Jenna Marie's Blessing Day

 I'm finally ready to get caught up on blogging.  It is amazing how quickly I get behind.  Life is fast paced and sometimes hard to keep up with.  Now that the holidays are done, I feel like I can catch my breath and get back into a normal groove.  We blessed Jenna on December 7th at our church.  It was a great day.  My parents got to come down for the occasion, which is always wonderful.  She looked beautiful and tender all dressed in white that day.  Like Anna, Jenna wore the same blessing dress that I wore when I was blessed 28 years ago.  I love that my girls get to wear the same special dress I did.
Jenna is an amazing baby.  I could kiss on those chubby cheeks forever.  She is so happy that she can hardly stand it.  Yesterday, I got her up from a nap and she just could not stop grinning ear to ear.  We let her cry it out this week and now she's sleeping for 13 hours at night.  Life is bliss again!  It only took Jenna one day to get it down too!  Here are a few pictures from our special day.

 Josh got pneumonia that week.  It was awful.  He would just lay on the bed, curled up in a little ball.  Josh is always on speed 10, so when I saw him just lounging around, I knew he must be really sick.  Poor thing.  He's better now.  That day, Josh went to church and blessed Jenna and then came home afterwards.  Maybe that's why she's crying in this picture.  She just didn't want to leave....  ;-)

 Grandpa is our baby whisperer.  He is so good with little Jen.  I think she took a liking to him.  What a sweet picture this is.

 Tender.

 Jenna is our third baby to be blessed on the first weekend in December.  It has just happened that way because of how their birthdays fall.  The first Sunday in December is also the day that our church puts on a Christmas devotional.  This year, as I watched the devotional and listened to all of the AMAZING music, I held my little baby in my arms and thought about Jesus.  I thought how Mary must have looked down at her baby the same way that I look down at mine.  Her heart must have been overflowing with love and gratitude for the miracle that she could call her child, just like mine.  Mary must have been able to feel a piece of heaven in her heart because of the angelic baby she held, just as I did.  I was listening to the choir sing, looking at my baby, thinking all of these thoughts, and just began to weep.  I was overwhelmed in that moment with love and awe at what a perfect, sweet baby I had been given.  It was tender, and a moment I hope to never forget.

 Jenna has my heart.  I'm so lucky I get to be her mom.

 I love this photo.  She seems to be really thinking about something.

 She thought about it, and gives it a thumbs up!!

It amazes me how with each new child we have, how my heart grows and makes room for another child to be loved just as much as the others.  Jenna is now four months old and doing great.  We love her.

Andrew's Pirate Party

I just knew that I blogged this already.  As I was looking through my posts though, it wasn't there.  So, here we go, only two months late.  Better late than never.  Andrew turned four back in October.  He was SO excited for his birthday.  He told everyone for weeks that his birthday was on October 25th.  Andrew is super into Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  He was Jake for Halloween.  That is the only show he ever wants to watch.  We have a lot of pirate lingo floating around our house.  I always catch the kids saying, "Oh coconuts!," or "Busted barnacles".  Andrew is constantly reminding me to look out for gold da'blooms.  Basically, it's a pirates life for us at the Lee household.
We let Andrew have a friends party this year and decorated everything in Jake decor.  We kept it pretty low key but it was still a blast.  I think all the kids had a great time.
Above is a cake I made for him.  Andrew LOVED it, so it was totally worth the effort.  Anything for my sweet boy!

These are our sweet neighbors.  We love playing with them.  Aren't they adorable?

Ashley is saying, "cheese!!".  Can you tell?  She's so sweet!

Here's the whole gang.

We played a little ring toss with a sword.

We all went on a treasure hunt to find the hidden treasure, aka the pinata.  You can't go on a treasure hunt without the proper pirate attire and tools.  The kids were given clues to help them find the pinata.  What they didn't know was the the mean ol' Captain Hook was waiting to steal their treasure.  They had to use their pirate skills to stop Hook from stealing their loot.  Luckily, there were cannonballs close.  They fired their cannonballs at Captain Hook and he was so afraid, he ran away.  The little pirates finally found their treasure and were happy mateys.

Boo!  Hiss!  There's that "Cranky Crook."  Josh played an amazing Hook!  He looked awesome!  I made his costume earlier that week.  It took a while but it was totally worth it.  Josh looked legit!  The kids loved shooting cannonballs at him.  Every time he got hit, Josh did a flip and yelled on the trampoline.  It was awesome!  Best dad award goes to......Josh Lee! .

 One little girl was afraid of him and thought he was the real thing.  Haha!

Finally the treasure at the end of the rainbow.

The party was so fun and Andrew was just as happy as could be.  That makes for one happy mama.

Later that night, Andrew got to open the rest of his presents.  He got a football piggy bank.  It has two slots, one says, "Spend," the other says, "Save."  Every time he gets a coin, he asks which side is which and then ALWAYS puts it in the spend side.  Awesome....

Andrew's little helper.  ;-)

Can you tell by the expression on his face that he wasn't too thrilled about getting clothes for his birthday?

His new jammies.  Aren't they cute?  I love when the boys match.

I was exhausted by the end of the day but felt so happy that my little angel was happy.  Good thing birthdays are only once a year!

Happy Thanksgiving

 We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  We loved our break as we spent most of our time with our family.  It was a fun, fun week.  Josh and I even got to go on a date while we were in Columbus.  It was so fun to go out and not worry about the kids at all.  The more kids we have, the sweeter the dates become.  It is precious time for us, and we treasure the quiet!  ;-)  Don't get me wrong though, we love the noise too and wouldn't have it any other way!
The food this year was so delicious.  The pies were especially yummy.  We ate, and ate, and then ate some more.

 These kids are growing up so fast!  Just look how big they are.

 We all ADORE Uncle Greg.  He's so good to all of us.

 No one could ever replace this woman.  My mom is the kindest, most understanding, loving person in the world.  I love living so close to my parents!  Seeing them is always a blessing for us.

 The two love birds!

 We pulled out the decorations and Anna took over.  She had everyone working for HER design.  She was definitely in charge.  It is so funny because that is just SO ME.  She is a mini me in a lot of ways.  World, brace yourself.

 I love this handsome buddy.  There is no one more tender.  Andrew was a very hard toddler and is now the EASIEST child alive.  He is so easy going and sweet and helpful.  He never whines about anything and is always trying so hard to do what is right.  He's got my heart.

 It was a great Thanksgiving.  I love getting to spend time with all of these amazing people.

Gobble! Gobble!