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.