15 months!

I can't believe our baby girl is 15 months old now!  So let's start with a comparison pic of both girls at this age:

I can't believe Sk had so much hair at this age.  Evie's is coming in more for sure, but now where near what her crazy sister had :)  I think they are tied for 4 teeth at this age.  And it is def. a tie for cuteness :)

Evie is so cute getting into playing with her toys these days.  She loves holding her baby (or any stuffed animal really) and patting it in the back and hugging it.  I would say her favorite thing to do is dance to music though.  She hears music and her booty starts shaking.  It is so cute.

She is slowly getting better about table food.  Girl loves to be spoon bed and still loves baby food (or oatmeal, applesauce  kinds of things).

She if sleeping through the night only with an occasional wake up having pooped or something…why would she choose to poop in the middle of the night???  Crazy kid.  So she goes to bed in the 7 o'clock hour and wakes somewhere in the 7 o'clock hour.  She is just nursing when I put her to bed now.  I didn't set out in the beginning to nurse her this long, but she loves it and I am thankful I was even able to nurse her at all, so I haven't been pushing her too fast to completely ween.   It has been special to get to do it and have that time with her.

She is outgrowing her 12 month clothing and starting to get into 18 month stuff.  Mainly because she is tall.

She loves to be held.  She is constantly reaching for me or Michael to hold her.  But she also loves to get down and walk around too, esp. if we are at stores or out somewhere…

She is getting really good at telling us what she wants.  She will point to the fridge if she wants milk.  Or point where she wants to go if she wants to go somewhere.  We can tell her to go get her shoes if we are leaving to go somewhere and she will go get them out of the basket by the door and bring them to you and sit down waiting for you to put them on her.  (And she loves her shoes…she would have shoes on all day if she could)  She can sign "more", "please", "thank-you", "all done", and "up".

She loves watching Praise Baby movies, but doesn't get into anything else really.

She loves bath time with her sister.  She loves to splash :)

We love her so much :)

And this is how she reacts sometimes if you take her paci from her when was enjoying it :)

Meet our gymnast :)

SK has been doing gymnastics this year and has totally loved it.  We got to go to her last class and watch and of course, take some pictures!

We are taking a break from the gym for the spring, but I am sure there will be more flipping at home to keep up what she has learned so far :)

SK is pretty fun these days.  We def. have our hard moments with her, but it is fun to watch her grow.  Yesterday we were getting ready for church and she had music on in her room and was dancing.  She said she was dancing the way the music told her to.  She said she was just letting it flow out :)  So so cute.

She can be quite difficult to wake in the mornings.  Girl would sleep in till at least 8 most mornings if we let her.  Some days she just has to get moving before then (for instance yesterday for church).  I go in her room and literally bounce her bed for 5 minutes before she really stirs.  Then we turn on music to get her moving :)  Most weekday mornings Michael is in charge of waking her, so I have fun on the weekends getting to go in her room and jump on her bed and act silly to get her going in the morning.

She is our little social butterfly.  She would be with friends 24/7 if we would let her.  She asks most days in the afternoon who is coming over for dinner.  Of course, her mom and dad are extroverts, so we like to be with friends too, so she is pretty used to being around friends a lot :)

If she could wear a skirt or dress everyday she would.

She loves movies.  We decided to have a fun family day on Sat. and went up to the dollar theater and saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.  We figured if Evie didn't make it through the whole thing it was only a $1 so not a huge loss.  It was a fun time for only $3!  I brought our own popcorn and water and we had so much fun watching the movie and Evie actually made it all the way through the movie.

I guess that is a little update about our eldest :)  We love SK to pieces and more than anything love seeing her grow into a child that loves the Lord and wants to honor him.  She fails daily, but I can see her heart gaining more and more understanding of how Jesus loves her and wants her to cling to him.  It is beautiful to watch.  I am thankful  :)

If I don't post again in the next couple of days, Merry Christmas, y'all!  May this week be full of joy and celebration as we celebrate the birthday of our King!

Catch up...

