Even More Pics

Our first Family Picture.

Not the best of any of us, but we'll take it :)

Emily holding Ashley all by herself :)

Look at that face :)
She's so cute!!! Almost a smile :) Sorry no eyes open for this one...one thing at a time!

More Pics!

Unfortunately we have not gone home yet! My blood pressure is still high and they are trying to take care of that! However, we do have lots of new pics so I thought I would post some for you!!

First pic of sisters!

Emily getting to hold Ashley for the first time!
Wide eyed girl!
Emily giving Ashley her first paci!

Thank you to "Aunt" Leslie for sending Ashely a lovey JUST LIKE Emily's tiger, except it's a giraffe! Perfect!!!!

Proud Bib Sister!

Daddy and his girl's again! I love Emily's expression :)

She's Here!!!!

Ashley Ann Martin was born at 11:28 pm on Wednesday, May 27th...about 12 hours before the planned c-section! I started having pains during the day on Wednesday but just dismissed them as nerves/anxiety/etc. However, while we were enjoying our "last meal" at Olive Garden, the pain was a lot more severe and a lot more freqeuent. So, I called the on-call dr. and she said to some on in and get hooked up to a monitor. Sure enough, once I got hooked up and everthing, I was dilated to 2 cm and was 80% effaced and Dr. Collions was like, we're going to have a baby tonight! So, about 2 hours later here she is!!!!

Ashley Ann Martin

Daddy and his girls :)
Emily the big sister!

Lots of Updates

Well, I think I have finally finished updating everything before Baby Sister gets here! We are scheduled for a c-section at Noon on Thursday, May 28th. For now, make sure you see all of the new updates! I think they start with "Playday at Whit's" over on the right side, under May. If you didn't see the Easter updates, click on April on the right side and you can see the entries made in April! We will update on Baby Sister as soon as we can!

2 Years, 9 Months, 2 Weeks & 6 Days

That is how old Emily will be on Thursday when she becomes a Big Sister! Since I don't really journal anywhere else, if you can call this a journal, I thought I would update you on where Emily is at 2 Years, 9 Months, 2 Weeks & 6 Days! (Warning, this is a little longer than I thought it would be!) This is one of the very first pics of Emily and one of my favorites!

~ She sleeps through the night...has since she was 10 weeks old! She also takes a 1 1/2 -2 hour nap a day...this had better keep up for the next couple of months at least!

~ She is Potty Trained. I think I can say that, even though she does have accidents sometimes. Fortunately they are becoming few and far between! She does wear a Pull-Up at naptime and nighttime still. I don't think her Pull-Up will ever be dry at night, but they say it happens!

~ She loves to sing songs out of the hymnal. She knows the words to too many to name! Holy, Holy, Holy, I Come to the Garden, Jesus, Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World, Lily of the Valley (most of the words). She also loves the songs Wonderful Words of Life and Showers of Blessings just to name a few.

~ She loves to read! She will just pick and book and start "reading" it. Depending on how well she knows they book, sometimes it is really close to what they book actually says! Sometimes she just makes it up as she goes along looking at the pictures!

~ She loves to talk! She talks all the time and in complete sentences, again something she has done for a while. She loves to ask Why? What are you doing Mommy? Where are we going Mommy? What's that?

~ She can count to 40 with only a little help from Daddy. From 1 - 20 for sure by herself! She knows the alphabet song and can recognize all of the letters of the alphabet when pointed to. She knows her shapes - circle, square and triangle. She knows all of the primary colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink.

~She can spell her name "E M I L Y" and recognize it when she sees it spelled out somewhere!

~ Her favorite color is pink.

~ She knows that she is 2 and can hold up her 2 fingers. She also knows that her birthday is in August and then she will be 3 and can show you 3 fingers!

~ She knows Baby Sister is coming on May 28th. She is so excited about it! She will say "I want to show Baby Sister this" or "when Baby Sister comes I will tell her about this". She is already asking "Can I help you with that Mommy?" and I know that she is going to be such a big helper when Baby Sister gets here!

