Jamie and John's Blog

Easter Pictures: Sophie (almost 2) Emma 4 Leah 6 The girls have grown up so much this year!  Emma has finished her first year of preschool!  She went to Crossroads twice a week from 9-12pm.  Leah is finishing her Kindergarten year.  Mrs. O'Brien is her teacher and Leah has loved every minute of school.  She especially loves Music and Art. Sophie is climbing out of her crib, loves ice cream, dogs, Boss Baby and her baby doll.  She only has a few words and we are anxiously waiting for her to talk to us! Dance Recital May 19, 2018

Easter 2017 was a fun one!  We hunted eggs with the Baker family at Dana and Chuck's house.  Sophie hates grass so she passed on the egg hunt this year! :) Leah is finishing her year of preschool at Crossroads.  She goes from 9-12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We've been enjoying our Cincinnati Zoo pass (Christmas present for the girls).  We met up with Jeannine, Aria and Solomon.  Here is a group picture from the train.  It was the first time I'd ever been at the zoo when it closed.  It was fun to walk around and see the animals getting called inside for the night. Emma is enjoying her first year of ballet and Leah is enjoying gymnastics!  Their photos are so cute! I have no idea what this photographer does to get such genuine smiles, but I love it!

Leah is taking gymnastics this year and Emma is in her first ballet class.  The ballet students have a mini winter recital and the gymnasts have a small showcase at the studio. Here are a few videos from Leah's showcase: Leah flipping over the bar .   Leah doing a bridge . These are of Emma's dance. Emma's Rehearsal       Emma's Recital We're so proud of our little girls!!

Photo credit:  Casharina Collier The Baker grandkids are growing up!!  It'd be really great to see a picture from the other direction at me, Dana and Lindsay making crazy faces and waving to get all 7 kids looking!  Love these crazy kids so much!!

In October, we had family photos made with the Baker family and with the Gillispie family! Here are two of the best group shots with the Bakers.  We were outside of the barn at my parents house. Steve and Arlene Gary and Lindsay, Nolan and Nate Chuck and Dana, Parker and Carter John and Jamie, Leah, Emma and Sophie The kids are all very close in age: Parker, 6 Nolan, 5 Leah, 4 Carter, 3 Emma, 2 Nate, 2 Sophie, 4 months The Gillispies went to Keeneland for family pictures. Steve and Barb, Rob and Jackie, Corey and Jenny, John, Jamie, Leah, Emma, and Sophie It's very interesting to be a part of two families and have very different positions in each family.  In my family, I'm the youngest with 8 years between Chuck and John.  7 grandkids is probably all my parents are going to get.  On John's side, He is the oldest and there are 8 years between Jamie and Jenny.  3 grandkids so far, but there will definitely be more to come.  I...

We had a great time checking out the orchards this fall!  First, the girls and I went to an Orchard in Corbin with Gary and Lindsay's church.  We petted and fed the animals, played on the playground, rode a pony, pretend milked a cow, went down a giant slide and picked a pumpkin from the patch after going on a hay ride!  The girls loved it and we had a great time visiting with Gary and Lindsay & crew and Dana and Chuck & crew and Pappaw. Then, John took Leah on her first field trip ever to Evan's Orchard with her preschool class.  They went on a tour of the orchard, saw the cider press and had lunch and played the rest of the time.  Leah loves animals and keeps telling us all the animals she wants to have on our future farm.  :)  Maybe someday.  In other news, our sweet little Sophie Elizabeth turned 4 months old! She is 25 inches, 13.9lbs and has 2 teeth!  She can roll over, pick up toys and play in exersaucers and wa...

Sophie was baptized on August 7th, 2016 at Park United Methodist Church.  Lynn Beach baptized her with Michelle assisting.  Gary and Lindsay sang and played during the service.  Lindsay sang "Jesus loves me" while Gary played piano and then Gary sang "For this child" and played the ukelele.  It was really special to have them participate in the service.   Then, when it was time for the baptism, the kids all started losing it. Sophie cried, Emma was wiggling and trying to blow out the candles and Leah was dancing her own personal ballet recital.  It was probably the most any of us had her Sophie cry up to this point because she is normally a very calm and quiet baby, but she was too hungry by the end of the service!   It was nice having Rob and Jackie in town with us!  After the baptism, we took this family photo.  Baker + Gillispie family count is up to 21 people!  We love our family so much!  Thanks for sharing this s...

