Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Thanksgiving Weekend!

I am finally getting around to uploading pics from our weekend...
So here ya go:

Thanksgiving dinner with our Seminary Family!


We found our tree!!  First time to go and cut one down as a family!


SK helping Daddy cut down the tree!



Riding back after cutting down our tree! 

SK is all about sitting like a "lady" these days :) 

The tree is decorated!  

There ya go!  EJ goes to the doc on Friday for her 2 month checkup so I will hopefully update yall then about her :)

Sunday, November 25, 2012

10 randoms...

How about a good ole random post to entertain me during a middle of the night feeding :)


1--Evie Joy is a good sleeper for the most part.  She isn't a rockstar sleeper like Sarah Kate was, but she does pretty good and I think more like what most babies do.  She wakes up 2 times a night, sometimes only 1 time :)  I like those nights for sure!  The girl love to cuddle though...she would probably sleep through the night if I let her sleep laying on me!

2--I like calling her "Evie Joy" more lately...not sure what will stick.  Everyone asks and I am still not sure.  Sarah Kate says no to "Evie Joy" and says she just likes to call her "Evie", and that would be with a soft "E" not a hard "E"...does that make sense???  I guess to each their own for now as far as what she is going to go by :)

3--She is starting to find her hands.  When she is laid on her back and in a good mood, you will see her raise her hands and stare at them with such wonder.  It is so cute :)

4--There are 2 weeks (then finals week...) of school left for Michael!  Woohoo.  Really.  I am pumped for Christmas break!  I am excited to get some down time (at least as far as MIchael's classes go...) and I am excited to go to Alabama and introduce everyone down there to our newest little one!

5--I went last week to order my passport.  I can't believe our trip to England is coming up in about 3.5 months.  Crazy!  We still have to get Evie's birth certificate before ordering her a passport too.  

6--I love the smell of real Christmas trees.  We went Friday to cut down a real tree for the first time.  MIchael and I have always used a fake pre-lit tree since we got married, but decided this was a good year to take SK to cut one down.  I remember loving doing that when I was a kid :)  She had a blast doing it!

7--I like dates with my hubby.  We got to sneak away on Friday too for a little lunch date.  I like him.  I like to sit and chat just the 2 of us without a cute little 4 year old jumping in the conversation and interrupting every 10 seconds...she sure is cute though :)  

8--I like hot drinks this time of year so much :)  Trader Joe's spicy chai latte is amazing.  So is their peppermint hot chocolate.  Yum.

9--I wish we had a fireplace.  I like fire :)

10--I was to do some crafts with SK soon.  Pinterest gives me so many ideas...I just need the energy to do them...oh, and the supplies.  I really don't like going to the stores this time of year.  Not at all.  Not even the grocery store really.  

Alright...good timing.  Here's to hoping to go back to sleep for a bit now...night, night :)

Monday, November 19, 2012

Cuddles and Fun

First off...how cute are these 2 girlys :)

Ok...moving on.
We had a fun weekend here last weekend, including going with some friends to Kirkwood to a little holiday event they were having.  SK loves being with friends and had a blast playing with her buds!  They were giving out hot chocolate and hot dogs (yep...at 9 in the morning, my child scarfed a hot dog!)
After playing for a bit, the crowd settled down and we waited in line to see Santa and get a pic :)
For those of you who have followed my blog, in years past I have talked about how we have chosen for our family to not do the Santa thing, but we aren't going to pretend that he doesnt exist at all...does that make sense?  We are trying to show that he is similar to other fun characters like Tangled or Snow White.  We are planning and have tried to show Sarah Kate (and Evelyn as she gets older) how St. Nicholas was really a cool dude back in his day.  Our hope for our children is to make Christmas about what it is actually supposed to be about, CHRIST!  It really makes us sick how we have really massacred Christ's birthday.  We have made it a time where we celebrate everything but Christ.  We worry and stress over get togethers, events, gifts, ect.  The gift thing has really bugged us this year.  We have realized this year that SK was beginning to get really excited about the gifts this year and not about celebrating Christ.  Our hope this year is to make the time we spend celebrating "Christmas" is spent focussing on our Savior.
So ways we are trying to do this:
--We will again do our Jesse Tree like we have in years past (You can check out my blog from 2 years ago and see how we do it if you are interested)
--We don't do Santa.  We don't want to talk about everything Sk sees at the store is a good "idea for her Christmas list".
--We have really slimmed down the decorations over the last few years.  The year before we moved, we didn't have a tree or any decoration in our house.  Do we sound Bahhumbug ish?  It was a lovely Christmas really.  We loved it in a lot of ways.  We did our Jesse Tree and that was it.  That year we decided to get rid of many of our decorations for many reasons.  We want to simplify.  It works for our family and helps us to focus on Christ.

