Much to be thankful for....

This Thanksgiving, our family has so much to be thankful for and we had a great visit with our family in Chattanooga...Mallory's first visit! We hope you and your family had a very Happy Thanksgiving!

From our 2 little turkeys! Tate- 2 1/2 , Mallory- 3 1/2 mo.

Fall Fun & Mallory 9 weeks

Mallory -9 weeks old

Tate (2 1/2) and Reid at the Pumpkin Patch

Mallory and big sissy Tate before church

Mallory is such a sweet baby and we love seeing her smile and even laugh sometimes too. She is growing quickly and we are seeing her own little personality develop. We are so thankful for Jason's new job and we are truly blessed with healthy, happy girls!

Home sweet home...

Mallory is now almost fours weeks old and so sweet! Our first few weeks home have been going well. Tate is a sweet big sis who loves to "love on" and check on Mallory. Mallory is gaining weight and was 8 lbs at her 3 week check up. I just wanted to share a few pictures of our new family of four!

"Long, Party of 4"

Hey, Jason here! I just wanted to introduce my newest little girl to the world... so, here it goes...

Ladies & Gentlemen, it is with great honor and the pride that only a father could harness, to introduce to you Mallory Elizabeth Long!

Mallory was born on August 5th, 2009 @ 8:50am. She was 7lbs 5oz and was 20.5 inches, has beautiful dark hair, and dark blue eyes (for now). Diana did great throughout the morning, and for me, it was awesome being in the OR watching everything and being with D.

We are so blessed to have such a healthy, beautiful, new little girl, and as you can see from the pictures, so is big sister Tate! Tate is so excited to have a little sis that she can call her very own. It's enough to make a daddy's heart melt...

Celebrating Mallory!

My generous family and friends honored me and Mallory with a sprinkle last weekend. We had a wonderful lunch and delicious cake. I received so many wonderful gifts and many that were personalized for Mallory. Thank you Holly, Amanda, Miranda and Michelle for planning such a special day for me! And, to all of my friends who took the day to help us celebrate Mallory's soon arrival. I love you all! Mallory's first baby doll (baby huggums) from GiGi

The hostesses: Amanda, Miranda, me, Holly, and Michelle

Kathryn, Lindsay, Christen, me, and Michelle

My mother in law - Mallory and Tate's Pug

My Mom- Gi Gi

My beautiful strawberry cake....so yummy!

Thanks Daddy!

Happy Father's Day to these wonderful Dad's and Grandfathers that mean so much to me, Jason, and Tate! We enjoyed a great day celebrating with these guys that take such great care of us and the little ones. We love you and appreciate all that you do!!
Tate, Jason, and Paw Paw in Chattanooga

My Dad and Tate and Reid's Pop Pop

Jason with Emmie, Huey- Papa, and Tate and Uncle Jeremy

Jason, Tate and Reid and his daddy Uncle Randy

Happy 2nd Birthday Tate!

We celebrated Tate's 2nd Birthday with our family and friends yesterday. We had a Bubble Party for Tate this year and I think it was a hit with Tate and her friends. Thank you to all of our family and friends who shared in making this day so special for Jason, me, and Tate!

Tate and her bubble wand

Reid, Georgia, Maggie and Tate doing their own thing!

Tate enjoyed her strawberry cupcake...really mostly the icing

Tate's big gift from Mommy, Daddy, Poppa, Pug, Gi Gi and Pop Pop - A Barbie Jeep!

She loved learning to drive her new ride and having "bubba" right beside her

Happy Birthday Tate Tate (as she calls herself) We love you very much and can't believe we are celebrating your second birthday. You are a wonderful blessing and we enjoy each day with you, watching you grow and change into such a little lady!

Back On Market

Ok, gonna keep this short... Our house is back on the market. The purchaser-to-be that we had a contract with lost his job this weekend, and can no longer get financing. HUGE BUMMER.

Our realtor is doing everything she can to bring us another buyer, and we are doing all we can to help (praying a lot!).

Spring Photos

Tuesday was such a beautiful day, that after picking up Tate from school (this is Jason, by the way), stopping by Wendy's to pick up a Frosty (chocolate, of course), and going to the Bessemer Airport to watch plans take off and land (all while eating said Frosty), we decided to go home and play outside. With Tate looking as cute as ever, I had to grab the camera for some photo opps...

Seems like Tate's legs get longer and longer... and her face, cuter and cuter!

She enjoyed looking through the holes in the fence...

Too precious to pass up on this one...

