4 Months old

Marley is 4 months old today! She is 10 lbs exactly (with a very full belly!) and 24 inches long. She is still in the 2nd percentile for weight and the 50th percentile for height! She likes to sit up but she loves to stand up! Her new found like is the Exersauser! She likes to grab for all the toys that are on it and watch Baby Einstein in a standing position rather than a sitting one! She is doing great with Rice Cereal and drinking from her sippy cup as well as grabbing toys and getting them into her mouth! She has learned to pull hair and oddly enough MaKieley says "Don't stop her I like it when she does that!" I keep telling her if we let her do it now she will think it is an ok thing to do and she will still be doing it when she goes to Kindergarten. It will not be so funny or cute then.
Marley is growing well and is very healthy! She went to church today with Pudden and Pap her great-grandparents and then traveled home! During the first part of our trip I said she was not as good a traveler as MaKieley was but after our trip home I would say she is on her way to being a good traveler! She slept almost the whole way! :)

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Marley Talking

Gabcast! John's Girls #4

16 weeks

The above picture is of Marley's hand at 7 weeks old and the two pictures below are of Marley's hand at 16 weeks old. See how much she has grown!

Marley now loves to sit in her "HIGH Chair" ( as MaKieley calls it ) while I am cooking or doing dishes. She sits there and plays with toys while carrying on a great conversation. She does these things so intently that she wears herself out as you can see in the above and below pictures.

She has become very good with her hands! She can hold toys and fingers and get them in her mouth on the first try! She is doing great with her sippy cup! The first few times we gave MaKieley her sippy cup at 3 months old she thought we were crazy! What is this thing you are putting in my mouth? were the looks we got from her. Marley on the other hand drank out of it the first time we gave it to her and is now trying to hold the cup on her own! She loves Grammie's shiny shirts too! Mom has these really pretty shirts that have little sparkly things on them and Marley loves to look at them and try to get them off the shirt (below picture). Last Saturday our friend Denise was holding Marley and she loved her shirt too! It was a kind of swirly pattern with lots of bold colors! She definitely has an eye for color and light!

15 weeks

Marley is 15 weeks old today! She does not realize it but she loves Christmas! She loves all the lights around!
We took the picture here with MaKieley at 3 months so I decided to do it at the same time with Marley! I love this picture!

100 Days Old

One Hundred Days Old! I can hardly believe it! At school MaKieley celebrates the 100th day of school so she thought we should celebrate the 100th day of Marley's life! So that is what we did!


MaKieley decided to make a list of the top 100 things she loves about Marley! Here is as far as she got:
1. she is cute
2. she smiles at me
3. she is special to me
4. she is small
5. she has cute clothes
6. she has pretty eyes
7. she talks to me
8. she is my sister
9. she has pink toenails
10. she rides by me in the car


Well I guess if you multiply what she got by 10 you will have 100!

MaKieley Reading October

Gabcast! John's Girls #1 - MaKieley Reading October

a poem

MaKieley Reading November

Gabcast! John's Girls #2 - MaKieley Reading November

a poem

A Visit From Santa

Saturday was an eventful day! We got up early and went grocery shopping for the food we needed to make for the Silvertone's! We went to Mom and Dad's and started cooking! Kristi came over later in the afternoon and helped me cook. The Silvertone's (the senior group from our church) were having a Christmas Progressive Dinner and we were the appetizer stop! It was a lot of fun.

After they left us they went on for salads and the main course at other houses. We then met back up with them at the church building for desserts and a visit from Santa and his elf. MaKieley thought it was great and Marley could have cared less.
On a more somber note - our friend Keith McCord who has been battling cancer went home to be with God on Friday night. Please keep his wife Stephanie and her son Lincoln in your prayers as they figure out how to go on from here. Please also pray for his parents along with the rest of his family. The memorial service is tomorrow in Greenville and the funeral and burial will be on Friday in Tennessee. Please pray for everyone's safe travel.

Snow, MaKieley and The News

The picture below was on the 10 pm news twice and the news this morning!Yesterday we had snow! It caused school to be delayed 2 hours. MaKieley could not wait to get into the snow! Since John still had to be at work early and I had a very bad headache I told her I needed her to wait until after school. She asked me if I was sure it would still be there after school. I told her I was pretty sure.
So after school she played for about an hour - throwing snow above her head, falling down and running around the back yard and through snow drifts like a mad woman! And you guessed it...

... she made Snow Angels! Didn't her snow angel turn out great?

WELL...this is what her pants and boots looked like after running through the snow! When she was done she got in a hot tub and thawed out! She spent last night with Grammie and Dangran as it took us almost an hour and a half to get her across town for school yesterday morning - there was a sheet of ice under the snow! We all thought it would be worse this morning because everything thawed yesterday and then refroze over night. John called a little while ago, after driving to work, and said the roads were not as bad as we thought they were going to be.