Now don't take this wrong.  We know every family finds things that work for them.  We are not here to judge or think that our way is the best or only way things should be done.  We just find these things have helped us.
We do see the importance to step back sometimes and look at why we do the things we do.  I encourage you to do that.  I think it is good to take a step back and say, "Why do we give gifts at Christmas?" or "Why do we decorate Christmas trees?" or there are a multitude of questions you could ask.
I think for us we realized that there might not be a good reason sometimes.  Even getting off the subject of Christmas, we have done the same stepping back and regrouping at how we are approaching our parenting.  One big thing we have looked at this week is looking at rules we were enforcing in our household that weren't there for any other reason except for our selfishness.  We have learned that if we can't give a good reason for having a particular rule in our home then we don't need to have it.  For instance...A rule to obey us is important, but a rule to not play in ways that just might annoy us or get in our way of doing what we want to be doing is not good.  We must always ask ourselves why we are doing what we're doing rather than just doing what everyone else does or what we think is convenient.  We can be selfish people sometimes, if I am completely honest.

Anyways, that is enough rambling.  It might be a bit scattered, so sorry.  That is what you get when you are still waking in the middle of the night and holding a baby while blogging too :)
I will end with some cute pics of our fun last Sat. that I started out talking about before going off rambling...


 good friends hold hands right :)  Young and old...

Monday, November 12, 2012

By Hand Boutique!

If you are in the Birmingham area, you should make plans now to go this Saturday to the By Hand Boutique in Moody!  I wish I could be there to do some Christmas shopping...sad sad.
I did get a chance to make some baby doll carriers to try to sell there....so if you are looking for the perfect gift for your little girl (or niece, or friends little girl...), go get one!  They would make the perfect Christmas gift!  And while you are there, I know there will be lots of other awesome stuff for sell too!
And if you are wanting to have a baby doll carrier and won't be able to make it to the Boutique, let me know!  I can make one for ya!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Birthday Celebration

Yesterday was both a vey special and a very messed up day.  We got to celebrate a little boys 5th birthday.  That was special.  The part that was messed up about it was that sweet little boy wasn't at the celebration.  You see...he is in heaven.  That isn't the way that it is supposed to be.  He should have been here celebrating and blowing out his own birthday candle.  He should have been the one opening presents and playing with buddies.  But he wasn't and that is screwed up.
Let me tell you about some dear friends of ours.
After moving on campus last year, I started a pilates class with some ladies here on campus.  I met Elizabeth via that and before we really ever met in person I found her blog.  And I stalked it for many hours reading her story.  Sobbing while I read it and amazed at it.  When we finally talked, we realized we had both read each other's blog and found that we had similar stories of having lost little ones way too early.  We immediately connected and became good friends.  It has been so awesome for our families to become so close over the last year.
Elizabeth and Chris were waiting for Owen's arrival 5 years ago.  Then one day when she was about 36 weeks she didn't feel him moving in her tummy.  She went in for an ultrasound and he was gone.  A couple days later they would deliver him at the hospital and hold his lifeless body and instead of bringing home their precious son they had to say goodbye to him.  That is jacked up.  That isn't the way it should have been.
Elizabeth is very honest in her blog and I love that about her.  She writes beautifully also.  It is amazing to see her struggles with the loss of her son and see how the Lord has worked in and through her.
I can see marks of how their story has shaped who they are.  God has and is using their story to bring glory to himself.
One day, not soon enough, we will all get to meet sweet Owen.  Come, Lord Jesus, come.  That day will be awesome.  I long for the day when all things will be made perfect again.  When there won't be separation and pain like this.
So yesterday was not how it should be, but it was a beautiful time that I could see God's love through.  We started out the party with a balloon release (which they have done every year).  Then we headed in for mexican food and cupcakes.  It was also a special time to get to talk to Sarah Kate about sweet Owen and how he was in Heaven and how we would get to meet him one day.
Happy Birthday, Owen!  I can't wait to get to meet you :)



