The Circus!

In case you were wondering, 3 3/4 months old is not a great age for the circus :). We went with our small group to Ringling Brothers this week - Kinsey slept through most of it, but there were times she was paying attention and she liked the bright lights and fun music. And yes, she is bottom-less. She had on jeans but got too hot and so we let her be white-trash baby for the rest of the circus :)We really enjoyed it though - the acrobats were just amazing and these guys on the poles were too cool!!!Our friends Katie & Matt and their little boy Luke had a great time - Luke was so fun to watch while he danced. 2 is definitely a good age for the circus!

We're feeling a little Canadian this week. It's a thousand degrees and humid here in Texas so thoughts of cool, crisp British Columbia are really tempting :) To encourage that spirit, Kinsey got her first international gift this week - adorable slippers from our friends at Lake O'Hara.

If you are looking for the best hiking and views on the planet - pay them a visit. Or just go to the website and dream about a vacation there like we are - http://www.lakeohara.com/

And also in the Canadian spirit, here's a shot of her in her Lake Louise flip-flop t-shirt. Check out those coordinating sandals - she kept them on for all of 2 minutes before her kicking got out of control and they flew off. I'm thinking she has a future in the drill team or kick boxing.

We still can't get over how much Kinsey is growing and changing - she will be 4 months next week!!! She now pulls herself up using our hands to a sitting position and can sit there with just a little resistance from us. She loves tummy time and can hold her head way up. And of course she still loves to laugh. Her favorite game is laying in her crib while Daddy bounces the mattress beneath her and she jostles around giggling. She can pull her bib off, pull Mommy's hair, bring everything to her mouth, and hold onto toys. Here she is with her seahorse:

She still loves bathtime also - we think she's just an exhibitionist at heart and any opportunity to get nekkid is one she will take. Just this week she's discovered she can kick her feet and splash soapy water all over Mommy - how fun! We just love putting her in her towels afterward - she just looks so cute!!
Have a great Holiday weekend everyone - we'll have some more pics early next week of our Patriotic baby!

Daddy's Little Helper and a Date Night

Well, today was a busy day. Douglas has today and tomorrow off (and then he's on for 9 days straight - geez!!) We took the minivan in this morning to get an oil service and a hookup for the iPod installed. Met a really nice guy named Chris at the dealership who attends HCBC and recognized Douglas from the worship ministry. It's crazy how famous he is around town :). It's just awesome how God has blessed us with people just coming up to us because of that, and then we get to share why we are here and about the church plant. Too cool!! Anyway, the dealership gave us a loaner car so we ran to the Cracker Barrel for some brunch. Then we came home and I had to get to work and take some calls, so Douglas took care of some house stuff.

Here's Daddy's little helper, doesn't she look like she's having a great time? Seriously, the last couple of days has made us question ever leaving the house again! She does so great most of the time, but then we go out of town and then she's weird for the next couple of days in terms of sleep and naps. Tomorrow she should be back on schedule, but last night and today were a little rough and she got up at 3am (at least I think I remember it, awesome-husband-of-mine took care of her) and then again at 8:30am which is odd for her.



Tonight we went out on our second date since Kinsey was born. I know, I know, we are working on it - we've just been really busy. So we underestimated the traffic to the restaurant and so we ended up at the Food Court at the mall before running across to the movie theater to see The Break Up. Can I just say this is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time? Vince Vaughn is usually NOT my favorite because he's usually in pretty slapstick-type roles. But in this movie, he's really very dry and hilarious. But the movie is also pretty serious and heartwrenching at times. For all of you adults out there, I highly recommend this movie. But be warned, some of the fight scenes were awfully familiar. How many times have I told Douglas that I want him to WANT to do housework? Now I see how dumb that sounds, but the sentiment is still there :-) And if anyone from Chicago is reading this, I love your city! The movie is set there and I have spent some time there for work and I just love it - so much to do, great architecture, you walk everywhere, it's awesome! We will need to take Kinsey there sometime.

Huge thanks to Nana and Pops for babysitting tonight!! They did an awesome job with a really sleepy baby. This is the first time we've left her when she wasn't in a good mood and that was really tough. But she was in the best hands possible so we had confidence in going out.

Have a great week everyone!

