Lately-

So much has happened since May, and as much as I would LOVE to catch up on every single event that I have pictures for, it is just not possible!!! So, I have finally decided to skip a few months, keeping the recap short and sweet and just move on! Since Elem's birthday, we have enjoyed.......

Mommy FINALLY graduated from Nursing School :)
Mindy Shelby, RN

Elem graduated from Geyer Springs 4-K

We are so thankful for Ms Katie-the best preschool teacher we could have asked for!

Lots of time at grammy's pool

With lots of water gun fights...
and learning fun tricks in the pool, like flips, handstands, and backstroke!

Plenty of time on the baseball field with my little baseball superstar. 

The quickest most agile little pitcher I ever did see.....

MVP :)

Plenty of trips to the lake.

Love spending time with C and Ali on the boat

Yes I rocked out with my big ole baby belly on the boat in July!
Woot woot. 

Had a baby shower for our new arrival. 

Introducing our new baby girl. 

Ever Grey Shelby
7lbs 14 ounces  20 inches long
August 9, 2012

And there we have it. Our wrap up of all the special events that have happened over the last couple of months. I am sure there are sooo many more I would love to include, but this hits the high points.

Celebrating Elem's 5th Birthday

It is so hard to imagine that 5 years ago, I actually thought I would be able to make it to the point where Elem was turning 5! And would soon be saying goodbye to preschool, and entering into the world of Kindergarten. I am shocked when I look back over the past 5 years, at how fast time really does fly, how much Elem has grown (physically, mentally, emotionally), and how awesome it is to see some of the traits that he had as an infant and toddler still shining through in his sweet little personality. 

On May 8th, we celebrated Elem turning 5 years old!

Happy Birthday to you my sweet boy! We love you more than you could ever know!!!

This was a particularly hard year to plan for his big party, with my being pregnant, graduating the same weekend, and working all kinds of crazy hours. So when Elem said he wanted his party at the Little Rock Athletic Club again this year, I was thrilled to do something familiar that I knew would be a hit and he would have a blast. 

Luke, Elem, Tate, and Logan (friends from Elem's School)

Elem and Tate taking on the zipline

Elem and Korbin having some fun

Happy 5th Birthday to you Elem!

Excited about presents......

........and more presents.......

Shooting some hoops on the bball court.

Cecilia in the tubes and play area

Daddy, Elem, Uncle Spoon, and Rowyn playing some ball

Elem and Memaw after the celebration

Mommy and her Big 5 year old! Sniff sniff. 

Again, I am amazed at how quickly Elem has gone from a toddler to a Kindergartener. It is so sad, but so rewarding at the same time. This guy sure knows how to have fun, make us laugh with his silly dance moves and crazy jokes, has more athletic ability than Seth and I combined, loves music much like his parents, is insanely stubborn and strong willed, and continues to have the sweetest little spirit about him. I love you Elem Zane and am so excited to watch you grow over this next year. Happy Birthday!

Happy Hearts! :)

Some major catching up here to do-
We had a great Valentines Day filled with lots of school parties, plenty of yummy sweets, happy friends and family, and a puppet show at the local library! For starters, I have missed out on sooo many party days at Elem's school due to my crazy school and clinical schedule, that I was beyond thrilled to hit up the 4 year old V-day party for him and his classmates. Elem had a blast playing games, doing relays, eating cupcakes, passing out his all time favorite Captain America Valentine Day cards ;), and racking up on lots of goodies from his friends!

Landon, Elem, and Logan (Sweet boys from his class at school!)

Of course we headed over to Cecilia's class to see what kind of partying they were doing in there and as always these two are all giggles when they get together. We love us some sissy!

Elem and Cecilia in their holiday red 

After school we spent some time playing outside, just enjoying the weather and took a few snapshots for daddy for his V-Day gift. Here is a snipet of what we made for him :) He loved it!

Baby Shelby 14 weeks and growing....

We had to include Sage in some loving on Valentines Day and if I recall she even got a special treat and toy because we just cant leave her out! 

Finally we finished out the night by going to the library for a Valentines Day puppet show and party. It was actually soo much fun! I always forget about all the cool fun things that go on at our library and we must go there more often. The kids had a blast and loved the puppet show!! 

Nothing crazy spectacular about our Valentines Day this year but it was about all we could handle with the craziness we call life these days! 

