A New Friend

Our new neighbors have four children - a seven and five year old, and twins that were born a month after Elliana. The five year old is a little girl named Lilyana, and she and Elliana have become fast friends. They always call each other by their name, which sound so much alike!! It's really nice to have children around for Ellie to play with.

A Morning With Aunt Shannon!

My sister, Shannon, came over one morning to go to Storytime with us. She helped Ellie with her little project that we had to make for the lesson, while I worked on unpacking some boxes. Elliana loves spending time with Aunt Shannon, and it's always nice to have an extra set of hands around!

Baby Goats

We love our new house and neighbors so much. Our neighbors next door have a little mini-farm. Whenever we tell people this they immediately ask "Do you live out in the country?" Well, we don't live in the country - in fact, we're only 3 minutes from the grocery store!! :) However, we have really enjoy getting to see goats and chickens from our back deck each and every day. Not long after we moved in two baby goats were born. When they were about a week old they invited us over to see them. We have fallen in love with these goats!!! When our neighbors move (which will be pretty soon), we might just have to get a few goats!! :)

Storytime with Miss Shelly!!

Elliana and I attended the Winter Lapsit Storytime program at the Library. What a great time we had!! The last session was a few weeks ago, and Ellie has asked almost every day if we are going to see "Miss Shirley." (Her name is really Shelly, but Ellie seems to only want to call her Shirley! She doesn't seem to mind!) We are signed up for the Spring session which will start sometime in April. Being the library nut that I am, I so excited that my daughter is just as enthralled with books and going to the library!

We Have EXCITING News...

Drumroll, please... Baby #2 is on the way!! We are very happy to announce that we are expecting another little blessing from the Lord!! Our due date is September 11, 2008, which makes us about seven weeks along now! We had an ultrasound yesterday and were able to see the baby and hear the heart beating. We are very excited about what God has in store for our family. Elliana has no idea what she is in for! We've been telling her that Mommy has a baby in her tummy and talking about baby brother or sister. After her bath a few nights ago, she looked down at her tummy and said "Baby in dare (there!)!" Hmmm... I think we've confused her!! :) Just wanted to share the wonderful news. We are praying that the Lord will prepare us and strengthen us for another little one. So, what's your guess... a boy or a girl? Comment and let us know!!

Psalm 127:3-5
Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Bi-Lo Shopping Trips!!

I know... you guys are going to think I'm crazy for putting a picture of groceries on our website!! I just wanted to share what great deals we received at Bi-Lo last week. They were having a triple coupon special - I rarely shop at Bi-Lo, but this was too good to resist. This meant that any coupon up to $.99 they would triple. I am a coupon saver, and had many coupons to use for this. Many items that we got were free, because the trippled coupon was the same or more than the cost of the item. For many products, there was an overage - they paid us to buy it! We bought this in two different trips. The second trip I wanted to have a $40 budget. I didn't bring the calculator in, so I couldn't keep up with my totals. While the cashier was ringing up the stuff, I kept watching the totals creeping up and up.... I kept thinking, "I know this will be more than $40. Lord, please let all those coupons bring it down to $40." Just about three seconds later a lady from another line walked over and gives me a $10 off $100 purchase coupon. She said she didn't need it and thought I could use it!! Well, the final total was... $39.40!!! I was so excited - Praise the Lord!! Isn't it neat how He cares about even the small details of our lives! We got over $280.00 worth of groceries for less than $80.00!! We're stocked up on many things for a really long time! Now if you think this is crazy, just wait until I tell you about the 10 huge bags or free M&Ms that we got at CVS!! If you've had a craving for M&Ms, come on over, we've got them!!

It's a Pizza Party!

Ellie had a blast helping me make pizza last weekend. She also thought that pizza dough was not just fun to play with, but also to eat!! I knew there was a reason why I haven't gotten any playdough for her yet!! Our finished product was quite tasty!!

Yummy Soy Joys!

We had a whole bunch of Soy Joy bars after one of my CVS runs where I was practically paid to purchase them. After trying them, we quickly discovered that Ellie is the only one that likes them. Oh well - at least she will eat them! I'll post about my CVS run and my HUGE triple coupon Bi-Lo run in the next few days. I'm hooked on this bargain shopping thing, thanks to Crystal at www.moneysavingmom.com

Aquarium Fun!

