2009: Our Year in Review

January 2009: Playing at the park in Senoia, Georgia

February 2009: Noah turns 6 years old!

March 2009: Welcome Katherine Rebecca Hornback!

April 2009: Our house in Georgia is officially up for sale.

May 2009: Noah graduates from Kindergarten!

June 2009: Father's Day

July 2009: July 4th at Grammy and Papa's house

August 2009: Amie, Chris and Heather with all the kids: 8 cousins.

September 2009: Rachel has her tonsils out and begins to feel better immediately.

October 2009: Halloween

November 2009: Rachel's fourth birthday

December 2009: A visit with Santa Claus

2009: What a year it has been! If we thought we saw a lot of changes in 2008 we out did ourselves in 2009. Our biggest change - Our family grew by one. One amazing little baby girl joined our family and changed it in all the right ways. We also made another huge change - after 12 and a half long years - we finally moved home. Let's start at the beginning: January saw us begin our year during a visit to Tennessee surrounded by our family. On return we had a 3D ultrasound of our beautiful baby girl -- so amazing to see her up close and personal like that. Noah lost more teeth and the kids and I enjoyed the weather down in Georgia by frequenting the local parks. February saw Noah turn 6 with a Star Wars: The Clone Wars birthday party- It saw Rachel giver herself her first hair cut and me trying hard to repair her work without butchering her too badly. We had a fun visit from the Hendrix family down in Georgia and we also traveled to Tennessee for a short visit where we got to see the first snow of the year. March saw the loss of Abbie - our first 'baby' - our first dog. She lived to be 12 years old - we still miss her very much. We took the kids putt-putt golfing and bowling - both of which they loved. We had a big snow in which the kids got to make snow angels, build a snowman and have snowball fights. Noah had his first soccer game of the season and scored 2 goals! But most of all, March brought the much anticipated arrival of Katherine Rebecca Hornback - Our Kate-Kate. A gorgeous redheaded sweetheart that would complete our family and fill all of our lives with joy. April would see us begin the month with our baby girl in the NICU - a heartwrenching week of worry, hope and relief when we finally got to bring her home and begin adjusting to life as a family of five. We learned that Doug had been hired by the TYS airport in Knoxville, Tennessee and what a joyous day that was - to know that we would raise our children in my hometown. The town Doug and I met in and where our families were - where they would grow up surrounded by people who love them and get to see them often, not just a couple of times a year. We officially put our home in Georgia up for sale. We had visits from Mamaw and Grammy and Papa as they welcomed Kate into the world and our family. May saw Noah graduate from Kindergarten - Kate sleeping through the night, first smiles and a developing of deep love between sisters and brothers. It brought packing. Lots of packing and preparing for our move. June saw more packing, a trip to Tennessee to find a rental home and Father's day. July saw us through our move and a month of traveling for Doug before he officially joined us in Tennessee. We caught up with old friends while our children made new ones. Noah prepared to enter the first grade at Foothills Elementary School and we made our first trip to Dollywood as a family of five. In August Noah started school, Kate rolled over, we had a visit with Amie, Olivia and Dave and Doug and I attended the Maryville/Alcoa game where Alcoa kicked Maryville's butt (Thank you very much!). Doug started training at TYS and was very happy with the change of pace. September saw Kate turn 6 months old - she started solid foods and hated them. Rachel had her tonsils and adnoids out and did awesome with the surgery and the recovery. She is definitely a trooper! In October we moved into our condo - we loved it! Darla helped us find the perfect one. Rachel started gymnastics and the kids were excited about Halloween - we had an Anakin Skywalker, Minnie Mouse and a little pumpkin that was way too cute to spook anyone! Kate started saying Da-da, much to Doug's glee. November saw Rachel turn four with a Hello Kitty birthday and her first birthday party with friends - she was so very excited. We shared Thanksgiving with all of our loved ones and thouroughly enjoyed fall in the Smokey Mountains. Kate got her first tooth and Noah started playing basketball. December brought Noah's first basketball game. Kate got to meet Santa Claus for the first time and the kids enjoyed Christmas -which was magical for Doug and I because we got to see it through their eyes all over again. Kate discovered how very much she loves food - any kind of food as long as she is the one eating it. December also brought Doug and I to 13 years of marriage. It is incredible to think that we started our life together 13 years ago and in February we will see 15 years together since we started dating. It has been a wild and wonderful time. I thank God everyday for him and our children and for all of our family. We would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. May your 2010 be blessed!

