
10.The way she does the chicken dance. So cute:)
11.When she gets embarassed, she will blow raspberries. (like if we catch her mid-poop and ask her if she is going poopy...)
12.She can turn on the t.v. and start the DVD player to watch her movie. (not sure if that's good or bad)
13.She will give you the biggest hugs right before bedtime.
14.Sometimes she calls me JJ instead of Mommy, especially if she is trying to get my attention.
15.Her super-big, chessey smiles she flashes for the camera.
16.The way she says medicine, she calls it "manganees".
17.When she offers to pour you some tea from her teapot, then holds her cup up to yours and says "Cheers!"
18.She loves to talk on her pretend phone to all her grandparents-Papa, NeeNee, Pops (or as she says Pots), and Nana.
19.The way she says "Mommy (or Daddy), you're a silly goose!" And then laughs.
20.She always helps daddy feed the doggies, it's one of her favorite things to do.
21.She also loves to help me put the clothes from the washer into the dryer and then she wants to "pull" the button to start it. Oh and each time I hand her some clothes she says "Thanks, mommy." :)
22.When she brushes her teeth, Russell will sing a little song that goes, "Brush, brush, brush your teeth..." and she will dance to it while she brushes her teeth.
23.If she doesn't want you to help her with something she says, "NO Mommy, 'coot back, 'coot back..." (Instead of scoot back...just in case you didn't catch that...)
24.When she is running fast or is doing something active, she will stop and catch her breath and say, "Woo Mommy, it's hard!"

Well, there you have it. 24 of our most favorite things about our Marissa Kate. This was so much fun to write, we hope you had fun reading it!

Happy 2nd Birthday Marissa Kate!!

On Wednesday, we celebrated Marissa's 2nd birthday:) I wish I could say it's hard to believe she is already 2, but she is just growing up so fast and acting so big these days that, well, I can believe it! The 4 of us had a really fun day together and I think Marissa enjoyed every second! Once Daddy got home from work, we opened up the gifts that Pops, Nana and Aunt Jessica sent, which Marissa loved. She really got into opening the presents and each time she opened the box she would say, very enthusiastically "WOOOOOW, COOOOL!" (We got it on video, I will upload it soon...) She got a Leap Frog computer, 4 cars and an adorable outfit. Here she is showing off some of her goodies from The Nichols'. Thanks you guys so much!:)

And speaking of the Nichols', it is their tradition to always have a cookie cake for everyone's birthday, so we decided that was one tradition we could definitely get on board with! I called and picked out the butterfly cake and told them to make it colorful and girly and I think they did a wonderful job! She loved it!! (Well, actually, she only loved the icing...she didn't want anything to do with the cookie part....but it was her birthday, so we let her just enjoy the icing!)

YUMMY-SUGAR!!

Here's miss Allie, she always has her eyes on her big sister:)

Mommy and her girls

Daddy and his girls

And this was her big present-we found it at Target and got the balls to go with it (all 150 of them....not so much fun for mommy and daddy to pick up...) But, oh my goodness, she played in that thing for at least an hour and a half that night and it is still all she wants to play with. We took it outside today and it was so fun!

Allie can crawl up there by herself...so we have to be careful, but she enjoyed it too!

But not as much as she enjoyed Skyping with Pops, Nana and MawMaw:)

And finally, I made this shirt for Marissa's birthday last year and since the size was 24months, I figured we would wear it again for birthday #2. Anyway...I thought it would be fun to compare last year to this year....seems like just yesterday this picture was taken.

My baby girl is growing so fast.

Marissa Kate, Mommy and Daddy love you so much. You bring laughter, joy, and fun to our lives everyday. You are such a sweet daughter and big sister, and we are so thankful for each day that God lets us spend with you. WE LOVE YOU!! Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Sisterly Love part 2...matching outfits

I have a confession to make....I used to think that dressing your kids in matching outfits was goofy...I never thought I would be the mom that did that....oohhhh, never say never, right?! So, my grandma Joy recently went to Hawaii and bought the girls a ton of matching outfits. Well...we were going over to a friends house one night for a cookout and I thought, Ok, I will try it just this once...so I got them both dressed, set them beside each other and...oh.my.goodness. I think the picture says it all....

