More Mae...

Just a few recent pics of Mae. We had a photographer out to the house today to take pics of Mae, including a few with Emma and Bryan...super excited to see them!!

Maureen Elizabeth is here!!!

Long time no blog...it has been a busy 9 months!! We purchased a new home (yes another) in December, spent two months doing rennovations and moved in to our new home on Park Lane in February. Sold our other house. Helped Dad and Haley find a new house around the corner from us and got their house on Andalusia sold...big move for them in the middle of July!! The kids are loving our new house, all the space, especially the playroom and full acre lot!! We've also been busy preparing for the arrival of baby number three. The kids have been so excited and so ready to meet her for months now and she finally arrived yesterday, June 18th. She is named after my mom (Maureen Elizabeth, Mae for short)and looks like she just might have mom's hair color and curls! Her delivery went so smoothly and I know mom was right there watching down on us the whole time!! Here are a few pics from yesterday...

Smarty!!

Have to brag on my Emma for a minute. She has absolutely amazed me this fall with how mature she has become as I was really worried about what this year would entail. She has done an amazing job keeping up with her school work and all her activities: dance, soccer, girls scouts, and indian princesses. The end of the first quarter was a couple weeks ago and we had a parent/teacher conference to get her first real report card (first time with real number grades and not just S, S+,e tc..) I have to admit I was kind of nervous but Emma blew my socks off...all A's on her first report card, and for her school an A is 94-100, so pretty tough. And to top it off, she did a week of assessment testing at the begining of the school year and we got the results for that...my smarty pants scored in the 99% percentile (i.e. higher than 99% of the first graders in the nation who took the test)!! So proud of the concentration and diligence she puts into her school work and know without a doubt that her Nana is wearing the biggest smile in Heaven and bragging to all her friends about how smart her granddaughter is!!!

First Slumber Party!!!!

Emma had her first slumber party this weekend...since the guys were out of town she decided to invite her BFF Mary Grace over for a slumber party. The girls played hard all day at SMG's Kountry Karnival and then we had a "girls only" dinner at Mellow Mushroom followed by movies and popcorn! I thought the girls were exhausted and when they told me they were going to bed at 9:30pm I layed down myself. Well I guess I was the exhausted one because I was woken up at 12am by giggles and found the girls doing hair and "makeup" with their American Girl dolls!! But after I reminded them that they had another full day of Kountry Karnival they quickly went to sleep!! I am sure this is first of many slumber parties to come...in fact Emma asked me this evening if she could have five girls at one time when we move to the new house- ekk!!!

Camping we will go...

Okay, not "we" because I didn't go but Patrick and Bryan ventured out on their first camp out with their Indian Pappose tribe- The Moose Tribe- this weekend. Of course it was freezing cold and Bryan had out grown all of his winter clothes from last year...but he didn't seem to mind! The guys had a great time at Mineral Wells State Park and even though they didn't change clothes the entire time they were there they managed to stay pretty clean (probably because it didn't rain!)

GO ROCKSTARS!!

Emma is enjoying her 4th season of soccer. The dad of one of the girls she goes to school with is the coach of her team (The Rockstars) this year and there are three other girls from SMG 1st grade on the team. I have to admit that although it is super nice to get to sit back and watch, rather than coach, I did find myself yelling quite a bit at the game on Saturday :) Emma is having a blast and enjoying the time she gets to spend with her SMG friends as well as the other new friends on her team.

Updates...

Since my Mom's passing I have promised several of her friends that I would blog more to keep them up to date on the kids and family. So here I go trying my best to keep my promise! Us Shortalls have had a busy start to the school year- from dance, soccer, and tball to Girl Scouts, Indian Princesses, and Indian Papooses to homework, spelling tests, job promotions for both Patrick and I, and lots of trips out to visit "Nana's special box"- we have been busy!! We miss Mom terribly but know she would want us to pick up and keep on going. The kids talk a lot about what Nana might be doing in Heaven and it's been such a blessing to hear their perspective on things. We have also decided to not go forward with the renovation/expansion on the "tiny" house we bought in April. Instead we are going to keep it as rental property and purchase a new home that has the size we need/want without major construction! Patrick and I have had to continually remind ourselves to be patient in this process as we have a pretty particular list of "must haves" and there is very very little on the market in the zip code we want. We had been eyeing a property since early September and it finally went on the market last week and we currently have a contract on it. The inspection is scheduled for tomorrow so praying all goes well!! It needs new flooring and paint so we'll take our time getting that done and getting moved out of the "tiny" house...hope is that we'll be in to celebrate Christmas!! But if I have learned anything over the past several months it is that a majority of the time the timing is out of my hands and completely beyond my control. (needless to say there have been lots of serenity prayers said!) I've been bad about taking pics lately but here are a few recent ones...promise I will get better!!!