Sophie Elizabeth Gillispie arrived on June 9, 2016 at 5:02pm.   She weighed 8lbs 6oz and was 20 inches long. Leah and Emma are excited to have a new baby sister and we couldn't be happier to have our new sweet baby girl!

Leah has enjoyed her first ballet class!  She was in a group of preschool aged girls 3-5 years old.  She danced to a song called "My Heart Does A Little Dance."  She is second from the left in the picture below. We are so proud of our little dancer!  She was so cute in her tutu and did a great job remembering her dance moves!   May 21, 2016

 Leah loves dresses and princesses and all things girly!  She only wants to wear dresses and asks us to call her by Disney princess names.  She has a few favorite toys but the ones she loves the most are a stuffed guinea pig that is pink and named Fiona and her new Build-a-Bear, also pink, named Cinderella.  She has been attending her first ballet class and her recital will be in May.  The girls have started playing together and sharing a room.  Emma loves her big sister and copies everything Leah does! Emma has starting talking a lot more!  She loves the dogs and playing outside.  Emma also loves playing on the piano.  Plastic princess shoes are her favorite thing right now but she also has a stuffed cat named Peaches that she loves.   We have had so much fun with these two and can't wait to see what is in store with our next little girl!  

Emma is 18 months and Leah is 3.5 years old.  Casharina took these beautiful pictures of the girls.  Leah was a darling angel and Emma was running around and trying to avoid the camera at all cost.  They must work it out before hand that only one child will behave during photos. Taking the girls to have their pictures made makes me sweat and my patience is usually edging toward zero before we even walk in the door. I am very impressed by anyone who can get a decent picture of a child.  Casharina did a wonderful job! We're having a great fall so far! We went to Nitro to celebrate the Grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary!  That was fun and we had family photos made with the grandparents and the entire family.  The next day we went to Gritt's Farm and walked through a corn maze and enjoyed each others company. Next week the girls and I are going to Corbin to go to the pumpkin patch with the Baker crew!

We celebrated Leah turning 3 and Emma turning 1 at our house in March.  The theme was Frozen, but Leah just had to wear her Ariel pajamas!  They had fun playing with thier cousins and friends and family.  For Easter, we went to Dana and Chuck's house for dinner and to hunt easter eggs.  The weather was perfect and the girls had a blast!  Here are some pictures of the girls in action.  John just started a new job with Coke working with Wal-Mart accounts across the state.  He will be traveling several times a month and is very excited to be out of the office and back in sales and working with a team.  I have decided to go ahead and take a few years off from teaching to stay home with the girls.  John and I have always talked about me staying home and the time seems right so we are going for it.  This is the Baker family at Holden Beach. With 6 kids ages 5 and under, it was pretty much chaos all week.  We had fun but...

 Time is flying!  Emma is 10 months old now and growing so quickly!  She is catching up with Leah!  Leah and Emma are beginning to play together and as seen in picture #3, Emma likes playing peek-a-boo.  These girls are so much fun!  Leah has really starting talking a lot.  She sings ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Go Tell it on the Mountain, and her new favorite is "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift.  She likes to start sentences with "So..." and end them with "over there" like, "So... I'm going to go play with my toys over there."  Leah can almost count to twenty without missing a number and she loves flash cards, painting, reading books and playing with her kitchen set. Emma is crawling everywhere.  She can pull up and take few steps with a walker or ride-on toy.  She loves the bathtub!  She also loves anything to do with Leah and giggles and smiles at everything Leah says and does.  The purple shirt she is wear...

Emma is 8 months now and she is trying her best to catch up with big sister Leah!  She has 7 teeth, weighs 19 lbs, and loves Leah!  The week after these pictures were taken, Emma got four top teeth over 6 days.  She is very busy and loves to play and army crawl.  We're looking forward to Christmas with our two girls this year, it should be a ton of fun to watch them enjoy the holiday!  We love our sweet girls!

Baby Nate Baker was born August 24, 2014!  We are so excited to have another nephew!  Nolan is a great big brother and sang to Nate!  Lindsay was amazing and she and the whole family are doing well.  We are all so blessed to have a wonderful, happy, growing family!

First family photo session as a family of four.   Surprise 30th Birthday party for John! Jenny and Corey were married on July 5th, 2014!  This is a picture of her opening a gift from Corey before the ceremony. Baker Grandkids.  Carter 18 months, Parker 4 1/2, Leah 2, Emma 4 months, Nolan almost 3. Emma was baptized by Lynn Beach at Park UMC on July 27th.