LABOR DAY WEEKEND

We spent Labor Day weekend with my family at my aunt and uncle's house in Tennessee! We always enjoy getting to spend time with them whether it be at their house, here or on vacation at the beach!
We had a great time on this trip! I spent most of the day Saturday in bed with a sick headache, but felt much better on Sunday and was able to enjoy the rest of the trip. We ventured over to my cousins place on the lake on Sunday and had so much fun!
Emma had a blast riding Seth's 4-wheeler, and then swimming and riding jet ski's at the lake! She tried tubing behind the jet ski, but that scared her tremendously, even with me holding onto her!
Brady has a good time wherever he's at and with whatever he's doing! He is such an easy baby! He took his 1st boatride and his 1st swim in the lake!
We even convinced my mom to ride the jet ski!!! I think she actually enjoyed it!
We had such a great time and can't wait until we are able to get together with family again!

GROWING AND CHANGING SO FAST

Brady sleeps so well! 99% of the time we don't even have to rock him, when he's sleepy, he falls asleep. TOO CUTE!
MY SWEET BABY BOY!!!
Jason is making this boy absolutely rotten... and he's loving every minute of it!!!

I'M BACK

Hello everyone! I'm back to blogging! My baby girl started to school this week, so I have MUCH more time on may hands now. Jason is already asking me if I'm bored!!! I don't think I'll be bored considering Brady is growing and changing so fast! He'll be demanding more of my attention soon, but for now, I can use some time to blog and maybe even scrapbook!! I'm so excited!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

My baby girl started to kindergarten yesterday! She and I both did very well, very few tears! As bad as I hate to say this, I think we were both ready for this day! She is very mature and is ready to get out from under mommy's wing! I know this will be a great experience for her.

One of our friends is her teacher so I think everything will work out just fine!

BEFORE SCHOOL

Emma was so thrilled to get to wear her new outfit on the 1st day of school! (she had been begging to wear it since the day I bought it, but I was afraid she would ruin it)

Emma picked out her "CAMP ROCK" backpack and snack box! She loves the Jonas Brothers!

I didn't argue, this shows her personality and I knew it would make her happy!

AT SCHOOL

After walking her into the school, she went right to her chair and sat down to color! I think she was a little nervous and didn't want to look at me for fear of crying, but we both held it together. I teared up a little as we were leaving the school!

AFTER SCHOOL

Emma was completely exhausted after school! It was all that Jason and I could do to keep her awake. The good thing was that I had everything done that I needed to do so I was able so spend all evening doing anything that she wanted. We played in the driveway, jumped on the trampoline, and then we all went for a bike ride/walk around the neighborhood! It was a nice evening of quality family time!

ICE SKATING

Emma has been wanting to go ice skating for some time now! My mom and I took her on Saturday as fun day outing before the start of school!

SHE LOVED IT!

She skated briefly with the walker, but then was ready to go at it on her own! I was so proud of her! She did so good! Of course I had to skate with her. It wore me out! My ankles hurt for days afterwards, but it was well worth it! We had such a great time!

We will definitely do this again sometime!

BRADY AND EMMA

Emma is beginning to really enjoy having her brother around! She plays with him and entertains him so much! Brady absolutely loves her! He just has to see her and he gives the biggest smile!

SWEET BOY

Oh how we love our little boy! He is such a joy!

Brady now weighs 17 pounds and he is 26 in. long! He has 2 teeth!

He is a happy little boy and his eyes light up at the sight of his big sister!

FIRST FOOD

Brady started eating baby food last week! We started off with green beans....BAD CHOICE! He doesn't like the green vegetables, but he LOVES the orange ones! We can't feed him fast enough!

FUTURE CHEERLEADER

Emma attended the high school cheerleading clinic this summer! She was our little superstar!

She only wants to dance and cheer now! If music is on, she is dancing!

This fall she will be cheering with the Mini-me cheerleaders at the high school football games!

We are so excited!!

For those of you who know me, you know that this would not have been my choice of activity for my daughter. But when it comes to Emma, I don't make her choices! She can do whatever activity that she wants as long as it makes her happy!! If she is happy, then mommy is happy!

SUMMER BEACH TRIPS

Our family loves the beach! We were able to take 2 trips to the beach this summer and we all had a blast! Emma thinks she is a mermaid and sometimes I believe it! She would live in the water at home or the beach if we would let her!

