snow*babies

Since I'm "laid up" with a wisdom tooth extraction I can only watch so much daytime TV so I find myself shopping  the internet, checking updates on facebook and catching up on my emails..  So here's some pictures of the girls playing in the snow. It was finally warm enough outside last weekend for them to go out and run some "stuck indoors" steam off. Poor Nelley could barely move in her hand-me-down snow clothes.. And Gracey was making snow angels all over the place, they love to be outside!

Santa Anxiety.

Okay, I've completely put blogging to the end of my to do lists and half the time the other things do not get accomplished so that would be why its been more that 6 months since I've updated this baby.

The girls are very excited for Christmas, Jesus' birthday and the present opening to get here but as far as Mr. Clause himself there is a little bit of anxiety Gracey Mae has about the whole ordeal which has rubbed off on her little sister just a bit. Gracey has never even gotten 5 ft. from Santa before flipping and even though she doesn't cry now the "earmuffs" (her hands) go over her ears. We've heard Santa's sleigh bells a few times and even witnessed him our in our driveway and every time Gracey goes running with her earmuffs on and Nelley follows her with a scream. :) Poor Santa, not sure what you have done but I hope you are loved after this Christmas has passed.
A few years back Aunt Sherie gave us a Magical Santa Key to hang on the door handle so he can come through the front door (since we don't have a fire place of course!). While decorating our house the girls were helping me pull things out of the totes and Gracey pulled out the key and asked "Mom what is this sparkley key for?" I then told her that is how Santa will get in to deliver the presents on Christmas Eve. She replied "I don't like it, I don't want Santa to come in our house". I then told her she needed to be nice to Santa Clause because he knows when little girls are being naughty or nice and she said "then do I have to touch him, Mom?"
Jeeze laweeze.. :) she's probably going to need something to help her sleep on Christmas Eve.

Below is a picture of Nelley with SANTA! She had a Grammy-Mommy shopping day while big sister was at school. She gave Santa a high five and before we knew it she was on his lap listening to him read her a book! Of course we couldn't wait to get home and show big sister Gracey what a big girl Nelley was for sitting on his lap! Gracey just looked a the picture with big eyes and said "GOOD GIRL Nelley! " :)

Hope everyone has a safe and blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!
 ..By the way my new years resolution is to keep up on my blogging... after the rest of my list is done of course!

nelley jae turns 1!

Wow how fast a year can go! On the 26th our baby Nelley turned 1 year old! Its crazy, she still seems like a 9 month old to me :) well she is a little behind on the big one year old stuff like...

-she doesn't like a sippy cup and is clueless on how to suck on it :)

-she does pretty good with "real people food" but baby food she dislikes.

-she's a little chicken when it comes to walking, as long as she has a finger she does just fine.

-theres still only one bottle nipple she'll take otherwise she likes momma the best.

-she only has 2 toofers on the bottom and doesn't act like she'll be getting any more for awhile...
-oh and the fact that she is wearing gracey's 1st pair of nikes that gracey wore at 3 months!

well, she's just our little "newborn" and thats okay with us! we don't want her growing up too fast!

We celebrated all day with a pink cake, "pupcakes", family, friends and presents of course!

Casey and I were remembering back on the pitocin-epidural-7 hours of labor and in 5 minutes of pushing she was here! Dark eyes and all! I believe she had more hair when she was born than she does now!

Things are very different when you have your second, I know alot of mom's would agree.. you don't have your environment so sterile, you don't go as "clothes crazy" (well I kinda have an obsession with dressing them the same or coordinating, so that requires some shopping). you let them cry more :) you use all the hand me down used things with your second, I haven't been as good with writing down the mile stones. I haven't read a "baby how to book" or a "what do you do when book" with this one, it's just like I have more of a laid back whatever happens, happens attitude. And even sometimes I feel like I'm concentrating so much on Gracey and the firsts that she is going through that Nelley just gets thrown on my hip and somewhat ignored :) she's a pretty laid back baby and hasn't seemed to mind so far!

happy birthday nelley!

nelley's first time having sugar! :S

she wasn't too interested in the cake..

but gracey was!

notice the wrapping paper, see I told you things are different with the 2nd!

yum yum!

yay for birthdays!

baby egg

As most of you know Miss Gracey Mae is a huge Barney fan, not sure if its because his name ends in an "ey" like the rest of our family or if its because he's big and purple and loves everyone? Anyways she's got this vhs tape of "Barney's Farm" (one that my cousin Laura and I watched back in the day when we were barney fans too..) and on "Barney's Farm" Famer Henderson takes Barney and the kids to meet all kinds of animals on the farm including a chicken egg (baby egg) who eventually hatches into a chick named Henrietta (can you tell that I've seen this movie a few times?). Well, ever since she started watching barney farm she's wanted a baby egg (I'm just glad it was the little egg and not the horse!).

So now and then I give in and let her hold a cold baby egg from the fridge. She cups her little hands around that egg and walks very carefully over to the chair and sits, holds it and talk to it. When farmer Gracey is done holding baby egg, mommy takes the warm baby egg and secretly puts it in the black garbage bag farm...

The other night Casey and I were watching american idol while Gracey and Nelley played on the floor. Grace got up because she wanted juice and went to the fridge like she always does, she messed around with the fridge door and came back into the living room. A while later I asked Gracey to go check on Nelley because she had crawled off into the other room and she was being very quite (first clue). Gracey came back not saying a word, so I proceeded to ask her what Nelley was doing, her face got red and she said "mmm, nothing" and went on playing (second clue). Being lazy I finally got up at commercial to go find the little explorer, went into the kitchen to find Nelley Jae sitting on the floor in front of the fridge with her little chubby finger in the broken baby egg yolk on the floor. :0)

So sorry that your life was so short Henrietta, but Nelley did have alot of fun playing with your splattered remains on the floor!

fevers, ear aches and sleep deprivation!

