Makenzie Update

So, our baby girl is already 3 months old! This summer has flown by for sure! Makenzie is such a happy and chill baby like Mariah was, we are very blessed with good babies for sure. She is cooing and smiling now a lot when you talk to her, she enjoys her mat time talking to her toys, her whole face lights up at the sight of Mariah and she is sleeping 8-10 hours at night already (that started about a month ago). She started rolling over from the belly to her back around 6 weeks old and is still doing that too. She is a little wiggle worm - her arm and legs are constantly moving - just like she did inside my belly. ha ha. Her favorite position is sitting up and being able to look around. She is just so sweet and we love our little family of 4 so much.

A Day at the Waterpark

We were actually in town one weekend this summer instead of being at the lake so we decided to take Mariah to the waterpark. Ryan took a "pass" and said he wanted to stay home with Makenzie so Mom came in town to go with me and The Ratliffs even met us there. We had such a great time and I was very impressed with all of the huge nice areas at White Water for kids. We will definitely be going back again. There's some fun pictures. Check them out here.

Sweet Sisters

Mariah is so amazing with Makenzie. To this day, she has not done one mean thing to her and gotten annoyed with her which is amazing to me! I had to share this picture with you guys . . . one day I left Makenzie on Mariah's bed for a few minutes while I went to fold some laundry... I came back to Makenzie styling in Mariah's bracelets! It was so funny and so cute! At least she shares . . . sweet sisters!

Pool Time

We love having our pool right across from our house, it is so easy to walk across the street and just enjoy some family pool time in the evenings after work or on the weekends. Mariah is doing so great swimming! She is now swimming without her life jacket and just using a noodle and even jumping into the water on it and going under. It's so awesome. She loves it and so do we! Makenzie does great too. She just chills. Next year, she will be right there with her Big Sister I am sure. There's some fun pool videos on our vimeo site in the "Summer 2010" album.

Girls Night Out - July

So, we do a monthly girls night out and July was not our typical night out these days. We usually end up doing a nice low key dinner with a glass of wine sort of thing BUT... as you can, we thought we had entered the era of 2001-2005 apparently. Ha ha. We started in Midtown with apps and drinks at Tin Lizzy's - went to Flip Flops - headed to Cosmo - and ended the night at KooKoo Room. We were not on our A-Game at work and Mommy land the next day to say the least. LOL. But, we sure did have fun - I haven't laughed that hard in ages! I love you girls!!!!!!! Here's more pics if you dare.

Summer on the Lake

We have spent most weekends this summer at my family's place at Lake Chatuge. It's about an hour and 45 minutes from Atlanta and about an hour 15 from Waynesville so it's perfect. I grew up out there every summer and now my kids are so that's pretty awesome. We love playing on the boats and Sea Doos, wake boarding, tubing, you name it! And Mariah is in heaven with her cousins - Jaycee & Jaden and their friend Jordan. It just so happens that Jordan is my niece's best friend and she is Heather Barrineau's neice! So, it's pretty cool watching them be best friends like Heather and I were and seeing her at the lake with Jaycee. RIP HB - I miss you! We have tons more pictures coming but here's some for now and videos too!

Mariah is THREE!!!

I have no clue how she is 3 already but it is true. Her Birthday was July 7th and she had an awesome Birthday Weekend. We celebrated with a fun party with our friends & kids plus her friends from school at "Monkey Joe's." For you non-parents, it's a "bouncy house" type place and so much fun for kids as you can see by checking out the pics and videos! After the party, we spent the rest of the afternoon just the "4" of us at our pool. It was a great weekend. She got awesome gifts from friends (thanks again to all) and we got her a new big girl bicycle plus the Grandparents surprised her with an awesome new sand box! She is such an awesome little girl and we are so proud of her! Click here for pictures and here for videos.

