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.

BREAKFAST WITH SANTA

We had breakfast with Santa a few weeks ago at Emma's school! Most of the children were thrilled to get to see Santa and tell him their Christmas wishes, but not our little Emma. She wanted nothing to do with him that day, nor any other time that we have seen him this season. We have even discussed having Santa leave her presents on the front porch because she doesn't like the idea of this "strange man' coming inside her house while she sleeps!!!
Emma's dear friend: Maddie, McKinley, and Macey Glassco

Now these girls are all about Santa!!
Emma was very excited that Macey came to breakfast! Macey is in kindergarten this year, but her mommy checked her in late so that she could take part in this special day!

OUR BABIES

Emma is such an animal lover! We now have 2 cats and Lucy. The gray cat showed up at the house as we were moving in, and we just couldn't turn it away! He and Lucy have become pretty good friends. Poor Sassy still prefers to be left alone, so we just let her do her own thing. As far as the other 2, they are right under us all of the time!

THANKSGIVING IN TENNESSEE

After celebrating Thanksgiving with Jason's family, we ventured to Tennessee for the Thanksgiving holidays! We had such a great weekend with my family! Emma was so excited to get to play with her cousin, Seth! We shopped, ate, played, and then ate some more! Even though it was soooo cold, we allowed the kids to play outside briefly each day! Emma had a blast climbing trees, rolling in the leaves, and of course riding horses. I have a feeling she is going to love having a brother around!
Oh yeah, we watched a couple of good football games too! WAAAARRRRRR EAGLE!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

WE HOPE YOU ALL HAD A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING! WE HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR: OUR FAMILIES, OUR BEAUTIFUL HEALTHY CHILDREN, OUR FRIENDS, GOOD HEALTH, GOOD JOBS, WARM HOMES AND THE LIST GOES ON! GOD HAS BLESSED ALL OF US BEYOND ANYTHING THAT WE DESERVE! I THANK GOD DAILY FOR ALL OF THE BLESSINGS IN MY LIFE!

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO READ THIS, YOU ARE A FRIEND AND A BLESSING IN MY LIFE!

THANKSGIVING FEAST

Emma's preschool class hosted a Thanksgiving Feast for all of the family to attend. Emma was so excited that someone other than mom would be able to attend with her. She was very glad to see her Daddy, Mimi, and Nanna! Mrs. Brooks and Mrs. Walls do such a wonderful job with these children. It was such a joy to watch them sing songs of Thanksgiving and to see how much they had learned about the very 1st Thanksgiving Feast! They were all so cute dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians!
They served turkey, muffins, nuts, popcorn, grapes, apples, raisins and juice in order to show the children what the 1st Thanksgiving Feast was like. Needless to say, we had to make a trip to Los Arcos following the feast!

IT'S A BOY!!!

As most of you know, we had our ultrasound yesterday, and we are indeed having a little boy! If we don't change our minds between now and delivery, his name will be Brady Alexander!!

WELCOME HANNAH GRACE!!!

CONGRATULATIONS ALAN AND SHERREE!!!

HANNAH GRACE IS JUST BEAUTIFUL!

Hannah Grace is the beautiful daughter of Alan and Sherree Trammell! She was born on October 9th, in Birmingham!

Emma, Mima, and Hannah Graace

Emma was tickled to death to get to see the new baby!
Emma, Mima, Hannah Grace and Big Brother Hudson
3 of Mima's Great-Grand Children

EMMA AND HUDSON

Jason's cousin's family from Hawaii have been here for most of the year. We haven't had the opportunity to visit with them much, but when we do get together, Emma and Hudson have such a great time together! We can't wait until they are back closer so we can visit more often.

Emma and Hudson riding on one of Pop's horses!
Emma and Hudson playing construction zone!!!

SLEEPOVER

Emma had the Glassco girls over a few weeks ago for a spend the night party! The girls had such a great time! Little girls are sooooo silly!!!! Mckinley ended up not spending the night, and it took Emma and Macy forever to go to sleep, but isn't that what sleepover's are all about???

EMMA AND MACEY
MCKINLEY AND LUCY

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Emma really enjoyed Halloween this year. She had several different costumes, but chose to be a vampire! We trick or treated at a few places and then came back home to see what was happening in our neighborhood. We had been told by our neighbor that this was the place to be on Halloween. If you saw from the pictures, he went all out in decorating, and by dark, he even had more things than that. The neighborhood was full of people, kids and adults. They were coming in by the truckloads!! It was absolutely wild!! Emma thought it was the coolest thing ever!!
They said that last year they handed out candy to over 400 kids, and I'm sure they probably did that or better this year! I will now know what to expect for the upcoming years!!

CONGRATULATIONS APRIL!!!

One of my very best friends from High School, April Lusk, is getting married in November. I attended a shower for her a couple of weekends ago. It was so wonderful to see some of the girls that I haven't seen in a long while. We had the best time laughing and talking about things both from the past and present.

I am so excited for April! She has been so patient in trying to find the right man for her life. I believe that her patience has paid off and God has blessed her with the perfect man!!! She is soooo happy, and she just glows from the inside out!

What a wonderful day!!

Jessica Wylie, April Lusk, Melissa Shell, Jennifer Thomas

We were the best of friends through high school and college. We have all gone our separate ways since then, but it is always nice when we get a chance to be together!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADDISON!!

Addison is one of Emma's friends from preschool! She had a costume party for her birthday/Halloween! She is such a cute little girl and her parents are extremely sweet!
The party was so much fun! All of the kids had a great time!

Emma, Grace Ann, and Addison

SILLY GIRLS!!!
Emma got a set of vampire teeth from the goody back that she received at the party! She was so excited about this. She still wears them on occasion!

EMMA'S 1ST FIELD TRIP

We went on a field trip with Emma's preschool a few weeks ago. They visited the city fire department, police department, mayor's office and a local branch of Regions Bank. The kids loved the fire and police departments, but the other two were not too interesting to them. I am so thankful that I get the opportunity to be with Emma during these special events.
Grace Ann and McKinley are 2 of Emma's closest friends. It is so neat that Grace Ann and Emma go to school together, because we are also neighbors. The 2 of them are almost inseparable!!! They are too cute!

HUNTER'S BAND DEBUT

My nephew, Hunter(2nd from left), is in the Jr. High band this year at his school. His first performance was to march in the Homecoming Parade. We were all so excited to see him marching! Their band was/is REALLY GOOD! It was quite surprising considering that they all just started playing.

PUMPKIN PATCH VISIT

We took a trip over to the Pumpkin Patch a couple of weekends ago. The weather was beautiful and we had a great day! There were tons of things to do: inflatable jumpers, face painting, bungee jumper, horseback rides, petting zoo, hay rides, and of course, the pumpkin patch! Emma had her first funnel cake and enjoyed it thoroughly!! We had so much fun, and Emma was exhausted at the end of the day!