"Pistachio" got a NAME for Christmas!

We are thrilled to announce the name of our youngest daughter:

Julia Kate Poage

Her name means "Youthful" and "Pure." Julia is already such a joy in our lives and we SO enjoy feeling her precious little kicks each night before bed. We can hardly wait for April 28th when our household "giggles and bows" will double and we'll get to meet "Jules" face-to-face! :) Thank you for your prayers!

We hope you all had a FANTASTIC time with your families and friends as you celebrated the birth of Jesus this year! Can't wait to post pictures of our wonderful Christmas celebration with the Poages soon! It was truly an incredible time!

Hugs to all and wishing you a VERY Happy New Year!
Collin, Stephanie, Avery, Julia & Howie :)

He he he! :)

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I FINALLY UPDATED!!

TONS of new posts... scroll down until you hit Cloudcroft if you want. After that, it's all new stuff! Sorry for the wait! We're still bloggers! :)

Got ICE??

Last Saturday, we decided the best way to spend the cold and rainy afternoon was to go inside and get... Colder??

We headed to the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine to see their ICE exhibit. If you haven't heard about this, it's incredible. It's a gigantic ice-sculpture exhibit featuring sculptures of everything ranging from toys, trains and the North Pole (complete with 3 working ice-slides that Collin and my dad slid down) to a life-size nativity scene completely sculpted of ice! It was PHENOMENAL, but VERRRRRY cold. In order to keep the sculptures from melting away, they keep the temperature inside the exhibit at a chilly 9 degrees! NINE degrees. (My good friends in Minnesota are laughing at me right now that I think that's exceptionally cold, but BURRRR!!!)

It's so cold in there that they warn you that your cameras might freeze and they provide you with special coats just to walk through the exhibit. They didn't have coats small enough to fit Avery, so Collin got a 4-XL and put her inside with him. SO cute. Needless to say, it was quite an experience! What a fun afternoon.

"...There may not be snow in San Antonio, but it's a Texas Christmas to me..."

I love that song.

The weather really was weird, though! It was in the 80's the first day, down to the 30's the second day, and then back up to the high-70's our last day! So strange! But the warm weather on the first evening made for a nice boat-tour of the Riverwalk! It was such a fun time... We made some really sweet memories, laughed so hard it was almost embarrassing at points, reminisced about old times and looked forward to future Christmases with LOTS more grandkids in the mix! As Collin would say, "Fun times!"

Baby's 1st Flight!

Another milestone!! Avery survived her first airplane ride!

Two weeks ago, we packed up and headed South-West on Southwest bound for San Antonio! San Antonio trips in December were an Ellison tradition from my pre-teen years until Jen and I both got married, so it seemed very appropriate to travel to the home of the Alamo for a few days with my family to gear-up for Christmas like we used to do.

Avery did VERY well! It was wonderful to get to "test the waters" (or I guess "test the air," in this case) on such a short flight. She slept soundly until we went through security and then she woke up and didn't go back to sleep at all! She was probably afraid she'd miss something. But she didn't fuss in the air though, so that's great! We were all happy to land and start the trip.

Santa, Baby...

Too cute not to post...

'Tis the Season!

Don't you just LOVE December?! ...Well... let me re-phrase that... Don't you just LOVE December on days when it actually FEELS like December and you don't have to turn on your air conditioning? :) Ahhh, Texas. Fortunately, we've had a pretty "Christmassy" feeling month with a few freezes already and only a handful of days when we were glad we hadn't packed away our summer clothes.

But truly, there's nothing more exciting to me than smelling Christmas in the air, feeling Christmas in my heart and seeing Christmas in a brand-new way through the eyes of our precious Avery as she experiences a lot of it for the first time! This is such a magical season, and all because of a baby born in Bethlehem to save the souls of Man. It just doesn't get any better...

Here's a slideshow with pictures from a random shopping trip with "Gram," getting our Christmas Tree, partying over gingerbread houses with the girls in our Young Marrieds class, and Collin's office party! Enjoy!

A belly like a "bowl full of jelly??"

Baby bump on our Anniversary, November 15th:


Home for Thanksgiving, Jen and I saw one of my sweet childhood friends, Anne (Morris) Sellers, pregnant with her 1st baby (a boy) and had to take a picture: **P.S. Doesn't Jen look FANTASTIC to be just 2 months away from delivering?!?! Why don't THOSE genes run in the family?! Jen's C-Section has been officially scheduled!! Drew Bossen will be born January 29th, 2008!**


Me and Anne with our bumps!:


Bellying-up to Andrea (& William, coming late-January) at our Sunday School Christmas party, Dec. 14th

Hitting the highlights!

Hello again, blog-checkers! Let me start by saying THANK YOU to those of you who are actually still checking this site even though it's been terribly neglected lately. It's been MONTHS since we've posted anything here, and it's not due to lack-of-excitement in our lives. On quite the contrary, our lives have been moving at what feels like a warp-speed ever since October as I'm sure is true for most of you as well.