Busy days are here again!

Well lately we have been super busy with my finishing up nursing school, being pregnant, working, and trying to keep my life together in one piece without totally driving everyone insane!!! Quite honestly I have reached my burn out point in school. Going 90 miles an hour for the past 2 years trying to keep up with school and manage my life is finally taking its toll on not only me but my whole family. Seth is burnt out, Elem is burnt out, and I am sure if the new baby could speak out, he/she would probably tell me to slow down and quit running around all day every day and never making time to just relax and enjoy the moment! It seems like those moments have been few and far between but I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. I graduate May 19th!!! And couldnt be more ready than I am at this very moment. I am so tired, tired of going to class, tests, clinicals, all of it. hehe. And I find myself often just wanting to enjoy some time with my family and not feel guilty during the moment because I am not studying or not going to work. Ahhh. The end is so clear I kind of wish I could fast forward a few months. But I gotta stick with it and it will be so worth it. Our life is going to be so much better with a secure future right around the corner. On a very positive note, I am most likely going to be staying on my unit at ACH-the Hematology/Oncology Unit which has totally become my second home. I love the kids, the staff, and the whole environment, it all comes very naturally to me, and I really cant imagine working anywhere else at this point in my career. So on Hem/Onc I will stay!

Home life-is still a mess, the house is not as neat as I would like it, the laundry stays in the basket "to be folded" for an unusual length of time, we eat out a couple of times a week, sage is still the sweetest little dog in the whole world and spends most of her time relaxing and napping on the back of the couch, and seth is on the look out for a new job. He recently parted ways with Waymack and Crew where he has called his home for the past 7 years, and is taking on a new roll as a free lancer-seeing out his own work, and hopefully bringing in some bigger bucks! lol. The pregnancy is going smoothly, with just some nausea and dizzy spills that seems to come with the territory. I did the drano gender test and it quickly turned black, which indicates ...BOY! SO I guess we will find out in just a few short weeks! On april 5th we will find out if the next addition to our family with be a little misses or a little mr! Either way we will be so excited and happy, but I think if the baby is a little girl, we will have a lot of convincing and explaining to do for the big brother. He is under the impression that if you think it/wish it hard enough, it will be a boy and thats all there is to it. LOL. Lets hope for the best reaction possible from Elem Zane. :)

Despite the urge to force another little boy into this family, Elem really has been a trooper and we have spent a lot of time trying to include him and get him ready for the baby belly and everything that goes along with the phases of the next few months. In addition to lots of conversations, and talking to and about my belly, we have spent lots of time outside beefing up his bike riding skills-without the training wheels. He has been doing it for a couple of months but recently got where he can start and stop by himself like a big boy! So proud of my little man.

Well the next couple of months are looking to be super busy and I am not too excited about gaining any weight, but looking forward to feeling the baby move and grow inside me! My most favorite part about being pregnant.

Cuddle buddies

Even though he is 4, almost 5 years old, Elem is still my number 1 cuddle buddy. And I cannot imagine that EVER changing!!!

We still snuggle, cuddle, love, or whatever you might call it, and even though he is getting bigger (and so is my belly), somehow we just make it work. :) I never thought I would hear myself saying this, but we still do not have a scheduled bedtime, or bedtime routine-even though deep down I know it is must needed and MUST come before kindergarten. And probably isn't doing Elem any good, but I just cant seem to let go of our nightly cuddle time. Every night we lay on the couch side by side, snuggled up, and just relax and watch TV, until we decide to wonder on into Elem's bed or we fall asleep on the couch. And then of course, we have the early 4-5am "requests" from Elem's room once I have fallen fast asleep in my own bed, where I hear from a distance..."MOM! to which I always respond, "yes?", and all I hear in return is a sharp, firm voice, "CUDDLE!!!". Which basically means, I know you left me in here alone, so get back in here and cuddle with me!!! Haha. It is funny every single morning that I hear it, and even as uncomfortable and squished the ole twin bed in his room is getting, it still never gets old to see his little grin when I crawl into bed, and he tells me "can you please put your arm around me and cuddle?". hehe. I love it. I just do.

