Marley Marley Marley

Marley is talking so much more! Well I guess I should say we are able to understand so much more! She has been very outspoken since she was about 6 weeks old! She loves to sing and pray and tell you about Elmo (melmo).
Here are a couple of things I want to remember that happened in the past week:

1. Sunday night during church, Marley wanted to look at a song book. She cracks us up because she licks her finger before she trys to turn the page. Each and everytime. So I gave her a song book to keep her happy. She promptly opened it and found the page she wanted (using the finger licking technique) and began to sing. Not softly but loudly! I closed the book and she began to complain so we opened it again and I told her to use her very quiet voice. She used the finger licking technique again and found the page she wanted and again began to sing again. However, she forgot that I asked her to use her very quiet voice and she used her loud voice. It was so funny! At that point I had to put the book aside and pick her up and take her out. She was not happy with that either! She got over it fast though.
2. Marley loves MaKieley's piano. Today she crawled herself up onto the bench and somehow made the piano play a song and she sang along with it while dancing along with it AND played along with it! It was hilarious and words do not do it justice!
3. Marley loves to hold hands when we pray and she loves to say amen! She used to bow her head and listen while others said the prayer and she might babble a little but there was always a definite AMEN at the end. Well now she loves to pray multiple times in a row and it begins with someone else saying the first prayer and progresses into her saying it herself. Well tonight at dinner MaKieley said the first prayer and then I did and then Marley said several. Well the final prayer was one of her most understandable yet! God...thank you...Daddy...Sissy...Mamma...bites...paci...mulk(milk)...AMEN! MammaDaddySissy...bites...mulk...paci...Daddy...Mamma...Sissy...puppy! AMEN!

She is growing up so fast and I do not want to forget any of it! Thank you God for my sweet babies! They are so precious to me even when they drive me up the wall!

Marley's End of Year Program

Our girl is growing so tall! Tonight was her end of the year program at her little school! The theme was Soakin' Up The Son! A beach theme! So the littlest ones wore their swimming suits. So out we went to find one that fit (how dare she grow out of the one we bought her last year!). This brown and coral/pink suit was one of the cutest ones we found! And would't you know she made it cuter! I would have never guessed that would happen! ;)Now for a few of my favorites - she is such a ham!Notice the raised eyebrows!This is Marley with her Oh So Sweet Teacher - Ms. Amy (or Meme as Marley calls her).The first song they sang was Jesus Loves Me the clapping version! She clapped her little heart out! She was so entertaining!There second song was about a Lighthouse and they were handed flashlights to shine around! Marley did such a great job!

He's Here! He's Here!

Isn't he cute! WE think so!

Oscar Nile was born today at 12:21 p.m.

He and his mommy are doing wonderfully! We are so excited to finally see what our new little nephew/cousin looks like! His daddy and big brother Oliver are doing great too! We can't wait to see what his big brother thinks of him! I know he will love him!

Dads, Dangrans and Donuts

Dad's and donuts is a fun time MaKieley participated in many times when she was younger! So the tradition carried on with Marley. MaKieley always asked Dangran to come as well! Since Dangran is probably Marley's favorite person we decided he should be invited to come with Marley as well!
Wow! They really do look a lot alike!
What do you think?

Marley helps Dangran clean the donut off his face!
She sure does love the men in her life!

Happy Hap Birt Marley!

Sometime between yesterday and today our Marley turned 18 months!
As is normal for our family, we celebrated Marley's Hap Birt!
Here she is getting ready to blow out her candle!
If you look closely at the flame, you can see she is in mid blow!
Out goes the candle! Yea Marley!
Wow! How time flies! I can remember MaKieley's 18 month birthday and it seems like it was just last year and here we are about to celebrate her 7 1/2 birthday and celebrating our baby's 1 1/2 month birthday!
Marley is doing so many new things! She is potty trained! She says no no and shakes her finger while saying it. She has so many words let me name a few:
Mama
Daddy
Sissy and Sister
Bubba
Grammie
Dangran (this is one of her favorites)
banana
apple
bye bye
hey
puppy (sounds like pup pup)
purple
red
one
please
thank you
all done
car
LaLa (my friend Angela)
Bella (Angela's new dog)
go
milk
And there are so many more!
She has 9 teeth and 1 more about half way through. And then two more that just peeked their tip through this weekend. She can tell us if she want one or two ponytails. She loves to read and she loves music. She will clap and dance along to any music you play for her!
I am not sure how tall she is or how much she weighs but when we go to the Dr. next week for her well check I will let you know!

The LONG and SHORT of Things

Well, Today was THE Day!
MaKieley has been growing her hair out for

over a year and a half so that she could donate

it to Locks of Love!

This is a picture before of her beautiful,

yet difficultly thick, long blonde hair!Here is her pony tail waiting to be cut off!

Here is Ms. Tandy cutting the ponytail off!
Here is MaK showing off her cut off ponytail!
Here is MaKieley's short SHORT hair!
She was so thrilled!

SO, one more time! Here is MaKieley before!
And here she is after! With the evidence!

Ms. Tandy said they usually use about three ponytails to make a wig but MaKieley's was probably as thick as 2 or 2 1/2 of the ponytails they usually recieve!

A BIG HUGE Thank you to Ms. Tandy for such a great haircut!

:) You are AWESOME!!!! :)

A BIG Thank you also to Grammie and Dangran for coming and supporting us all and helping entertaining Marley Caroline!

For those of you who do not know the story behind the growing and cutting of the hair it is as follows.

MaKieley is in class with a little girl who does not have very much hair. They have been in class together since Kindergarten. One morning MaKieley was at home for a holiday or something and I had on the Today show! They were doing a segment on people with long hair and they were cutting the hair off and giving it to Locks of Love so that wigs could be made out of it! Well they also talked about Ann Curry giving her hair! (We really like Ann Curry in our house!) My sweet daughter told me if Ann and those other people could do it then we could! Then she promptly asked me if I knew a wig maker. I told her I did not and that all we had to do was to mail the hair in (when it was long enough) to Locks of Love and they took care of all that. She then told me I was to make sure that the people at Locks of Love were to understand that her "hair wig" was to go to the special little girl from her class! You see some of the boys were picking on this little girl and MaKieley did not like that at all. She knew God had blessed her with a head FULL of thick Thick THICK hair and she could share that with the other little girl so that she would not be sad and the boys would not pick on her! So we began growing! Then she decided that daddy and mommy should grow their hair out as well! SO ... Mommy and Daddy did! Now Mommy and MaK have reached the point of cutting but Daddy has a little bit longer to go! (Now you all understand why our hair was so long in our happy new year picture!)

I am sure you all agree with us that we have a very sweet giving little girl! She shows us so often why God calls us to be like the little children!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008 from our

family to yours!

John, Sarah, MaKieley & Marley