So, to catch everyone up on what's been going on without boring you to tears I'll hit the highlights:

• In early November we had a scare with the new baby as a screening test showed that the baby was at an elevated risk for Trisomy 18, a fatal genetic disorder.
• We had a special sonogram that gave all my doctors confidence in saying that our baby is FINE and perfectly on track developmentally! (Praise God and thank you ALL again for your prayers during that scary time!)
  
• We also found out in that sonogram that we're having a GIRL! We're thrilled!!... We don't have a name yet, but we'll announce it as soon as we do!

• Collin & I celebrated our 4 year Anniversary in November with dinner at Deep Sushi and a movie together in a theater! (That's a rare treat these days!)
  
• We wrapped up November with a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration in Austin with the Ellisons (with LOTS to be Thankful for having just received good news about the health of "Pistachio")
  
• ...And then December came!... and that requires new posts with LOTS of pictures. (Hey... I may have hibernated for a while, but it's still me and I'm still camera-crazy.)
  

Cloudcroft Pictures

Fun in Cloudcroft, New Mexico!!

We are having SUCH a blast here, 9,000 feet above stress-level in Cloudcroft!

Our good friends, Glen & Lydia Farell, invited us to come and spend a week with them and their precious baby boy, Drew! Glen's parents are so generous to let us vacation in their beautiful home that overlooks steep terrain with HUGE evergreens and sits perfectly on one of the greens of the Cloudcroft golf course. It's Heaven.

We'll be posting more pictures soon, but I wanted to put these videos on the blog for the Grandparents! :) These videos and pictures were taken yesterday when we went to the town Harvestfest to watch pumpkin races and then drove to Ruidoso for some more Fall-fest-fun! (Special THANKS to Glen for putting these together!)

BIG NEWS for the Poages!!

Collin and I found out just a few days after his 29th Birthday (in August) that WE'RE EXPECTING!... again! :)

I'm 14 weeks into the pregnancy, and the new baby (a.k.a. "Pistachio Poage") is due April 28th, 2008. We weren't exactly trying for another kiddo, but we are excited to be adding to our family. Children are a blessing and we are thrilled! I've been to the doctor a couple of times and we've seen the baby through sonogram. Everything looks great, and at Thursday's appointment the baby's heart was beating at 165 bpm. (If you buy into the "old wives tales," that would indicate another GIRL!!) ...Collin's already polishing shotguns and saving for weddings... :) Another girl would be tons of fun, but a boy would be a blast too. We'll wait and see! We will definitely be finding out gender before the birth, but we have to wait until December for that.

It's amazing how quickly my body is showing the pregnancy this time around! I have to laugh that I'm just barely in the 2nd trimester and I already look like I'm 5 months pregnant! They say that Mom's "pop" earlier with subsequent pregnancies, but this is almost hilarious. (See "belly gallery" below)

Avery and "Pistachio" will be 19 months apart, and they will be back-to-back grades in school when they start which should be really interesting! Add us to your prayer lists! :) We'll keep you posted...

Hugs,
Poages

August "belly" just after we found out...


Sisters with "dueling bellies!" Jen (& Drew) with Me (& "Pistachio") - September belly


October belly - week 14 and already "round." ...Oh, boy...

Party Pics!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, AVERY!!!

Who can believe it's been a YEAR since we welcomed Avery into the world?! It truly is amazing how time flies.

September 29th, 2006

September 29th, 2007

Avery had a wonderful 1st Birthday and got to celebrate with a party on her ACTUAL Birthday! She invited some of her pals over to play and we were amazed at how precious all the babies were! Everyone was on their best behavior!

You could tell it's football season, as we had 3 "partiers" show up in their favorite team's jersey! We had a Longhorn, a K-State Wildcat, and (of course) an Aggie! Avery wore a new dress at the party, but later when Collin gave her his Birthday gift she was definitely "Marooned-out." (You'll see in the pictures.)

Our favorite moment of the day was when the time came to sing and let her eat cake. It's always amusing how expectations can differ from reality. I expected my precious dare-devil to dive into the cake with both hands and end up sticky from head to toe! I also expected the little party hat to come off her head nearly instantaneously from the moment I put it on. Neither were true. Truthfully, she sat there in her party hat and delicately selected each bite with forefinger and thumb, chewed, swallowed, and then carefully chose another bite. (I promise I haven't taught table manners yet, so I cannot take any credit!) It was hilarious to watch because it was so different than what I thought it would be! She LOVED the cake, though! ...Of course she did... We Poages love our sweets! :)

We're so thankful for the first year with our sweet Avery and we look forward to many, many more!

Sugar Happens

Not quite sure what she had just eaten for dinner, but it must have been gooooood....

A "Tree-mendous" Birthday weekend!

Collin turned 29 on August 20th! We've been wanting a tree to replace the big Ash tree that we cut down about a year ago, so my family's gift to Collin was a TREE! Sounds GREAT, right??

....Well... it WAS great, but it was also a great deal of work. Special thanks to Collin's brothers: Jordan, Jonathan and Erroll, and to my Dad for contributing their time, muscles and gallons of sweat to get this beast into the ground. Our yard looks happy again!

