Planting Mommy's Flowers with MeMe

Every May, my mom comes down, and we work out in the yard for a day - all day - planting flowers. I always look so forward to this, especially now with the girls because it would take me probably three days to get done what we get done in one day with my mom. Between taking breaks for snack, swinging, bubbles, potty, etc . . . it would not be as fun if my mom wasn't here to help. We had a beautiful day of planting my flowers, and the girls had a ball. We were outside ALL day; they didn't take naps, and they were a MESS when it came to be 8:00 p.m. and time to go inside - especially since towards the end of the evening, Elaina thought she would shampoo Emily's hair with bubbles. They loved digging for worms in the dirt, but neither one wanted to touch the worms. I don't blame them . . . that's why I wear gloves when I plant! Leave it to Emily, though, to find a baby worm. Emily LOVES baby animals, so while digging in the dirt, I wasn't surprised that she was the one to find a baby worm. She was so excited!

Thank you, MeMe, for a wonderful day of planting flowers. I'm still exhausted though from the long day, so off I go for a nap!

Emily's baby worm

Planting Mommy's flowers

MeMe and her girls

Note to self: Potting soil and bubble solution make for very messy toddlers! Elaina is just getting started in this picture with Emily's shampoo job. As usual, Emily is just going along with it without a care in the world.

Elaina getting more into the shampooing of Emily's hair with the bubble solution, and Emily still not having a care in the world about it . . . just concerned with blowing her own bubbles.

Finding Adequate Words to Express Our Thanks

On Saturday, we had the privilege of attending Dr. Donald Cline's Retirement Open House. Some of you may remember that Dr. Cline is (was) our Reproductive Endocrinologist who led us on our journey of conceiving Elaina Joy and also most recently caring for us during our first trimester of this third pregnancy.

The open house was held at Dr. Cline's church, Zionsville Fellowship, on the northside of Indianapolis. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful open house for Dr. Cline. As we entered the church, we were greeted by Dr. Cline and were able to personally thank and congratulate him. As we were waiting in line to do so, I could not help but become overwhelmed with emotions as I watched in awe the other lives in the room that he has touched in an awesome way. The line of greeters who came to say "thank you" was flowing with expressions of emotions as well, so I didn't feel so out of place. The thankfulness that we have in our hearts for Dr. Cline is abundant. After our short conversation with him, it was almost as if we needed to find the perfect words to say, "Thank you." In a brief second that seemed like so long, I searched for those words, and all I could come up with was simply, "Thank you" as Jeff and I both embraced him and shared in a few tears.

Dr. Cline will always be a huge part of our lives as we tell others how God blessed us with a beautiful family by placing us in the care of a doctor who places all of his faith and trust in HIM.

Just a Few Recent Pics . . .

The girls at Hannah's opening day T-ball game. It was a gorgeous day!

The girls enjoying the beautiful day!

A Saturday picnic lunch in the back of Daddy's truck.

Baby McCrary #3 Update - Long Overdue!

This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago at 24 weeks. Yes, I was thinking what I
look like I'm thinking, "Get this picture taken and over with!"

I haven't given a baby bump update since we were 12 weeks pregnant back in January, so I thought it was about time that I give one. We are now 26 weeks along and doing great. We do not find out the gender when we are expecting, so you'll have to keep making your guesses. For us, there is nothing like waiting until that surreal moment to also find out what God has blessed us with. However, I am confident that we will be loving all over a new, beautiful, bundle of pink in July. I just have a very strong feeling about this. So, it this baby is a boy, I will be totally shocked and surprised. We are just so thrilled to be adding to our family!

The girls love to kiss and hug on the baby and Elaina's new favorite quote is exclaiming (while looking at my belly), "Wow, Mommy, the baby's really growing! It's really getting big!" Thanks, Elaina. :) Elaina will be a big help just like she was for me when we brought Emily home.
Emily is going to be a super involved "Mommy." She loves to mother other babies and her baby dolls. She is very sweet and loving.

As far as how this third pregnancy is treating me . . . it hasn't really been very different from my previous pregnancies. I am definitely not getting around as gracefully as I did with my first two though. My lower back pain at night has started sooner with this pregnancy, and I definitely started showing a bump much sooner with this one as well. Of course, this is my third, and the doctor warned me that all of this would happen. I really love being pregnant. I consider it a true blessing, and I have always been blessed with pregnancies that haven't given me complications. We are down to 14 weeks and one long, hot summer though! Fourteen weeks doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're that far along, huge, and have two energetic toddlers to keep up with, it seems a long, long, long way away. As far as heart rates have gone, they have been in the same range as my two girls. They have been anywhere from the mid-high 140s and lower 150s.

We are looking very forward to the next 3 months and eventually meeting our new, precious baby!
Baby McCrary #3 at 20 week ultrasound

Easter 2009

We spend Palm Sunday each year with my family in Elwood so that we are able to spend Easter at home in Franklin at our church. We love being in Elwood on Palm Sunday and getting to share in a wonderful meal and time the family.

We went to see "Journey to the Cross" at our church on Thursday evening. In years past, Daddy had portrayed Jesus for the church's Easter production, but this year, the church was trying a different production, and Daddy felt that it would be a good year to step aside with us being as busy as we have been. It was nice to be able to enjoy the production together this year. Elaina and Emily both watched the entire production very intensely, and Elaina had several questions for us. She learned so much!

We colored our Easter eggs with the girls on Friday and had our Easter egg hunt here at home with them on Saturday afternoon. Sunday was another busy Sunday morning at church, and then we headed over to the Bright farm for the rest of the day.