Thank you God for keeping us all safe as we drove on the bad roads yesterday and please keep us safe as we are out again today!

3 Months Old

Marley is 3 Months Old or 13 weeks old! She now weighs 8 lbs. and 9 oz. which means she is still in the 2 percentile (meaning 98% of children her age weigh more than her)! The doctor is not worried about this right now because she is steadily gaining weight and staying consistently in the 2%! Marley is a great eater - our girls just gain at a slower pace than other children! It is amazing though to see her next to other babies from church who were born 2 and now 3 months after her and they are all the same size! We are now graduating into our 0-3 months clothing. We are only doing this because our preemie clothes are now to short and we look like we are going to bust out the bottom of them! Even though we do not look like we are going to bust out of the 0-3 months we do look like we are being swallowed up by material!

Marley loves showers still and any kind of water sound! She loves to be upright and only likes to lie flat when she is eating or sleeping! She is very interested in her big sister and almost everything she does!

We have truly been blessed by God with the addition of Marley to our family!

MaKieley's School House

Let me start off by saying I'm sorry for so many pictures! I just thought all the steps needed to be shown. This all started with a big box that Marley's dresser came in. MaKieley decided that she was going to make a house out of the box. I told her about when I was little and I built a club house out of a box with Dangran. She thought that was great but her's was going to be better! So she asked Dangran if he would help her while she was out on Thanksgiving break and he said sure. The picture above is of the planning process. MaKieley has been going to Art Club again this year and they learn to plan out their project before starting. So that is what she did. She was so funny about it - she had a very particular idea about how it should be!
MaKieley let Dangran do all the "dangerous" stuff. This included cutting the door opening, cutting the window openings, making the window box, and cutting a teacher peep-hole and a welcome mat. He also helped with taping the window box to the window. But please do not think any of this was his idea! MaKieley had plans drawn out before they ever started and he cut where she told him to. He was great!
Here they are talking about where to put the window and exactly how it should be cut.

Here is MaKieley looking out the window over the window box! She did all the decorating herself with Markers she borrowed from Grammie!

Here is the "MaKieley & Marley Preschool"after it was finished.

Here is MaKieley sitting in the Preschool. Her comment when she was finished was "It was much more fun than I thought it would be!"

Thank you Dangran for helping with the construction and Grammie for the loan of the tape and markers!

Thanksgiving Parade

Marley loved watching the parade this morning! All the colors and movement held her attention for a lot longer than I expected.

She watched the first part of the parade with MaKieley and then the second part with Uncle Tim. MaKieley was otherwise occupied building her school (see my next post) during the second half of the parade.

Thanksgiving Preparations!

What great helpers I had getting ready for Thanksgiving! We made Pecan pie, Sweet Potato pie, Pumpkin Bread, Turkey, Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green Bean Casserole, Raspberry Vinaigrette Salad, Watergate Salad, and rolls from scratch! Oh yes, MaKieley did the cranberry sauce on her own!

All the helpers did a great job! We had a great Thanksgiving meal and we are all very thankful for being together and being able to spend time cooking, or watching football, or taking a nap! We even enjoyed a few hands of dominoes with MaKieley! It was a lot of fun watching her try to figure out how to make points with her plays.

Thank you God for our time with our family!

My Tongue

83 days old!
Today Marley found her tongue! She plays with it all the time.
She sticks it out.

She blows bubbles with it and slobbers all over the place. She is trying

to get things in her mouth now. She chews on things when she does get them

into her mouth - maybe she is starting to teeth. We will see!

Marley discovers her tongue.
83 days old

Are these mine?

Marley found her hands yesterday! She was so funny looking at them! She had a very puzzled look on her face which seemed to say "Where did these come from? What exactly are they? Are they mine?" Sorry I do not have a picture right now. By the time I got the camera and turned it on she was interested in something else. I will try to get the picture next time.
Marley was 79 days old when she found her hands.

11 Weeks

Today Marley is 11 weeks old! She now weighs 7 lbs. 13 ozs.

I wanted to know how long she was now but I could not

find the measuring tape so I uses a 5 gallon paint stick! She

is exactly the length of a 5 gallon paint stick! WoW those

things are useful!

Marley is growing and thriving!

She is a very happy little girl!

I love fall!

Fall is my favorite season! It is cool not hot and it is cool not cold (if that makes any since). The leaves change colors - reds and oranges! Both very comforting and warm colors. I love to pick out pumpkins with MaKieley and I cannot wait until Marley is big enough to pick out her own pumpkin (maybe next year).

I took my girls out the other day and took their pictures with their pumpkins. They did so good! I have posted a few of the pictures! They smiled so pretty. You can even see exactly how much they look alike in some of the pictures. Happy Fall Everyone!