Christmas Day

We woke up this morning and Santa had visited our house! Andrew was so excited that Santa brought exactly what he asked for...and that he ate all of the cookies! Santa was really glad the cookies were there as he was putting together the 214 piece king's castle that Andrew asked for. Anna slept in until 9:45 so she enjoyed her present from Santa a little later. :)





We've had a really sweet day together. We played with the toys the kids got most of the morning and then we had roast for lunch. This evening we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. When we got home we watched the Polar Express. And then as we put Andrew to bed, Jay went over the Christmas story and made sure he understood what Christmas is really about. It's been a wonderful day.

Christmas Eve

We spent Monday through Thursday at Nana's house and opened our gifts with her and Mimi but we forgot the camera so I don't have any pictures of our time with them. :( Of course Nana went crazy and both Andrew and Anna got more than they could play with. After we passed out presents and were waiting to open them Andrew said, "I'm the king of the whole world!" He's so funny.
We drove home yesterday, Christmas eve, and unpacked and cleaned up some in time for our Christmas eve service at church. It was a sweet time of fellowship with our church family. We came home and opened our presents. Here are some pics:




The kids really seemed to love all of the stuff they got....like they needed any more after our time with Nana. And Pop sent a huge box filled with toys that they loved as well!

Anna Grace is 9 Months Old!

Today my baby is nine months old! I'm doing my best to hold on to these moments of infancy but I feel like they're just rushing right on by. Life is so busy and the days go so quickly. If only we could stop time for a bit so we could treasure this time a little more. Her first birthday is right around the corner!
She's doing a few new things, except crawling but she seems right on the brink of that. As she's sitting on the floor she moves her legs around to be able to get closer to whatever it is she wants. Usually things she's not supposed to have. :) It seems that she can get to just about whatever she wants. It's funny, she'll pretty much do the splits to reach something. She rolls like crazy, especially on the changing table which she rolled off of the other day! Thankfully Jay has quick reflexes and caught her before she hit the ground. She is definitely not the complacent baby that Andrew was. She always seems to be moving! She can't pull herself up to the standing position, but if I stand her up next to something she'll hold on and loves standing there for awhile.
She has her two bottom teeth that she got at six months and her two top teeth pushed through around eight months. She loves saying dada and still has yet to make the mama sound. I think this is a sign of stubbornness. :) She can also gives fives and wave bye bye. She seems to be coming out of her extreme clingy-ness to me. She reaches to people to hold her now, which a few weeks ago was absolutely unheard of. If I'm standing there, she immediately wants me back but it's progress. She does great in the nursery at church so that's good. She loves to eat as you can probably tell. I've tried some table food with her and she's not really that impressed. She did like the taste of chocolate pudding I gave her the other day though. :)
She is still an amazing sleeper, which I am so thankful for. I just lay her down while she's awake and she usually goes right to sleep and sleeps through the night. So that's our Anna Grace in a nutshell. She's an absolute doll and so much fun! I wish all of you could meet her.

Soccer is Over!

Soccer has been over for awhile now but as is customary with me, I'm just now writing about it. Our last game was the middle of November and we did really well! As I've mentioned before, they don't keep score but if they did we would have won that one! Andrew kicked the ball a few times this season but never scored a goal. We'll leave it up to him if he wants to play next year. Jay did a great job with our team. Here are a few pictures of our last game and the party we had afterward.

Christmas Cuties

I needed a picture of the kids for Christmas cards so I tried to get some tonight. I didn't get a perfect one, but I've discovered when photographing more than one child, that's just not possible. Some of these turned out pretty cute though!





Things have been pretty good around here. We got the house decorated for Christmas...Jay even put lights on the outside of the house for the first time ever. I'll try and get a picture up on here soon. Anna has an ear infection so she's been a little fussy lately. Today has been a turning point though-I took her back to the doctor this morning and he said her ear was still red so he put her on a different antibiotic. We got home and she's been pretty much back to her old self so I doubted whether I should change anything, but I'm going to follow the doctors orders. Andrew is still doing great in school. He really enjoyed "helping" Daddy put the lights up outside and then helping decorate the trees as well.

Andrew

I'm ashamed to say that this is the only recent picture I have of Andrew, besides the Fall festival pictures. I'm not sure why this is, but I'll work on it.

