Our Family Christmas

Since Marc and I have been married, we have alternated visiting each other's family for Christmas Day. While we LOVE getting to spend that special time with our families, we have had to improvise how we celebrate Christmas in our own house now that we have kids. I usually just pick a day the week before we leave town to be "our" day and that has worked out well so far.

This year we celebrated on December 18th since Marc had the afternoon off. I went and picked up Eli early from preschool, and we had a full afternoon and evening of fun. I think this has been my favorite Christmas so far with our kids! They have loved learning about the Christmas story this year and anticipated counting down each morning at breakfast on our advent calendar the days to Jesus' birth. It was fun to see them get so excited about why we have reason to celebrate.

Time for presents!

We got some dress-up clothes for Hailey and Eli that they both loved!

Before we opened presents, we had cut out and baked some sugar cookies. Then, after gifts we decorated our cookies. The kids didn't have quite as much interest in this activity as I thought they would. They both ate all the M&Ms that were meant for decorating and then each decorated only ONE cookie before they were ready to get down and play. I think next year I will plan cookie decorating before we open gifts. :) I was left to decorate the other 20 cookies by myself!

After decorating cookies, we enjoyed some yummy pizza and then bundled up to drive and look at Christmas lights. The kids had gotten some new hats and gloves in their stockings and were excited to try them out along with their new PJs.

By the time we got home it was well past bedtime. So, we decided to hold off on the last activity until the following night. Marc told the kids the Christmas story with our Betty Lukens felt board set. They have loved this felt set since we bought it this summer. I still haven't cut out all the pieces because there are so many, but each time we do a story they are so attentive and really seem to absorb the lesson well.

I am thankful for these sweet children that God has blessed us with. They really make holiday time fun. They bring so much joy to our lives and we can only imagine how much fun next year will be with THREE!

Thanksgiving 2012

Marc was assigned to be on OB and medicine call for Thanksgiving this year. Because he was covering OB, he had to be within 20 minutes of the hospital which meant he could not be with us at his parents' house which is 40 minutes away. And of course, he didn't get any calls the entire day. :) He was able to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with our extended family that live in Peoria so we all got our fix of turkey.

Eli and Hailey were helping Papa scope out the good deals for the day-after sales

 Eli and Evan

 Maddy and Hailey

 Hailey was fascinated by Maddy's Merida wig from the movie Brave. She loves dress-up right now so I found a Cinderella dress the day after Thanksgiving that she will be so excited to open this Christmas.

 We enjoyed watching these cousins play together.

 It was even warm enough for us to take an outing to the park. I hope the above average temperatures continue through winter!

We sure missed spending time with Marc on Thanksgiving, but we were excited to see when we got home that he had the kids' new beds put together (Hailey has a pink comforter that is on the way). We are moving Hailey into Eli's room and will put the new baby in Hailey's room at night when he is two or three months old. They are SO very excited about this that we know we are bound to lose some sleep once we make the transition. I am sure lots of giggles and laughs will be coming from those beds way past bedtime. ;) In the past 3 months we have potty trained Hailey, broken Hailey of her pacifier, broken Eli of his thumb sucking habit, and started Eli in a new school. These are two very adaptable kids so I am hopeful this move will go just as well. Marc is much less optimistic. Ha!

Gymnastics

Eli and Hailey loved participating in gymnastics this Fall. They both learned some fun new skills. Hailey was really struggling with jumping with two feet before the class and she can now jump on the floor or on the trampoline. They both can do great somersaults and love practicing those anywhere there is carpet. :)

I really felt bad for not being able to continue the sessions for them, but I just wasn't going to be able to do Hailey's class with her any longer (I made it to 29 weeks). She requires lots of assistance in her class and can't participate yet without an adult. I KNEW she would not tolerate sitting in the stands and watching Eli do his class if she couldn't. So, I decided to drop both of them for this next session. Hopefully, we can pick it back up in the Spring when they can each do a class on their own. Marc came and watched one morning when he was off from work and took some pics with my phone. Mama Reenie also came one week to enjoy the show!

 Our kids love this long trampoline that they get to bounce on to the end.

Sometimes Hailey made me work really hard! She often became a sack of potatoes if she didn't know how to do something. Glad daddy caught this moment in between his laughs! It is a great reminder to me of why we are taking a break for the next session. Ha!

There's our big girl. :)

Eli and Hailey both learned how to pull their toes up to the bars.

Halloween Day

The shark was clearly not happy to have a class picture taken!

Lots and lots of fun. We look forward to doing this again!

Our Sweet Baby #3...

....still doesn't have a name, but I think we are closer to committing to one! I'll keep it a secret for now. ;) I have become more relaxed with the name-game with each pregnancy. This time around I just feel like we need a name before we leave the hospital. That should be do-able. :) I am a little over 31 weeks and feeling really good. Tired some days and beginning to waddle a little, but overall things have been easy peasy. I keep feeling like this baby might come a few weeks early because of these Braxton-Hicks but we'll see as the time gets closer.

