Sibling Love

Marc is usually out of the house each morning before the kids wake up. So, that leaves me in charge of getting everyone ready and out the door on time. I usually get myself ready before I wake up the kids, but there are some days that they wake up earlier than expected. Today, Eli woke up first around 7:15 and Hailey was up shortly after. I was still getting ready so I told Eli to go into Hailey's room and keep her happy until I could get to her. I walked into her room a few minutes later to find this...

Um, not exactly what I had in mind, but he did keep her happy. :)

We had lost the charger cord to our video camera and finally ordered another one off the Internet recently. I found this video from the beginning of October when I was going through some old files tonight and thought it was cute of Eli and Hailey. I tried to shorten it some but couldn't remember how to edit videos so I just put it all on here. Hailey would not eat her meat at dinner the night we taped this so we finally let her get down. Then, Eli started feeding it to her and she couldn't get enough. What a silly girl! :)

They keep us entertained ALL the time.

Random Stuff from Our Week

This past week it got COLD around here, and I pulled out my winter coat for the first time. I was quickly reminded of how much I dislike cold weather. I am sure there will be days in Africa where I will be dreaming of colder days like this, but right now I wish the warmer weather would stay just a little bit longer. :)

Eli was really excited to put on his new hat and gloves that I found him at Target. We bundled up one night earlier this week and headed out to get ice cream. Who says you can't eat ice cream when it is 40 degrees outside? Our family eats ice cream any day, any time. :) And we might have just used it as a bribe reward for Eli eating all of his dinner that night.

 Hailey is especially fond of ice cream!

Marc took Hailey and Eli in for their well child checks this past week. Hailey had her 12 month physical and Eli had his 2 1/2 year one. Marc had actually taken Hailey in for her shots a few weeks ago so she didn't have to get any of those this week. Their growth charts looked pretty similar. They are both 75th% for their height and 50th% for their weight. Hailey weighed 21 lbs. and Eli weighed 30 lbs. Hailey ended up having a pretty bad ear infection so she was started on an antibiotic. This is her first antibiotic! I think Eli had taken an antibiotic five times by the time he was Hailey's age. She has been so much healthier that he was as a baby. I nursed her 3 months longer than I did with Eli so maybe that is the difference.

We have been giving her antibiotic to her in a syringe. She takes it really well. We just say, "Hailey come get your medicine," and she comes right away. Today, I walked in to Eli's room and heard him saying, "Here Haywee. Come take your medicine." He was pretending to give her medicine with his play syringe and she was coming to him the same way she does with us. It was so funny that I had to take a picture. :)

Look how serious Eli is as he "administers" the medicine. Ha!

We ran by our old house today to say hi to our neighbors and take our renter some banana bread that I had made for her. She wasn't home but Eli was able to play basketball with the neighbor kids while we visited. We have had the best neighbors everywhere we have lived and we are already praying for who our neighbors will be in Memphis. When it is time to move we always find ourselves wishing we had done more to get to know our neighbors better. The medical group Marc will be working with in Memphis is very intentional on loving and serving their neighbors where they work and live so we are excited to get to be a part of that when we get back from Africa.

After that we headed to Target to look for some Christmas items that people can give the kids that we can take with us to Africa. Eli is SO good in the toy aisle. I have never had to deal with even one fit from him not getting to take the toys with us. I let him hold and play with lots of things, but he puts them back when I ask him to. I love seeing how our lessons on obedience with him are slowly paying off. :) He really is such a sweet boy. I think I came up with a few ideas for toys that we should be able to fit in our trunks! However, these trunks are filling up fast in my head, and I think we are going to be really surprised at how little actually fits by the time we start packing. :)

After Target, we went and grabbed some dinner at Logan's Roadhouse. We love that place, not because the food is anything fancy, but because we get in really fast and it is so loud that no one minds noisy kids. We had the best dinner with our kids and it seemed like the perfect way to end the day. Now, I need to go reset all the clocks. I'm sure hoping our kids know to sleep in an extra hour tomorrow!

Halloween

We had a great time last night trick-or-treating with the kids. Hailey was just a little peanut this time last year. :) We joked that she looked like a pumpkin because she still had some jaundice color to her skin. Now she is walking! Amazing all that happens in a year's time.

We took the kids to the College Hill area this year which is known for being a major spot to trick-or-treat. It actually has a street nicknamed "Halloween Street" and they block off traffic for two blocks. These people certainly go all out and the whole city must have wanted to see. By 7:00 the sidewalks were so packed we opted to walk in the street with the wagon. I mean there were hundreds and hundreds of people.

 Dianna and Gracie came with us for a little bit which was fun.

 The decorations on this street were INSANE. I can't believe people put so much time and money into this stuff. The theme of this house below was the Wizard of Oz. There was another house further down the street that had a Candy Land theme. There were also some pretty scary houses, but we tried to steer clear of those. I much prefer my sweet and innocent little Thomas the train and ladybug to the Scream costumes. :)

 We let Hailey walk up to a few doors, but she was pretty slow and the large costume was really throwing her balance off. So, she mostly sat in the wagon and tried to eat through all the candy wrappers while I trick-or-treated with Eli. :)

 We had a great time with these two. They were good sports even though we kept them up a little later than normal. And Marc and I enjoyed some of their loot once we put them to bed. :)

Carving Jack

Eli has loved the whole pumpkin thing this year. He has talked about the "punkin" patch quite often after we went with my family a few weeks ago. We placed his pumpkin right inside the door to our apartment and he has greeted every day when he comes home from school. I just knew he would love to give his pumpkin a face so we pulled out our pumpkin carving kit on Saturday and got to work.

I put the apron that held all the tools on Eli and he thought that was so cool.

Time to get dirty. :)

Hailey enjoyed her Halloween cookie...

...so much that we had to lose the shirt.

Our pumpkin was really "clean" this year and didn't have many seeds at all. I took what little bit we had and roasted them up. Marc LOVES these things. The recipes calls for 2 cups of pumpkin seeds (don't wash them just clean them off with a paper towel), 1 1/2 Tbs. of oil, and 1 1/2 tsp. of salt. Mix them up and then cook them at 250 degrees for 45-60 minutes periodically stirring them. I think Marc likes these so much because they are quite salty. :)

Our finished pumpkin!

I bought our pumpkin carving kit the first Halloween after we were married, and it has been SO fun bringing it out year after year. I think it has traveled to three cities with us so far and next year we will be in Memphis now that Marc has signed a contract with Christ Community Health Services. I think family traditions are great because you can usually take them with you wherever you go. :) We are going trick or treating tomorrow night with our ladybug and Thomas the Train. Eli is going to have a blast and I can't wait!