Hello to Madelyn!

I am proud to announce (at least on my blog) the arrival of my newest niece, Madelyn Lenore Samuels.  She was born this afternoon and all are well.  I can't quite remember how much she weighs... but that doesn't matter all that much.  She's little.  Anyway, congrats to the new parents - we can't wait to see you in a few weeks!

Fun with Photo Booth

Nothing all that much to talk about today... just thought I would put up some fun pictures of the family. Jayson has this computer for work, but I have to admit I look forward to him coming home everyday so that I can play on it. I grew up with a Mac, and had never had a PC until I got married.... but I'm glad that we're back to having a Mac in the house.


Rhys got her first hair cut this past Saturday - It's kind of a tradition now that the kids get their first hair cut around their first birthday. She doesn't have as much hair as NegleyAnne did at that age, but it's still fun to get it cut and see her sit in a big chair. She even had a little kid cape. As soon as I get the pictures off the camera, I will get them on here.


I did forget to mention that Jayson's cousin Jenny had her first baby this past week. John James McClure. All seem to be doing well... and I can't wait to meet him!

Have a great day...

Oh my... she's one!

So today was Rhys' birthday (observed) and she is now officially my one year old daughter. I tried to find some cute pictures to post from over the past year that I haven't used yet... not too hard since I've hardly posted at all this year. Anyway, here are some cute ones!

This is Rhys and I on the beach in Pawleys Island. We were there after Christmas this past year and a great time visiting with our friends Matt, Sayward, and Spencer (and Hagrid of course). I sat on the beach with Rhys for about an hour with her trying to "eat" the wind. It made me laugh out loud, and I had to capture it on the camera.

Ahh, the first time that Rhys ate cereal. If you've been in our kitchen you know that we have similar pictures of NegleyAnne framed on the wall. The plan has always been to frame these pictures of Rhys and hang them next to the others... but... well... it sucks to be the second child. Hopefully before we move out of this house someday they will be up on the wall.

I couldn't have in my wildest dreams that I could have had ANOTHER awesome baby after having NegleyAnne. Rhys has been sooooo much fun to spend time with and I love watching her grow up. Jayson and I are loving big time on our two little girls...

What, twice in one month?

My mother-in-law stopped by yesterday and commented that my Aunt B. looks at this blog often to see pictures of the kids and is disappointed because I haven't been updating it. So this post is for you Aunt B. There's nothing really to talk about, just some cute pictures of the girls.



Rhys is now mobile, which is both good and bad. She loves it, but it means a lot more work for me. Last night we were playing our little game with Tillie's dog food (I set her down and she immediately goes for Tillie's dish) when in her quick escape from me managed to slip on the tile floor and bit her lip. There is nothing worse than a baby's cry when they are actually hurt. I can ignore almost any other kind of cry, but those are the worst!


On the Fourth of July the family head to Idlewild for a fun day at the park. Somehow I caught Negley Anne at the perfect time - just to see her expression when the train blew it's whistle. It was really loud... but I love those eyes. Wonder who she got those from...

Well, thank you Aunt B. for the motivation to keep blogging... hopefully there will be some more before the end of the summer!

Happy Birthday Rhys

So Jayson and I have managed to do it again... we've kept a kid alive a whole year. Rhys turned One this morning, but it was pretty uneventful. Jayson is in Haiti, and it's raining here in Pittsburgh. As I told my friends last night, Rhys' birthday is being observed on Sunday. She will be celebrating with my cousin Tim and my Grandfather (Grandpa Carl) who is turning 87. The oldest and the youngest together - what a blast!

A quick shot of the Negs at Fowler Pool at The Pittsburgh Project. She's had such a blast this summer swimming, and I've loved having a summer job that involves lots and lots of water!

Hope all is well...

DRIVE 08

I am back in Hotlanta for the Drive Conference at North Point Church. Last night I got to attend a gathering of bloggers, which was really cool. It made me realize that I needed to get back on the horse and get this going again.

I am also trying to build and Orphanage in Haiti with some friends and have come up with a little website to help raise some funds. Check it out when you have a chance and help us out if you can. You can also join the facebook group too.

www.clipafriend.com

thanksgiving

with sayward's encouragement, i continue the updates. on we move to thanksgiving.

this isn't a fantastic picture of either rhys or i, but i like it because my hair is long in it. if you remember, i cut my hair off a year and a half ago for locks of love, and although i don't regret my decision, i still miss having my long hair. i've only cut it once since then, and i think by this summer i'll be ready to chop it off again. okay... back to thanksgiving.

the day before thanksgiving this year was jayson's mom's 60th birthday. jayson was able to arrange a surprise party for her with the whole family and some good friends. it was a fantastic time, and she obviously loved it. here is negleyanne and "mimaw".

the two uncles and the two cousins. uncle justin and ella (jarod's daughter... 1.5) and uncle jarod and negleyanne.

closer up photo of ella... not the cutest but it was a huge croud that night, and she only knew a couple of people well. to be honest this was exactly how i was feeling the whole night - social activities are not my thing.