Happy Birthday, Honey! Now we can watch you "grow" with the tree. :)

I'm 11 Months Old!

You're the one that I want!

This post is SO-ooo-ooo LATE! But I thought it was worth posting...

A couple of weeks ago we got to go to Victory Plaza for Movie night! It was so much fun! They were showing "Grease," which is a personal favorite of mine. Collin and Avery hadn't ever seen it before so it was fun to watch it with them. The whole experience was fantastic! And best of all- it was absolutely free! Victory Park is very, very new and everything just sparkles. It was like a drive-in movie, Dallas style. If it's possible to be "posh" and "low-key" at the same time... that's what this was.

Avery loved it. She sat and ate cheerios like popcorn as she watched "Danny & Sandi" sing about Summer Nights... Later she got out of her stroller and danced holding onto Collin's hands. She stayed awake the whole movie and then CRASHED on the ride home.

Fun times. Good memories.

Look at me go!!

Avery LOVES to walk! Crawling is still her preferred method of travel, but she's working on walking skills every time she gets a chance. Collin and I made these videos last Friday while we were waiting for Gram and Grandpoppy (my parents) to arrive from Austin. It was a fun weekend celebrating Collin's Birthday! I'll post more about that next... We're so happy to see her trying to walk, but at the same time we KNOW that life will never be the same once she does! :/ Taking it a day at a time... :)

(My personal favorite part of this video is when Avery says "Hi... Hi..." towards the end. She's such a ham infront of the camera already!) OH! And another tip- if you click the curly-arrow button to the right, the videos will play right-side-up!

4 NEW posts! ...What else do you do when your AC goes out?...

So, apparently the heat got up to a "feels like" 107 degrees today and we felt every bit of that at the Poage household. What a splendid time to have the Air Conditioner go out, huh? ...thaaaaat's right... our AC went out.

We started noticing some funny-business last night when we had Collin's family over to hang out. The house just wasn't cooling off and the air coming out of the vents felt warmish. No good. If you went back to May of '06 on this blog, you'd read all about the AC going out a year ago and getting "fixed" so we've been down this road before. FORTUNATELY God is good and we were able to get the unit serviced today and the repair man, Daniel, (who I may seriously consider naming a son after someday as a debt of gratitude for what he did for us) was able to identify the problem, fix it and have us back to cool & comfy in no time! Hallelujah! :)

BUT, in the hot hours before Daniel brought us back to our climate-controlled way of life, Avery was ready for her nap and was miserably hot in her crib. I had her stripped to her diaper, but she was still really hot and fussy. So I got creative and tried AC the old school way and propped a package of frozen broccoli up in front of a fan that was aimed into her crib. Cool air was all it took for the crying to stop! She took a good nap and woke up to an air-conditioned house. What a life! :)

Anyway, the pictures were classic! (Broccoli by the crib?!) Poor sweet baby... SO glad it looks like the AC issues are behind us for now.

I'm 10 Months Old!!

Better late than never! ......again.......

Avery is TEN months old! Her favorite foods right now are Gerber Graduates turkey/chicken sticks, vegetable crackers, just about anything we'll feed her off of our own plates and of course the "staple" favorite: Cheerios. Her new tricks include crawling EVERYWHERE including the fireplace hearth, (I have no idea how she gets up there so fast) pulling up to her feet holding onto the couch, and walking around the house holding onto our hands for support... although she needs our hands less and less each day! "DaDa" is still her favorite word (sigh...) but "MaMa" and "BaBa" come out when she wants something. (Go figure...) She makes a variety of noises that keep us laughing including "the growl" and "singing." She loves to play "roll the ball" with me and Collin in the floor (she actually tries to roll it back to us! ...it's not usually aimed very well, but it's the cutest!) and she also likes going down to the neighborhood park to swing in the big swings, but isn't so much for the heat and sweating. Bathtime is still her favorite time of day and "Bullfrogs & Butterflies" is her favorite CD to fall asleep to.

She's a blessing! On one hand I can't believe she's already 10 months old, and at the same time I feel like we've had her forever.

Love to YOU, baby girl! We love you more than words can say!

A night out!

We got to dress up! Collin was a groomsman in a wedding on August 5th, and so Janice was our hero for the weekend babysitting TWO nights in a row. What a blessing it is to have an in-town "Nana" to babysit Avery. They have such fun together, but it really was sweet of her to choose to spend her weekend taking care of Aves while we were on wedding duty.

Collin looked so handsome in his tux! It was a fun weekend... Congratulations, Mark & Lauren Satterlee!

I wanna be like DAD!

Some of life's everyday moments call for camera flashes... This was one of those moments. Collin had just come home from work and was finishing up some business via cell phone. Avery helped. :) It was so much fun to watch her as she mimicked Collin in "business mode." We never know what she's picked up on until she starts doing things WE do! It's very convicting... She didn't know what she was playing with, but she was enjoying the time with Dad and having a lot of fun.