Aaris is 5!!!!!!

(It's been completely and utterly crazy trying to move which is why I haven't blogged in over a month. We are now in between houses, so once we get into our new house, things will once again be crazy and I might get behind again. Please just hang in there with my dear friends and family)

I still can't believe that I'm a mother of a 5 year old, but it's true. One of these days I'm going to realize that I'm a true adult, much less a parent, and not feel like I'm an 18 year old trying to play house.

We normally like having the kid's birthdays in our own backyard or at a park - something simple. Well, this year our house was completely boxed up, so that was not possible. Therefore we moved the party to a very fun place called "Kiddie Acres". It's a fun, little, kid's only amusement park that's been around north Austin since Aaron was a kid. In fact, Aaron's 4th birthday party was at Kiddie Acres.

Aaris told me that she wanted a Jesus themed birthday party, but I just didn't know how to go about doing that. So, she finally decided that Angels would be good (even though she has asked if her next birthday party can be a Jesus birthday). We kept it all pretty simple. Since I figured that most boys wouldn't like to dress up in angel wings, we mainly invited girls, and it turned out that only girls were able to make it. We had it at 2:00pm on Sunday, May 24. It was overcast (but pouring rain in south Austin) which made for very comfortable weather. We brought drinks and one of the most delicious cakes ever! A very sweet lady from my mom and dad's church makes cakes and made Aaris a beautiful and absolutely delicious angel shaped birthday cake. The party favors were angel wings and halos for the girls to wear which we actually handed out first thing so that they could enjoy them the whole time at the party. It ended up being absolutely adorable. It was precious to see all the girls running around, riding rides, waiting in lines, and eating cake in wings. (It also made it easy to keep up with everyone in Aaris's birthday party.) Aaris is blessed to have sweet friends to celebrate with her. All of the kids got to ride each ride 1 time: train, real pony ride, boats, ferris wheel, carousel, cars,and airplanes.

Titus had a great time riding rides with the help of Papaw. Skylyn was happy for Poppy who held her and let her nap on him. Mimi got the joy of presenting the angel wings to the girls. Mamaw and Mema Mary both enjoyed watching the fun. Uncle Adrian became the designated photographer. Aaron and I were honored to be the proud parents of such a fun, sweet, energetic, healthy, bright, friendly, and very faithful little (but getting big very quickly) angel girl!

6 months already!

Yesterday Skylyn turned 6 months old...WHAT, ALREADY?!?!

She is a sweety. She is also a handful.

-She is a very, very happy baby when being held, by anyone and everyone.

-She loves to smile at everyone and is always making people smile back at her. I think she is going to be my little social butterfly.

-Other than being held she likes to sit in her boppy or in her exersaucer.

-She will lay on her tummy on the floor as long as someone is laying with her. She is happy for about 10 minutes at a time in all the above positions, but then wants to be held again.

-She really isn't rolling or crawling, but I definitely don't need that happening while trying to move.

-She does desperately want to sit up. When laying on her back she will pull herself up to a sit up position just longing to sit up.

-She is finally sleeping through the night again.

-She babbles and squeals a lot.

-She giggles a lot and also loves to be tickled.

-When I lean in to kiss her she sometimes opens up her mouth to give me an open mouth kiss.

-When I give her a bottle she will hold onto it.

-She loves eating baby cereal mixed with my milk. She is also starting to eat prunes, sweet potatoes, and apples.

-She grabs anything and everything.

-No teeth yet, but I think they are coming soon.

-She is still holding onto those blue eyes

She really is a joy. I just wish I had the ability right now to sit and enjoy her, but we are packing, so that is frustrating. She loves her brother, but especially her sister! And, they truly love her and love on her all the time!

She went to the doctor today for her check-up. She is 12 lbs 9 oz and 23 inches long. These measurements and her head circumference all hit in the 5% for her age. As the doctor said, she is proportionately petite. She did get two shots and they have really upset her all day long. I pray that she is much better tomorrow.

I hope the next 6 months don't go by as fast as the first have. LOVE YOU SKYLYN!

God's Other Plan

Last August we were all set to pack our things and move to a new house, but things suddenly changed when the buyer of our house terminated his offer at the end of his option period. We were frustrated and disappointed, but kept our house on the market believing that God still had another plan. We then welcomed our new little Skylyn and decided to take our house off the market to enjoy her and the holidays. Well, believing in our hope in God and His plan for us, we put our house back on the market in March. We had a lot of activity, but no offers until about 2 weeks ago. That weekend we had completely disassembled the two kid's rooms and the kitchen to neutralize them. We got a call right in the middle of priming and painting to have a showing. I asked them to come another day, but the man would be flying out the next morning and wouldn't have another chance. It's funny because I had always laughed that God would show me that He would sell my house, not me. Well, that was definitely the case because every other showing my house was perfectly clean, but this time my house was a wreck. Only God could sale a house looking the way ours did at that time. The man came back about an hour later to see it one more time. That night we suddenly saw an amazing house in our home search email update. We asked our realtor to show us the house the next day and she agreed. As we were getting out of the car our realtor, Melanie, said she had received a call saying we should be expecting an offer from the man that viewed our house. We then walked into the most perfect house for us. I was on the verge of crying feeling God's power at work. He had designed a plan for us that was better than we could have done ourselves. His timing was perfect. Every other house we had liked always had one of us compromising something we really wanted in a house or location. Not this one. You know, we had prayed and prayed that God lead us to the perfect house for us, and He did!! It's exactly what we both wanted. Unlike any other house, Aaron loved it and so did I! We had been praying hard about our house situation for quite some time, but that week we were in overdrive. I must say thank you to those few that we called upon to pray with us! But, I must admit that even with all the anxiety of hoping everything would work out this time, we both felt a peace and confidence in our hearts that we had witnessed God's plan and power first hand and that, really, we had nothing to worry about. By the end of the week we had accepted an offer from our buyer and had our offer accepted on the house we wanted. As of midnight tonight we are in escrow on both houses. We close on our house on May 28 and close on our new home on May 29. We have a lot of packing to do, but it will be a joy knowing that I'm moving to a house God hand-picked for us.

