Raw

When MaryClaire was 2 weeks old, we had an impromptu photo shoot in the nursery that resulted in some of my favorite family pictures ever.  It was afternoon, most of us were still in our pajamas - bed headed - no makeup.  The light in Mary's room was soft and warm.  I grabbed my camera, and Ben and I took turns snapping the sweet intimate details of our precious new baby girl.  I had planned to have professional newborn photographs done, but when I looked back through my camera, I felt like no one else could capture our Baby Mary, or our "big" girls, quite like Mommy and Daddy had.  We know all 3 of our girls in a way no one else ever could - their precious quirks and secrets.  Ben and I are by no means photographers, but I love how accurately these photos represent that time in our lives - we were just raw... 

Hospital Days

Before I bore you to death with baby photos (if I haven't already) I want to share a few more pictures from MaryClaire's first 3 days of life at the hospital...

A Ginger Ale toast to Baby Sister - cheers!

Time to get dressed to go home!

I thought she looked like the sweetest little Christmas cookie!

And we are all living happily ever after...

... sleeping very little at night...

... wearing PJs all day...

... in a very messy house.

Birthday Part Two

These pictures are from "birthday afternoon" - bath time and big sister time :)

Birthday Part One

I guess I don't have to tell you why there haven't been any Christmas blog posts this year - we've been so busy loosing sleep and falling in love. Wishing you a very merry late Christmas!

Love,

Megan

Baby MaryClaire

MaryClaire Vinson at 32 Weeks

M is for MaryClaire

Name chosen in honor of my Nannie (my father's mother). Mary Kathryn was Nannie's paternal grandmother & Clara Matilda was her maternal grandmother.

V is for Vinson

Name chosen in honor of Ben's Grandma (his mother's mother). Vinson is Grandma's maiden name.

Our daughters have been so blessed to know ALL FOUR of their great grandmothers. That is SUCH a blessing to us! Evie is named in honor of my Nana (my mother's mother) and Anabelle is named in honor of Ben's Grandma Rountree (his father's mother). Now we are so excited to wrap our new sweet baby girl in a precious family name all her own.

Children are a heritage from the LORD,
offspring a reward from Him.

Psalm 127:3

On Baby

It's about time for me to talk a bit about Baby. I've been so busy, but I hope that I'm back on the blog wagon now. I assumed I would be on bed rest by this fall, so I spent all summer getting ready for our baby, plus Christmas shopping for our whole family. Now I am finally in the home stretch of my pregnancy (guessing that we only have about 6 weeks left!) but I've neglected to document a lot of the excitement and changes along the way. We've had a few bumps throughout, including kidney stones, but overall (or so far) this has been the best/safest of my 3 pregnancies. The nursery is almost finished, all of her baby clothes are washed, and soon I will pack our hospital bags. Ben and I are getting so excited, our family has been through a lot of yuck lately, but the promise of meeting this little girl soon has been such a joy to us. I have a lot to share about her, so I want to hit the biggest developments in this post and then I will be back soon in greater detail :)

This is how we (and my home office) looked over 3 months ago at the end of our 1st trimester

Since then, the office has become a sweet nursery (this is just a peak into her crib)

This is how we looked a few weeks ago at the end of our second trimester

And since then... we have made a special little change to her name!

Her name change deserves a post of it's own, so come back in a day or two!

Viruses - of Every Kind

A sequence of events to explain the delay of my promised "big news" post...

The kids had pink eye
I had the flu
Ben and I got pink eye
I got a sinus infection
My computer caught a MEGA virus and seems to have lost everything :(
and...
I have morning/all day sickness because I am 10 weeks pregnant!

There it is... our very happy (and surprising) big news! I am due December 27th, but I have no doubt that our sweet baby will be here before Christmas. Best Christmas gift ever!!!