A Visitor and Adjusting to Three

I am finally catching up to the present, as a far as my posting is concerned. At the beginning of February we were so excited to have Brady Giusta and his friend Mel visit. They were out for a YoungLife conference in Florida and stopped over at our place before leaving from Atlanta. It was so great to catch-up and have them both over.



Catalina has started to smile a lot. So you will keep seeing her smile pop-up now and then in this post; call it a forget-me-not.

On a cold afternoon the kids wanted to play outside. They were kind enough to pose for a couple photos too.


Then they had fun rolling down a short steep hill in our yard.


Here is a photo of Catalina with some other baby girls born around the same time as her. It is Juniper, Catalina, and Isa.

Mollie told me that one rainy day the kids decided to make rain angels, as opposed to snow angels. I'm not sure how that turned out but they had a good time.

On that same day they ate lollipops, from the GG Scott's, and watched a movie in bed.

Smiling Cat.

Another warmer day the kids decided to play in some mud in the back yard.

They thought it was so funny and they had a great time.


Catalina loves to sit in her bouncy chair and say hi.


Here is a cute one of Olive June and Catalina in the morning.

Griffin had a lot of fun with this gigantic balloon...

...until it popped.

January: The San Diego Billings' in GA

So here we go with January. A Catalina close-up is a good way to start.


Cat sitting in a boppy.

Before Grandma Kathy arrived Auntie Penny made the Georgia trip from Illinois. It was so great to have her down.

Here Penny is with Olive June.

Grandma Kathy arrived shortly after Penny. It was really nice to have her out and to receive all of her help with things.

One day I took Griffin and Olive June to the park to have some Daddy time. I think they loved it.

They have been playing more and more together these days. It is a lot of fun to watch them play off each others' personality.

A week later Mr. Grampy (a.k.a David. A) Billings arrived for a visit too.

While Grampy and Gma Kathy were out, Griffin, Olive June and I went to the Georgia Aquarium with them. We had a ton of fun and Mollie, and Catalina, got to rest for a day. In the picture above we are trying to pet a sting-ray.

Griffin and Gma Kathy at the tide pools section.

OJ and Grampy.

I was looking through an aquarium at the kids and Grand Parents on the other side of the tank.

Look at the Penguin Daddy.

Sleeping Olive June with Mama Mollie.

Here is Catalina in mid-January.

Bath-time for baby.

Look at that face.

All three kids in bed together for the first time.

This was a celebratory cake that my Mom made just prior to my actual Birthday. It was fun to have my parents out for the celebration.

A cake for my actual Birthday. Truth be known, I got a third delicious cake in February when we had some friends over for a postponed Birthday get together.

Sweet times with Mama and baby.

Christmas with the Reinhardt's

It has been a long time since I have posted . . . too long. We have been super busy, finding our new normal, and trying to get sleep. By the time I even thought about creating a post the shear volume of photos to sort through was overwhelming. So now, in March, I have finally sorted though December and January. I am hoping to catch-up with February soon so I can keep up-to-date and not be exasperated by a mountain of photos in the future.

So now I start with images taken before and after Christmas during our visit by the Reinhardt's. It was so great to see all of the them, and specifically, to have all the help Cyndi gave us before and after Catalina's arrival.

Pictured below we start with Christmas Eve.

Griffin was super jazzed to get a remote controlled spider. It even climbed on the wall.

Olive June immediately loved her new dolly.

Christmas morning the kids loved opening presents together. Our cat, Bean, got a catnip toy present too.



Catalina's first Christmas. She kind of looks like she is smiling in her Christmas dress.


Here is Cyndi holding our most precious Christmas gift.

Bapa, John, holding the baby.

And Uncle Jacob holding Catalina.

One of my favorite parts of the Christmas was the epic meal Cyndi prepared for all of the adults on Christmas night. We ate after Griffin and Olive went to sleep, and it was so nice to have a meal where we could all actually talk to each other. On top of that is was extremely delicious.

Griffin enjoying the Kindle we got for the family to use. He loved Angry Birds.

Olive June in her official Christmas dress.


OJ in one of the many dress-up Princess dresses she got for Christmas.

One day a bunch of us went to the park. The weather happened to be really nice that day.

Goofing around on a funky merry-go-round.

Griffin and Jacob playing around with Griffin's new "Zombie Lab."

Olive June loved her uncle.

Mama with Catalina.

One more picture of the precious baby.

I hope to post more picture from January soon.