~ She loves to say the prayer when we sit down to eat. It goes like this: "God is great, let us thank him for this food. Amen." She also likes to say her bedtime prayer, but we don't always remember this one! It goes like this: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May angels watch me through the night, and wake me with the morning light. Amen."

~ When we put her to bed at night she loves to give hugs and kisses and will say "Good Night, I love you Mommy/Daddy!"

~ She loves to tell us her secret: "Emily loves you"! Which she actually whispers in our ear!

~ She loves to play outside and can ride her tricycle all by herself!

~ She loves to play with her friends. Usually when she gets up in the morning she will ask "Who is coming over today?" or "Who's house are we going to today?" I don't know if this means we do way too much or what, but it's cute!

~ She wears size 3T to 4T clothes, depending on the brand, and a 8 1/2 - 9 size shoe. Again, it just depends on where we get it from!

~ She sleeps great in her big girl bed! She has asked one time to sleep in her crib again, but that was just one day when we were working in there for the new baby. She does not get up when she wakes up from her nap or bedtime. She will say "Mommy, I'm awake" and wait on me to go and get her up :)

~ Her favorite restaurants are Chick-Fil-A and Olive Garden. She recognizes all kinds of stores as we are driving around including the bank, the post office and lots of restaurants! Again, is this a sign we get out too much!

~ She loves to get out her microphone, put on her princess dress and shoes and stand up on the fireplace and sing to us! She also loves for her Daddy to dance with her! She will wear her princess dress and shoes anytime over having to put clothes on! She calls herself a "girly girl" and it is so true! She doesn't get it from me, that's for sure :) But she loves to put make-up on, dresses, earrings, high heels, etc.!

~ She loves to do puzzles. She can put together her Abby Cadaby and Elmo puzzles all by herself. She can also put together several others all by herself!

~ She knows that she lives on Bluff Creek Loop in Springdale, Arkansas. She also knows that Mimi, Bub, Gigi and Grandmother live in Fort Smith, that Aunt Vicky & Uncle Jeremy live in Dallas, TX and that Grandma & Pa live in Harrison. She can also recognize Arkansas and Texas on her map!

~ She is a sweet, funny, hilarious, cute, smart, beautiful, caring, bright little girl who we just can't imagin living without! She brings so much joy to our lives every day and we Thank God for her! I know she is going to be a wonderful Big Sister! I can't wait for her to meet her Baby Sister!

Jonas' Birthday

Tonight was a birthday party for Emily's friend Jonas, who we go to church with! Such a small world, Jonas' Mommy and I were friends in college and when they started coming to church I was like "Hey, I know you!" :) Anyway, it's fun to see our kids growing up together! Nate and Mauree are 2 up on us though...they have 3 boys....God bless them :)

It was at a pizza place here in town and Emily had such a good time just running around and playing with her friends. She had pizza, a juice box, 2 pieces of Birthday Cookie and a package of Spider Man fruit snacks...and she still went to bed at a decent hour :) It was so fun to watch her play with her friends, we are so blessed to go to a church that has such a great number of families our age with kids Emily's age! She has so many friends to be thankful for!

Emily & Lily with the Birthday Boy Jonas!

Best Friends Already :)
Emily, Lily and Caroline....they were showing me their kites...
even though I wanted their faces....thank you Caroline :)

They got kites as a party favor, Emily was very excited!

Emily, Lily, Lauren (friend from church), and Stephens

(I went to elementary through high school with Stephens' Daddy....small world :)

Rodeo Parade

This weekend Charles took Emily to Ft. Smith for the Rodeo Parade. Unfortunately this year, we are going to miss the Rodeo in Ft. Smith. Maybe we can make it to the Rodeo of the Ozarks...hum....we'll have to see!

Anyway, my Mom had given me a pair of boots that I used to wear and this year they fit Emily! They were maybe a little big, but so cute! She looked like a little cowgirl :)

I know she's not exactly looking at the camera...but isn't her outfit cute :)

Look at that face...there's no telling what she was talking about!

