drum roll please....dan officially has a job!!! we are excited/relieved and i personally am very proud of him! it seems as though right now it is difficult to find a job unless you know someone or know someone that knows someone....however, dan was able to find a job completely on his own merit. he is working for a engineering company in decatur al called hargrove and associates. he has worked there for two weeks now and so far so good. the only downside is that the girls and i don't get to see him all day every day....but we are adjusting just fine.

in other news, we have had the opportunity in the last month to see all four of our best friends from orlando!! (of course when it came to saying goodbye to them all i cried like a little baby all over again.....) first, we went to tennessee to visit carissa and brian at carissa's parents' house. (oddly enough both my parents and carissa's parents have recently moved to tennessee and they only live about 90 miles apart from one another, which works out great for us!) unfortunately we only got to spend one day with them, but at least we got to see them.

we went to atlanta to see dusty, leah, and, most importantly, their new baby alice! they were up visiting dusty's parents for the weekend to celebrate dusty's sister allison's 30th birthday. we were able to spend the entire weekend with them because the embreys were gracious enough to let us stay there as well. all in all it was a wonderful weekend! the entire embrey clan was in attendance as well as austin and tawnie bryant and shannon and drew ellis (and a lot of other people that i didn't know). lilly's best friend little alice is absolutely beautiful! i just wish they lived closer so we our girls could grow up together. hopefully we will be able to visit each other plenty so they can still be best buds!

lilly jane finally had another pediatrician appointment last week. she weighed 11 lbs 13 oz and was 23 1/4 inches in length. she had to get four different vaccinations, which neither she nor mary claire were too thrilled about. lilly's infancy is definitely flying by way faster than mary claire's did, but we are enjoying every second of it. here are the skills she has now acquired: smiling and laughing (my two favorite), holding her head up while on her stomach, holding her hands together, sleeping through the night, and holding onto toys briefly.

i am lucky enough to have two best friends that are excellent photographers, alyson clemons (http://www.erpbyalyson.com/) and lisa taylor (http://www.twopeasphoto.com/). this past wednesday, alyson was able to take some pictures of lilly for me. we tried to get mary claire to be in some as well, but aly's girls were there and mc was just too busy playing with them to care about being in any pictures. i think we managed to get her in a handful of them but that's about it. here's a little preview....

since we have been in hartselle we have started going to first united methodist church. alyson's dad, john mcfee, teaches our sunday school class, which we have really been enjoying. it is one thing to find a church, but to find a smaller group within that church that you are comfortable with, like a sunday school class, is really a blessing. it also just so happens that they have a service at 9:00 and sunday school at 10:00, which works out perfectly with our girls' schedules!

i think that about wraps it up for now. oh, and the look of the blog has changed a bit because my old template was deleted for some reason. i think i like this one just as well though....

new addition.

where to begin?? it has been quite a while since i have posted anything so this could get a little lengthy....

first and foremost, lilly jane culpepper has arrived and is now actually two and a half months old! her delivery went very well. we arrived at winnie palmer hospital in orlando at 6:30 pm on may 10 and lilly made her debut at 8:56 pm. she weighed in at 6 lbs even and was 19 1/2 inches in length. she has been a great baby since day one! she doesn't cry very much and she is already sleeping through the night.

mary claire just loves being a big sister. she likes to check on lilly during her naps, help change her diapers, give her kisses on the head, tickle her tummy and toes, help read her books, etc. it is absolutely adorable! it is strange how i can hardly remember life before lilly jane now.

we have had another major change since i last posted...we now live back in my hometown of hartselle, al. shortly before lilly was born, dan was laid off from his job in orlando due to lack of work for his company. we looked at it as a blessing in disguise because as a result we decided to move back here. it just so happened that my parents still owned a home here that was not occupied so we could move right in. also, we are close to huntsville, which is a great area for mechanical engineers to find work. best of all, we are much closer to our families and many of our friends! however, it was extremely difficult to leave our best friends in orlando (dusty, leah, carissa, and brian) as well as our family (patrick and jason) and we still miss them very much! ( i'm still hoping they will eventually end up in alabama too!!!!!) anyway, we moved here two weeks after lilly was born so you can imagine how hectic life has been for us lately.

here are some, but not all, of the things we have been doing since the move:

fishing for the first time.

swimming and playing in sprinklers.

going to huntsville stars' baseball games.

boating with doc and nana.

amanda, matt, and baby luke came to visit.

meeting the great-grandparents for the first time, both memaw and pawpaw and grandmother and howard (pictured is the grandmother that lilly jane was named after).

hiking at hurricane creek park with the caves.

celebrating emily anne's birthday/4th of july complete with grill out, fireworks, and fire pit to make s'mores....and yes i dressed mary claire to match emily anne and we made then wear the bandanas meant for the dogs.

visiting the tennessee aquarium to see all pop-pop's fish.

lilly has now met all of dan's immediate family and all of mine with the exception of keith (i called you out...come visit us!). on top of all of this we have been able to spend time with many of our friends (austin & tawnie bryant, aly & pat clemons and their girls, lori scott, lisa taylor, matt willette, and david evans, just to name a few). we are finally getting settled in around here so hopefully i will do a better job of keeping this thing up to date!