In about 5 days both of our little girls will be under anesthesia getting tubes placed in their little ears and because this is Gracey's 3rd set of tubes they will be removing her adenoids also. Thank goodness! :) after many trips to the pediatrician and ENT we are glad that this will soon be over and we can work on Gracey's hearing/speech and Nelley's night time habits :)
They both are on a pretty high dose of antibiotics to help ease the "bulging infection" for the time being, but Casey and I are excited to see the outcome of the surgery (sleeeeeeeep). Besides the poor little things have got to be in alot of pain. ..and in Gracey's words Dr. Wellendorf will "make it alllll better".
I also had bad ears, I had what they called "silent ear infections" where I showed no sign of pain, fever or illness, they finally figured it out when my Aunt Sherie kept me over night while my little brother Jeremiah was being born. Sherie told my Mom that she didn't think I could hear and sure enough after a trip to good old Dr. Crawford they figured out I was reading lips. After the myringotomy in the recovery room I guess I said to Mom & Dad "look, big bird talks". So it looks like the girls inherited my good ear genes. :)
Even though it will be a scary and a sad experience for Gracey and Nelley we know that it's in God's hands and we can trust in Him... Oh and lets pray the "daddy hospital anxiety" goes okay too!

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Casey and I want to thank everyone for the extra prayers for this new path that God is about to take us on. It may be "scary and un-known" at the moment but there is one thing that is always assuring and brings comfort.. God's word.

The Bible is an endless supply of encouraging truth and everyone needs a little bit of encouragement from time to time, right?! Thank goodness we have the Bible to look to and use as our ultimate source of encouraging words. Even in the midst of our "tough times" we can remain hopeful and encouraged if we keep trusting in God. Lets put it this way... The more we all soak up the truth of God's word and pray about it, the more assured we become that He is going to take care of us.

Isaiah 41:10~
'Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'

Our beginning

We aren't sure where to start blogging, so we've decided to start from the beginning. Where our lives started together as Casey Pelzer and Haley Johnson :)

Baby Casey and baby Haley... Just kidding, not that far back!

It's crazy to look back on what seems like ages ago when it's only been 6 1/2 years since we've met. And crazy has been our lives since then! We often say we don't know what we would be doing right now if we didn't have our girls.. life would be very boring and our bank account would be MUCH bigger!

When Casey and I met our perception on our lives together was a little different than it is now.. He often said "my 20's are for myself (single) and my 30's will be for marriage and kids". Now 28, married with 2 kids his new words are "I will have 3 kids by the time I'm 30". Ha, I'm not so sure about that one, we (I) have to go through another morning sickness filled pregnancy, we'll have to add on another house AND rob a bank for that to happen before the 30 mark ;) (just kidding on the bank part).

Casey and I dated for 7 months, engaged for a little over a year, August 24th 2004 and married October 22nd 2005. During our first year of marriage, the "honeymoon", Casey was finishing up student teaching and working at Atlantic Bottling while I worked in the lab at CCMH. We had been living in Anita for about 2 months when we woke up Christmas morning 2005 to a positive pregnancy test and lots of "all day sickness" to follow!

Our Single days..

Our dating days..

Engaged..

October 22nd 2005

Pregnancy!

We were blessed with miss Gracey Mae Pelzer on September 2nd 2006 @ 10:30pm after a long day of pitocin, some prayers for the daddy-to-be (he was a little nervous and quite freaked out about the whole hospital thing) and after an hour and half of pushing she was here! Here's what Casey wrote for Chuck Offenburger's website on the birth experience.

'"How is it possible to go through that experience and not believe in God?” To think that everything that goes along with child birth is strictly scientific or coincidental seems to me to be close-minded and shallow. All the things that need to take place and happen in just the right way and in the right time are amazing. It has to be because of something much bigger than ourselves or any human for that matter. I believe the credit and glory need to be given to God. It breaks my heart to think of the possibility that someone could go through such a powerful experience and not even give God a thought."

Gracey Mae Pelzer

8lb 3oz 19 1/4" long

Our next couple of years with our precious baby girl growing into a very happy toddler were wonderful yet trying at times, but all in all we got through the colic, doctors visits, first steps, first words, bottle and paci breaking, potty training and lots in between!

Somewhere in there we moved to Atlantic into my parents little next door rental home after Papa John remodeled it to our liking, it may be small but its full of alot of love and we wouldn't have it any other way!

By now after Casey taught at Tri-Center Community Schools for a year we decided we wanted him to be closer to our community. He was hired in Atlantic as a Middle school teacher and head girls basketball coach. I went part time at the lab and started teaching some dance classes at Villa Dance. Both of us are still employed at those places and Casey works at Atlantic Bottling during the summer.

That last picture of Gracey was at her 2 year birthday, she didn't know it but that was the last birthday she would spend as an only child. We found out we were pregnant with our second baby girl later that month and due in May! Let the sickness and moods begin...poor Casey.

I'm a big sister! Nelley Jae Pelzer was born May 26th 2009 @ 6:43pm another pitocin/epidural delivery, this time the pushing part was a breeze! And I believe it was easier for Casey to go through the "blood and guts" as he once described it. But he did an awesome job coaching and supporting me from the head of the bed trying not to look any further. Gracey is fantastic at being a big sister! And loves and adores her little "baby cakes".

God is awesome! We are truly blessed and so grateful for all the wonderful things He has placed in our lives so far.

Nelley Jae Pelzer

8lbs 1/2 oz 20" long

Okay, now that we've gotten you caught up on our last 6 years let the blogging begin! :)

Our family, Valentines Day 2010.