Top Ten Things We Love About Birthday Parties

1. The person being celebrated

2. The cake

3. The decorations

(Banner made by my friend Crystal, since I do not yet have a Silhouette. One of these days!)

4. The guests

5. The presents

6. The singing

7. The cute clothes

8. The cake (Did I mention that already?)

9. The craziness

10. The look back over the past year

The Big One!

Happy first birthday to my sweet little boy!

The two of us had a little celebration this morning when he woke me up a little before 5:30. He's back to sleep now and here I am blogging! (Stinker!)

He's not walking yet, but is crawling lightning-fast. He adores his sisters (who love to make him laugh)! He is eating all kinds of table food. I'm excited to see what he does with his cake at his party Saturday! Both of the girls were pretty dainty with theirs, but I have a feeling that he will tear into it!

I can hardly believe he's a year old today. Babies change so much in the first year. He is sleeping pretty well (I can't complain after our first was a non-sleeper). He is showing a little personality and LOVES to explore everything. (I keep having to put everything up higher!) He is so sweet and loves to cuddle. I love that!

Happy birthday, Nathaniel!

The Last in the Series

Birthday celebration number three!

We hit the road again, this time only 20 miles down the road to Jason's parents' house for a party with some more cousins.

This is so Ellie:

Yes, I know this is a little birthday overkill. It was a lot of fun, though! (Plus I didn't have to clean my house for a party!) :-)

Ellie's Birthday Celebration, Part 2

For the second party, we traveled to Olive Branch. My brother and his family were at my dad's from Atlanta, so we combined a visit with a party. It was great fun seeing the cousins!

Aunt Cathy found a great monkey cake!

Baby brother had a good time too!

Ellie's Birthday Weekend

Three days of celebration for three years, right? Well, that's what we did anyway. Due to some extended family plans, we ended up with three different birthday parties for Ellie. Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

First, we picked Gabby up from school early and headed to the mall. Gabby really wanted to get Ellie a monkey from Build-A-Bear for her birthday. Lucky for us I had a great coupon and rewards that covered most of the purchase! Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the monkey. :(

Next we do what usually happens on a birthday in our house: Chuck-E-Cheese and Chick-Fil-A! We love our Christian chicken! (Of course all I have our phone pics from these trips!)

Next up: party at Poppaw's with the cousins!

The Many Faces of Ellie

Happy third birthday to our sweet Arielle!

Birthday Girl

Yesterday my big girl turned six!



We started the birthday celebration by bringing cookie cake to school. We took it last Friday since they would be out of school for Spring Break on her birthday.
Her teacher, Mrs. Julie, had a special notice on the door:



And a special seat:



The cookie cake was a huge hit!



We are so thankful for a great school and a great teacher for Gabby this year. Mrs. Julie made her celebration very special!

Kindergarten Girl

We officially have a kindergartner! Gabby was nervous this morning, but when I picked her up, she was a pro and ready to go back tomorrow! Our teacher is great, and she is a great match for Gabby. We look forward to many more great days!







Gabby & Mrs. Julie

Sweet Smiles

Sweet Smiles from Marci Lincoln on Vimeo.

The Addition

So I haven't been blogging much lately. Here's the main reason, in all his sweetness:


Nathaniel Isaac was born June 29. 7 lbs. 1 oz., 2 1/2 inches long.
Ellie is constantly wanting to touch his hands and feet, and for a couple of weeks Gabby couldn't stop talking about how cute he is.


Since his birth, he's been waking about every three hours to eat, which makes for one tired momma! The past couple of nights he's slept 4-5 hours in the first stretch. Hopefully he'll keep stretching that!

He smiled for real for the first time this past Saturday. First at his daddy, then at mommy. He even gave the nursery worker Sunday night a couple of grins. Now, of course, he hasn't smiled since!

We love having three kids, but it sure it a lot of work! The exhaustion is just temporary, (we hope!) and so worth it. Why, already one month has already passed! It all passes so quickly. I pray I focus on what matters and cherish these little ones God has entrusted to us!

Birthday Party!!

Birthday Girl

Happy second birthday to Ellie!

I can hardly believe she is two years old!

Some of her favorite things:

Food: Whatever she decides at the time. She is a toddler, after all!
Activity: Whatever big sister is doing, and jumping on the "blamblableen" (trampoline) :)
Characters: Barney (Lord, help us.), Elmo, and Mickey Mouse. She is a lot like her sister.
Sayings: "Whatdadoin?" (When you ask her what she's doing, she'll say, "Good.")
             She also has great manners. She is very good at "thank you" and "excuse
             me". We're working on"please".

We love you, Ellie, and we're so glad you came to be a part of our family!!!

Stage Girl

I really should make this a "Miraculous Mondays" post, as it appears I'm finally trying to blog at a regular pace again. But, alas, this one is about our little preschooler.


A few weeks ago Gabby's preschool presented the chapel program for the elementary school. I'm so sorry I don't have the video uploaded. Maybe one of these days we'll enter the digital age with our camcorder too. But I do have a few pics! They did some pretty cool stuff like saying the books of the New Testament and singing some songs.
This kid claims she's shy. Ha. Look at the little poser. It took her five minutes to get to her place on stage because she was striking a pose for the camera!

I have no idea what this kid is doing. . .

"I like to talk and whisper; I like to hum and sing."

Best buddy announcing he was going to pray. So cute!

Saturday Sharing

A few things that caught my eye this week:

LOVE this post about adoption. How many times do we try to put a band-aid on a wound, instead of looking at the source of the infection?

This living room remodel is gorgeous! It's amazing what a little elbow grease can do.

Sophie has a most hilarious post about a 100th birthday celebration. So Southern, so glad.

I wasn't a huge Hanson fan when they hit the charts back in the day, but I love their new song. Try to figure out who is playing the tambourine. :)


Thinking 'Bout Somethin'

HANSON | MySpace Music Videos

Spring Break 2010

Warning: Lots of pictures ahead!

On Spring Break, we traveled over the river to do a little visiting o' the family. First stop, Wolfchase Mall for a ride on the carosel. When we arrived at the mall, there was no one around the carosel and it looked like to was closed. Just our luck. That's why we went to the mall! But it was up and running by the time we were ready to leave. Mommy knew that riding on something spinning was not going to work for her, so Daddy had the pleasure of helping two very excited little girls.

Which one should we choose. . . .

Such a pro.

The next day we headed to the Children's Museum!

Getting our groove on in the disco room -

Paper airplanes -

Weeeeee!

Got to do a little Krogering. . .

So much fun!