Hangin' with Hailey

Hi there - we had a great weekend hanging out with Brian, Crystal and Hailey. We also got to see Robert and Obi & CC as well. And it was fun for the brothers to get to hang out, too.Hailey is still so tiny -she's 5 weeks old now and 8lbs. Here are a few cute pics of her:
On Saturday, she and Kinsey relaxed together for a little while. Kinsey watched her new favorite dvd "Baby Praise" and Hailey took a nap in the swing.watching the dvd in her own version of a recliner :)
When they are together, Kinsey looks so big!
Last week, Nana and Pops got back from their vacation in Florida. They came over and Kinsey had some good tummy time and they gave her a bath. She's enjoying her nekkid time each day and we try to time that right before bathtime just in case :)

Douglas picked out some cute patriotic onesies at Target last week. We're practicing for July 4th Kinsey loves hanging out with her Daddy - he is really funny and makes her laugh

The one thing that would make her life better would be if she would just relax when she goes to sleep :)

CC & Obi Visit - Updated

Happy Saturday and Happy Father's Day! We are enjoying a visit right now from Obi, CC, and Uncle Robert. Kinsey is loving all the attention and showing off all her new tricks - keeping her head up when you help her sit up, laughing, gurgling, sucking her fingers, etc :)
There must be something about grandfathers that is just really funny because Kinsey had a great time laughing at Obi last night:

And there's no better sleep aid than CC:

And she had some good tummy time this morning also:

In honor of Obi's visit, we thought we'd put Kinsey "in good hands":

If her Uncle Robert ever gets up (yes, it is 2pm), we will get some shots of her with him as well and post them later. Robert did get up - he's been changing diapers, changing her clothes, feeding her, and playing.

I'm not sure what prompted this reaction, but...

Apparently Grandparents don't JUST spoil kiddos, they also teach skills - here's Kinsey holding her own bottle all by herself while sitting with Obi:

Kinsey is currently experiencing her first bout of sniffles -not sure if it's a real cold or not, but she definitely is having some sinus issues and a little cough. But it's not phasing her - she's still in a great mood and the only real change is she's sleeping a little bit more. So say a prayer that she will stay healthy and keep her sweet spirit.

In other news, this week Douglas started practicing guitar again and Kinsey really enjoyed watching him and moving her arms and legs to the music:

If you notice, in a lot of these pictures she's wearing a bib - that's because our little punkin is a DROOL MACHINE!!! I can't even imagine what she'll do when she starts teething!
Here's a pic of her from last week - it's what I call her "hoochie" outfit because the top has spaghetti straps and comes down very low on her chest when she's upright :)

And I thought now might be a good time to show you just how much she's grown - the one on the left is 3 months and a week or so, the one on the right was taken when she was around 3 weeks old. She certainly takes up a lot more of the swing now!

14 lbs!

Hi everyone - it's Darin. Hope you all had a good weekend. We went to Ovilla for Luke Strange's wedding and got to see a lot of good friends and introduce Kinsey to everyone. Don't kill me - I didn't take any pictures! I'm not sure what I was thinking! Luckily Marni sent me this one of her daughter Lindsay holding Kinsey at Luke's wedding recption.
We stayed with Paul and Melinda Nelson who were very gracious to offer us their entire upstairs to take over with all of our baby gear! It's amazing how much we travel with now! Kinsey had her own room and she slept terrific in the pak 'n play. Douglas used Melinda's fancy scale to determine that Kinsey is just over 14lbs now! So she's gaining an average of 2 pounds a month - getting to be quite the big girl!
Luke's wedding was beautiful and I really think he and Kristen are going to be very happy together. And Keith's message was great - it's always good to go to a wedding and be reminded of the vows that we took at our own. Amazingly, that was 6 1/2 years ago! Keith really talked about how weddings are so representative of our commitment to Christ, and he charged the couple (and all of us there) to remember that Jesus doesn't hold our old sins against us and bring them up again when we fail. And we shouldn't bring up past hurts with our spouses either. Very convicting.
We had a great time at the reception getting to see a lot of the old Ovilla gang - Tim sang a hilarious song about his love/hate relationship with Luke - Tim Horton you have a real gift - great wit and a real feel for songwriting. Love it! Kinsey got passed around quite a bit and got lots of love. She even got held by the groom - I think she was very honored!
We also got to go to First Baptist Midlothian on Sunday and it was great to see where so many of our friends have found a wonderful church home. The choir was awesome (go Dionne!) and everyone there seems very friendly. We are so happy for you guys!

Here's a picture from last week of Kinsey with Pops - she was laughing so hard! The quality isn't great because I rushed in the room to take it, but it was so fun to watch her laugh that hard. She's really starting to find people hilarious!

Ok, I will definitely need to start taking more pictures again so I will have some to post! For now, know that all is well here and we are having a great time with her - something new every day it seems!

Have a great week everyone!