No time for blogging lately…but hopefully that is changing soon :)
Michael took his last final yesterday and now gets a much needed break from his studies!  This will be his first year to not take a Jan. term class so he gets a break until Jan. 24th (or something close to that I think).  We are excited for the break for sure :)  He has been so busy finishing out papers and preparing for finals we have barely had much family time and are looking forward to getting lots in the coming weeks.  We will still be working and support raising, so we won't be completely couch potatoes!
To celebrate being done, Michael took Sk on a date last night to the movies.  She was so excited and got all dressed up in her best dress, put on a little make up for fun, fixed her hair and then asked Daddy when he came home if he would get "handsome" too :)  So she helped pick out his clothes.  They headed off to the dollar theater to see Smurfs 2, but didn't make it through the movie since SK said she didn't like it and said it was a little scary.  Oh well.   At least they still got a date in.
Today I have big plans to clean our apt.  It has been put on the back burner for long enough.  Time for dusting and scrubbing :)
Now we have been doing some fun things too in the midst of these last few weeks.  I haven't been the best at taking pictures, but here is what I got :)

 There have been lots of snuggles with our loves and stuffed animals :)

 SK had her Christmas party at ballet.  This year she was in my class and I have loved getting to be her ballet teacher.  And she loves ballet :)

 We had a good snow last weekend and I went out to catch a few pictures and I got blasted with snowballs being thrown at me…

 This is the Christmas program at church, where SK sang "Joy to the world" with her class.

 Fun times dancing around in mommy's pointe shoes :)

My mom and her husband, Ed came up for a visit last weekend and 

Sk loved having lots of fun with them.

SO there is a little quick peak into our last couple of weeks.  We are looking forward to having a low key chill Christmas here.  No big plans other than games and movies :) 

Thanksgiving fun...

If you have seen my facebook pictures, you have already seen what we were up to for Thanksgiving weekend.  It was fun filled for sure :)

We started out on Thursday morning heading downtown to the parade.  This was our first time to go to it and I am glad we did.  It was freezing out, but we were able to go inside of a building and watch from the windows for some of it to warm back up.  They had some of the big balloons (so a scaled down version of the Macy's New York parade kinda...) and lots of other fun things too.

After the parade we headed over to the house that I nanny at and hung out with them for a bit.  They fried a turkey (they friend 1 early afternoon, then were going to fry 2 more for their dinner that night) and we got to partake in it right out of the fryer.  It was delicious and SK loved it too :)

We went home that afternoon for a bit to get some cooking done with Evie napped.  Then we were off to the Log Cabin on campus to enjoy a meal with a few other seminary families.  

While we have missed cooking and being with family on Thanksgiving the last few years, it has been always ended up being a very sweet time to be with other seminary families and celebrate all that we have to be thankful for during this season of life.

On Saturday we got up and headed to the Tree Farm to cut down a Christmas tree.  We were on the fence about doing it this year simply because of Evie's age and wondering if she would constantly be pulling ornaments down and all, but we decided it would be fun.  It was a great morning of picking out a tree.  SK had a blast weaving in and out of all the trees finding "the perfect one!" and "Momma, you have to come see this one!"  It was a blast.  We had some hot chocolate then headed home with our tree.  

That afternoon we were able to watch the game (congrats to the Auburn fans on the win... :)) and decorate the tree during halftime and after the game too.  

SO far Evie has only pulled off 1 ornament.  And when I called her name and said "no no" she threw it back to the tree :)  It was pretty cute.

Michael has 1 more week of class pretty much (classes end next Tuesday I think) then it is on to finals then a much needed break.  Woohoo!

Then there will be plenty of time for family games nights where I can see this pretty face a little more:

Shoes

Evie is all about shoes these days.  She will bring us her shoes that are in the basket by our door and sit down and want us to put them on her feet.  Last week she even seemed to have an opinion about not wanting one pair she had and brought me her other pair to change to them before we left for church.  She also loves finding her sisters shoes and trying them on.  It is so cute :)

 Not sure about her crazy face other than it was bedtime and she was tired :)

Trying on "sissy's" boots!

We are looking forward to the next few days, having a break and hopefully some family time!  SK begged us yesterday to go ahead and get her pink Christmas tree out, so we did.  How can we resist such a cute sweet face :)  So we have her tree up and she was so excited.  Hope to get more pictures tomorrow or at some point this weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Randomness...