Week 24

This is my third pregnancy to wear this shirt. Kinda fun!

 Week 28 in Arkansas

Week 31

Passing Time

How did November pass so quickly??? I just realized I haven't put up our November happenings on the blog with all the business that this time of year brings. After our trip to Arkansas and to a medical missions conference in Louisville, KY at the beginning of the month, we then celebrated my birthday, joined a church, repainted a bedroom for Eli and Hailey, decorated that same bedroom with some twin beds and bedding, finished up our season of gymnastics, ordered Christmas cards, enjoyed some turkey on Thanksgiving (though Marc was working and unable to join us!), did some online shopping for Christmas, hosted several residents in our home for dinner, decorated a Christmas tree, and I still feel like I am missing stuff! It has been a busy month. My hope was to get most of the busy stuff done so that we could enjoy a relaxing month of December as we celebrate Jesus. I have decided the "to do" list is never done and I need to just surrender each day to God and pray for wisdom to see what I am doing that can have eternal significance. I am, however, thankful that some of the preparation means December should be slower than November. And the busy things we do have for December will be spent in fellowship with friends and family at parties, birthdays, and weddings. Stay tuned for a few catch-up posts from the month...

Arkansas FUN

Marc really loves college football. He is always very eager each year to make it to an Arkansas football game to enjoy the spirit of the SEC. We have still never managed to make it back to Ole Miss for a game since we have been married but hope to someday! We decided the Arkansas vs. Tulsa would be our game to attend this year and we loaded up the car a week ago to go call those Hogs. I think we have two of the best little travelers ever, and we were able to make the long drive to Arkansas without any major issues.

As soon as we arrived, we gobbled down some dinner and headed out for a Razorback basketball game. My dad has a box which gives the kids some space to roam around and they love the band and all the people. Eli put on quite a show for us! He has got some moves. :)

The weather was amazing all weekend (though it got colder as the week went on). It was perfect football weather. We enjoyed taking the kids outside several times to soak up the last of the warm weather we will get until spring!

While Marc headed back to Peoria after the weekend, I stayed behind with the kids for a few more days. I decided that while I had my mom's help I would get both of the kids a haircut. It is not fun at all taking Eli to get his hair cut, but I thought if he saw Hailey get hers cut then he might do better. Hailey had never had a haircut and they mostly just trimmed off the length in the back. She did super!

 She was slightly hesitant at first, but nothing a sucker couldn't fix. :)

This was our happy Eli moments before she turned the clippers on... it always goes downhill from there. Afterwards my mom told me I had not adequately prepared her for it all. Ha! I think she and Eli were both traumatized a bit.

As the week went on, the temperatures dropped back down and we were able to enjoy roasting some marshmallows outside. The kids had lots of fun, but I was quite nervous at the combination of fire and sharp metal coat hangers around my wild ones. :)

 Bailey was fascinated with the fire. :)

One reason that I decided to stay with the kids in Arkansas for the week was so that my family could watch the kids the following weekend while Marc and I attended a medical missions conference in Louisville, KY. It was the most highly attended year yet for this conference (around 2500 people!) and we left feeling so encouraged about the work that God is doing around the world through people in health care. It was also fun to reconnect with friends from all over. We even ran into two couples from Canada that we served with in Guatemala back in 2007. The event is held at Southeast Christian Church. This is the only church I have ever been in that has escalators! You can read more about this conference and medical missions HERE.

I still have some blogging to catch up on since getting home but that may not happen just yet. I seem to have lots of other "projects" going that are stealing my free time. :)

Halloween Fun

I love carving pumpkins. Halloween can be a little really creepy in the way some people celebrate. I had previously always bought the kids' costumes in a kid store like The Children's Place or somewhere similar. This year I went in Spirit Halloween in search of costumes. Wow. I will just look online next year! We try to keep it clean and simple in our house and focus on some fun time with family. Pumpkin carving has become a favorite tradition with our kids along with some yummy roasted seeds after all the messy hard work. :)

Nana and Papa D made sure to send some goodies from Arkansas for the kids' to enjoy for Halloween.

This year we went to Trick-or-Treat in Bloomington with Marc's sister's family. ReeRee and Papa brought pizza over and we had a great evening. The kids had a fun time with their cousins. They are all fairly close in age and get along really well. Dan and Angie had just moved into a new house, and I couldn't believe the trick-or-treating in their new neighborhood. Almost every house was participating and passing out the BEST candy. This pregnant mama was super excited to share in our kids' collection when it was all over!

I always seem to forget to get a good picture of our two until they are well distracted and unwilling to take a photo. Here they are watching all the other kids walk up a sidewalk to trick-or-treat and wondering why their mama has them stuck in front of a garage door for a photo. Ha!

 What better way to sort through your kids' candy than to put them in front of a TV. :)