Jonathan's Birthday week- Day 1

Today Jonathan is able to work from home. The girls and I are very excited that we will get some quality "Daddy time." Today we plan to do some fun things around the house with the girls. Tomorrow through Thursday I will be traveling with Jonathan to a conference in Indianapolis. The girls are going to spend some fun time with their grandmothers while we are gone.



We plan to celebrate this week what a wonderful friend, husband, and daddy Jonathan is. God has blessed us so much by giving us Jonathan. He points us to Christ daily with his love, patience, thirst for knowledge and kindness.







Happy Birthday Week Baby!

Florida pictures

Mama's big girl

The great-grandparents

Happy Birthday to my Boys!

This past weekend we celebrated the birthdays of our nephews, Ty and Cade. The party was a blast! There were plenty of laughs and great food. My brother-in-law, DeWayne makes the BEST BURGERS!! My sister Aimee was brave enough to let me practice up on my cake decorating skills and experiment on a new cake. Ty and Cade love airplanes, so we thought that would be an appropriate theme for their cake.

Ty is such a super big brother! He was the only grandchild/nephew for five years, so he got lots of lovin' and attention.

Then his brother Cade came along three weeks after Addie Leigh.

Now he does a great job sharing his birthday parties with his little brother Cade. Ty's birthday is the 11th and Cade's is the 16th, so a joint party just makes sense.

The cousins play well together. Ty is great with the girls and has been since they were little babies. Cade and Addie love to play together. I'm hoping they will stay buddies through the years since they are so close in age. We are so thankful that Addie Leigh and Piper have their cousins close by. Happy birthday boys!!

Yum! Can we eat it now? ( You think that is what he's thinking, but really the only sweets he likes are oatmeal creme pies. He didn't even try the cake. :))

Jonathan helped me out a lot with this cake. He set the pillars for me, he made the windshield and even made goggles for the pilot!!! Thanks babe!

Practicing for Florida!

We are so excited that our annual Florida vacation is quickly approaching. I thought it would be a good idea to fill up the sand turtle so the girls could practice up for all the sandcastles they will be constructing. We are so blessed to have a roomy patio where the girls can play outside, but still escape the hot sun. Even though it has been a year since the girls were at the beach, they quickly remembered what to do! Daddy even stepped in to give a lesson or two. He is a pro at sandcastles. But Cousin Ashley still has him beat on drippy castles. The girls will be getting their lesson from her in about 4 weeks!

Our annual Florida vacation is such a blessing because we have time to relax and spend time with family. The holidays are always busy with people running here and there trying to see all their family in a short amount of time, but for the Fincher clan (Jonathan's mom's side) this Florida time is our time to "catch up" with each other. Jonathan's grandmother is so organized! She has assigned cooking nights where groups of us take turns making dinner for the family and cleaning up the mess. She even has a list of all the pantry items that she will be bringing along so that we don't duplicate ingredients when grocery shopping.

Piper was a little too young to really enjoy the trip last year, but I'm glad that the girls are both old enough to have some beach fun this year. I can't wait to get some great photos of this vacation and post them here for you to see!

Blessings on Mel-Mel & Chris

This weekend we will celebrate the union of Jonathan's cousin Melanie and her fiancee' Chris. We are so blessed to have Melanie in our family. She has been a great friend to us and a wonderful godly example for our girls. We all love her so much!

We pray for Chris as he becomes Melanie's
husband that he will lead her and love her as
Christ loves the church. May he be blessed
with knowledge and wisdom as he leads their
new family.







For Melanie, we pray she will continue to have a

thirst for knowledge of God as she learns how to

serve, love and respect her husband.




We love you Melanie and Chris. We pray the Lord will bless you with many God-honoring years of marriage. Thank you for the example you are to our children!

Piper is Finally Well!

The Baird Bunch battled the stomach bug last week and out of the three family members who suffered from it, Piper was the worst. It was heartbreaking to watch her lay limp on the couch for so many hours. Piper is a go-getter and doesn't stay still for long, so this behavior was very foreign to us. We are very thankful that she is well and back to her old self again.
Since Addie Leigh was about 6 months old, we have been using Baby Sign with our children to help them communicate with us. This was truly a blessing to have during Piper's illness, because she could tell us when she wanted to eat or drink. Here is a video of Piper's new sign "apple." This was her first day to sign it back to me. She starts out a little camera shy, but eventually shows it to the camera. :)

Birthday Week- Party Day!

The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful daughter. She is a constant source of entertainment and joy in our lives. She has a thirst for knowledge like her daddy, always asking questions and soaking everything in. Addie Leigh also has a love of shoes like her mama! :)

It was my joy to plan and prepare a birthday bash for my little lady. She helped me plan a theme and a menu. Every time I asked her what she would like for her birthday, she would quickly reply, "Strawberries." I asked her many times to get some clarity or details, but her answer was always strawberries. (sometimes she added, "and Cheerios.") Well, we ended up with just what she said she wanted, a strawberry party! We had a chocolate cake in the shape of a strawberry, strawberry punch, plain strawberries and chocolate covered strawberries. We had a blast celebrating the birthday of a strawberry loving little 3 year old! Here are some pictures and a video from Addie Leigh's party.

Birthday Week-Day 4

Well, we have been battling the stomach bug at the Baird home, so that leaves little time for blogging. I left off on Addie Leigh's birthday week day 3, where Addie spent her time at home feeling ill. Even though she was feeling better the next day we limited out special activities. We still did some of Addie Leigh's favorites.


We had a special outing to one of Addie Leigh's favorite shopping spots. Yes...WAL-MART!!! She loves seeing all the people and going up and down the aisles looking at every little thing. I love how children are so easily pleased!


When we left Wal-Mart we made a stop at America's favorite drive-in because it was our favorite time of the day. 2pm-4pm has become a very special time for our family because we love a great Sonic drink and we love a good sale!!!

Birthday Week-Day 3

Please don't expect two posts everyday! I'm not sure you will even get one a week. But I wanted to continue talking about our birthday week for Addie Leigh. Today we were going to take her to my grandparents to see the horses and play outside, but unfortunately my little girl is not feeling well. So, we had to settle for an extra dose of her favorite program, Charlie and Lola. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow and we can continue with our special activities for the rest of the week.

Busy Birthday Week- Day 1 & 2

Birthdays are a big deal in the Baird home. We love to take a whole week to make the birthday person feel loved and special. This week is our oldest daughter's birthday week. Addie Leigh will be 3 years old on the 25th! We have a special activity planned for each day. On Monday, she was treated to a special trip to her Nonnie's house without her sister, Piper. Normally Addie Leigh has to share my mom with her sister and her other cousins, but she stayed at Nonnie's house over night by herself. They did some of Addie Leigh's favorites, like reading books and building with blocks. She really enjoyed her special time with her Nonnie.

It also worked out good for Jonathan and me, because Tuesday we had to take Piper to the Surgery Center in Texarkana for tubes. Our appointment was at 6:30am, so we had to leave our house at 5am!

My little Piper was a trooper that day. She wasn't able to have anything to eat or drink before the surgery so she was a little cranky. She also hated the I.D. bracelet they put on her ankle. I think that was the worst part of the whole experience. :) She was in and out in no time and then we treated her to a wonderful breakfast where she surprisingly ate almost 2 pancakes, some scrambled eggs and hash browns!

Daddy & Piper before the surgery

The torture device!

Piper & her lovey, Pink Monkey

Isn't she cute in her little gown???