Where has the year gone?

WOW- I can't belive that Kestyn is now a year old! Where has the time gone? We had such a great birthday celebration for her! She got so many wonderful toys and clothes from her family and friends. Thank you all that came and celebrated that special day with us! She truly has been a joy in all of our lives. The way she smiles when she sees her sisters and brother each day, it's priceless! You can tell how much she loves them and they truly over her!

The school year is almost over!!!! YIKES! Summer will be here in a few days and I will have 4 crazy kids on my hands........so fun!! I can't believe that Cali will be in 6th grade next school year! I remember her first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday. She is such a smart girl and will do great things.

My little man will be in 4th grade.....>WAIT< 4th grade.....that doesn't seem right, he shouldn't be this age, he should still be my little 2 year old! What a sweetie he is! He has a smile that lights up my heart. He has such a great sense of humor, he just cracks me up sometimes! He is turning out to be a great lil' guy!

Alyssa, will be in 3rd grade........hard to believe that when I first met her she was 2!!!!! She is extremly smart and my little DIVA! She is truly your girly girly! She is always sooooo helpful when I need her to be!

Will and I will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary in seven months. WOW - the last 5 years have FLOWN by! I guess it's true when they say "Time flies when you're having fun"!

All in all, I would say things are going pretty good here are the Vaughn-Gardner house :-) Hopefully I will try and keep up with this a little better.

Kestyn 4 months

Time sure has escaped me with keeping this fairly current. I can't believe that Kestyn is now 4 months old and just becoming her own little person. She is so excitable and happy and did I mention Beautiful!!!!!! Will and I just laugh at her with her uncontrollable arm movements and the way she smiles everytime we look at her. She is just a blessing to have. Here is a little video that I made of some recent pictures I took of her (which turned out amazing). Her eyes just captivate you! Anyway - enjoy!

Being a Mom

You know there are things in this world that people are meant to do, and I swear I was meant to be Kestyn's mom. At this time in my life and having this little baby surround my world is unexplainable. She brings such a joy and peace to my life that I've never experienced before. Looking at her smile at me with those chubby cheeks, my heart fills with instant love over and over again. She truly is a gift from God and I could never imagine my life without her. She was the puzzle piece that was missing in our lives and now that she is here, our family is complete. I love her so much.
Here she is talking and smiling at me with that beautiful smile! I've watched this like a million times!

About Kestyn...

Well - I can't believe that Kestyn is now 2 months old and this is the first post of her on here. What a bad mother :-P! Anyway, what a joyful experience it has been having a daughter of my own. I have this precious gift that was given to me and the love that I have for this little girl is amazing! Will and I have truly blessed our family with this new addition and I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful baby! She is the love of our lives. Sorry for the delay on getting some pictures of her, but with a new baby and 3 other children, my time has been consumed!
Let's see - she is about 13lbs now, she is smiling and cooing like crazy! She is a chunky little thing. She sleeps A LOT and eats A LOT!!!! Most of all she is beautiful and an amazing combination of both Will and I. When they first brought her out, she looked just like Cali. Then she changed a few days later to look just like me! It's still hard to tell who she really looks like, but she definitley has Will's beautiful blue eyes!

Pictures in order: 1 day old, 4 weeks old and 8 weeks old !

Final Days

In 4 more days I will be the mother of a new little baby girl! Can you believe it! I am sooo very excited. May 12, 2009 will be her birthday! This has definitely been a wonderful experience to share with Will and our family! I just want to thank EVERYONE for all of your love and support throughout our journey! Here are her last pictures that she had taken about 3 weeks ago....you can see that she has her daddy's head! Love to you all!

Kestyn's Baby Shower

Well - we survied our awesome Baby Shower!!!! It was incredible. I never realized how wonderful my friends and family are! It was a couples shower, so Will was there opening gifts right along side me! It was at my neighbor's house, Danielle, she is such a wonderful friend! There was a tent set up out back for the guys to hang out together and the girls were mainly set up inside. The food was great, but the company was even better! My mom, sister and Danielle set the whole thing up and it couldn't have been better.

The gifts for Kestyn were amazing and we had such a great time. After the shower, it took 3 guys to carry all of our stuff back to our house. Unfortunatley, I was leaving the next day, so I really didn't get a chance to look at everything until I got back this past weekend. After going through everything, there were items in there that I didn't even know we had gotten. Will was amazing, I couldn't believe how much he got into it. He was opening presents and putting the little outfits on his stomach and hats on his head. He was great. I can't thank everyone enough for all the goodies that we received. I love you all!

SO PROUD

Ok - so recently Cali has been reading books after books after books for the Sunshine State Reader. If you meet the requirement of 10 or more books, you get to be in a contest to answer questions about the books. Cali has read all 15 books that were needed and she was a part of the question session. Out of 30 children that got to compete she made it in the top 5. She will now be going with 4 other children from her school to compete with other schools in the Book-a-Thon. I am sooooo very proud of her for taking the initiative on her own to do this.

On top of that, she came to me the other day asking if I had a picture of her and I. I asked her what for and she said she needed to bring in a picture of her and her hero........I about died!!!!! I said to her "You think I am your hero" and she said "Yes". I asked why and she said "Because you always take care of us"! It definitely doesn't get any better than that!