Easter 2009 - Part III - Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday - what a special day! I love that we celebrate Jesus' resurrection and his defeat over Satan!

Our Sunday started off rainy outside, but happy and so much fun inside. My tradition since my first egg hunts as a kid was that the Easter bunny had come really early Sunday morning and hid the Easter eggs for us. So, we always hunted for our eggs before we left for church. I think we were dressed in our Sunday clothes most of the times, but I do think there were a couple of times that we were in pajamas or hair still in curlers, and such. For the last 4 years our tradition has been to get the kid(s) dressed in their brand new (sometimes just new to them) Sunday school clothes and then head outside for the egg hunt. It was rainy outside this year, so the Easter bunny hid the eggs inside. The kids started off by finding the baskets full of a couple of extra goodies as well. Aaris had a brand new children's bible (because theirs was literally falling apart at the seems from so much use), pink cotton candy, and a 101 Dalmatian puppy toy. Titus's basket had a brand new kid's devotional book (again theirs was falling completely apart from using it every night), blue cotton candy and a Wall-E toy. They were so very sweet during their hunt. They shared eggs with each other and helped each other find eggs. This year was Titus's first year to really truly understand the hunt. Aaris had a good time trying to find her favorite egg - hot pink with a cross drawn on it. Afterwards they got to open a couple of the plastic eggs and have some candy before heading to church. (They hunted both boiled/dyed eggs and plastic eggs....my big tradition growing up was that we only hunted boiled/dyed eggs). We had a fantastic time worshiping at church. Afterwards we headed to Poppy and Mamaw's house for a big family Easter Lunch. Let me just say that we ate very, very well. After lunch we headed outside to hunt a few more eggs. The kid's cousin, Cosette, had not yet had her egg hunt. It was very nice of her to share her hunt with Aaris and Titus. By this time the sun had been out for a couple of hours, so therefore it was dry and beautiful. Afterwards Aaris snuggled with and talked with Mema Mary. It was sweet to see Aaris loving on her great-grandmother that way. I think they are kindred spirits because they do both enjoy socializing and talking. After naps we said our good-byes to Aaron's family and headed to my parent's house. My mom and dad really wanted to see the kids all dressed up. We took some pictures and had a fun dinner all together. It really was a day full of family and love.

Easter 2009 - Part II - Eppersons

Saturday night of Easter weekend we continued our long running tradition of going over to my parent's house to dye Easter eggs. My mom always has a couple of dozen eggs ready for us all to enjoy coloring. Aaris has been able to do everything independently for a couple of years now. For the first time Titus was pretty much independent this year as well. That was fun. He loves to do things "all by myself" as he puts it. My mom's is the best helper though and jumps in right when needed. She also had a fun new design trick this year. She helped to wrap rubber bands around some of the eggs before we put them in the dye color. The egg changes color except for where the rubber band was. I liked putting polka dots on a couple of mine. Aaris's favorite egg was a pink one that had a cross drawn on it. Skylyn pretty much just played with Papaw. We all had a really fun time.

Easter 2009 - Part I - Denningtons

Boy, with 3 kids, our house on the market, and every weekend packed full of activities I have really fallen behind in my posts. So, here we go with trying to catch up.

Aaron's brothers and sister-in-law and niece came into town to all be together for Easter. We spent Saturday letting the kids help Poppy (Aaron's dad) in his vegetable garden. They loved finding worms and digging in the dirt. After that we helped the kids cut out sugar cookies. It was fun seeing them repeatedly pick out their favorite shape be it a cross, an egg, a butterfly, a flower, or a bunny. We then got to dye Easter eggs. There is just something so exciting about watching a plain white egg evolve into a beautiful treasure of color. We then all enjoyed a homemade lunch prepared by Mamaw (Aaron' mom).

Holy Heart Day

Friday, April 10, 2009 (also Good Friday) was Aaris's first annual Holy Heart Day. This is the one year anniversary of Aaris's open heart surgery to repair her congenital heart disease. On this day she went from having a hole in her heart to having a holy heart.

We hope to start the tradition of always finding some way to give back on this day since she was given to so greatly. This year we went to the post office and mailed her cut off hair to Locks of Love.

Other special things we did included making her a Holy Heart Day t-shirt, having a heart shaped sandwich for lunch, making heart cupcakes in the afternoon, going to Going Bananas (a large building full of air-filled bouncy houses, slides and obstacle courses) and eating dinner with all of our family at Cafe 1626.

Aaris is full of energy and has really become a very lovey-dovey girl. She loves to love on people with hugs and kisses and loves to loved on in the same way. It also brings her great joy to find ways to help people and make them feel special. But, still, what thrills me the most is how much she loves God and Jesus! She has even started asking to eat crackers and juice almost daily so that she can remember Jesus.

I still feel so honored and beyond grateful that God healed Aaris for us and that she is a strong and beautiful hearted child of His now one year later. I'm looking forward to a lifetime of these celebrations!