I want to catch up the blog, but my thoughts are jumbled as to where to start.  Let's see.  Last week was miserable.  I will just leave it at saying that I despise the stomach bug.
We are half way through this week though and it is looking like a better week.  Evie didn't eat solid foods for about 8 days and is slowly starting to ease back into eating and less screaming at us.  And a little more sleep too.  We didn't get much of that last week.
SK was/is our lone survivor who didn't get the stomach bug.  Poor kid though.  She has gone to sleep the last 3 nights with the trash can (cleaned, I will add) in her bed because she is scared she feels like she might throw up.  One night Michael went in her room to take the trash can out of her bed after she had fallen asleep to find her face right in the can while sleep.  Kids are disgusting sometimes.  Or maybe more than sometimes...
Michael is 1/2 way through the 4 papers he had to do this week.  Whew.  So close to the end of the semester....so so ready.

What else...

*When the stomach bug hit our house at 4 a.m., I made homemade lysol at 5.  Our house was pretty stinking clean and that was nice :)

*Evie is starting to communicate more these days.  She says "thank you" (in her own little way, maybe not completely clear...) and "no".  She waves bye bye and signs "more" and "all done".  I had music playing yesterday and she was wiggling her little booty dancing.  It was pretty cute I must say.

I need coffee.  Can't think of anything else to blog about right now.

More to come hopefully next week or this weekend when we make it through the rest of this week and maybe I can think straight.

SO much in my head...

I have so much going on in my head right now I feel like I can't see straight.  Really.

I think I have said before on here that I am taking Marriage and Family Counseling this semester.  Whew.  Why did I wait till my last year to decide I wish I could at least have audited more counseling classes.  I am thankful at least to get this one in.  Dude.  It is rocking my world though.  What is hard right now too is that I can't find the time or brainpower to process what all is talked about in the class.  I will explain more later maybe...I can't even process what I want to share on the blog really.

Pray for me.  That I can process these things that are rolling around in my head.  That the Lord will use this to grow me and use it to further His kingdom.

So this last class, we had a speaker come from Firstlight here in St. Louis.  She spoke on the Trauma for spouses of men (which can also be said for the opposite as well) with sexual addiction issues.  The stats are crushing.

50% of Christian men say they are addicted to pornography.  (That is PRESENT tense...)

9 out of 10 boys are exposed to pornography before the age of 18.

75% of PASTORS say they are not accountable to anyone for their internet use.

67% of young men report that watching pornography is an acceptable way to express one's sexuality.



Maybe I am going to step on toes with this.  Do I care?  Maybe I need to.  There are more stats if you look on Covenant Eyes website.

What upsets me as I begin to process all that was talked about is that we don't address this in the church.  That is a generalized statement, I know, and there are some that are for sure.  But how many times do you see a woman come forward for help because she is suffering from PTSD due to her husband dealing with a sexual addiction.  Do women (and yes, I know it can go the other way as well...) feel safety somewhere within the church to find help, to get support and help.  Or do men feel safe to say that they are struggling with a sexual addiction, or a woman feel safe to say she struggles as well with the same.

Then you look at the statistics dealing with children.  That makes me want to go throw up really.  What really it needs to make me want to do is get on my face and cover my children in prayer over this issue. Maybe that is what the Lord ultimately wants to teach me in all of this.

Ack.  My head is spinning.  Lord, come quickly.

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun week last week :)  First we will start off with our annual "Charlie Brown" party that our neighbor upstairs always throws.  The kiddos got to decorate cookies then watch "Charlie Brown" with some popcorn.  SO many cute kiddos :)

Then came Halloween...First off we had a silly spider:

Then we had a "Jessie"...which was a last minute throw together.  SK was originally going to be "Ariel", but decided after getting new cowgirl boots for the fall/winter, she wanted to be a cowgirl.  That was easy enough to get an outfit put together for.  I had already bought her the red hairspray for fun, so we decided to still use it and call her Jessie :)

AND let me tell you..that red hair spray is strong smelling and SK's hair is slightly still pink...

Daddy with his 2 girls...

Since it was raining, we didn't get to do the annual parade, so instead we had a big group picture, or an attempt for a group pic, then let the kids run to each apt. collecting their candy...

Fun times!

Life...

Life lately...

It's busy.  That's for sure.  How about I tell you about what the girl's are up to though instead of complaining about being pooped...sounds like a better blog doesn't it??!!

Little Miss Evie...