Well, three months have come and gone. It is amazing to us that our new daughter is already 3 months old, but in so many ways it feels like we have known her forever. This is Douglas tonight, and I decided that I would post since I haven't had the opportunity to do so in a while. I am enjoying the job of daddy so much! From the looks of it, I'm enjoying it so much more than Kinsey is enjoying getting her picture taken!

Obviously this is not the best picture that we have of our little one, but it is definitely one of the funniest! I think that with her Grammy having been here this weekend, seeing all of the family, and then Daddy trying to get her to smile through all of this, she just got tired of it. Oh well - - keep reading...there's better pics to come. Kinsey has gotten so alert and has started laughing at us a lot. She drools like crazy and has started freaking out every time she has to stop eating to burp. We think that she's afraid that we're not going to give her the rest of the bottle. She's gotta get over it! Like we're going to let her starve?!?!!?!?!

Kinsey has found her tongue and plays with it in and out of her mouth - this probably accounts for a lot of the drool that we're seeing. People keep telling us to just wait for the teething to begin because then we'll really be blown away by the amount of drool. Kinsey loves her Baby Einstein play-gym and gets a lot of time in it each day. She does a great job kicking the arm of the play-gym to make her lighted star come on and play a little song to her. She smiles and laughs, and when the music goes off, she knows that she's got to kick again to make the music play. She's also decided that she likes being held up in the air above her daddy's head. When I hold her in the air like "superbaby" she just grins and giggles the whole time. At that point, my heart melts into a puddle and I let her know that she can have anything from me that she wants. Whatever she wants...it's hers.

I think that's probably the most amazing thing about my new role as Daddy. That she has completely won me over from the word go. Every day it seems that I am learning a new definition for the word love. One day it's her giggle, the next day it's her smile, and the next it's her smell. Sometimes during the day I am just totally overcome with how much I love her.

The other thing that I have learned in the last three months is how much I truly love my wife. She is one amazing woman. I was a little nervous when we had Kinsey that we would grow apart, each of us giving so much to the baby that our true partner in life would suffer the effects. Not so! Our love for each other has done nothing but grow and strengthen. I have so much love and respect for who she is and what she has done to make life for Kinsey and me what it is today. Darin had to start back to work last week. She works from 1pm to 6pm each day at her desk in the office here at home. I know that it is hard for her to be away from Kinsey during the time, but fortunately, I am home with Kinsey and Darin is just in the other room. It is such a blessing to have this type of arrangement. God has provided for us so well. I praise Him daily for blessing me with a wife and Kinsey with a mother who is so amazing as Darin. There's no one out there who compares with her in my book! She is amazing.

Well, in other news...I am working at Starbucks during the morning shift. I have to be off at 1pm so that I can get home and take over for the mommy. Next Friday, 6/16, I have a big interview and test to determine whether or not I can move forward into management. I will be moving into a position where I will be managing the store that I'm at right now from 5am to 1pm so that will work out really well. I am enjoying the time at Starbucks. It has a great atmosphere and it is an awesome place to meet people. Anyone out there who wants to know a place to meet people for whatever reason - just go spent part of your day at Starbucks. I probably know as many if not more people from Starbucks than I do from our new church. Now comes the part where you begin going a bit deeper into their life than just "Hi, what can I get for you." It's really a neat opportunity that God has given me to work inside the community this way.

In church news...our time at Hill Country Bible Church Northwest is just wonderful. We have joined a great REALife group and really enjoy the new friends that we have made. Beginning June 18, I will be on a rotation to lead worship about every 3 weeks. This is an exciting time of learning and growing for Darin and I as we prepare to be a part of the new Hill Country Bible Church in North Round Rock that our great friend Keith Ferguson will be pastoring. Keith was named the pastor of this new church start last night by the Elder Board at Hill Country Bible Church Pflugerville. The launch date for this new work is on the schedule for August of 2007. Please be praying for us and the Fergusons and all of the people who will be working to begin this church to reach all of greater Austin with the Gospel.

Well, enough of my ramblings, I know you only come out here to see pictures, so enough waiting. I took these pictures in her crib because she's a big girl now and sleeps in her crib instead of the bassinet. She is sleeping 11 HOURS AT A TIME - WOO HOO!! We Love This Kid! And apparently she is quite the active sleeper - we put her down at the top of her crib and when we go to get her in the morning (after 11 hours of sleep, did I mention that???), she is at the other end of the crib! Here are some more pictures:

Here's her rehearsal for Titanic 2 - she's ready for Leo DiCaprio to come draw her picture now :)

And here was Kinsey's reaction when she found out Taylor Hicks won American Idol - Soul Patrol!

The Bradleys from Ovilla came to visit us last week. Here are some shots of that visit: