Christmas Program

Reed had his first Christmas program this week! It was so fun to see him up on the stage (and he was on the front row too!) As you can see from my pictures our seats weren't that great too many heads and I wasn't directly in front of him, so I kept getting teachers heads, other kids, or blurry shots---oh well, these were some of the best ones I could get. I did videotape quite a bit of it too. I have never been able to download directly from our video camera to the computer, so I may try, but not sure if I'll get it or not. So for now the pictures will have to do.
Smiling so big! He did so great & we were so proud of him! He sang along and belted out every song they sang! And they did about 5....as you can see his side profile below very into his singing!

A Growing Girl

this week our sweet, sweet Mary Etta turned 17 months!!! How are we almost to a year & a half old already??!! She is just growing & doing so many fun new things. I'm realizing in the craziness of 2 other children, moving, & just life in general I have got to record these things so I don't forget! So this may be boring for most of you....so you can skip this post unless you're a grandparent---who always loves hearing these milestones too!

• saying so many things these days (I almost don't know if I can remember them all at this exact minute) but some new ones I've noticed are: "men" (as she folds her hands for the start of the family prayer at meal time and then tries to join in the 'amen' at the end), baby--all the time! upon seeing pictures, playing with dolls (which she'll just be like her big sister as she is carrying them all over the house), of course Daddy, Mama, bye-bye, uh-oh, shoe, ball (are still heard often in the day too)---there may be more I just can't think of them all right now
• loves music!! she is into musical toys and books and will press the buttons over & over again to bob her head & shake her body to the music as she dances
• loves fingerplays too---shakes her little finger for "this little light of mine" all the time for us to sing it to her! and even tries to join in on the "mine" and "no".......as well as playing peak-a-boo (she just smiles & giggles as we say where is Mary Etta)
• chasing her brother & sister! she just thinks it's the funniest thing for her to chase them or for them to chase her---even though the loud screams seem so loud in our tiny house, it still is so sweet to see them having so much fun together
• she loves doing the Catechisms! i think awhile back i may have posted (maybe i did, maybe not??) that at 14 months she started answering the 1st question of "who made you?" and she would (and still does) say "Ga" for God; now for the next one "what else did God make?" she opens her hands out wide (as I modeled this for her for some time now) for 'all things'
• she love to be held, snuggled....such the baby of the family! and loves if you're on the floor to sit in your lap....she does the 'back up' (where she backs into our lap); she'll occasionally wake up in the late evening or even the middle of the night---nothing on a consistent basis, but just sometimes....and after cuddled will go on back to bed & sleep fine; she does tend to be our light sleeper, so when we move in a few weeks she will continue to have her own room for now until she is a little older
• she's such a sweet, sweet baby girl.....and we are ever so thankful for her---our little "surprise" of a blessing, that i found out about just a little over 2 years ago.....i didn't know how i would do it with 3 children under the age of 3, but somehow the Lord has sustained us all---some days harder than others, but only by His grace indeed!!!

I have more pics to upload from some fun things this week, but was too tired to do it. This post is mainly for me to record about Mary Etta. Be back soon!

Sisters

Can really have lots of fun together, having tea parties, playing with dolls, just doing lots of girly things! I'm so glad it seems that these 2 (just barely 14 months apart) are really beginning to adore each other! It is fun to watch the two of them interact & engage with one another. Of course right now Mary Etta still doesn't have many words in edgewise--compared to her very chatty big sister, but I know before long it will seriously be non-stop chatter around here! Oh how different boys are for sure! But I do love having both & experiencing their many differences, a blessing indeed!

Christmas Time is Here......

Enjoying our first snowfall here this past weekend!!