Carter turns 1

Jamie & Todd's son, Carter, turned 1! Yay! The kids had so much fun over at Jamie & Todd's gorgeous new home for a big play party! It seems like Jamie was just pregnant with him a couple months ago, man time is flying by these days. Mariah sure does love Alexis & Carter! If I just convince her his name is Carter and not Jon Carter - we will be good to go. Ha ha.

Week in the NC Mountains

We went home to NC for a visit with the family in June! Ryan and I even had a date day/night in Asheville and had such a good time. We went to The Biltmore Estate Winery for some wine tasting, headed to Grove Park Inn to watch the sunset over the gorgeous mountains and have a pre-dinner cocktail and then headed downtown Asheville for a great dinner. It's always nice to be "home." And Mariah had so much fun playing. Makenzie did a lot of sleeping. :) Check out the pictures.

Makenzie Rolled Over!

I know my children are destined to be over-achievers (ha ha), but wow - Makenzie rolled over today! She is only 6 weeks old and most babies don't reach this milestone until around 4 months. She was doing "tummy time" and the next thing I knew, she was on her back. Amazing how strong this kid is - she was picking her head up on her own on Day 1.

Makenzie's First Modeling Job...

So, I received a call from a casting director wanting to use Makenzie and Ryan for a photo shoot for product packaging for some baby products. So... they went, why not? It's never too early to start a college fund! Here's a few pics from the shoot - it's for a "carseat backpack" type thing.

Newborn Pictures of Makenzie

When Mariah was born, I had an amazing newborn photographer do her pictures and I absolutely loved them! If you want to see a few of Mariah's - click here. The photographer's name is Amanda with Amanda Treiger Photography and her style is exactly what I love for newborns. So... I set up a shoot for our family for Makenzie's newborn photos too - we did these May 24th so Makenzie was 10 days old and Mariah was almost 3 years old in these. We absolutely love the new pictures of our baby girl and our family! If you want to see them all - click here.

One month check-up

We went to the doctor this morning for Makenzie's one month check up. She is growing like crazy and everything looks great! She now weighs 9 lb 12.5 oz and is 21.75 inches long so she is in the 75th percentile for her age. Yay Makenzie.

Makenzie is healthy . . . Thank God!

Some of you know that we got the biggest scare of our life a week ago. We received a certified letter from Neonatology Associates of Atlanta basically telling us Makenzie had high IRT levels from her blood work tests from the hospital and that it could possibly mean she has cystic fibrosis and that they sent her blood to Emory Genetic Testing to determine if she was positive or negative for CF. You can only imagine how hard that letter rocked our world and what we went through for a week. We had a really rough couple days and asked many of you to pray for Makenzie while we anxiously awaited test results. A week later, we got the wonderful news that she is 100% healthy and everything is fine. So, again, thank you all for your prayers and support. We still can't believe how insensitively Neonatalogy Associates is with sending this kind of devastating news in a letter. They should wait til they get the genetic tests back and THEN if you have a real reason to be concerned, then they should address it. I hope to change how they handle this so other families don't have to go through what we did. Anyway, bottom line - I just wanted to update you that its behind us, God is great and Makenzie is as perfect and healthy as we thought she was...

Mariah the Big Sister

Mariah is doing go great as a Big Sister. She loves Makenzie so much and wants to kiss her all the time. She is so good with her and so gentle. We are truly very proud of her. Mariah is such a fun little girl with an absolutely amazing personality! This is a picture of her on her way to school one morning being silly with Mommy. She still loves preschool and gets smarter by the day. I guess the latest thing she has learned is right and left. Its something new every day!

Summer Time

We are so happy its summer time!!! We love spending many hours together as a family at our pool and at Lake Chatuge! Mariah is loving the water and will be swimming by herself before we know it. She is doing great. We made our first trip to the lake and it was awesome as always. I love that my girls get to grow up out there like I did at my parents summer place. We have so much fun on our boats and Sea Doos and Mariah LOVES playing with her cousins - Jaycee and Jaden! It is always a blast! Click here for Lake Pictures.