Are they not the cutest little matching sisters you've ever seen?!:)

How funny is Marissa in this picture...I can just picture her as a 15 year old, rolling her eyes and saying, "MOM! Please stop taking my picture!!" Lord, help me.

And here is my second attempt at matching outfits...my friend Kelly got these outfits for the girls and I loved them because they weren't identical but still looked just precious together.

So now I guess the next obvious step is matching mother/daughter outfits. Maybe something like this...what do you think?

Now this is mother/daughter matching that I could do....I love this picture of Cindy Crawford and her little girl-the matching blazers, necklaces, skinny jeans-love it!...now if only my legs would grow about 5" then maybe we could do this look:)

On a side note-I am seriously so excited about my girls and I going shopping together...my mom is one of my favorite shopping partners and I can't wait until Marissa and Allie are old enough to shop and love fashion as much as I do! (I'm sure Russell is not near as excited about this as I am...don't worry daddy-we will do our best to only shop the sale rack:) )

Good times in the Little Red Wagon

My parents got the girls a red wagon for Christmas and I can remember saying that I couldn't wait for summer to get here because I knew the girls would love it!! And they do:) I use it a lot to transport the girls to and from the pool which is within walking distance from our house, so I would load them up along with everything we needed to survive an hour at the pool...and off we went.
Here they are all ready for the pool (and, of course, neither of them are looking at the camera...no matter how much mom pleaded with them...)

And here is the view from the top...it always made me laugh becuase I had to prop their legs on top of each other so I could fit the bag in there-they looked so cute:)

Now for the videos...it's actually 2 different videos but I downloaded them at the same time, so they posted as one...oh well. Anyway-the first part is Russell giving the girls an extra special wagon ride (and if you look closely, you can see our dog, Tex going for a little cart ride as well:) )The second part is Marissa pulling her little sister in the wagon...be sure to turn your sound on so you can hear Marissa say, "Ready, Ready, Allie!" Enjoy!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Random pictures worth posting!

So these pictures don't really have a reason to be in the same post except for the fact that they are some of my favorites and I have yet to put them on here for everyone to enjoy!:)

I'll start with Miss Allie...
I could say this about every picture of Allie...but I will just say it here....can you believe those eyes?! Oh my goodness...I could stare at this picture all day....so sweet:)

Showing off her teeth...

Munching on her plastic oreo

Mommy and Allie before church (Marissa wasn't cooperating with us, so we decided to just get a picture with Allie...)

Daddy and Allie

Ok, now it's Marissa's turn...

I made some homemade whipped cream one day for dessert and let Marissa lick the beaters...she LOVED it!! (and by the way...if you've never made homemade whipped-you must try it...it's so easy and sooooo much better than the can or tub stuff...all you do is buy heavy whipping cream and beat it using beaters until it is stiff, add a little powdered sugar and viola! you have some of the yummiest stuff on earth!)

This look on her face is just so sweet....and yet a little sly...I love it:)

PLAY-DOH!! One of her new favorite things...this was the first time she played with it-Daddy was helping her out a little bit.

So she woke up from her nap one afternoon with one of the worst cases of bed-head I have ever seen!! I took a couple pictures so you could enjoy it from every angle:)

I may be a little partial...but is she not one of the most beautiful little girls you've ever seen?:)


That's all for now!

How to Fight.

My high school youth minister is now the executive pastor at a church in Jacksonville, FL and he is doing a series right now called "The Flame" and it's all about marriage and it's incredible, I mean really incredible. Most recently he did a talk about fighting and how to fight with your spouse. The main point is -you ready for this......the only reason we fight is because we don't get what we want (James 4:1-2)....ugh, let me tell you, I let that sink in for a minute and then quickly realized how incredibly true that is. He goes on to say that our marriages should be a reflection of Christ's love for His people, that Christ did not punish them, that He responded in Love-the same way we should respond to our spouses, even during a conflict. Anyway, Joby says it way better than I ever could....I highly recommend that you take 45 minutes out of your day to listen to this-it's really good.
Here's the link....
http://www.beachunitedmethodist.com/weekend/eleven22-service
oh and don't be swayed by the "United Methodist"...this message is for any and everyone-no matter the denomination.

one more thing....if you have even more time...listen to the rest of the series...it will do your marriage good...I promise.