Isn't that the line to one of the songs in Charlie Brown Christmas? I believe so......as I should know since I think I can quote that movie right now--as when give the option to watch a movie, that is ALWAYS the top choice these days! We are Charlie Browned out around here!! We have a book, the movie, my mom even found a CB tree they can put in their room---they love it! We have also been working on some new scripture memory--we're trying to memorize part of Luke 2 for this advent season (and Reed likes to always tell us that is what Linus says). Anyways, lots of Christmas around here....we decorated this past weekend (still with our artificial tree--boo :(

I had hopes for a real tree this year since we are not traveling, but with all our house preparation going on Casey hasn't been home much, so basically there is no time to go in search for a real tree. Maybe one of these Christmas's we'll get to it. We've been doing our advent calendar (thanks to my friend Rebekah with her wonderful list of verses & symbols--they look forward to it EVERY NITE!!! And just lots of music and singing.....we did a white elephant gift exchange with my family when we were together at Thanksgiving & I've been (well we all have been since it's in the car & the kids ask for it constantly!) enjoying my new CD (thanks Sarah & Rusty :) Dave is a good friend of theirs.....& I love the sound as it reminds me of my Harry Connick Jr. Christmas cd. That's all for now, as I'm off to be productive while it's still naptime.....because I'm sure as soon as I do I will hear little people waking up :)

Free Christmas Cards!

So as I've expressed many times before I LOVE pictures, taking them, trying to be creative with them, etc. etc! And this time of the year is my favorite to receive all the fun cards in the mail, with all those adorable pictures all of my friends & family taken of their loved ones! Shutterfly is my main source of uploading pictures and online photo storage--they are the best! I've been using them since Reed was born--so over 4 years now, and I've loved all they have to offer! I've made birth announcements, birthday invitations, calendars, photo books--and they have all turned out so cute! So how excited I was to hear they are offering free Christmas cards! I've already been scanning through to find my favorite--which is hard because I love so many of them. Here are some of the ones I've been looking at.

I love this card

and this one

I also love making our parents a calendar like this, so I've been working on that. These are really cute if you're looking for a party invitation

And I did make a cute Mother's Day card like some of these

We love Shutterfly! They are great & always have such great products!

Turkey Week

Reed at his Thanksgiving feast at school earlier in the week.

We did lots of this.....

and this...

Fun times with cousins

Daddy & his girl

This week....

we've played outside, a little cooler weather & some rainy days here; I've been practicing more with the camera--some shots are good, some not so good--I think this manual thing is sure hard to keep straight; and we've been working, working, working (or rather Casey has been--because we sure haven't seen him much at all this week) on our house! Most everything has been ripped out that is going to be ripped out, we have a HUGE dumpster in our yard for all the trash, drywall got put upstairs in kids bedrooms and hallway, wallpaper being removed in our bedroom & bath--almost ready for painting, & my stepdad is here as I type this so he & Casey can get ready to start laying some tile--so we are moving along!! I really can't believe we are doing this, but we are! Crazy!! I think it's going to feel like a blurr to enjoy Thanksgiving & Christmas this year with all of this over our heads--but amongst the stress we are excited & thankful too!

A New Home

So today we closed on our new home (seen above). It has been almost 2 years ago today that we sold our previous home to live in our current rental home. Moving is always bittersweet, but I suppose we should be pros at it by this point in our marriage. We are about to celebrate our 6th year of marriage next month--and would you believe that this house above will be our 5th house!!! I know 5 houses in 6 years--kinda crazy, huh?! But we do plan to STAY PUT!!! And of those 5 houses 2 were rentals and this is our 3rd to own! But we are excited as we will be still in the same area, and right around the corner from a very dear (one of my besties :) friend from college---so lots of history there! So now we have about 2 months to rip up, rip off, tile, paint, refinish floors, etc. etc. We are thankful and very blessed at how the Lord provided this home, and know after looking at houses on and off for over 2 years now (we started looking when we put our last house on the market in early 2008--but the sale wasn't final on it til Jan. 2009) this is where He wants us--as He so perfectly provided the means and the way for this to be our home. There are memories in this current home--our 3rd baby's first home, and just life with small children in this house! But we will have more room and memories to be made in this new home as well!

Lately.....

