A new niece to love on!!!!

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted but we (Ansley & I) have been busy spending time in Orlando with Kelly, Madison, Brent, and the newest addition, Hailey! I left last Monday to try and beat tropical storm Fay. I am so glad I decided to come down a day earlier because I do not like to drive in the rain and that is definitely what happened. Since "Fay" decided to just sit on Orlando, it started raining Tuesday and didn't end until Sunday. The town Kelly lives in got 10 inches of rain in 24 hours.....

Well to get back to more fun stuff, Hailey decided she wasn't going to come early and that she would just make her grand entrance on her due date, August 21 2008. I had a feeling Kelly wasn't going to have to be induced by the way she was feeling the day before. Unfortunately, she started to go into labor around midnight, so she never went to sleep. And they woke me up at 2:30am to tell me they were going to the hospital. Of course, I was so excited I couldn't fall back to sleep. Plus, the weather was so AWFUL I was worried about them driving, worried about how I was going to manage taking Maddie to her first day of preschool along with Ansley in the pouring down rain. Kelly and Brent decided it would be best for Maddie not to go to school that day since so much was going on, I agreed (plus I was exhausted).

Anyways, after about 4 1/2 hours at the hospital, Hailey Elizabeth Wardrop was born at 7:40am. Hailey was 7lbs 9oz and 20 inches long. Kelly had a hard delivery but I am so proud of her for being able to do it. Hailey is just precious! She is much smaller then Madison was and I was actually nervous changing her a couple of times. I guess you really forget how little they are (Ansley was smaller then Hailey when she was born). I think Hailey looks a lot like Madison did when she was born. She is also a great sleeper which has been wonderful since it is hard to tell Ansley and Madison to be quiet.

Other then just loving on Hailey, I just tried to help Kelly and Brent out with whatever they needed. Running errands, helping take care of Maddie, etc. Madison really was great when Kel & Brent were at the hospital. It was Ansley who was a little difficult. She has become very fascinated with closing doors (not sure why, she never closes our doors), and with climbing furniture (found her on top of a coffee table one day). But all in all, Maddie and Ansley had a great time together. It is nice to be able to feed them at the same time, bathe them together, and put them down at the same time. Plus, they are each other's entertainment. They would literally run around the dining room table chasing each other for hours each day. It was really cute!

I was fortunate enough to have been able to go down to Orlando for as long as I did and to be able to help Kel & Brent out with watching Maddie. I know it was a huge relief for them. Plus, I have to thank Rob for letting us go that long. I know he missed his girls and is very happy now that we are home again!

I took a ton of pictures and was going to put them in a slide show for you, but since Kelly has already done that on her blog, I will just post some of my favorites from the week...

Kel, Brent, Madison & Hailey, thanks for having me and I can't wait to see you in about 6 weeks :)

Love you,

Aunt Jenni "Mommy Jenni" & Ansley

a long week

Sorry it has been a while since I have posted; but to be honest, we haven't been up to anything too exciting since we have been back from our trip... Rob was out of town most of last week which left me to take care of Ansley for 3 days by myself. I was very exhausted!!! Not to mention, Ansley has not been in the best of moods. We can officially say she has hit the terrible two's (about 4 months early).

While Rob was out of town, I tried to keep Ansley busy. We had 3 play-dates with Jenna, Treyton, Laura & Libby, which were GREAT! It is always nice when the six of us get together. Our kids are so close in age (6 weeks total between the 3 of them) which makes playing together easy....We also had a play-date with our friend Jennifer & her two son's, Tripp & Reid. 4 play-dates in 3 days made the time without Rob go by a lot faster.

Now, we are just anxiously awaiting the phone call from Kelly that she is in labor ..... Ansley and I will then be heading down to Orlando to meet baby Hailey & hang out with her big sis, Madison. We can't wait!!!

Harbor Springs cont'd

Here are the pictures from our vacation. Sorry there are so many, but this isn't even all of them... ENJOY!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Harbor Springs, MI

