Meet the Family

In writing my last post, I realized that there are many of you who don't know someone in my family, or even me. I'm so glad many of you have come to know us through friends of friends of friends or just by coming across my blog. I'm so glad to count many of you as prayer warriors and as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are, after all, one big family. Well, here's my family...

Me and Rob swimming with the dolphins in Nassau, Bahamas. We love to travel and spend a lot of our time planning where we will go next. This is something we hope to pass on to our kids.

Us out to eat for my 29th birthday with friends. We love our friends and love spending time with them! I'm so glad that through this experience, I have new friends that I will cherish forever.

At a football game at our local high school. We love football, Nascar, LSU, and just having fun. Our youngest, Natalie, was a guest cheerleader at this game, so we had so much fun watching her cheer!

Our oldest, Emilee, when she got her braces. She is our "quiet" child, if there is such a thing. She is pre-teen and likes to spend her time with her friends and messing with her sister. She has a crazy love for animals, just like me. She is so smart and we are so proud of her. She is in the band at school and is very involved in the youth group at church.

Emilee- more of our "skater-punk" style child. She loves her skinny jeans and converse shoes. We definitely have a different taste in clothes, but that is who she is and we love her so much! She was so much of a tomboy growing up, but she has blossomed so much in the past couple of years. She still loves to spend time outside fishing and playing with her cousins finding bugs and stuff though.

Natalie, sitting in our friends' smart car. She is our "prissy" child. She told me last night that if she could have anything, she would have every shoe in the world- total girl right?!?! Natalie is for sure our loud child. She likes to be seen and heard. She is also our cuddler. She always wants to be with us even if it is just going grocery shopping.

Natalie wants to do everything. She wants to be a cheerleader, softball player, dancer, gymnast, swimmer, etc... the list goes on and on. She also thought I was the coolest mom ever when I was bald. She took care of me when I was sick. And, as of right now, she wants to be a Hematology Oncologist when she grows up so she can help others fight blood cancers. I am so proud of her!

We love both of our girls so much! They are both "A" students and are so sweet. We could not be prouder! We were definitely blessed by God with these two!

Princess- our daschund-healer mix. Princess was rescued from the Animal Rescue Fund and became part of the family immediately. She is the most lovable dog in the world. When we first got her, she was only 6 weeks old, so when she started growing, she just kept getting longer and longer. She never really got much taller. She is one of a kind for sure, but she is a huge part of our family. She is our "watch dog" because she has a big bark, but when you walk in, she will just roll over so you can rub her belly.

Daisy May- Daisy was my engagement present from Rob. We just went riding around and ended up at the Humane Society. Rob should know better than to take me there. If I could, I would adopt every animal out there. Well, I had been wanting a chihuahua for so long, and all the chihuahua's were grown and were kind of aggressive, so we asked if they had anything else. They had Daisy in the back. She had just been surrendered that morning. It was love at first sight. She was so cute and small! She is a chihuahua-schnauzer mix. She has this crazy hair that sticks up everywhere, so in the summer, we have to get her hair cut. We named her Daisy May because we got married in May and we used Gerber daisies in the wedding.

Cricket- an unplanned addition to our family. We went to Lowe's one day after church, which happens to be next to PetSmart. Well, it was adoption day, and there she sat. Rob saw her first and we went round and round about getting her. Of course, I was all for it, but I left the decision up to Rob. Well, as you can tell, he gave in and we came home with her. She is supposedly a full-blood chihuahua, but her ears don't stand up. She is definitely a "momma's girl." She never left my side when I was sick last year except she had to go outside or eat. She is always sitting next to me or in my lap.

And the newest unplanned addition- Cleopatra (Cleo)- Rob found her at a gas station one day while he was working. Of course, I would have cried all day thinking she would have been run over, so he brought her home so we could find a new home for her. Well, nobody wanted her and the girls fell in love with her. She is so little, but she accepted her new puppy sisters immediately. Princess chases her around the house, and then Cleo will get on top of the couch and jump on top of Princess. Cricket is scared of her, which cracks us up because Cricket is twice the size of her. Daisy could really care less about her.

Snuggles- Snuggles is a hamster. Summer 2007, my friend's son had a hamster who had babies, so we let the girls get a hamster each. We got two boy hamsters, Snuggles and Cruiser. Well, the day that Snuggles had babies, we realized that we didn't have two boy hamsters! So, we separated them and FINALLY got rid of all six babies. Cruiser just recently went on to "hamster heaven", so we only have Snuggles left.