She enjoyed the dogs running up and down the hill behind our house...

Just thought I'd share a few photos of Tate that I thought were too good not to share! Thanks for letting a dad rave about his family for a bit!

We're "Under Contract"

Hey, Jason here. That's right, I'm actually posting a blog... Can't help it - too excited.

I just wanted to get on here and spin a bit of good news in light of this "dreary" economy. Diana & I are happy to announce that as of May 27th, we will be the proud owners (okay, "co-owners" - thanks to Wells Fargo Home Mortgage) of the beautiful home you see above! Last weekend we were fortunate enough to receive an offer that was in the general vicinity of our asking price so we countered, and they accepted our counter! Most of you already knew that we had a contingency contract on the home above, and to make matters more interesting, the owners of that home also received a non-contingent offer the same weekend we did, but did a great job of stalling for us to see how ours turned out. As the Good Lord would have it, things turned out extremely well. So here we are, a little over a week later, and all inspections have been performed and the mortgage applications sent in and signed. We are officially "Under Contract", and everything looks great on both sides of the table in terms of seeing this thing through to the closing.

Instead of writing out everything about our soon-to-be new home, just take a look for yourself. Diana & I hope you like it, and if you don't... we don't care, we're moving into it anyway - we're really going to need the room with daughter #2 coming in August! If you are good, we may even invite you over for dinner sometime! (But you have to help us move in first) :-)

By the way, if you ever need a realtor, Lynn Horne with ReMax Southern Homes is your girl.

IT'S A GIRL!!

I'm so excited... and I just can't hide it!

We are happy to announce that we will be having another girl and a little sister for Tate. We are not really sure if Tate does understand that she will be having a little sister but hopefully she will warm up to the idea by August. Everything looked great on the ultrasound and we are measuring right with my due date at 19 weeks 3 days. We were so excited to share our big news with our families today and now with our friends!

What a beautiful day!

Like most families, we enjoyed some playtime in the snow this morning. With all of the trees and ground covered it was a beautiful sight to wake up to. It was a lot of fun to watch Tate experience the snowfall and tasting the snow off the ground....she wouldnt stop eating it!

We also celebrated today with Jeremy and Michelle as they dedicated Emily to the Lord this morning. They had a lot of family in town to share in this wonderful day including Jason and Jeremy's grandparents below...Nanny and Paw Paw.

Michelle and her sweet girl Emily

Playtime with my cousins

Reid and Tate have their own special way of learning their letters!

Tate wanted to hold her baby cousin's hand....so sweet!

Emily Jane Long 4 1/2 weeks old

We had a wonderful visit with Emily and Aunt Chelle as usual.

Emily is getting so big and opening her beautiful eyes more and more.

We have a Niece!

Jeremy giving us all the exciting news that they were the new parents to a Baby Girl!!!
Doesn't Michelle look great?

Miss Emily Jane Long

Sweet kisses from Daddy

We are so proud to announce that Emily Jane Long arrived Saturday, January 24th at 1:32 p.m. She weighed 7lbs 10 oz and was 20 inches long. She has a beautiful head full of long, brown hair. Jeremy and Michelle are doing great and adjusting to parenthood so naturally. Emily is so blessed to have such loving parents who are so thankful to the Lord for such a wonderful gift. We are very excited as well to be an Aunt and Uncle again and for the first time to a precious little girl, our first niece.

Pray

Well, as many of you know, we have been in the market for new house and have actually found one in Russet Woods (Hoover) that is exactly 1 mile from our current home. It's a 4br 2.5bath with a good yard, finished basement, and a covered deck. We've put a contingent contract on it, so part of the equation is in place. Now the hard part... selling ours.

Our house officially went on the market today, so now all we can really do is pray and wait... and pray... and pray more. Please take a moment and hit a knee that the Lord would bring us a serious buyer in this crazy market; that our house is exactly what they've been looking for, and that the process goes smoothly and expeditiously. If you're curious, or know a buyer :-), here's the link (click on the picture)...

Of course, we will keep you posted on how everything goes.

...And now for the details!

I wanted to expand a little on Jason's earlier post. Yes, it's true.... we are expecting baby Long #2 due August 9, 2009. So, I am 9 weeks along. We are very excited and so thankful to the Lord for the gift of another baby. We told both of our families using Tate and her "big sis" shirt to make the announcement for us. We are not sure if Tate really understands that mommy is going to have a baby just yet but she did like the attention she got wearing her new shirt!

Lots In Store for 2009!