We had blast at the Aquarium last weekend!! Thanks to Mimi and Papa John for giving us a season pass! I think we'll be going quite often. Chris and I especially loved the penguins and butterflies. Ellie loved the fish and talked about them for the rest of the day! Chris has decided that she needs a fishtank for her new big girl room. We'll have to work on that one!

Elliana's First Ponytail!!

After much effort on Mommy's part - Ellie sported a new hair style (for a few minutes anyway!) I think it's going to be a little longer before we can get her to wear a ponytail and not pull it out!:)

Sharing With Ellie!

Ellie was so impressed with Mama's water from McDonald's that she decided to share it with her baby doll. By the way, the doll's name is...(what else but?)... Ellie!

Reading Library Books

We have really enjoyed making a trip to the Library every other week! I love Libraries so much, and it has been a blessing to introduce Ellie to books and the Library. Elliana loves to sit on the reading cushions they have and look at books. We're still working on our Library manners, though!! Last time we went Ellie walked in and screamed "Wow - Books!" to the top of her lungs!!

Cleaning Up the Kitchen!

How exciting it is to watch as Ellie learns to enjoy helping Mama around the house. We pray that we can help cultivate her helpful spirit.

"Mmmmm... I Like Spoon!"

Elliana LOVED licking the spoon after we made cookies one day. She thinks that all spoons have cookie dough on them now, though!

Helping Mimi in the Kitchen

Ellie loves to be a helper - and she is especially likes "helping" in the kitchen! It is a blessing to see her interested in doing what mommy does throughout the day. What a joy it will be to see her grow up and become a wife and mother one day.

Weekend Family Trip

On the way back from our trip to Virginia, Chris met us in Sevierville, TN. Mom and Dad headed back home, and we enjoyed some family time at Dollywood on Saturday! Ellie loved riding Dumbo, the Carousel, Teacups, and the train. We stayed the night in Maryville and spent the next day together and had some memory making family time! The highlight of our day was stopping at the Athens Recreation Center and enjoying the playground. When we drove up Ellie was SO excited! She was jumping up and down saying "Play, Yes, Play!" The slides were a blast - we all enjoyed them. We also spent time geocaching. If you're not sure what geocaching is, check it out at www.geocaching.com It's a fun, free, family activity that we enjoy. Careful though, it does get addictive!! Here are some pictures from our trip.

Nana and Poppy's House

Wednesday after Christmas Elliana and I took a road trip to Virginia with Dad, Mom, and Shannon. Lora met us up there and spent Thursday with us. What a wonderful time we had visiting with Nana, Poppy, Jennifer, Carmen, Kathy, Jimmy, and Anna, and of course, their dogs (they breed German Shepherds)!!! We were sad to leave, but very excited to see Chris! We met up and spent some time Mommy, Daddy, and Ellie time over the weekend! I'll write more about that in my next post.

Christmas Day

What a wonderful Christmas we had this year! We started off the day with a big Phelps breakfast. Chris' brother Tim, his wife Leslie, and their daughter Katie came to join us. We lit our final Advent candle, this time we lit the candle that represents Jesus. It was a fun time for Ellie to be involved in the reading of the Christmas story. The characters from her cloth nativity were hidden in the room, and we had her find a character, then someone would read the scriptures about that character. This is a tradition we want to keep next year as well. Then we opened presents and received so many wonderful things!

Later on we headed up the mountain to my Mom and Dad's house. We all opened presents, which was very exciting. Ellie received to many nice things, including a gorgeous bunny made by my mom. Chris and I are so excited about our year pass to the Aquarium and Discovery Museum. We are really going to enjoy going as a family. What a great gift! Mamoo and Papaw joined us for our Christmas dinner, which was delicious!

Pig Tails!

Ellie's first pigtails!! It took many tries to get these little ponytails in, but it finally worked! The sad thing is that they didn't stay in very long. Ellie thought it was a lot of fun to pull the rubberbands out. Oh well... we'll keep working on it!

Cousins!

Ellie enjoyed playing with her cousins Logan, Jackson, Camden and Anderson at Mimi and Papa John's house several weeks ago. Technically, they are Ellie'a second cousins. Their Dad is my uncle! Funny that we have children close to the same age!We had a blast visiting with them and catching up.