We've been playing outside as much as we can! We had some warm weather, then it got cool again, and this week is warm again--yeah! So outside we have been when we can; amongst some on and off sickness. I also recently took an online photo class--but don't judge these photos as my productivity because even though I did shoot them in manual mode I still have LOTS of practicing to do! It's hard to keep all the info straight and really feel like you have a grip on what you are doing....so these are very much that--practice shots! I hope to improve and get more and more comfortable with it, so we'll see.

I love this one! It almost didn't have enough light so I made it black and white and tried to add some more exposure, but it's still sweet regardless of my poor photo skills!

Hut-Hut, Moooo, "Go Dawgs!"

We were SO excited to Trick-or-Treat this year, as you can tell from the pictures here! My pictures are kinda out of order here but we had my mom here this weekend, so on Saturday we headed over to a local shopping center to do some outdoor trick-or-treating. Reed had been asking for days when it was time to trick-or-treat--so he was so excited this was the weekend! Both of the big kids definitely "got it" and loved every minute of it! Here is Emery-Claire so excited with her one of many treats from last night. Even though we are in blue country, she still got lots of treats and was told how adorable she was---even in her Georgia red and black!

We met up with some friends last night to trick-or-treat together---Reed & EC definitely loved going with all the kids! This is the group photo we took of all of them before heading out on our "hunt!"
Our little "moo cow"....isn't she so cute! She was even saying "mooo" by the end of the evening. I just took R & EC over to our friends' house, while Casey kept her home to pass out candy and let her go to bed earlier.

Before heading over to the shopping center on Saturday---we definitely got lots of comments being in TN and GA attire!

Prayer

I just LOVE this picture! It truly is one of my favorite ones. We took this when Reed was probably close to 2 months old. How sweet is my boy!!! The reason I put it on here was it really came to mind with something I saw this week (that of course I don't have a picture of). Reed had been playing in his room, and Emery-Claire was in the living room with me (Mary Etta was probably taking her morning nap). We walked back into the bedroom and it was quiet and I saw Reed on his knees with his hands folded propped up against his bed. He was pretty somber looking and I sat next to him and our conversation went like this...

Me: Hey buddy?

R: (he turned very seriously to me)

Me: What are you praying for?

R: That little boy that hit me. (last week at our BSF time Reed was hit in the face by another child. He still has a slight bruise on his right cheek--so needless to say he was obviously hit pretty hard)

Me: What are you praying about for him?

R: I'm praying that he will love me.

Ok so at this moment my eyes are welling up with tears and I'm trying to not spoil this sweet moment by crying like a baby! So I asked if he wanted me to leave so he could finish and he replied "yes". So it was definitely one of those moments, where your heart leaps for joy! I was so excited to see my little guy's tender heart burdened to pray for someone who had sinned against him! I knew that this is only by the Spirit at work in him, sure nothing I have done--as I sure feel all I do is constantly show my sinful, selfish heart to them daily! And lately Emery-Claire is often telling me and pointing out to me "mommy you got angry!" If that's not the Spirit convicting me and calling me out on my sin I don't what is!! So all that to say I hope this is the beginning of many a time I will see my sweet boy on his knees calling out to the Lord, the one who loves, saves, and redeems!

Visit to the pumpkin patch

Mary Etta and I on the hayride....sigh, my baby is getting so big! In just a few days she'll be 15 months old--but she still is "our baby!"

Monday we went with a little playgroup/mom group that we've been getting together with a couple times a month, to a nearby orchard (or pumpkin patch).

We had about 12 kids (and 2 little babies) and about 7 moms--I think a good time was had by all! We got to do a "school tour" so for one flat rate we had lots to enjoy! A little educational information--very brief as most of us were 3 and under! Apple-cinnamon doughnuts and apple cider, a hayride, pumpkin picking, petting zoo and fun time on the playground! Needless to say it was a fun and busy morning! So here are a few pictures from our fun day!

Fun in the petting zoo. Reed LOVED feeding the goats right out of his hand--nice and germy, right?!

Emery-Claire enjoying her doughnut with Joseph

The "big" boys--not really posing for the camera

"I found it!!"

Enjoying the hayride!

(pictures slightly out of order) EC & Elizabeth with their doughnuts