Opening Day Parade

Walking down to the parade.

Me and my love!

I'm so blessed!

Love this pic!

Findlay Market representative.

Photos taken and edited by Amit Dutta

Cincinnati Zoo Part 2

This is the girls favorite part of the zoo. Annie, especially, LOVES riding it. She always gets very excited when she sees the train!

Aubrey was having fun smelling the flowers.

God must like me an awful lot to give me these two! :)

This lion was awesome. The whole time we were there it kept pacing back and forth and growling and making other sounds. Aubrey kept trying to copy him, but she sounded more like baby Simba! ;)

Cincinnati Zoo

For some reason, I can't get my cursor at the top of the post. Anyway, peacocks just hang out all over the zoo, all the time. Very pretty! The other day when I was there (not the same day these were taken) a peacock flew right past my head and it scared me to death. I had my head down in the stroller and when I came up was the exact time it flew right over us. Never had that happen before, don't mind if it doesn't happen again! :)

My beautiful Aubrey and me.

There were so many beautiful spring flowers there.

I love how she is looking up at me in this picture. Almost like, "I wanna be just like her." Makes me want to be extra careful to follow closely to God, so she too, will follow.

They were doing face painting at the zoo and Aubrey really wanted to do it. We found out the charges and our friend (who also took and edited all these pictures) mentioned that he would be happy to do it when we got home. This is what he came up with. Aubrey was very pleased, and it was FREE! :)
(Sis. McCoy, Amit is the friend.)

Happy birthday to us!

In February, both Adam and I celebrated our birthday. Since mine happens to be on Valentine's Day, Adam took some time off in the morning and we decided to have a fun family day. We headed to the Cincinnati Museum Center (we have a pass and go often, but for Adam to be able to go along is a real treat!) for the morning and then went to Skyline - my birthday choice - for lunch. After an afternoon of napping for the girls, Adam said he wanted to take all of his valentines out for supper. We went to Smokey Bones and really enjoyed ourselves! I got a new and much needed camera for my birthday. I am very happy with my Nikon! Aubrey got me a pillow pet, then said, "I should have gotten one for me, too!" So, I told her we could share. :)

Adam's birthday is just 6 days after mine, so we took a date (just the two of us!) the Thursday between our special days. We enjoyed a nice and free dinner at bd's Mongolian grill. It was amazing! I (we...my mom and a friend) got Adam an acoustic guitar for his birthday.

For Adam's birthday, we met some friends at a Chinese buffet for lunch, then our friend Amit made Adam a wonderful stir-fry (Adam's request and birthday gift from him) supper.

Here are some random pictures..

Adam and Aubrey waiting for Smokey Bones dinner.

Me and my girls! :)

Aubrey and me at Skyline.

Amit and Aubrey

Our friends at lunch on Adam's birthday.

Adam's birthday supper. :)

Happy 13 months, Annie girl!

Happy Saturday, Everyone!

Our baby is 1!

On January 25, 2011, our lives were once again changed by the birth of our second daughter. Annie Marie has been such a joy to have around our house. She learns a lot from her big sister and they have so much fun playing together. She was sick with some sort of illness for most of the month of January and it is so good to have our "real" Annie back. You will be able to tell in some of the pictures below that she just wasn't feeling good.

On her birthday, we went to library time (every Wednesday!) and had a nice party here at home that evening. By the time our party was over, she was pretty much "done."

Checking to see who else is joining library time.

Enjoying her cupcake!

LOVE this picture of daddy and baby girl!

"BLOW!!"

Elliott enjoying his hot dogs and mac n cheese!

The best family pic we were able to get at that point...

Simon playing with the party favor. Thankfully, they didn't make any noise! :)

Birthday girl!

Big sis, Aubrey, enjoying her party favor!

The kiddos at the party!

Happy Birthday, Annie girl. We love you and thank God for you! :)

Seems odd for me to be blogging when I don't have any pictures to share, as that's usually what my posts are. You see, I have a couple of problems...our camera has decided it doesn't want to be part of the family anymore. I had an older camera that I had been hanging on to, and we used that one at Christmas time only to come out with a bunch of blurry pictures. It takes great ones outside, just not inside.

Annie girl turns 1 on Wednesday. I can't believe how quickly life just blows by. I'm so thankful for her little life and for how God has blessed her. This past week has been a bit troublesome for her. A couple of weeks ago I took her to the doctor, suspecting an ear infection. Turns out, her right ear was infected. They put her on an antibiotic which was a 10 day one, hoping that would kick it. We were 3 days into the antibiotic when things started happening with her digestive tract. It was not a fun day and left her diaper area very raw. I stopped giving that medicine and called the doctor again. She switched her to another medicine which we were able to finish with no complications. In the meantime, she was still digging at her ears - both of them. This past Thursday night we went to bed like normal. I was awakened to her crying at around 3am. She usually sleeps through the night but this does happen some, so I wasn't worried about anything. I opened the door to find her puking. This is a first for my baby. She's teething like crazy and is congested, had no diarrhea or fever, so I confused. I thought maybe it was the congestion and teething combined that caused it. I "slept" with her in the guest room the rest of that night and there were no more episodes. We had a normal day on Thursday, so I was thinking it must have been a fluke. The puke, that is! Anyway, Friday night, Adam had scheduled a "stay-awake-a-thon" for the youth. A "SAAT" is a fundraiser where your teens find people to sponsor them any amount of money per hour to stay awake. Seems silly, but this is a really easy to make some money for your youth group. I knew I wasn't going to spend the night there with having the girls, so around 10 pm Adam brought us home and helped get the kiddos in bed. Once again around 3 am, I heard Annie crying again. I jumped up and got in there to find her in a lot of the same situation as the night before, only much less. Needless to say, I was one tired momma when Saturday rolled around. She started in with diarrhea on Saturday morning and vomited once more. So, I called the doctor thinking I could leave a message for the on-call doctor, not realizing they were open. When I heard their options that included "speak to a nurse," I was very happy. She suggested we bring her in, because of all of the variables. We went only to find that both of her ears were infected. Thankfully, her chest was clear. So, we left there with yet another antibiotic. She seems to be feeling quite a bit better last night and today, for which we are very grateful. This week still has a lot planned, including seeing "daddy" off to Idaho/Kansas on yet another PR trip. These are the times that I'm especially thankful I live so close to my parents. I plan to go spend the weekend with them.

If you are still reading my rambles, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully next time I will have some pictures to post. Even if they are a little blurry, I have to have pictures of my baby's 1st birthday. :)

Happy Monday, everyone!

Aubrey is getting to be such a big girl...
Always a silly face.

My girls on the Sunday before Christmas Day.

Pretty Aubs

Love my family!

Annie girl!