4 old friends + 4 husbands + 11 kids =

a big day of fun on July 24 ...
Amy, Naomi, Lauren and I have been the best of friends since high school ... us girls get together a couple of times of year as we all live in different places, but it's been 4 years since all 4 of us have had the chance to get together! Amy & her husband, Jeff and their 5 kids have been medical missionaries in Paraguay for the last 4 years ... they will be here in the US for a year before heading back to Paraguay, so we had to take advantage of them being here by all getting together as soon as they landed!

Naomi, Alexis, Amy and Lauren

We had everyone over to our home for a big day of grillin' out and swimming! It was soooo great to spend the day visiting with everyone, while catching some rays! Kendall got to meet Amy for the first time ... and enjoyed getting to be held by everyone.

Abby and Ginny swimming

Jason diving for a catch

Catching up & enjoying Ashley's grillin'

the kids took a break from the sun to watch a movie

the whole gang all together!

We had a great time spending the day together and are already planning our next event!

we are now blogging ...

Well, we are finally joining the blogger world. I've been wanting to for quite some time now, so what better reason to start our blog than by adding Kendall to our family! She's 12 weeks old on Friday and weighs more than 7 lbs now ... we've had her home with us for the past 4 weeks and we're lovin' it!

In case you don't know our little story, here is the executive summary: After several weeks with me in the hospital on bedrest, our daughter, Kendall Grace Rogers was born on May 1, 2009 at 7:51pm ... at 29 weeks 4 days gestation (about 10 1/2 weeks early) ... weighing in at 2 lbs 6 oz and 14 1/2 inches long.

She was delivered by emergency c-section and in a matter of minutes, the Neonatal ICU (NICU) team assessed her & had her wrapped up, put on the ventilator and placed in her isolate incubator ... Ashley was allowed to see her for only a minute (he got 2 pictures) before they rolled her out of the operating room and into the NICU. I got to see her from afar as she rolled by and would finally get to see her again after 28 more hours. She stayed in the NICU for 8 weeks ... we definately had some bad days and some good days while we were there. The best day was June 26 ... the day we got to bring her home! We had soooo many people praying for Kendall and we are very thankful for that ... God has blessed us so with this little girl and praise Him for all that He has done with her little body ... she is now home and doing very well!

Kendall at 8 weeks (with a "corrected age" of 38 weeks gestation) ... the day we left the hospital as a family of 3 ...
Kendall is wearing my "coming home outfit" that my mom had saved all these years! (Of course, I was a full-term baby, so it was a little big on our 5 lb girl, but it worked!)

We made it home with Kendall sleeping all the way. She's asleep in my old bassinet (that my mom also saved all these years!)

Well, that's our first post! (Hopefully I'll get faster at posting as time goes on!) ... stay tuned for more recent pictures, I promise I'll get it updated ... I can hear Kendall ... it's time to eat (again)!