Hello 2010: Happy New Year!!

Wishing you a very happy, prosperous and blessed 2010 -- Happy New Year from our family to yours!

9 Months Old

Baby Kate is nine months old today! It is so amazing that have already had her in our lives for nine months. It is going by so incredibly fast. She is an amazingly sweet baby girl and always has a big grin on her face as long as Mommy is close by. She has definitely hit the 'Mommy' phase. She continues to be happy just sitting, playing with her toys and is only just now starting to stretch for things that are out of her reach. She will roll onto her tummy and then just continue to stretch until she either gets it or rolls over and finds something else to make her happy. We genuinely thought she would be crawling by now, but she seems in no big rush to do so. It's nice as Rachel was in a huge rush to do everything and Noah never did crawl - he just went straight to furniture walking. In the last couple of days she has become very interested in standing and trying to pull up to a standing position while holding onto my fingers. She LOVES to eat - everything that she can get into her mouth or con the people who love her into giving her. She still loves her baby food and we have started size threes along with soft regular food. She adores peas - will eat several serving size spoonfuls if you let her. She loves green beans, asparagus, bananas, applesauce, any kind of noodles, any kind of bread, she had black beans last night, quasadillas.. if she can chew it, she usually likes it. She has moved up to size three diapers -we just finished out the last handful of Grammy's stash of two's yesterday. She is wearing 6 to 9 months and some 12 month clothing. She sleeps from about 7 pm to 8 am since Noah is out of school - next week we will transition back to 6:30 am wake ups. We've all really gotten used to that extra hour and a half! She loves to play with her toys - anything with buttons. She loves the phones and remotes as well... buttons again. ;) Her sweet smile is enough to brighten our day and we love her to bits as always. Tomorrow she has her 9 month well baby - no shots, thank goodness, but we are interested to see her percentages.

UPDATE:

Just back from Kate's 9 Month Well Baby appointment. She is 27 1/2 inches long (50%) and weighs in at 15lbs 5 oz (5%). She is a teeny thing, but Dr. Bean says she is growing in height and that is what is most important. If her bones weren't growing there would be a big problem, but she has continued with regular growth in height, so she is fine. Her development is perfect and she checks out great! She's just a petite little thing.

13 Years of Marriage

Thirteen years ago today Doug and I joined hands, hearts and lives. It's been a great 13 years so far and we look forward to many, many more together. We have come so far and feel so blessed to have each other, our children and all of our family to share it with.

Christmas at Mamaw's

After the kids opened all their presents and we had breakfast we got everybody ready and headed over to mom's house for a day of celebrating with everyone. It was so good to see all the kids running around and playing - all of them so excited about Christmas. We all enjoyed good food, good company, a little football and a whole lot of Christmas Vacation. =) We missed you Amie and family!

A Very Merry Christmas Morning!

LEGOS!

Rachel helping Phoebe take the bow off of her bone from Santa.

The ever wanted Bendaroos!

Rachel helped Kate open her stocking and also many of her presents before she ever opened any of her own.

Finally! Something for her!

Mmmmmmm.... Santa did good!

Coal? For Doug? Never! ;)

Happy Baby

MORE Legos???

This was one very tired and happy mama with her babies! No more staying up till the wee hours of the morning to try to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus....

Our morning started with little feet pounding up the stairs to our bedroom and Rachel calling out "Mommy, Daddy! Santa came! Santa came!... and the coolest thing is a little doll house with a Bunny family for me and Kate-Kate!! It is the coolest!". She was so very excited as was Noah after peeking in to see if Santa had come or not. After getting Kate out of her crib and letting Phoebe out to 'go' we headed for the Christmas tree to see what Santa had brought. The kids were thrilled and Doug and I loved just watching their awe as they found the gifts from Santa and then opened the gifts under the tree. It was funny to watch Doug open his gift as it was layered in wrapped boxes and he sat and opened one present to find another tucked inside and so on until he finally got to his actual gift. It was cute to see his smile get bigger and bigger at each wrapped box. It was cute to watch Rachel open Kate's stocking for her and hand her each item... then help her unwrap her gifts - not in the crazed 'must unwrap' way, but in the helpful and sweet way because she knew Kate was so little. Noah would gasp at each item and say, "Just what I wanted!"... and I know you all wish you could hear Rachel sing into her microphone.... ha... ;) We may have to post some video of that to share with everyone. It was truely a magical morning here at our house.