She is a mess.  She can be quite the booger, therefore earning the nickname "booger bear" at times.  Other nicknames would include Sugar Bear, Evsters, and Boo.  She loves to giggle.  She is now a walker!  She will occasionally still resort to crawling if she wants to get somewhere quickly, but she is walking all over the place these days.  She has 3 teeth, yep, that's it so far :)  She takes 1-2 naps a day, seems to be moving towards just 1 nap, which is okay with me if that 1 will be a good long one.  As far as bedtime...sometimes I wonder if she will ever consistently sleep through the night.  Some nights she will, but I can't count on it every night that is for sure.  Makes for me being the tired momma that I am these days.

On to Princess Sarah Kate...

Michael and I have decided she is an off the charts extravert.  That girl would hang with friends all day every day if it was up to her.  When we get ready for dinner each night she immediately asks who is coming to eat with us.  AND most of the time will be quite upset if she finds out it is just us eating together as a family.  I guess the Lord knew what he was doing when he created her, seeing that being around people will be part of life for us as we go to do ministry in England.  Yesterday she asked if she could have a friend come and eat lunch with her on our patio, to which I said sure.  Next thing I knew, she had about 8 girls out there having a picnic (she even came in to get the picnic blanket for them).  I love it and it helps that her daddy and I are both extraverts as well, so we love being around people too :)

She is doing great with school (most days...).  She is really starting to pick up reading.  I am trying to not stress over it too much this year, but enjoy this time with her.








Off to do laundry.  Then clean up the house, since we have company coming for dinner...SK will be thrilled :)

Fall Break

So we are on Fall Break (read that as Michael doesn't have class, but there has been plenty still going on...).  Michael flew out last Thursday to go down to Alabama to be with our friends, Trace and Bruce.  Let me first explain that Trace and Bruce are the 2 elders of Culcheth Community Church, which is the church we are going to in England.  Trace is from Alabama (same home church) and Bruce is from England.  So Michael flew down Thursday afternoon, then the 3 of them hit the road on Friday for South Carolina.  They spent the weekend there (and from the sounds of it, had a greatly encouraging time there) then drove back to Alabama on Monday.  On Tuesday, they hit the road to St. Louis.  Yes, that is a lot of time in the car for these guys.  They stayed here till yesterday, then Trace and Bruce headed back to Alabama yesterday.
I was glad they were able to make it up here a couple days.  It was good to get the time to talk with them more about us coming there and hear from them more about their take on the state that England is in.
Hearing them talk though made my heart long to be there now.  I don't want to wait 16 or 17 months to get there.  I want to go now.  I want to dive into to ministry and building relationships.  I am anxious to see how the Lord uses our giftings there.  What will it end up looking like?
I have to stop myself though.  I have to remind myself that the Lord has us here for now.  And it is good that we are here.  It is good.  The waiting will be good.  I have been in this waiting spot before.  I remember.  I will wait on the Lord and His timing.  I don't have to completely understand it or be all overjoyed by it, but I will wait on the Lord.  I will trust that HE is good and wants to use us here for this time.  He will get us there.
Dude.
We are excited that the Lord has called us to this purpose.  We know to that it isn't going to be easy.  Some days, my mind goes to "What are we getting into?  What are we about to put our children through?"  Such a range of emotions over the whole thing really.

Back to our time with Trace and Bruce.

On Tuesday, they pulled into town around 6 (after sitting in STL traffic for about an hour it seemed).  We ate a quick bite of chili, then had some people over for dessert and chatting.

Wednesday, we started out our day introducing them to Trader Joe's.  I believe Trace had orders from Ginger to not return without having been to Trader Joe's :)  (completely joking about the orders bit...)
Then we headed to Pi Pizza for lunch.  It is kinda like Chicago style pizza and it was quite yummy.  Trace ate so much that he covered lunch and dinner in that one sitting :)
Then that night we had a get together at the Kirk, where Trace and Bruce were able to share about the need in England and what is going on with Culcheth Community Church as well, ministering in a post-Christian society.
I got most of their talk recorded, so I look forward to watching it again myself :)

If you didn't get to come Wed. night and want to watch it with us, let us know!
After the Kirk get together, we headed back to our place and stayed up till 11:30 or so talking.  Good discussion happened for sure :)

The guys got together with a couple men from the Kirk for breakfast Thursday morning, then Trace and Bruce headed out to make the drive back to Alabama.

I would have loved to have even more time with them, but soon enough we will all be living and doing life together in England!

Here is a quick look at our time together in pictures: