My girl

Wrestling

Our boy is in dire need of a brother.  It is not unusual for me to hear Emma's cries throughout the day:  "Moooommyyyy, Moooommmyyy... heeeeelllpp!!!!"  I'll come in and find my girl planted on the floor and her brother on top of her.  Poor Little Man is ready for some wrestling, and this girl of mine just does not know what to do.

The Aunt and her Cat

We then drove an hour to go see Alison at her home.  We played outside, visited the neighbor's two goats, donkey and hens, did some body painting, read books to the kids, played memory, and just had some plain ol' fun together.

Visiting with friends

On December 26th we drove to the outskirts of Atlanta to go visit my sister and some friends.

We first stopped to visit with Pace and Sarah and their little girl.  Had lunch, drove around in a golf cart, and squeezed in as many conversations in a two hour period as we could get.

Christmas morning 2014

We had a sweet Christmas morning this year.  We read the last Jesse Tree leaf, then had a caramel pecan overnight french toast casserole for breakfast.  We sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus, and Emma got to blow the candle out (we used the casserole as the "cake").

Then opened our stockings and gifts.  The kids had a great time doing so.

We then headed over to Memma and Poppa's to do Christmas there.  It was fun to see what gifts the children chose to take there-- a revealing of which were their favorite gifts.

Gummy vitamins (which he is not allowed to eat yet, but none the less...), and a backup Doggie gifted by Aunt Alison.

And some more gummy vitamins and a Curious George Christmas movie.

Movie time

We decided to spend December 24th in the morning with our friends watching a cartoon movie.  The following picture was taken during the "two minutes" the two "babies" sat still for.  The older ones lasted a little longer-- about 45 minutes.

 

 Rainy day + friends + warm chili + Christmas season = awesome time!

Emma's hiding place...

(... and daddy's).

Twin day

Roaming around Costco, delighting in some free samples and cheap hot dog and pizza.

We had about three different people ask us if we had twins.

"Cheese"

This little ham of mine will now say "cheese" to the phone/camera.  

He is also eating slightly better these days.  His doc has limited his milk intake, and thus has been more inclined to try a few new things, but nothing to get too excited about.

Lights of the South

We had a great time going to see the Lights of the South with some sweet friends of our last week.  We had perfect weather, and got to sit on some hay and get pulled by a tractor while getting a tour of the 100 acre land and its 5 million Christmas lights.

Emma roasting a marshmallow.

The Morrises and the Mills.

Only the Morrises

Emma Girl and Zeke Boy.

Those two...

She corrects me

We were practicing our numbers the other day on our magnetic board, and when we got to number 7 and saw me draw a line in the middle, she said:  "no, like this," then proceeded to write the number 7 the "correct way"-- without the middle line.

She has also been known for correcting Mommy and Daddy when reading books.  If we "mispronounce" a word, or "skip" a line, she will be quick to correct us.

Sick

"The Bug" paid us a visit last weekend, and between BB's throw-up and Emma's urine in bed (we also decided we would try to get her out of pull-ups that weekend.  We have lost that battle, btw)... needless to say, we were so thankful when Monday rolled around.

A sure perk from the weekend, though, was that we got to snuggle up with this little frog (^).

The boy and his Mommy's makeup

My boy got into my mascara *several times* one day last week.  He eventually broke it, and after a few spankings for deliberately disobeying his Mommy, his make-up-drawer-exploration days have finally ceased. 

She just looks too grown up

This girl and her "blanket baby."

Something about that hair and something about that smile and tilt of her head... she looks all grown up.

Sunday School Christmas party

I am so incredibly thankful for our church, but also overwhelmingly delighted with our Young Married Community Sunday School class.

We had our Christmas party last weekend, and as Byron put it, it was like having Thanksgiving dinner all over again.  But food aside, the evening was filled with laughter and a sweet reminder of the Lord's kindness to us through fellowship.

Oh, and just as a fun little extra-- Byron and I won second place as best-dressed couple (we wore our Christmas pajamas).  I am pretty excited about our chronological read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year second place prize.

Fall...

... and its piles of leaves.

Reading with friends

I was thrilled to get to hang out with our former neighbors the other day.  Both kids spent a lot of time playing outdoors while us mamas enjoyed some visiting time together.  After lunch time, and while cleaning up, I found this lovely sight to my surprise--

This big sister reading to her baby sister and her baby sister's little friend.  Priceless!

A rough day

Between having four molars come in, and trying to get into Big Sisters doll's crib, I'd describe this day to be a "fail," wouldn't you?

Tickled

Last week when I went to drop the kids off at "school," one of Byron's teachers told me to "take a look" at the Christmas tree-- that there would be an ornament from Byron there.  

Lo and behold, this is what I found.

I was incredibly tickled by it.  Now daddy Byron even has it as his phone picture background. 

Christmas tree set-up

Emma loves to help her daddy.  Not pictured, but right before bringing the tree inside, she wanted to make sure she, like daddy, also had her gloves on and pair of scissors to help daddy bring the tree inside the house.

Good kitchen helpers

Thanksgiving 2014

Once again we got to celebrate Thanksgiving with Byron's extended family.  About 40 people gathered for a wonderful feast, great conversation, and fun time all together.

Playing with the "big" cousins who were outside on the other side of the window. 

A sweet daddy in the making

Little Byron's newest thing is putting his Doggie in Emma's doll stroller and pushing him around.

It simply melts. my. heart. to see him do this.  Nobody told him to do it, and Emma doesn't even play with the stroller that much, so we know he wasn't imitating Big Sister.  I guess it made sense to him to put the one he loves in his stroller and push him around.

Blue

Now that I'm finally finished uploading our Mexico pictures (uff!), I can now try to play catch-up with our life since we returned home.

Have I mentioned how my little girl loves art?  Paintbrushes, colors, cutting, and markers... especially markers!  *sigh*  

While she was doing some "quiet play" the other day, she somehow managed to color with a washable blue marker every square inch on the palm of her hand.  She comes running to me and says:

"Mommy, mommy... mira!"

Then proceeds to lick both hands and rub them on her face.

Sigh...

She was quite proud of herself...

And I guess I should have been also.

Spiritual mothers

Yay!  I also got to visit with my two Spiritual "mothers" while in Mexico.

Diana & More.

Coffee with cousin

A few of us are lucky to have had both a cousin and a friend in one person growing up.  Sihan was mine.  Funny thing is that we mostly only remember our fights, funny stories (mostly involving me saying something odd), and lots of laughter.

Good thing that the fights have ended.  But the laughing at the "naive" things that I say has not.  Our evening out having coffee right before I returned to the States was filled with that-- laughter.  Oh... how I wish I could record some of the things we talked about.  But guess we'll now leave it up to our good memory to remember.

Our dads were two of seven siblings.  Now the only two of the seven who have passed away.  My dad passed away seven year ago, and hers less than two.  I had not seen her since his passing.  It was sweet to be able to share emotions and similar struggles with her in relationship with that.

At the State Fair

Another highlight from our trip was that we also happened to be in Merida at the same time our State Fair Xmatkuil was going on.  I was a little hesitant about taking the kids since it was a 45 min drive and I knew they'd be a lot of walking, but with the help of a stroller and the helping hands of Oma, this little adventure turned into a wonderful memory.

There was lots of pointing-- "douh, douh."

We even found a few baby cows.

And BB got to enjoy a pony ride!

(Emma was, of course, too afraid to get on one.)

Enjoying some fair-food... french fries!  No complaints here.

This is more like the things Emma likes to do-- we found a little station where the kids could color.

And a little caterpillar ride.  Definitely a highlight.  And once again, no surprise here, my fearful Emma covered her ears the entire ride.

Oma treated the kids to a marble game.  Emma had a fun time throwing these marbles and win a prize.  Byron was more interested in sticking them in his mouth (!!!).   

But the absolute highlight were the snake and bird exhibition that we were not allowed to photograph.  Emma really enjoyed going through the snake one and seeing the snakes stick out their tongue.  She was fascinated by it (I think mostly also because she has also enjoyed the movie/book The Jungle Book).

The bird exhibition was pretty awesome too.  They had birds such as eagles, owls, vultures, etc. that had been injured and were now on exhibition.  We got to see them real close and even flop their wings a little.