I think deep down I know the day is coming, whether it be because the real school days are right around the corner, or with the new baby coming, that I just don't want my first baby to totally be grown up on me before I am ready! Ahh, sigh. Selfish I know. But that is MY little boy dang it, and I just love my special cuddle time with him! :) My plan is to kick it in gear this summer with a new bedtime schedule and routine and hope it will stick to make the transition to kindergarten a smooth one!

As Elem would say, "cuddle, wuddle buddle mom? "

Brain Freeze

Needless to say the winter here in Arkansas was not too terribly bad! We had minimal cold weather, and only one promising day of snow. My clinical for school was even cancelled, thinking a blizzard was coming in :) as all of us here in Arkansas typically do, but no such luck! We did have about an hour of hard core flurries, that were beautiful and gave the impression if it were to last like that for a few hours, we might have actually been able to make a snow man. Haha. I kept Elem home, noting the early morning snow flurries, and we planned to stay inside and do cozy activities before running out to play in the snow. But since the snow wasnt around long enough to even cover the ground, our snow play was limited to say the least.

Elem did have enough time to run out and make a snow cone out of the snow that lined the patio table, and it was even enough to give him a brain freeze :) He ran inside with this face, telling me about the brain freeze, before I could even get outside to catch him "playing" in the little bit of snow we had.

After the brain freeze, the whole idea of enjoying and playing in the snow was pretty much ruined. haha. And we just staid inside and watched movies and enjoyed the day off from school! Any excuse to stay home with Elem is a good one!!

My little superstar

So looking back over the holidays, I forgot to include my little man and his big moment in Little Rock Family Magazine:). We actually didnt even know he was going to be in it, and got a call from some sweet friends saying they saw Elem in the holiday section. So of course we ran out and scooped up several copies to make sure we could show off my little man!

He looks so young looking at the pick-it is from when he was 3 years old! We went to a Breakfast With Santa, and a lady kept taking his photo while he was playing with all the ornaments on the christmas trees. Who knew we would see it here a year later. :) Sweet little man, looking cute in his christmas attire. hehe.

A welcome addition....

to the Shelby Family. As if we are not busy, stressed, over worked, and under paid, we thought we would throw in a curve ball to finish out my last semester of nursing school :)

Shock and Awe are understatements, but excited, joyful, and purely thankful are slowly overtaking shock and awe. :) We will welcome a new little addition sometime in early August, around the 16th or a little earlier-thank goodness for C-sections!

Happy New Year!

2012 is going to be such a fabulous year for us.......

I love my little family and I can't wait for all the new fabulous experiences and memories we are going to enjoy this year!

Thank You Santa Clause

This Christmas was by far the best Christmas we have ever had! 4 years old is for sure the key year to enjoy magic of Santa and everything he brings to make Christmas more fun. Even though it took me finishing my finals before I actually got into the Christmas Spirit, once I got there, it was so amazing. I loved every single second of talking about Christmas with Elem, the face that it is Jesus' birthday and he loves us so much that he lets everyone get presents on his birthday, and of course good ole Santa Clause and his reindeer.

Of course we did some tree decorating and went all out with as many lights as possible on the house. And when I say we, I mean Seth climbed on the house and did all that fancy work outside :) Its way to cold for me to be out there. haha. Everyone in our house LOVES decorating the tree and I think this is always the one thing that gets us really ready for Christmas. Every year I plan to get a real tree and go to the Christmas Tree farm and cut our own down, but ever since I have been in nursing school there is just never enough time to do it. SO, we settled for a live tree from our local Lowes. Elem could have cared less though, and he loved decorating his own christmas tree for his room the best.

Our tradition is to buy a new ornament (or 2!)every year that Elem picks out so he can add it to his tree. This year he chose a gigantic gold fleur de lis (noting that it was "The Saints", and he only wanted that one). haha So we got it.

Elem ended up with not only all of his ornaments, but most of the ones I like to decorate our tree with too. Oh well, his tree was fantastic!

A couple of days before Christmas Memaw came to celebrate with us and she got Elem super into opening presents. He was hooked from the first present! We had a blast, and Elem scored a blue Wii, which he is slightly obsessed with now. Thank you Memaw!! And made a yummy gingerbread choo choo train. Yes, most people don't eat these things once they are put together but Elem continued to eat off of it until I threw it away!