Here is Elizabeth's blog if you wanna go check her out!  Hope you don't mind me talking all about you, Elizabeth :)  Love you friend!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Mimi's VIsit

Mimi came last weekend for a visit and we had so much fun!  Mimi got lots of cuddle times with Sarah Kate and Evie :)  It was a good weekend and went by too fast!  Now we are counting down the days till we get to Alabama for Christmas!
So here's a few pictures from our weekend!  We didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked...I guess we were too busy just enjoying the moments and soaking in our time together!
Love you Mimi and can't wait to see you again!




Mimi did come at a great time, since EJ decided to start smiling and cooing the day she came.  Michael was holding Evie that morning (she was exactly 5 weeks) and she started to smile at him and continued doing it at times throughout the weekend :)  She is learning her voice too, cooing at us!  It is precious and we are soaking it up right now!  And we are glad Mimi got to see it while she was here!


Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Sister love!


SK loves her sister :)  I love that she loves her sister so much.  A couple things I don't want to forget:
--SK does such a sweet job of consoling her sister when she is upset.  She will rock her if she is in her carseat (like if we are getting ready to go out somewhere), or in the car she will give her the paci and soothe her by going "shhh....shhhh.....shhhh"
--She also loves to sing to her.  My favorite is when she sings "Jesus loves you" but instead of saying "you" she changed it to "Jesus loves Evelyn", so anytime in the song it says "You" normally, she sings "Evelyn" instead.  It is pretty precious to hear her sing that to her sister.
--At bedtime she likes to hold her sister when we do bedtime prayers.  Then she asks if Evie can lay in her bed with her for a minute before she goes to sleep.  Most of the time, Evie loves it and just stares at her sister :)


Trick or Treating fun!

Last week we had a fun night with friends on Halloween.  We started out the day with all of our friends in our building watching Charlie Brown and decorating sugar cookies.  Sarah Kate could hardly wait all day to get dressed up in her costume.  This year she had quite an opinion on what she wanted to dress up as.  It started about a month ago when she said she wanted to dress up as Batman, then it progressed to other characters including: Robin (Batman's friend), Ariel, Tangled (yet again), and then we finally landed on Snow White.
After having some fun with our neighbors upstairs we headed to our place to eat a quick bowl of chili, then outside to the annual Parade of Costumes.  There as so many kids living on campus and it is really fun to see all of the cute costumes!  The kids parade around the playground, then go trick or treating to all of the apartments on campus.  After all of that fun, we headed out with friends to a neighborhood for some more trick or treating!
Sarah Kate really got into it this year and we had to tell her to slow down after each house since she was literally sprinting to the next house as quick as she could.  It was fun to see her get so into it this year, but now I have a bowl full of candy that causes "issues" everyday.  She just doesn't understand why the candy can't be eaten throughout the day all day...
So now the pictures..







On a side note...notice how SK makes goofy faces with Mommy and Daddy pictures.  Yep, that is all she will do lately.  Goofy kid.