And our son's name is ...

Lael Scott McConnell

Lael is Iain's middle name and means "Belonging to Jehovah"
Scott is my maiden name and is obviously a very cool name. =)

Without going into many details, for those of you who haven't heard, Lael is due on June 7, but has some health complications that make his survival unlikely. Please pray for him (for no pain and for a miracle of complete healing) and for us (as we navigate through emotions, daily life, decisions about moving and a whole host of other things that we never even imagined we would be considering). We would be happy to give you more details if you're interested ... feel free to call or e-mail.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here are a couple of pix from the park today. It was about 76 degrees and sunny and the kind of day that reminds me how beautiful life really is. The girls were in exceptionally good moods (which may be in part related to the fact that they had pizza for lunch and then some cake from a random birthday party ... don't worry, we were invited as we were going down the slides). =) The scooter that Iain and Avery are riding is new to us ... Iain found it laying on top of a trash can at the park. There seems to be one little piece missing, but not enough to keep Iain and the girls (particularly Avery) from having some fun. Actually, now that I'm typing this, I realize we must sound pretty lame, that we ate cake from strangers and are riding around on a scooter from the trash. Again, don't worry ... we don't do this every day.
=)
I'm also including a picture from about 3 days ago. Iain was doing some work from home. When Audrey woke up, she walked into our bedroom and said she needed her computer too (it's really her DVD player). So she went and got "Dora & the 3 Little Pigs", brought it back to our room, and just sat with Iain while they both did a little work. It was so cute!

Cute girls!

Audrey & Avery went swimming with their friends Cozie & Hallie this afternoon (both sets of parents went along too ... it seems to be safer that way) and they all came over for dinner. Just before they had to go home, all 4 girls got comfy in Grandma's bed (Cozie is 3 1/2, Audrey will be 3 next week, Hallie is 23 months and Avery is 18 months, so it's so much fun to watch them play).

Cute new clothes

Thanks Aunt Bud!

Beautiful Ballerinas

Sorry for the delay in posting anything. We've had a busy/crazy few weeks. Yesterday in the mail, we got the mother-load of clothes from our friends Alyssa and Julia in Houston. In the package (along with enough other clothes and shoes to clothe 4 families ... thanks Kathryn!) were 2 leotard/tutu combos which the girls LOVE, as you can see by the beautiful dancing here. Audrey has been talking for weeks about getting a "ballerina suit" when she turns 3 years old, so this was the perfect gem inside the box! I think their dancing form is quite good. =)

Classic

This morning, we were all in the living room. Iain was putting Avery's new tricycle together and the girls were playing and helping. All of a sudden, Avery walks over to me, pulls my hair as hard as she can, and then starts smiling and giggling. I told her "No" and that it was very bad manners to pull hair. Then I said, rather rhetorically since Avery doesn't have too many words in her vocabulary just yet, "Where did you learn to do that?" (since it's not in Iain and I's normal repertoire to model this kind of behavior). Without any pause, Audrey pipes up, "I teached her."

Well, there you go. Not much left to be said.

Things That Make My Heart Melt

Today, the girls were having a picnic. They had eaten all of their food and Audrey said "we're still hungry" (now, mind you, this was after they had eaten a sandwich, grapes, raisins and a cheese stick). Our nanny told Audrey that there was no more food, so Audrey immediately took the raisin out of her mouth (the last morsel of food that had been packed with the picnic) and said "here you go, Aves."

It's funny how they go in stages ... last night, Audrey had a meltdown because she didn't want to give Avery a hug or kiss goodnight to tell her "I love you," but today she was going to do everything possible not to let her baby sister starve. =)