About our girls...

It's been a long time since I posted, but in the meantime I've been collecting funny things Annabeth has said, and even have a few stories about Amelia, who turned 1 month old yesterday.

We have been teaching Annabeth about God. For her birthday, she got a book called "Sammy and the Shepherd" from our friends the Junglings. It has a story for each verse of the 23rd psalm. We read it over a couple of weeks at bedtime, and Annabeth learned about Jesus being our Shepherd. One time Grandma Maria said something about Jesus being the lamb of God. Annabeth said, "Silly Grandma, Jesus isn't a lamb, He's our shepherd!" A couple nights later, at dinner, she prayed "Dear Jesus, thank you for being my shepherd, and not a lamb."

Grandma was talking to Annabeth about the books of the Bible, and reading the titles to her. When she got to "Amos", Annabeth heard "Elmo" and asked Maria, "Elmo's in the Bible?" Grandma told her no, it was "Amos", then Annabeth turned it into a joke, and started asking, "Big Bird's in the Bible? Cookie Monster is in the Bible?"

Sometimes Annabeth can be so sweet - one Sunday morning before Amelia was born, I had the stomach flu and wasn't going to church, but she and Maria were going to go with some friends. It was all I could do to get her ready, and I was feeling awful. Annabeth told me, "Mama, you are a special girl to God." That was so sweet, and something that really ministered to me that morning.

Annabeth loves to sing and dance, and especially to sing songs she has made up - she sings about everything! I joke that our life is a musical. We have also gotten into a habit lately of singing part of our prayer at dinner - we'll start with either the Doxology or "This is the Day that the Lord has made" and then finish with a "talking" prayer. Annabeth really seems to enjoy this.

While I was at the end of my pregnancy, I snored and had trouble breathing at night, so I started wearing "Breathe Right" strips to bed. One morning when I got Annabeth up, I still had it on, and she asked, "Mama, why do you have tape on your nose?" "Why" is a question we have heard a lot over the last few months. Sometimes it is hard to get through a bedtime story, because she wants to ask me a question about the story every couple of sentences. :)

A couple months ago, one of my favorite phrases that Annabeth would use was, "In a couple whiles".. as in, "Mommy, can we do that in a couple whiles?"

When my parents were here right after Amelia was born, Annabeth had a juice box one night. She had finished it, and was playing with the straw, when she announced "I'm going outside to smoke." and then went out on the back porch with her straw in her mouth. I was shocked, and couldn't figure out where she got that from - noone in our family or any of our friends smokes. Finally, I figured it out - she had seen the employees at Smith's, our grocery store, going outside on their smoke break.

Here's a proud moment for Pat - we had some baby powder that I was taking upstairs, and she asked me what it was for. I said it was to make things less sticky. She said, "Like when we put M's on our faces?" This is what we do to cheer for Michigan during football season, which we hadn't done since last winter.

For a while, Grandma Maria has joked with Annabeth - she says about her daddy, "He's MY Pat - I had him first." Annabeth's response, which she figured out on her own.. "No, he's MY Pat - I had him last!"

Annabeth likes to pretend to be different animals. We always know what animal she is pretending to be because she'll come up to us and say, "Mama duck?" or "Mama cat?", to which our response was, "Yes, baby cat?," but has recently changed to "Yes, big sister cat?"

Annabeth has been adjusting to being a big sister, and though we had some rough spots early on, she has been trying hard to help, too. One of the first times we rode in the car together after Amelia was born, Annabeth was so sweet. She saw that the sun was on her baby sister, and she moved the shade on top of the car seat and said, "I'm keeping the sun off my baby!"

Annabeth has been working hard to learn some pretty big words, and if she doesn't understand, she's good about asking - "Mommy, what's eventually?", etc. The other day she asked Pat if she could have some "chopstick" instead of "chapstick" - she almost had it down?

Annabeth is also trying hard to make sense of the world, and comes up with some pretty thoughtful questions. Last Sunday, on the way home from church, she was looking at a tube of toothpaste with Tinkerbell on it that a friend had given her, and she asked, "Do angels have feet?" I said, "Yes, I think they do." She then said, "Because if angels don't have feet, then how do they land?"

Another example - We were cleaning out the car the other day, and Maria was holding some plastic water bottles as Annabeth, Amelia and I were getting ready to drive off. I asked if she could "take them to the recycling." As we were pulling out, Annabeth asked, "What car is Grandma Maria going to drive?" Confused, I asked, "What do you mean?" She said, "You asked her to take the recycling." In her mind, taking the recycling meant driving it to the recycling center where we drop off our recycling.

