Merry Christmas Everyone!

Josh in safe in Atlanta and I am on a break at work, so this post will be quick. We wish everyone a blessed Christmas and hope that you are enjoying family and some wonderful food. May the Spirit of God be real to all of you. We miss everyone.
Love,
Josh, Mel, and Carson

JOSH'S BIRTHDAY

The newest shout out belongs to my husband. Today is his birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY honey. Hope everyone is having as good of a day as Josh is. Ready or not, Christmas is coming and you better be ready!
Love to everyone.
Mel

Happy Birthday Nanners

So today is officially Anna's birthday. Happy Birthday sweet girl. If you have been observant, you have also noted that today is Josh and I's anniversary. It's convenient. This way I won't ever forget her birthday....although, who could. I have made all of you wait patiently for the pictures because we actually celebrated her birthday last weekend. As usual, she didn't really know why all those people were around and was content just to do her own thing. There were about 25 people there and it was a great time. Anna was a good baby the whole time. Disappointingly enough, she showed no interest whatsoever in her cake. Her dad had to put icing on her face. It was as if she though she didn't want to get dirty. She kept reaching for Katie from her highchair. It was cute. I could go on all day about how great it was, but her are some photos from her first party!


She was enamored with the balloons.

Some learning DVD'S that Uncle Josh and Aunt Mel got her.

Her daddy stuck her inside one of her gift bags!

Here she is confused about the cake and icing. Her daddy made her that cake, wonder if that's why. Shortly after this photo, she was reaching for Katie to get her out of her highchair.

The day after her birthday we went with her to visit her daddy at the fire house. She was obsessed with the red light there?

My Beloved

Happy Anniversary to my Beloved. Josh and I are celebrating four years of marriage today!! If you ask most experts....we have beat the odds. The odds say two different people were not meant to sustain an intimate relationship in the same house for this period of time AND remain happy. Lucky for Josh and I we have had superhuman help. God has blessed our marriage and relationship with one another. Without a doubt we are more content now than we ever thought of being when we got married. We bucked the system too. We were married on a Sunday. Everyone asked why? I thought, because I can and it's more economically sound! We were married at 1700, not on the upswing. Everyone said "Oh, that isn't going to be good, you should always get married on the upswing." We were married on Josh's winter break during undergraduate school and he left three days later to live in Cleveland. Everyone said, "That will be really difficult for your relationship, no honeymoon." The fact is, we didn't take a honeymoon for two years, him moving to Cleveland was extraordinarily difficult, and who needs the upswing when you love each other like this? Certainly Josh and I realize that we have put in some really long difficult hours on our relationship, but we also know, this isn't a two party game. I'm so thankful for where Josh and I have come because it's an excellent indicator of where we will remain for the rest of our life! And a side note from me......one lifetime will never be enough for me to spend with the man I love this much.



This was our first outing together. We went to Coney Island in 07/01. We had been dating for two months. This is what I loooked like when Josh "knew he was going to marry me."

This is our engament photo. It was taken in September of 2002. We had already been engaged for a year and weren't married for another two!

And this is my groom on our wedding day. What a handsome man!

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Our Two Favorite Girls!!!

Josh and I are sending a special shout out to Katie and Anna. Today was Katie's birthday and we got to hang out with her for a bit. Saturday is Anna's true birthday! We hope you both had a great day!

This was actually taken today. Josh and I drove home this afternoon after seeing both of them. Happy birthday to the pair of you! Love you.

Selfish Favors?

Well.....this past Wednesday I believe I became the most selfish person I know. Mary Jane asked me to come and help her out with her beautiful girls and I jumped at the opportunity. I was able to hold and love on both girls as well as help with a feeding. Twins are overwhemling for the people that aren't even the parents and I was amazed at how awesome a job both Mary Jane and Jason are doing. While I was there I also was able to put together another swing for the girls. Now they have matching Fisher Price Nature swings! It's really cute. So I can write this blog about all the great help I was able to give some friends, but it would be unfair. Without a doubt...I got much more than I gave. I love to see those girls and love on them any chance I get. I hope I get many more opportunities to give them some "favors" just for the chance to see how amazing those little girls are. I'm a lucky girl to know them, and even more so to help thier parents out every once in a while! While I'm on the subject of shouting out for my favorite twins, Parker needs some prayers. She is having problems picking up on her feeding like Emma. Her mom thinks it's most likely reflux and has been started on some meds to help it. The issue is it takes up to two weeks to start helping. Can you pray that Parker stops having so much pain with her eating and picks up on the bottle really soon. It's awful to see her in so much pain with feeds. Thanks in advance. Now... I could talk about those girls for three blog pages, but I will end with a big Happy Birthday to both of them since they are now term and leave you with some pictures of their beautiful faces. Love you girls!



The most beautiful term twins I have ever seen. Emma is on the right, Parker on the left!

This is Emma again snuggled up in her swing after a feeding!!!

Mrs. Paker happy with a full belly. A wonderful sight. Hope you feel better with each and every feed big girl. Can't wait to cuddle with you both again real soon!