Brady enjoyed his time at the beach too! He was so content with whatever we did!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man! I always knew he was a great husband, but he is such a wonderful father to our children! I am thankful that he works so hard to allow me to stay at home with our kids!

We had a wonderful Father's Day! We spent the morning at church, then had a leisurely afternoon lunch and visit with Jason's dad and his family, and finally we enjoyed spending time with my dad and family at our house for dinner!

We are blessed to have both of our dad's in our lives! They are great father's and terrific granddads!

GOD'S BEAUTY

These are actual pictures that we have taken in the late afternoons of the past few weeks!

I love the sky! I love to look at clouds and watch the sunset!

God's creation is such a magnificent thing! This is just a constant reminder to me of the awesome God that we serve!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA!

Our Baby Girl, excuse me, Our Big Girl celebrated her 5th birthday in May!! I can't believe that she is 5 and will be starting Kindergarten in the fall! She will always be mommy's baby girl no matter how old she is!!

Emma wanted a swimming party this year so we waited until June and had a pool party at the rec. center! This was the best birthday party that we have had! She had such a great time and I think all of her friends enjoyed themselves too!

WOW! HE IS CHANGING SO FAST!

Brady is growing and changing so fast! He is 11 weeks old this week and he is such a big boy!!

He weighed 12 lbs, 10 oz and was 24 in. long at his 2 month check-up. We had a few weeks that were really tough, but he is adjusted now and doing wonderful! We are still waiting for him to sleep through the night consistently! Ha Ha Ha!

We are so blessed to have our 2 healthy children! I thank God daily for letting us have these little ones!

POSTING MAY BE SLOW

I will try my best to keep the blog updated, if only with pictures. My time on the computer is very limited right now, but one day soon, we will get adjusted to life with 2 and I will be more diligent in keeping things updated.

BRADY IS HERE!!!

Brady is here! He is very healthy and such a good baby! Emma loves being a big sister and is such a big help to us. She doesn't quite like it though that she has to now share the attention, but I know she will soon adjust to that!

We are so blessed!

BRADY UPDATE!!

Unless we go into labor before this, Brady will be born on Monday, March 31st at 7:15 a.m.

Hooray!!!!

JANUARY SNOW

Yea!!! It finally snowed a little here in our area! This is the 1st real snow that Emma has seen (so sad since she is almost 5)!! She was recuperating from a horrible stomach virus, but we had to let her go out and at least run around for a little bit, considering this would probably be the only snow we see this year! She enjoyed it, but was still too weak to actually play outside in such cold weather!

WE ARE ALIVE!!!

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that we are alive and all is finally well at the Shell household!! We did some traveling through the Christmas holidays, and I'm just being lazy about posting those pictures so now I probably won't. Also, January came and brought all sorts of sickness to us, so we don't have many pictures to post from January! Hopefully we are all on the mend and now we are anxiouxly awaiting the arrival of Brady!!! I hope to be more on my toes about posting in the upcoming weeks, but I am growing larger and much more weary, so bear with me!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

WE WISH YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND THE HAPPIEST OF NEW YEARS IN 2008!!!

WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

OUR CHRISTMAS ANGEL!!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS!!

I have had such a great time decorating our new house for Christmas this year! Emma has been lot's of help in decorating! She loves our tree's and the stockings for some reason are probably her favorite decoration! We have so far managed to keep the animals from tearing everything down!!!

I put this smaller tree in the foyer so that you could at least see from the road that we had decorated, plus it is a great tree to display all of Emma's ornaments that she made at school last year, plus the one's that we are collecting this year! These are the best ornaments of all!

We call this our "fun tree"!

We ventured over to Stone Mountain again this year with the Glassco's for "A Stone Mountain Christmas". This is so much fun, especially for the girls, but it is getting to be so crowded that you spend most of your time waiting in line. We did have a great time though. We took time this year to ride the ducks....Mrs. Laura, this was sooo much fun!!!! We also rode the train around the mountain which stopped at some point and did a wonderful presentation of the Christmas story. Many times at secular holiday events, they don't bother to share the true meaning of Christmas. The girls visited with the snow angel, made cookies in Mrs. Claus's Kitchen, wrote letters to Santa, and made bags of food to leave out for Santa's reindeer. We enjoyed seeing the millions of beautiful lights that they had displayed. There were lot's of other things to do, but the girls were exhausted before we could finish.