Andrew is doing just amazing in kindergarten! Last month he got smiley faces every day so Jay bought him a movie as a reward for that. He really rarely gets into trouble and seems to be learning a lot. He also seems to be picking up some bad behaviors/attitudes at school. This morning as I was getting him ready for school, he got mad because I wouldn't let him play with some toy and he said "What's your problem?" I think my mouth fell open! He's never talked like that before. I mean, he's been sassy but never like that. Anyway, for the most part he's a normal five year old. He is still quite sweet most of the time. He seems to be enjoying soccer, which is thankfully almost over. Poor Jay has a hard time keeping six five-year-olds attention for any length of time. He has started bribing them during practice and this seems to be helping a little.

Andrew is also doing great in AWANA. He learns his verse every week-it just amazes me how easily kids can memorize scripture! He also is learning to play the chimes during music class on Sunday nights. I'm hoping they'll have some sort of presentation so I can see it for myself and maybe get some pictures to put on here.

Anna Grace

I don't know how it happened, but Anna Grace is already 7 going on 8 months old! Time just seems to be flying by. Here are some recent pictures of her:

She is so much fun! She has her two bottom teeth and it seems that her top two may be coming in soon. She can now hold her bottle by herself, play peek-a-boo, sit very well on her own (she's been doing this for a couple of months now) and she's started to babble like crazy. She said dada the other day...I don't think it counts as her first word though since she's just babbling. Jay of course is counting it. :) Her favorite things to do are sit in the floor and play with toys, or an empty water bottle (I don't know why this intrigues her), play with her bubba (she just adores Andrew), eat, look at daddy and tear magazines apart. Andrew also loved doing this last one when he was a baby. Don't worry, I watch her closely to make sure none of it ends up in her mouth. This is quite a job because she puts just about everything in her mouth!

She is quite the mama's girl. She doesn't really like for anyone else to hold her, but once I leave the room she's fine with whoever has her. They told me Sunday in the nursery that another little baby boy tried to kiss her and she puckered up and started crying. Jay is teaching her well! :)

Fall Festival

I've been getting quite a few hints that I need to blog again, so this is for you Grandma! :) It has been quite awhile. Life has been busy...I'll start with the fall festival. Andrew wanted to be a jedi and in searching for his costume, I found a baby Princess Leia costume that I knew I had to get for Anna. Here they are all dressed up:




I think I might stick with a theme every year...it was fun having them coordinate.

First soccer game!

Well, welcome to the experiment that we like to call "Andrew in U6 division soccer being coached by Jay." His team is called the Cubs. There really isn't any other relevant information. There are 6 boys on his team and 3 play at a time.

Pre-game pep talk. Yeah right. And I need to lose some weight.

Trying to explain how the opening kick-off works. After two more weeks I'm not allowed on the field any more. Uh oh.

Andrew in action...

Andrew pretending to blow the whistle at his teammate.

Andrew probably wondering what happened? By the way, it's raining the whole time the game is going on. Great way to start.

Andrew telling a story that I'm sure was hilarious.

Andrew and "Coach Jay"

More pics of Anna and family time

Here are a few random pics of the family, in various order, and without Christi! I really have to get behind the camera every now and then.


Perfect picture of story time: Andrew looking at mommy, Anna looking at Andrew and me looking at the story.
Note 1: Andrew is taking a breathing treatment due to struggling with a cold-like illness for about 2 weeks. And we're not to the "sick" season yet :(
Note 2: Anna LOVES Andrew. I can't emphasize it enough.


Look at these cuties. More from them later.


Also, I should mention she's really starting to sit well. Such a cutie!


Words don't do it justice.



Gotta love bed time activities


Look at the attitude! Gotta love it.

First day of Kindergarten

Andrew officially started Kindergarten this year. Crazy! I know we're late, but thought I'd throw a few pictures of his first day at you.


He sure is proud of his backpack.


Sitting at his table! (with my phone)


Andrew and his friend Sara from his preschool class

Yay for our new video camera!

New Pics of Anna

April Graves took these pics of Anna the other day in our backyard. We weren't planning on doing it and Anna was fussy so I didn't expect anything to come of it, but she surprised us!

We're being published!!!

Ok, big announcement...

Ok, not that big. But our crazy directory photo from a few years ago is going to be in the Awkward Family Photos book!!!! They didn't post it on the web site (which is hilarious, by the way: http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com )because they wanted to save a few for the book.

So, look for us probably some time next year! More info when it comes out.

Christi's birthday present

It's still several days away (Aug. 12) but I got Christi a new toy for her birthday. It's amazingly convenient with kids. It's a small, portable video camera. No tapes. Straight up digital.


So, here's some of the first video taken with it.