We just got back from our 12 day vacation in Harbor Springs, Michigan. Our trip started off bumpy, because Ansley came down with an awful stomach virus the day before we were suppose to leave and was running a very high fever (103 degrees and above). After going to the doctor's office and the doctor telling us it was viral, we knew there wasn't much we could do but let it run its coarse. So we decided to go ahead and go to Harbor Springs. The 2 day trip was a rough one, with lots of stops and diaper changes.... but Ansley did really well considering she did not feel good! When we finally got to Michigan, Ansley was so pitiful we put her to bed at 6pm. She slept for over 12 hours with a couple of wake-ups but seemed to be doing a little better. The fever was finally down and she was finally drinking and eating some. That was the hardest part on the 2-day drive, Ansley didn't want to drink anything and I was fearful that she was getting dehydrated since she was having so many messy diapers (sorry, I know this is more then you wanted to here). Other then stomach issues, she seemed to slowly get back to her normal self. The fever was finally gone for good by Saturday and after some good sleep Ansley was good to go. Unfortunately, the stomach issues lasted the whole time we were there, and we even headed back to the doctor's when we got back into town. Hopefully we are at the tale end of this nasty virus :(

Anyways, we had a great trip in Harbor Springs. It is much different when you have a toddler running around. The regatta race was the first weekend we were there so we took it easy and went down to the pier to look at the beautiful sailboats. Once Ansley was feeling a little better, we went to the pool almost everyday. Ansley even ventured off the steps and decided to swim :) We were so excited!!! (Ansley has never left the steps because she was scared but she finally got the confidence while watching all the kiddos swim around her). We only went to the beach once, it wasn't much of a hit with Ansley since she HATES the sand and really hates the cold water (I don't blame her on the lake water, it is cold). We basically went because you can't go to Harbor Springs and not go to the beach....

We had a great time hanging out with Mimi, Pops, Peaches (the dog), Uncle Boo (Matt), CC (Chelsea), and Mr & Mrs Helton. CC didn't get into town until Thursday, but we still managed to pack as much into to the short time she was there (hopefully next year she will be able to come longer). Matt, Rob, Chelsea, and I went out to dinner one night which was great! And we even played golf together one afternoon. Golf was pretty humorous, but we had a great time and it didn't hurt that we had a couple of beers while we were playing as well :)

Harbor Springs is always a great relaxing vacation for us and we look forward to it every year. Thank you Mimi, Pops, Uncle Boo, and CC....we cant' wait til next year!!

P.S. I posted only one pic, because I still need to go through 200 pics. Hopefully I will have a slide show up of the pics tonight or tomorrow

Girls Trip & Atlanta Wedding

This past week Ansley & I went on a girls trip to New Bern, NC with Candice, Heidi Cay, Sarah, Emma Kate, and Willis. We had a great time going to the pool, the beach, and just hanging out together. I was really impressed with how well Ansley did being around the other girls. She ofcourse loves to be with older kids so she was in heaven. She was definitley worn out by the end of each day and slept great!

Ansley and I headed back a day early to pick up Rob, we then headed to Atlanta for one of my sorority sister's (brandy) wedding. The wedding was great and it was so nice to hang out with all of my pledge class again....It has been a busy last couple of weeks but we are looking forward to our vacation in Harbor Springs.

Here are some pics from this past week.

Pics from Bran's wedding

Butterfly's & Dragonfly's

Kelly asked me a while back to paint some paintings for Madison's big girl room. Of course I said yes, I would so much rather paint her something then for her to drop a lot of money on a painting that I could do for her. Plus it is something neat for Madison to have in her room and to say her Aunt Jenni painted them for her.

Here are the pictures I painted (2 butterfly's and a dragonfly). Believe it or not, I painted them from sketches I drew first. I had to draw the pictures so I could make sure we had all the colors in each painting but they weren't the same either (if that makes sense)...Kel sent me pictures of Madison's bedding and I went from there.

I can't wait to see them in Madison's big girl room :)

4th of July Weekend

We hope everyone had a great 4th of July Weekend! On the 4th, we just hit the pool and then went to a cookout at The Wansley's house. We were all having a great time and then around 6:00 Ansley became really clingy and felt very hot. I took her temp and she was running a 103.2 fever! So our plans changed and we headed home (didn't want to get the other kiddos sick). Thankfully Ansley's fever was back down by the time she went to bed. Needless to say, our 4th of July didn't go according to plan (but when does it ever!?!). We did manage to watch the fireworks on TV.

Ansley was feeling much better and her fever was gone on Saturday. We decided to lay-low and relax so Ansley could get some rest. We then headed over to The Hall's house for another cookout and a great firework show. Ansley DID NOT like the loud noise of the fireworks and had a meltdown around 9:30 so we had to cut our night short.

But, we still managed to have a great weekend spending time with friends. I wasn't able to get a ton of pics but here are a few.

Ansley still hates to get in the water. She just rather sit on the edge and kick her legs in the water or walk around the pool checking everything out.

happy girl

(below) Ansley was obsessed with this car. We may have to get one!

and she loved the scooter too