One more story, and this is where Amelia gets in on the action. Last Sunday, we were at a potluck for our church. I was nursing Amelia, and Annabeth was next to me, holding a red plastic cup. She was trying to peek under the blanket at Amelia, and give her the cup. Amelia grabbed onto the cup with her little hand, the only thing sticking out from under the blanket. Annabeth said, "Look, she's holding my cup!" It was really cute to see just her little hand, holding that big red plastic cup.

Baby Amelia has arrived!

Baby Amelia was born on June 30th at 3:05 pm! She was a healthy 7 lb 10 oz and was 18 inches long. (Although a week later they measured her at 20.5 inches at her 1 week checkup so we think they measured her wrong at the hospital.)

Here are a few pictures:


This was about 30 to 40 minutes after birth. Already smiling :-)

Mom and dad and Amelia about an hour after birth by Cesarean.

I love this picture. She is ~ 1 day old here -- Our little burrito baby..

She loves to sleep :-) soo cute:-)
This was such a funny face she had! Check out all that hair!

Burrito baby with hair showing!
This closeup picture came out great. Isn't she a cutie :-)

Cute lil baby feet . Had to take a photo!

Mom and Annabeth the day they came home

The proud papa
Kudos to Heidi's mom Helen who came and stayed with Heidi in the hospital:-) They said they had a great ladies retreat :-) Heidi's mom is so great with Amelia :-)

Catching up...pictures

Well, it's been a while since I posted, so I wanted to post some pictures from the last month and a half (!) or so, and catch up on some moments from our life that I want to remember. This first picture is from a week or so after Annabeth's birthday, when we were finishing cleaning up the decorations. We made a headband for her out of some of the crepe paper - she and Pat had a lot of fun.

The other thing she really enjoyed during the clean up process was popping balloons. Pat helped her, and they used a screwdriver to pop the balloons. It's kind of funny - Annabeth doesn't really like loud noises - the vacuum and blender have always bothered her.. but the noise of the popping balloons didn't. I guess it's ok if she's in control of making the sound. :)


Here is a picture of me after church the first week in May, so with about 2 months to go. We haven't been as good about getting pictures of my pregnant belly this time around, but we have managed to get a few during the course of the pregnancy. As you can see, just like with Annabeth, I carry my baby all out in front.







Last Monday we went out to Doc Long, a short way up toward the Sandia Mountains, with our friends Tom and Carolyn and their daughter Rachael for a Memorial Day picnic. Annabeth has been saying for months that she wanted to "climb a mountain" and that she would "use her rope." Well, she didn't get to use her rope, but she was thrilled to be able to "climb a mountain" by walking up part of the hiking trail with her Daddy and Carolyn. (Mommy wasn't quite up for the hike this time around. :) )







Here's Annabeth and Mommy at the picnic site. I'm wearing my favorite pregnancy clothes - my overalls. :)

Annabeth and Rachel

One of Annabeth's best friends is her friend Rachel. Here are some pictures of Annabeth and Rachel at Rachel's birthday party and another time they got together to play and had a tea party.

Maybe yes. :)

Tonight we were having dessert after dinner. If I don't have another dessert planned, Annabeth gets to pick something from what she calls the "MOPS bowl", a bowl I made at our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group at the beginning of the year. I try not to give her sweets throughout the day, but she gets something after dinner if she eats her dinner well.

Yesterday we had an Easter Egg hunt with our MOPS group and some of the eggs had candy in them, so Annabeth had some new things in her MOPS bowl to choose from. Tonight at dinner, she was allowed to choose a piece of candy. After she ate her candy, she asked Pat if she could look in the bowl. He told her he didn't think so, because she would want something else from the bowl. She said "no, I won't," but when he let her take another look, she said, "maybe yes... Daddy, can I have something else?"

Annabeth has enjoyed playing with her blocks a lot lately. She has gotten more and more elaborate with her creations. Here is one of them from a few weeks ago. The other day she made another one that was maybe 4 times as big as this one.

Annabeth - pictures at home

A couple weeks ago we had a mini "photo shoot" at home, with Pat manning the camera, trying to get a good candid picture for Annabeth's birthday invitation.


Here is the picture that we used for Annabeth's birthday invitation.

Here are some of the other pictures that we got that I thought were cute.

Please forgive this one in that I just woke up and hadn't brushed my hair or gotten dressed for the day, but I couldn't resist posting it because it shows a good view of my growing belly and I thought it was such a sweet picture of Annabeth giving her baby sister a kiss. :)

Family Valentines Day Dinner

We had a nice Valentines Day weekend. Friday night I made a special dinner for our family. It was fun planning and making something special. We had Walnut Encrusted Chicken, Wild Rice Pilaf, Honey Glazed Carrots, dinner rolls, and Chocolate Covered Strawberries for dessert.