On Christmas Eve we went to Ali and Dustin's house to celebrate with just us and the Shelby's, and the kids of course had a blast! Opening all kinds of presents, and running wild. We made Christmas cookies for Santa and left reindeer food outside for Rudolph and his gang to be sure they would stop by our house! ;)

Seth and I awoke on Christmas morning to our lights being flipped on with screams of-

"Mom, Dad, get up!!! Santa did come!!!!! Look what he brought me! " (as he was holding his big blue hula hoop in his arms with the biggest grin I have ever seen. It was amazingly awesome. Seeing his face and hearing his excitement had us jumping up and running into the living room to see what Santa had brought him. Loved it! One of my favorite moments ever.

For a not so morning person, this little guy perked up and started tearing into his presents, loving every single thing he got from Santa! He was so sweet and didn't complain about one thing! Which was very important to me. I really wanted him to be thankful this Christmas and not spend too much of his energy whining and worrying over presents. I mean they are the most fun part of Christmas, but I just wanted it to be positive and not a spoiling negative kind of holiday season!!!

Yes, Santa broke down and brought a play rifle to the house. Tsk tsk. What are you gonna do? I mean look at that grin:)

Who knew Santa knew all about Super Heros!!!

After opening lots of presents and playing with lots of new toys, when under the tree was pretty much bare, Elem found one last special letter from Santa.....

hehehehehehe. He was so pumped and had no idea what Santa might have brought him! He wanted 3 things from santa-A blue hula hoop (check!), a remote control hot wheels (check!), and a _____________!

I apologize for the terrible video footage but again, I have no camera! So Iphone images and video are all we got this year! haha. Hey, the video is worth a thousand words!

I just cant say it enough. What a great Christmas! It was pretty low key, just the way we wanted with all the stress from school, and all of our busy schedules. We got to spend time with family, lots of time with just our own little family, and had just enough time to squeeze in some fun holiday traditions. Merry Christmas!

Oops I almost forgot, Elem did help me wrap up some special presents for our adopt a child from the shelter. We (along with my clinical group from school) adopted this little 7 week old girl, and got her lots of cute clothes and things. And even though Elem didnt think her presents were all that cool, he did help me wrap some of them and take them to the shelter to drop them off. He was so proud to walk in there and say that he helped her have a good Christmas. It was amazing. Our plan is to to that every year and hopefully next year he can choose most of the items and we can continue our little tradition!

Happy Holidays......

Snapshot of our Christmas Card this year! Not the best image of it, but I had to work with the iphone camera :)

Happy Holidays, Love-The Shelbys

Santa Clause is Coming to Town

Christmas is in the air and Santa Clause has been watching our house like crazy this season! And Elem is all about it. He is more into Christmas time in general, being good for Santa, wrapping and opening presents, and being thankful for what you get no matter what it might be! This year has def been the best year to watch Elem get excited and look at all the toys and ideas of things he hopes for Santa to bring. He loves the Christmas Tree, all the ornaments, lights, stockings, everything. And most importantly, he loves him some Santa Clause! We made a trip to visit Santa with Cecilia and Nate, and Elem knew before we even left, exactly what he was going to say to the big man.

Feeling very cool to be talking to the "real" Santa Clause. Uhm, and we know he is the "real" Santa Clause because he has a real beard. I made sure Elem knew this important detail before we left for the visit!

Nate, Cecilia, and Elem....very interested in Santa, and not being shy AT ALL! Unfortunately, Santa's camera decided to not work right when we got to the front of the line, so there was a little issue with actually getting a pic. But at least we got to take our own for free! yay!

Santa: What would you like for Christmas?

Elem: I want a remote control hot wheels.

Cecilia: I want a pink convertible.

Santa checking to see if everybody has been good this year...Elem super interested, Cecilia super interested....Nate-not so much.

Trying to get a pic of all three in their Christmas best was a nightmare, so this is what you get: Merry Christmas from Cecilia, Elem, and Nate!

These 2 however, are BFFs till the end, love/hate relationship often times, but the majority of the time is LOVE.

Trip to visit Santa was sooo much fun, and perfect for Elem. He loved Santa, he loved running around the mall, loved riding all the kiddie rides, loved eating dip n dots and chick fil a for lunch. Christmas trip success for sure!

Elem's favorite Christmas Song as of now...You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why, Santa Clause is coming to town!!! Love to hear him sing this song. His sweet little singing voice is to die for.