"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