Brothers

These two just absolutely ADORE each other!

...and oh how their mama adores them too!

Owen rarely tolerates having his picture taken, so I took full advantage of his willingness to cooperate with my camera the other day to snap a few shots of my almost 3 year old!

Oh, be still my heart!!!

What's in a name?

"From the fullness of His grace we have received one blessing after another."

-John 1:16

This verse speaks to me so very deeply. It is painted on plaque in my bedroom, it is the verse we put on Evan's birth announcements, and now it is also the name of my blog. Every time I have gone to blog, I have looked at the title..."Tony, Hannah, Owen & Evan" and paused. While these are our names & they begin to tell a little about who we are, we are so much more. We are children of God striving daily to glorify our Lord and Savior. We are sinners in need of forgiveness. Forgiveness and absolution that comes the moment we ask for it, faithfully & without end from our Redeemer. Our Redeemer who is so full of grace & mercy that He continues to bless us--regardless of the fact that we fall so short of deserving it that it's ridiculous.

We selected life verses, if you will, for our children when they were born. These are Bible verses that we are using to teach our children about the intimate, personal relationship we want them to have with Jesus Christ. We pray them over our children every night before they go to bed, they hang in their rooms, & Owen is even starting to learn to recite his--as will Evan when he is old enough.

John 1:16 is, I feel, is our family life verse. It speakes to me in all the ways I listed above, but it also has a very special meaning to me as a mother. God blessed me with Owen in 2008 and then He blessed me with Evan in 2010--from the fullness of His grace He blessed me. He blessed me with one child and then another. Not because I'm a "good person" or because I wanted children, but simply because of the fullness of His grace.

Oh, Praise Him!

Evan at 5 months

Don't even know how the past few months have flown by so quickly, but E is 5 months old now! Actually, he'll be 6 months old next week!...how can that even be?! What a fun age too :)

Evan is so observant to everything going on around him. He loves to watch Owen play with trucks & cars and I just know that before I even blink, he'll move from watching to playing too! He studies & inspect his own toys intently & is especially interested in the ones that light up and/or make sound. Speaking of studying things, this little guy will stare down any food that comes near him. Recently, he even tried to take a bite out of Owen's PBJ sandwich when he got close to him! Evan is still, of course, a big fan of his food--he's now eating rice cereal, sweet potatoes, squash, pears, apples, & green peas, with the peas, surprisingly, being his favorite. He's had no complaints with any thing we've offered him though!

The other day Evan almost scooted across the floor when he was trying to get a toy just out of his reach--I don't think it will be too long now before this kiddos is tailing big brother everywhere he goes! When that happens, watch out mama, I'm definitely going to have my hands full! ...but as I heard someone say once, they'll be full of the most wonderful things in the entire world!!!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of Evan at 5 months...
Oh, so in love with this sweet little guy!

A Random Assortment of Late...

Ringing in 2011...

Yep folks, we had a crazy, wild NYE with some of our sweet friends...a small gathering complete with delicious food, yummy wine, fun people, and lots of laughter! We barely made it to midnight, but we made it so that's what counts, right?! Happy New Year!!!

(see what I mean...how tired do we look?!)

Starting out 2011 with my sweet girls, LOVE THEM!

SNOW DAZE...
SNOW, YIPPIE! We survived the "Blizzard of 2011" ;) Seriously, why does the south fall apart when the white stuff falls?! For real ya'll, people were posting pictures of empty grocery store shelves on Facebook...I mean, dang, what the heck?! Thankfully we had no shortage of food around our house though ;O) We spent our days having a blast sledding & playing in the snow. It was so fun to have Tony home for an ENTIRE week with us too, double YIPPIE! Owen tolerated sledding the first day or two, but mid-week he finally got the hang of things & LOVED it! He's STILL asking when we can go sledding again :)
He got quite a kick out of playing on our neighbors' playground with snow all over it!
Evan stayed nice & cozy when we took him out to experience his 1st snow!

Touch a Truck...

We went to "Touch a Truck" a few weeks ago & Owen had a BLAST climbing on, around, and inside of both a firetruck and an ambulance! The fridgid cold air couldn't even slow this kiddo down :)SOOO excited about the firetruck!!!

Driving the ambulance with Uncle Matt riding shotgun

Sitting inside the firetruck with BeeBee

Owen showing off his fireman's hat with his Pops

Silly boy :P

Adventures in clothing...

Owen loves clothes. Seriously. He changes his clothes approximately 5 times per day (and this is NOT an exaggeration). Some of his clothing choices are a little less practical than others. For instance, a few weeks ago, with 6 inches of snow on the ground, this boy thought he was going to go play outside in this:

I try to let him wear whatever he wants for the most part, but I just had to draw the line with flip flops in the middle of December. Sorry, not gonna happen little man. Please note, Owen is wearing his #1 favorite shirt in the world, his beloved helicopter shirt. I have to do lots of quick talking and bargaining to convince him that it's not socially appropriate to wear this thing out in public for 8 days straight.

Growing & Changing!

Evan is at such a fun age :) He's starting to really reach & grab for things--and even gives big brother a piece of his mind when toys get taken away from him. Evan is becoming so interactive & it is a blast to play with him and also to just sit back & watch him explore this fun, big world. One of his favorite victims subjects to explore is Margo. How precious is this?! Margo is such a good sport...really she is LOVING the attention :)

Christmas Day

We woke up in our house Christmas morning to see that Santa had been very good to two special boys this year! Owen's big gift this year was a train set & he was amazed to wake up & walk downstairs to see it. Evan got some clothes & great toys to "grow into" which at the rate he's growing & changing, won't be long for sure! It was an extra special Christmas to celebrate the birth of our Savior as a family of 4 this year! Gracious, we are blessed beyond measure!

Stunned to see the train Santa brought

Opening stockings with my sweet boy

Owen giving Daddy the gift he picked out especially for him

Evan content to watch everything from his new bouncer!

After breakfast we headed to my grandparents' house where we got to see the first snowflakes falling of our White Christmas! We had a yummy Chrismas lunch with the family, our gift exchange & a good time visiting with each other. The boys sharing a sweet moment with their great grandmother, Nonnie

A pic with Nonnie for Matt & I as well

Enjoying the beautiful snow with my hubby :)

Owen excited for a quick moment to play outside

Sweet Evan helping BeeBee open gifts

(and tolerating the bow on his head for a silly picture!)

After lunch we headed to Tony's uncle & aunt's house where we enjoyed time with them, another gift exchange & seeing the snow start to come down even more! The boys with Noni & Grandpa--Evan was one tired little fella by this time!

Our family--excited to be growing by 1 more now that Chris & Lauren are engaged!

Lauren & I in our matching scarves from Robert & Kelly

Super excited to be getting this beautiful girl as my sister! :)

Christmas Eve

We had 2 full days of celebrating Christmas with our family this year! We started out the festivities with brunch & family gift exchange at Noni & Grandpa's house on Christmas Eve late morning. Owen was so cute & enthusiastic with gift opening this year

Excited about his super cool robot from Uncle Chris & (soon-to-be!) Aunt Lauren

Pure sweetness :)

It took team work to get the toys unpackaged--sealed like a vault!

One of Owen's favorite gifts--a play rug for his cars!

After naps, we went to the afternoon Christmas Eve service at our church. From there we headed back to our house with BeeBee & Pops & Uncle Matt for Christmas Eve dinner and our family gift exchange. Yahoo, an awesome dump truck from Uncle Matt!

BeeBee & Pops loving on Evan

Hooray, some new baking dishes :)

Eating dessert--ya want some Pops?!

Evan checking out the loot from Uncle Matt's lap