thanksgiving was a blast, especially because the whole family was there. i felt better as an aunt because i finally got to meet ella, and had such a great time watching her and negleyanne play together for the weekend. other than the terrible sickness that plagued many of us the days after, it was a great time!

since kaboom

i've decided that instead of worrying about doing a large meaningful blog, that i will do short ones every couple of days until i return to work to go through all of the pictures i've managed to take this past fall/winter.
i was determined to make good use of my maternity leave and having time to spend with jayson and the kids this fall, and that manifested itself in a trip to williamsburg. my mother was generous enough to let us use her time-share for a week and it was fantastic. i drove down with both the girls by myself... yes, supermom - and jayson came down a few days later.



jayson and i are lucky enough to have friends that not only like to hang out with us (why, i'm not sure), but also like spending time with negley anne and rhys. mark and courtney are awesome and we were so happy to spend that time away from pittsburgh with them. to make the trip even better, it was in the upper 60's low 70's and sunny almost everyday. we had such a great time!

one of the fun things that we did while we were down there was take a ferry ride to another little town close to williamsburg. somehow we ended up on this large plantation turned museum and we spent a good while walking around the grounds being jealous that things bloom there so late in the fall (this was the week before thanksgiving). mark and courtney showed their knowledge by knowing almost every living thing around us, and even negley anne got into the horticulture action (don't you want to go on vacation with us too?... we're so cool).

on the one day that we decided to go to historic williamsburg, negley anne was in a foul mood. as all parents know, that can ruin a day. we were able to do some walking around, but it wasn't what we hoped. funny thing is, negley takes really pretty pictures when she's angry. it doesn't help her mood though when i stick a camera in her face though, so i don't get many.

the one constant through the entire trip was rhys. i can't tell you how blessed we are to have such a chill baby. as long as she's fed and dry, we can always get a smile out of her. if i could, i would freeze her right now because she's so much fun to be with... but since i can't do that, i'll just take lots of pictures.

Quick Post

In case you happened to forget who we are and what we all look like because i've been so horrible at posting this year... here's a quick catch up: NegleyAnne (now 2.5) wearing her sunglasses at night "to keep the dark out".
Rhys (6 months) smiles at everyone that she comes in contact with.
Tillie, happy and hairless... quite possibly the greatest dog ever.

There you have it. More to come - maybe.

Kaboom!

Last month people from all over the city of Pittsburgh came together to help build a new playground in Fowler Park, across the street from The Pittsburgh Project. Friends from Northbridge helped out building and the Samuels have had fun playing there a few times since it's been built. It looks awesome and it feels even better playing there because we took part in building it.



Negley was going for the 1993 look... she smells like teen spirit.

A rare glimps of Katy on the blog.

Jayson never let go of the grunge look... he wishes it was still 1993.

Poor Rhys... she misses out on everything.

Fun at the Mall

In the quest to find out how to loose weight while taking care of my girls, the mall has become one of the top choices. I walk around like an idiot (the second floor doesn't have any kiosk people to ask you annoying questions) and then the Negs gets to play in the playground when I'm done. The trick is that I don't take my purse in, so there are no shopping opportunities. The only sad part of going to the mall is that Tillie doesn't get to come along... so sad.



Negley Anne pleading with me to stop walking.

Rhys happy like always!



Negley Anne swinging around like a little monkey.

Fun on the Farm

On Friday we went to go visit our good friend Jerry on the farm. Alta (tillie's mom) just had her third litter of puppies and we wanted Negley to have a chance to play with them. There was one there that looked a lot like Willie, and that made me very sad, but Negley Anne had a blast. Going to the farm is always a blast!



Jerry made sure that Negley understood that she could only sit in the swing if she was happy... this was her response.

This was Rhys' first trip out to the farm... lots of puppy kisses.

Sorry for the delay

So we haven't blogged in quite a while... anyone having their second child will understand this. I thought that I would have all this time to do fun stuff like this... oh well, I was wrong.

A little update on the Samuels...

Jayson is now full time working at Northbridge Community Church as the Family Pastor. Northbridge is the church that he started with our good friend Jame Price and it is located in Cranberry. It is also a "partner" church of Northpoint Church in Atlanta. If you are in town, please come check it out! All the info is on the church's website: Northbridge.org

Katy (me) has taken the first semester off of work to try this stay at home thing. As of now the plan is to go back to Langley at the end of January. I love being home spending all this time with the girls, but I do look forward to getting back into the fun of being a gym teacher.

Negley Anne now speaks in complete sentences and surprises us everyday by how much she knows. She also makes us laugh out loud a ton.

Rhys has found her hands.

Tillie is doing well, but misses Willie, as do I.

So there you have it! Hopefully it won't be this long again inbetween posts.

Peace

Dropped the "E"

For the record we decided that we were going to drop the "E" from the name and go with the traditional Welsh spelling Rhys.

Ms Rhyse Samuels is Here

Katy and I are the proud parents of another little girl. Ms Rhyse Corinne was born Monday July 9 at 9:14am. She was 20 inches long and 7lb 8oz. She came very quickly but we did manage to make it to the delivery room with about 3 or 4 minutes to spare.