Emily & GiGi
Emily & Aunt Jeanie

The whole gang....and some kid in a green shirt :)

Big Sister Outing

We decided to let Emily pick something to do this weekend just for her. I think it is actually sinking into me that it's almost the end of "just the 3 of us"!!! I am kind of sad that all of my one-on-one time with Emily is coming to an end. Don't get me wrong, I am way excited about Baby Sister coming. But, it has just been us and Emily for almost 3 years and it's kind of sad to me!

Anyway, we had wanted to take her on a picnic to the park, but the weather didn't cooperate. So we gave her a few choices of indoor things to do and, of course, she chose Chuck E. Cheese :) She got to play all the games she wanted, eat all the pizza she wanted and even drink all the Sprite that she wanted....a real treat for her :) At the end she chose a blow-up Chuck E. Cheese hammer, even over a balloon. We thought it was kind of an odd choice. But then when we got home she said she could help us hang pictures up with her new hammer (which we had been doing this weekend)....so that explained it!

Emily's 1st trip to Chuck E. Cheese in August of '07! Look how little she is!!!

Our almost 3 year old and Big Sister!!!

Having a very important conversation with Chuck E.

This one took her by surprise :)

It's Sprite Mommy :)

She actually wanted to get close enough to him to have her picture made. I think this is the first time to take a pic with him by herself!

Such a pretty girl!!

Showing off her hammer :)

Rooms Ready

We finally have Emily's room finished....well, for now :) We hung her pictures up this weeekend so her room looks a lot better now :)

The baby's room is all finished now except for the name letters :) We will put them up when we get home from the hospital!!!

Thank you so much to my friend Elaine for the awesome canvas paintings in Emily & baby girl's rooms and for Emily's letters!

Thank you also to my wonderful friends Adrianne and James who came over and painted the beautiful wall mural above the changing table! I am so lucky to have such talented friends! I have ideas, but they all come out looking terrible! Thank you guys so much for helping with the "girl's" rooms (how weird is that?!). Here are a few pics of the finished rooms!

Baby Girl's Wall Mural Wall Mural w/Changing Table

Elaine's Painting over Rocking Chair
Full Wall Shot. Her name letters will go over the crib :)

Elaine's Letters and Canvas for Emily's Room. Her room is hard to take pics in so I just took one of the important things :)

Good Times!

Here are a few random pictures from last week!

Our friends, the Sheltons (the Shelters as Emily says :), came over on Thursday and Friday morning. They are in South Carolina right now after driving 18 hours...just Layne and the 4 kids!! So, last week the kids came over in the mornings so that Layne could get stuff ready for the trip! Emily was already at Layne's because I had a Dr. Appt. that morning. So, I just piled everyone in my car and brought them over here!!! The funny thing about this picture, is that my Mom has the exact same one of me with 2 of my friends when we were all in carseats! I will have to scan it in sometime :) I am sorry Baylee, she was sitting in the fron seat and I didn't get a good shot of her!

This picture was taken on Thursday night. Emily had done a very good job of helping Mommy and Daddy pick up the house, so we decided to go to Sonic for a Slush...her new favorite ;) Anyway, yes, we let her wear her houseshoes, a black and white diaper cover on top of panties, and 3-4 bows in her hair! She was as happy as a bug in a rug and loved her Sonic slush :)

Emily's Trip to Dallas

Last weekend, Mimi and Bub took Emily to Dallas for Uncle Jeremy's graduation from Seminary. We were a little hesitant at first about letting her go. She has not been to anything like that before and we just weren't sure how she would behave. But, after looking at our to-do list for Baby Girl #2, we decided that we did need the time to work and get things done!

