Prayer Request

Please pray for my good friend Jennifer Teague Preston. After being married for less than a year, she lost her husband, Kelly Preston, to complications from pneumonia about 2 weeks ago. Pray for her as she goes through the grieving process. Pray also that she will be able to find a job that will meet her financial needs as well as something she will enjoy doing.

For those of you who think her name sounds familiar, she attended LCU and was in LOA with me, as well as being a friend from high school summer camp. If you would like to contact her directly, let me know, and I will try to find the most secure way to get her contact information to you.

Holiday Recap

We had a very joyful holiday this year. It is so much fun having kids at Christmas time. Ella and Emma may not understand it all yet, but it was still fun shopping for them and watching them try to eat the tissue paper and gift bags with little care for what the gift was inside. Since then, they have enjoyed playing with their new toys. Here is a rundown on what we did for the holidays. (Warning: this may be a bit long.)

Dec. 20: We enjoyed Christmas with the Click Family at Newton and Laura's house. We ate, played pool, opened presents, watched a movie, and visited. We had a very nice time together.

Ella and Emma with some of their presents from Grammie and Grandy

Dec. 24: We took the girls and a couple of trays of goodies up to the NICU. We were able to see a couple of the nurses that we recognized from the first two weeks of our girls' lives.

In our new stroller outside the hospital after delivering the goodies

Christmas Eve: We read "The Night Before Christmas" in our new Christmas jammies before going to bed to wait for Santa.

Dec. 25: Santa filled our stockings and under our tree with lots of fun things.

"the stockings were hung by the chimney with care"

Lots of gifts under the tree

Enjoying stocking stuffers

Playing with our new Groove and Learn Table

Dec 30: We had just a little bit of snow that morning. It all melted that afternoon, but we wanted to get a picture of the girls in the first snow wearing their new hats and mittens.

Dec. 31- Jan. 3: We visited Bryan's grandparents, Nana and Papa, in Graham. The girls traveled down there very well, and seemed to have a good time. While we were there, Emma said her first word. On Jan. 2, she very clearly said, "Dada" several times. We even got her to say it on video. (Needless to say, I am now working on Ella saying Mama as her first word, but she hasn't done it yet.)

It's amazing how much stuff you pack for such small people

We LOVE our Nana and Papa!!

In all, we had a very blessed holiday. We are looking forward to seeing what 2009 will bring.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays all our friends and family! We are continuing to do well. Ella and Emma are growing more and more each day. It still amazes me how much they have changed and learned to do in such a short period of time. They are both over 16 pounds now and are healthy and happy babies.

We went to see Santa last Saturday. We went early in the morning, so luckily the line wasn't too long (we waited less than 10 minutes). Amazingly enough, the girls did not cry. Ella smiled and had a great time. Emma was fascinated with the furr cuff on Santa's suit. She wanted to eat it. It took several shots to get a good one with both looking, but I think we got a pretty good picture.


The girls are sitting up pretty well now. They are still a little wobbly, but get steadier every day. No crawing yet, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I'm not sure I'm ready for them to be mobile yet.

Ella
Emma

We also recently started them on "solid" food. They were not too happy about it at first, but are doing much better now. They really seem to like carrots. These pictures are from that first attempt with cereal.

Ella

Emma

We had a nice Thanksgiving celebration. My parents joined us for the traditional turkey dinner. This was the first turkey Bryan or I had ever fixed. I think it turned out very tasty, if I do say so myself. Connie, Richard, and Aleisha stopped by for a visit a little later.

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

It's Amazing What Six Months Can Do

Today, Ella and Emma are 6 months old. We can hardly believe it has been 6 months since our baby girls were born. They have learned to do so much in such a short amount of time.

Ella and Emma shortly after birth

(This picture was taken by the NICU staff and given to us. Other than the 3 second look I got in the delivery room, this was my first chance to really look at my girls.)

Now they enjoy looking at each other and holding hands.

They have recently discovered their feet. It's great! Who needs toys when I can play with my feet?

Ella

Emma

We love to smile and giggle.

Emma's paci wasn't available, but that's ok, Ella's hand will do.


Less than 5 minutes later, Ella tried out Emma's hand.

They LOVE to play peek-a-boo with their blankets. We put the blankets over their heads, and they will pull it down enough to tilt their heads back and see you. Sometimes, they even put the blanket back over their own heads to play some more.

Peek-a-Boo Momma! We see you.

Where's Ella?

There's Emma!

God has blessed us with two beautiful, healthy, and happy babies. Who could ask for anything more? We truly are doubly blessed.

Happy Halloween, Y'all!!

We had a very happy 1st Halloween. Ella and Emma dressed up as cowgirls. Cousin Ethel Ina Carter sent us the precious outfits we used as their costumes along with the toy horses, which are one of our girls favorite toys (These horses go with us everywhere, and they sleep with them every night and during naps.) To celebrate Halloween, we went to the fall carnival at our church, followed by trick or treating at Grammie & Grandy's and Newton and Laura's houses. The girls had such a great time. They were so interested in everything that was happening, they only took about a 15 minute nap in the car between locations instead of their normal 3 hour nap. I was impressed at how well they did without the nap. Here are a few pictures:

Ella

Emma

Ella, Aleisha, and Emma at the carnival

Daddy, Ella, Mindy, Cooper, Emma, Mommy

(Cooper was a sheriff, which was too cute with our little cowgirls.)

We would like to give a special thanks to Ethel Ina for the girls costumes. They really were precious.

Discovering New Things, Including Each Other

It seems nearly impossible to believe that our girls turned 5 months old yesterday. They are growing and changing so much and discovering new things every day.

Stroller-This was the first time for them to ride in the stroller without their car seats. They did really well. We had a nice little walk around the neighborhood. They must have been fairly comfortable, because Emma fell asleep before we even got home, and Ella was very content looking around at the world.

Our Baby Limo
Ella
Emma

High Chairs- I finally took the high chairs out of their boxes last week. Even though we don't plan on feeding them cereal until they are 6 months old, I thought they might enjoy sitting in the high chairs and playing with some toys.

Emma

Ella

Each Other- They are just beginning to really realize there is another baby around. I think they were aware of that fact before to some extent, but now they will look at each other, and "talk" to each other a little bit. They appear to actually be interested in each other. It will be such fun to see their relationship grow.

"Do you want to play with me?"

Holding Hands

Breathing Treatments- Unfortunately, they are also learning about being sick for the first time. Emma has had a stuffy nose since Friday afternoon, and Ella got it on Sunday. We took them to the doctor this morning, and they have a bit of an upper respiratory infection, nothing serious. Dr. Walsh decided to go ahead and put them on breathing treatments for a few days to keep it from turning into something worse. The girls are a little fussy because it is hard to breathe and they cough from time to time, but on the whole, I think they are doing very well for their first illness.
Getting Bigger- While at the doctor, we learned just how much our girls are growing. Ella now weighs 14 lbs. 7 oz. and Emma is 14 lbs. 3 oz. That is the biggest difference in their weights since they were born (and they're still only 4 oz different.)

First Visit to the Fair

On Sept. 16, we ventured out to the fair. We had not planned on going until our photographer, Tracy Fuqua, decided to put one of the girls' 3 month pictures on display. (It was not judged because she selects the judges.) We decided we wanted to go see it. Ella and Emma enjoyed looking at the lights and the people, even if it was a little noisy walking through the rides and games. We went with our good friends Andrew and Mindy Fewell and their son, Cooper.

Emma
Ella