Girls Night Out - Mommy/Daughter Edition

One of the cool parts about my job with Comcast is that we sponsor most everything in Atlanta... this time the sponsored event was perfect for Mariah and her friends so we invited them all to join us! We all went to the fabulous Fox Theater in downtown Atlanta for "Nickelodeon's Storytime Live" featuring Dora, the Backyardigans and the Wonder Pets! It was so much fun. Lisa brought Addie, Jamie brought Alexis and Celeste brought Regan and Emerson to join Mariah and me. Fun times with our girls. To see a few pictures, click here.

Field Trip - Atlanta ZOO

Mariah, Makenzie and I joined Jamie, Alexis & Carter for a day at the Zoo! The big girls had so much fun while the babies strolled. :) Jamie and I laughed about how much our lives have changed over the past few years. It doesn't seem that long ago we were cheering together and going out all the time but we must have blinked because now we are pushing DOUBLE strollers through the Atlanta Zoo! Wow. But . . . we love it and wouldn't change it for the world. Here's our pics from the day.

Our cute girls...

The Rackleys came over to meet one week old Makenzie so I invited Alexis to come up too with Jamie and Todd so she could play with Mariah & Addie. I just LOVE this picture of our sweet little girls!!! It looks like a print advertisement! They all love each other so much and its just awesome that my best friends have kids to grow up with my kids! SO FUN.

Carrington is ONE

Mariah was quite the party girl this weekend. . . she went from Addie's 2nd Birthday Party to Carrington's 1st Birthday at Laura & Cameron's house. Carrington had a Princess Party - she had a giant Princess Castle (bouncy house) in her backyard that was a huge hit with the kids. We had a lot of fun celebrating little Carington's 1st Birthday. How has a year already passed? Here's some more pics - click here.

Addie is TWO

I didn't get to go because I had to stay with Makenzie but Michelle took Mariah to Addie's 2nd Birthday Party at Lisa & Derek's House. Mariah had so much fun and Addie got lots of cool presents. More pics of Addie's party can be found here...

Mariah & Makenzie - TWINS... 3 years apart

So, we wondered if they would look anything alike . . . the answer is yes! It is crazy how much Makenzie looks like Mariah did as a newborn. Check out a couple of these comparison pictures! Makenzie is on the left and Mariah is on the right!

Makenzie Arden Snare...

CLICK HERE for Makenzie Photos from Northside Hospital...

Click here for Makenzie's first weeks at home photos.

Well, I guess it's time for a new blog post . . . because we have a new addition to our family!!! Baby Makenzie arrived on Friday, May 14 2010 at 1:47pm weighing 8 lb 6 oz and 20.5 inches long. I went into the hospital at 5am to begin admissions and to be induced. Around 8am they broke my water and gave me the epidural. I went from 3cm to 8cm dilated in an hour at one point! We had to wait for Makenzie to turn a little as she was kind of sideways but once she got turned and it was time to "push" - we got down to business. Ha Ha. I pushed 4 times for about 5 minutes total and our miracle happened! It's just beyond words - the feeling you instantly have - the overwhelming love you can have for another person in a second.

We are head over heels in love with her! And Mariah is doing GREAT! She loves her so much and is so sweet with her. She told her she was her best friend! Brought tears to my eyes of course. Makenzie is a pretty mellow baby so far which is awesome. And she is doing great eating and sleeping, etc.

Thanks so much to all of you for your thoughts, prayers and congrats! We sincerely appreciate each and every one of you! We are blessed beyond words with two wonderful little girls, not to mention our amazing circle of family and friends! Let us know if you want to come see her!

Oh - and a very special thanks to Grandma Snare for coming from Florida, Grandma Rosie & Papaw David for coming from NC, Aunt Megan for being there and "Aunt" Michelle for taking care of Mariah and bringing her to meet her Baby Sister for the first time!