We got so much done! We had a to-do list a mile long and crossed several things off which was very exciting! It will all be done in 2 weeks whether we're ready or not :)

Congratulations to Uncle Jeremy! Apparently Emily did really well and stayed at the graduation for the whole 2 hours and 45 minutes!! I was way impressed! Afterwards Aunt Vicky & Uncle Jeremy had a great party at their house with BBQ and cake and everything! We thank you to Mimi and Bub for taking such good care of Emily and to Aunt Vicky and Uncle Jeremy for being wonderful host and hostess to her :)

Uncle Bob, Emily, Mimi, Uncle Jeremy, Aunt Vicky, Bub and Grandmother Pat! Uncle Bob experienced his first trip with a 2 year old and lived to tell about it :)

I'm assuming this was taken after the ceremony :)
All dressed up and ready to go....just wish her eyes were open :)

Emily's first introduction to a video game. These are all Emily's cousins-in-law, right? Naomi, Emily, Nicholas and Natalie!
Nicholas showing Emily how it's done!

Big Sunday Night

A few weeks ago was a big Sunday Night for us. It was the Spring Concert and all of the children's choirs and handbell groups performed. My handbell choir played as a big group for the first time since I have been the director! I was SO nervous but they did a GREAT job! Also, the 4-5 year old choir that I have been helping with sang. My friend Layne is officially the director of that group. However, on this particular night she got the stomach bug........shew :( So, I directed 1 song of handbells, then 2 songs of 4-5 year old choir, then the second song of handbells. Needless to say I was a little stressed out, but everyone did GREAT!

To top it off, we had decided to let Emily come to Big Church because she loves to listen to the handbells and she knew the songs that my little kids were singing. Aside from one tantrum at the beginning (a slight misunderstanding between her and Daddy :) she was perfect for the whole concert....well, I think they left at the next to last song. She got to see Mommy's groups perform and that was the most important :) Most of the little kids songs had some sort of motions that went to them so she would stand up and try to mimic what they were doing. When each group was finished she would just clap and say "Yeah!" It was so cute to watch her! We did decide that that was a one time only deal, I just don't think she's ready to sit through a real church service yet!

Sitting like a big girl!

She wanted to do just what the groups were doing!

Baby Girl #2 Update

Starting last week, I go to the doctor 2 days a week on Mondays and Thursdays. They are doing a N0-Stress-Test both Monday and Thursday and then I see Dr. Smith on Thursdays. So far everything is going well! Nothing is progressing, except for the size of my stomach :) We will keep you posted if anything changes!

I cannot believe that Baby Girl #2 will be here in 2 weeks! These past 9 months have gone by SO FAST!!! First of all, we have finally decided on a name!! It is.....a big secret :) We did this with Emily and it worked really well :) So, we decided to do it again! There has to be some sort of secret when she's born and since we already know she's a girl, this is the next biggest thing!

We are almost finished with the nursery. As soon as we get it all put together, I will post some pictures! We have finally finished getting all of our "baby" stuff down. Emily has had a wonderful time playing with the carseat, swing, high chair! She'll say "When I was a baby I used to swing...or sit...or eat here!" It's so sad that she is not a baby anymore! She's almost 3!!!!!!

As I mentioned before, Charles' work had a shower for us, some of my friends had a shower and our Sunday School Department had a Diaper/Wipe shower for us one night! We have gotten so many things I just can't believe it! I had to take a picture!

Family/Friends Shower

My friends Adrianne and Tarah and Adrianne's Mom, also hosted a Family & Friends Shower for us! We are so fortunate to have such wonderful family and friends! Of course on the day we picked the weather was absolutely horrible! But my family from Ft. Smith and Harrison drove over just for us! I appreciate all that driving everyone did!

The shower was beautiful! Adrianne and her Mom and Tarah outdid themselves! The food was wonderful, I think I had 3 plates!!! We again got so many wonderful things! I just can't say enough how blessed we are with family, friends and co-workers! Thank you Tarah and Adrianne for all you did and for being great friends!! Here are just a few pics from the shower!

Part of the food table, somehow I didn't get a picture of the whole thing!

The gift table. All of the shirts and onesies in the front were made by Adrianne and her Mom! There are 3 shirts with matching bows for Emily and Baby Girl #2!
Tarah, Adrianne and I!