On Saturday, Grandma Maria and Annabeth had a tea party and Annabeth took a nap while Pat and I went into Albuquerque for a Valentines Day lunch at a little Italian restaurant called Nana's. It was nice to have some date time together.

Here are some pictures from our family dinner.

Here are the chocolate dipped "tuxedo strawberries" I made for dessert.

Grandma Maria and Annabeth were in charge of decorating the table for our dinner, and they did a great job.

Grandma Maria made us all valentines with Scripture passages on them, all verses talking about the heart. We enjoyed reading them before and after dinner.

Here is a picture of Annabeth. She was wearing a heart sweater for Valentine's Day.

Pictures from our trip to Sedona

Here are some pictures of the timeshare we stayed in this time around. Overall, it was really nice. This is the kitchen. There was a little breakfast bar where Pat set up his office, and a really nice see through kitchen so we could see out when we were cooking.
Here is one of the beds. There were two bedrooms with king sized beds. The outside porch was really nice, too. We were able to enjoy it in the afternoon, even though it was January. Highs were high 50's to low 60's when we were there.

Here's Grandma Maria and a bit more of a glimpse of the porch outside behind her.
Both bedrooms had jacuzzi tubs and walk in showers, which was really nice. I was able to relax with a nice bath one night, and a couple nights we used the tub as an "indoor swimming pool" for Annabeth, especially since the resort had no indoor pools. She got scared when we turned on the jacuzzi, though, and wanted to get out really quick after that. She was ok as long as we didn't turn the jets on.

The resort did have a number of heated outdoor swimming pools, and we went several times during the week. Inside the pools was nice, it was when we had to get out and go from pool to pool (which Annabeth wanted to do more often than we did) that it got a little chilly.

Here is my first official "belly" pic. Doesn't Annabeth look like a proud big sister in this picture? :)

Here is a view of the red rocks in Sedona. It's so beautiful there! A wonderful place to think about the majestic creation of our Awesome God!

Besides swimming, Annabeth really enjoyed the playgrounds while we were in Sedona. We went to 3 different playgrounds during our vacation, 2 in Sedona, and 1 in Phoenix.

Here is a picture of "The Coffepot," one of the named rock formations around Sedona. Right along the main street through Sedona, with a good view of the Coffepot, is The Coffepot Restaurant. We went there for breakfast one morning while we were there.

Annabeth loves to swing. Here she is in action at one of the playgrounds.

Here are a couple of pictures of the view we had from the balcony of our timeshare. What an inspiration! Several days we were there I enjoyed having some devotional time in view of the Red Rocks. Again, what an inspiring place to ponder on God's creation. When it was too chilly to sit outside, there was a window seat in our bedroom where the view was just as good. There are some good things about having some down time when you have a little one that still needs to nap in the afternoon.

Maria went with us on this trip, and Annabeth and I drove her down to Phoenix on Monday and picked her up on Friday so she could spend a few days with her sister Florence. It was about a 2 1/2 hr drive from Sedona to where her sister lives southwest of Phoenix. It was neat because her niece, Missy, who lives in Washington, happened to be in Phoenix with her mom when we visited, so Maria got to spend time with her, too. Most of Florence's other kids are in the Phoenix area, and Maria also has a brother, Rudy, who is in the Phoenix area along with most of his children, so Maria did a lot of visiting in her short time there. Please be in prayer for Maria's brother, who has Stage 4 cancer. The cancer is in his bones, so they are trying to decide on treatment options for him, and they're not sure how much longer he has, especially that he will be feeling well. We are thinking through trying to get Maria down to Phoenix in the near future again so she can spend more time with him.

First glimpse of Baby Moore - Ultrasound Pics

Here are some pictures from the Ultrasound we had last Wednesday. We took Annabeth with us, and I think she enjoyed seeing "my baby." The thing she enjoyed the most was hearing the heartbeat, and she asked to hear it over and over again. ("Can we hear the whoo..whoo..whoo?")

This was such a neat profile picture that they got at the end of the ultrasound - you can see the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears really well in this picture.




Here is a profile picture.

This was a neat one, with the arm and the hand in a fist with one finger pointing up. You can see the pointer finger and the thumb really well, with the other 3 fingers curled in.

It looks like Annabeth will be a big sister to a little sister, and here's the picture proof! We actually had a couple views after this that were even more convincing, but the ultrasound tech didn't get pictures of them.