Terry and Terry Bright are Jill's parents. We have become very close with their family over the last eight years. They are like family to us, and we are so appreciative of them and how much they love our family. We spent Easter Sunday with them again this year enjoying a delicious meal and a super fun Easter egg hunt. Elaina remembered clearly the Easter egg hung she had a "Grandma Terry's" last year, and couldn't wait to do it again. Emily was too little last year to remember it, and it was fun to see how much more into hunting Easter eggs she was this year. We were so blessed to be able to spend the day with all of our very dear friends, and the girls had a great time as they do whenever we go to "Grandma and Grandpa Terry's." They enjoy spending time with all of the cousins (that aren't really their cousins, but have become sweet friends to them). Spring and summer days are the best there because of being able to be outside and enjoy the beautiful land and sun, and Elaina could spend the entire day jumping on the trampoline, swinging, or playing in the sandbox. We love the Bright family so much!

We had a great Easter. I am bummed though that I didn't get a family picture of us all dressed up for church.

Enjoying candy after the big egg hunt.

Sorting through all of the candy. Picture 18 kids doing this at the same time. It is amazingly fun!

Happy and ready to eat candy after the big egg hunt at the Bright farm!

Elaina spotted this one "way up high!"

Emily was a bit slow because each time she found an egg, she had to say, "EGG! EGG!" 50 million times and be sure that we all saw it before she would put it in her bag and keep looking. So cute!

Finding eggs in the sandbox

Emily's first egg

Aunt Jill did a great job of getting all the kids lined up by age order in the basement before the egg hunt.

Sammy and Elaina singing, "Jesus Loves Me" while waiting to be set loose for the hunt! Good thinking, Jill!

Our little egg hunt at home.

So excited!

Emily pointing and saying, "There you are!" to an egg.

Elaina waiting on her dying eggs to tint to just the right shade.

SOoooo fun . . . and messy!

Jeff's mom (MawMaw) made dresses for the girls as an Easter surprise! The girls LOVE to put on fancy dresses!

Spring Break 2009

Jeff was home for Spring Break at the beginning of the month. Although we didn't go anywhere warm and sunny with beaches, we had a really wonderful week. We didn't really plan very much to do other than relax and just hang out together. We seem to always be so busy, that we were just really looking forward to this week. We had a wonderful week with a few warm days and some fun as well.



Jeff and I started out our week by attending the Chris Tomlin concert that I posted about earlier. We had the night Friday and all day Saturday to ourselves. Sundays are always fun but busy because we are at church all morning. That particular Sunday after church, we came home, put our pj's back on and laid around the rest of the day. It was so relaxing.


Monday was a nice, warm day, so we did yard work all day. Jeff was able to mow the yard and get some other yard work done, and we had a great day playing with the girls.


Tuesday was a rain out, so we headed to our first trip to the movie theater with the girls. Neither of the girls had ever been to a movie. We met some friends to see BOLT, and it only cost our whole family $4! Elaina loved it. Emily did well for having to sit so long. She got fussy at times, but we really couldn't have asked her to be any better. We won't make that trip with her again for a while, but we will probably take Elaina to some free movies here in town this summer.



Wednesday was another nice day out, so we did more yard work and played all day! We also had a picnic supper outside as well.



Thursday was nice enough for us to get our van and truck washed - inside and out. The girls put on their swimsuits and had a ball with the water.



Jeff went in to school and worked all day on Friday to get caught up and get a jump start on the week ahead. In the afternoon, we all headed to a check up for baby and then we had our weekly small group that evening.



Saturday was the highlight of our week - SESAME STREET LIVE! Some good friends of ours, the Seawright family, won four free tickets to the Murat in Indianapolis to see WHEN ELMO GROWS UP, and they gave their tickets to us! Their kiddos are too old for Sesame Street. We had so much fun, and the girls absolutely loved it. It was an experience that we would not have done on our own, and we are so very grateful and appreciative to our wonderful friends. God has truly blessed us!



After seeing Elmo, we headed up to Elwood to spend the rest of the weekend with my family. We always spend Palm Sunday with my family. Elaina and Emily and their cousins sang "Jesus Loves Me" at their Poppy's church on Sunday, which I'm sure was Poppy's highlight of the year.



We had such a nice, relaxing spring break together. It was rough when Daddy went back to work the following Monday. His girls sure do miss him a lot . . . all three of them . . . well, I think four of them!

Cousins Seth and Luke, Elaina, and Emily (with a couple of other kids from the congregation) singing "Jesus Loves Me" at Poppy's church on Palm Sunday.

Mommy and her girls at ELMO


Daddy and his girls

Emily loved waving and saying, "Hi, Melmo!"

Elmo's weather forecast - brought to us by the letters L and H.

The Sesame Street Gang

Elaina was thrilled the entire time!

Elmo and Mr. Noodle

They loved having their very own ticket to see Elmo.

Emily helping wash Daddy's truck.

Elaina went crazy cleaning everything she could find - Emily's bike . . .

. . . her bike . . .

. . . and their wagon . . . just to name a few.

Oh, and I forgot, they thought the driveway was dirty, so they wanted to wash that, too!

Elaina was a big helper washing the van.

A yummy picnic on a beautiful day.

Enjoying the sunshine!

Rolling around in the grass enjoying spring!

Hard at work with Daddy.

The girls LOVE spending time with their Daddy! I am so thankful for that, and am so blessed to have the most wonderful husband and father who wants to spend every minute he can with his family.