Our Gracie is One!!!

We can't even believe it is time already to say our baby girl is one year old! This year has flown by!

New this month for Gracie: She is not walking on her own yet, but her new favorite thing is to walk behind rolling toys. She has added "Ma" translation "more" to using the sign for more. Her favorite game is to drop toys and see how many time her patient brothers will pick them up for her, she often says "uh-oh" before she even drops them just to make sure she has their attention. Her one year well check up isn't until next week, so we are not sure of her growth stats yet. She is still wearing size 3 diapers, mostly 12 month clothes, and size 2 shoes (she has tiny feet, don't know where she got that gene! :)) She is starting to balk at baby food, and wants to be eating whatever we are eating with her hands, she does not like getting spoon fed. She loves broccoli (like her brothers), and she adores celery! If she is starting to get fussy on a car ride, all her brothers have to do is sing the ABC song and she is one happy girl trying to sing along. She gives the sweetest hugs and kisses too.

We are going to celebrate her special day on Saturday when Daddy is not working, so we will update with pictures next week. Here is a video montage of our first year with our baby girl. She is an absolute joy and delight, and is a never ending source of smiles for this family!

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The simple joys

This week Aunt Reagan sent us a box of goodies for upcoming birthdays, etc. Well, as usual, our children adore the box! Thank you Aunt Reagan for such a fun toy with hours of entertainment! :)

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School Fun

In our Morgan preschool, we have been working through the story of the Mayflower leading up to Thanksgiving on Thursday. There is a wonderful book I found two years ago written by Barbara Rainey called "Thanksgiving: A Time to Remember". The book has the story of our Thanksgiving heritage. It has in larger print a telling of the story that is geared towards younger children, and then additional info in smaller print for when children are older. We also have checked out additional books from our library. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, but so often it gets passed over by the upcoming Christmas holidays. It has been fun to slow down and really focus on this holiday and all the things we have to be thankful for. We have a "thankful jar" that the boys draw pictures of items they are thankful for to add to our jar. Our intent is to look over the pictures together as a family on Thursday.

Anyway, just to make you smile, here are a few photos of pilgrims and indians from our Morgan preschool of higher learning! (Don't laugh, Mommy is not very artistic and we ran out of construction paper, but I try.....we need Aunt Kamie the artist to live closer than Hawaii!!)

A fun day

Thursday was a great day for our family, we had two new experiences!

Thursday morning Luke and Ben had their first practice/lesson with parks and rec soccer! It is only for 5 weeks, but they were so excited! They both had a blast, although Luke was frustrated when we were on his way home because he was not "perfect" yet. It was a good time for a lesson on practice and perseverance. Ben on the other hand was content to play with a leaf he found on the ground during practice! The boys had a blast with Coach Ryan and can't wait to go back next week. Gracie had a blast watching them, too. She kept clapping her hands and saying "yeah!!!" whenever she saw her brothers. She is their #1 cheerleader.





Thursday evening Jeff and I got to go on a long overdue date night. The best part about the date night? Other than a babysitter it was free!! :) The CEO at the hospital where I work decided that in honor of Veteran's Day, he would hold a raffle with the names of all employees who are veterans to win tickets to a Carolina Hurricanes Hockey game! Can you believe that my name was drawn??! They weren't just any tickets either, but VIP suite tickets complete with VIP parking and all you can eat food and drinks! Talk about a fun free date!! Jeff and I had a blast even though the Hurricanes lost pretty miserably to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Drumroll please......

We had our ultrasound appointment this morning which went very well. It looks as if all is healthy and well with the newest little Morgan. It also seems that Gracie will be totally outnumbered, because Luke, Ben and Gracie are going to have a baby brother!!!!!!!!




The boys are so thrilled! For months they have been saying "she" when referring to the baby. But as of last night and today, all they could talk about was their "brother" so they ended up being right. Last night Luke kept talking about not sharing his little cars with his brother. I was a bit concerned, but then he explained to me that "he will be too little at first, I will share with him when he won't choke on them!" Silly Mommy, I thought he was having second thoughts about sharing with another brother, when all along he was just kicking into big brother protective mode!

Here are a few pictures of our little guy. He loves to keep his hands right in front of his face, so he made the ultrasound techs job a challenge!

Here is a picture of his perfect little feet...



strong beating healthy heart...



and precious face! We switched doctor's offices for this pregnancy, and this one does routine 4D images, which was amazing to watch!!



We even have a sweet video of our son moving! What an amazing God we have to create him to be uniquely designed just for our family!

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Please pray for the continued growth and development of our baby boy. We can't wait to meet him!

Love,
The Growing Morgan Family :)

Virginia vacation

This last weekend in October we had a chance for a short family getaway to the mountains outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. Needless to say travel with three children is never "stress-free," but we did manage to enjoy each other and have some laughs and memory building along the way. All it takes is a few days with fall scenery and I feel like I have been on a week long cruise!

We stayed in an apartment attached to a home in the mountains, it was quite cozy and beautiful. The boys had a blast sleeping on the futon. The only drawback to the home was that there was only one bathroom with a shower, so Gracie got her baths in the kitchen sink to make things easier! :)






Poor Gracie looks quite miserable in this picture, and you can see the tylenol running down her chin....Sunday night she started a fever and was really sick. We ended up coming home early Monday morning to get her to the doctor. She has double ear infections (poor thing!), but she is now on antibiotics and hopefully will be feeling better soon.

We took so many pictures, I put the rest in a montage. We spent Sunday morning at an apple orchard picking apples, eating apple cider doughnuts, going on a hayride and exploring the area around Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. (We did not go in, too many things to break with little hands!) We also took a walk and just enjoyed the scenery.

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Just for fun....here are a few pictures of our apple picking history! :)

Jeff and I joined our Sunday school class to pick apples in 2004 when we were dating! :)



This is our family in 2008 picking apples:



and 2010!

Halfway there!!

Today marks 20 weeks in the growth of our newest Morgan! It is hard to believe, but this pregnancy is flying by so fast! We have our ultrasound next week, so check back to find out if it will be a baby sister or brother! Any guesses?? :)

As of 20 weeks our little one already has his/her unique fingerprints, weighs in at over 10 oz, is practicing breathing and swallowing, has a wake/sleep cycle, and can hear my heartbeat and voice! Isn't that amazing! Thank you God for this unique precious child that you are growing and developing.

Everything seems to be happening a bit faster this go around. I did not really wear maternity clothes with Gracie until the 3rd trimester, but have started to already with this baby. With Gracie I was sick for 32 weeks, but this baby was only 15 weeks! I felt Gracie move sometime around 20-22 weeks, but felt this little one between 15-16 weeks. Amazing how each pregnancy experience is so different. I feel great and am trying to soak it all in, despite the every day demands of "Mommy hood" with my three little ones outside of my body.

Thanks for your continued prayers, can't wait to share pictures and gender next week!! :)