Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! This is as close as we got this year to a Christmas card. Hopefully we can get a good family picture soon. But for now...little J &H with some sibling hand holding wishing you a "Very Merry Christmas!"

A few of my favorite things...

This year during the Christmas season, a few of my Favorite things...

~being together as a family

~our crooked Christmas tree that is now only decorated on top. Yes, it has been pulled over AGAIN. Don't ask how many times.

~"Ho, Ho"s . Not the snack cake but what my kids think Santa says.

~Our Christmas lights on the front of our house. Mark & I's 5th Christmas together as a married couple and the first year we have had lights.

~"Jesus." Yes, I am thankful for Jesus and the gift that he is to us. But also that my kids know who he is. And I think it is slightly humorous that they fight over him while playing with their little people Nativity.

~Stickers. A new favorite part of our bed time routine is the advent calendar and the stickers we put on each night.

~"Snowman" "Santa" "Tree" "Pretty" (in relation to anything that lights up and sparkles)
Just a few of the words that I hear all day long.

Despite all the sickness we have had in our house
AND
I can't put any Christmas presents under the tree
AND
I haven't made any of my normal Holiday goodies to give to friends
AND
we never got around to a Christmas card...

So I will embrace Christmas and its meaning and cherish all of my favorite things so far about the 2010 Holidays!

Nativity Play

Hannah and Jack were able to "participate" in our church's nativity play this year. Jack was a sheep and Hannah was an angel...and I thought they were adorable. They, of course needed a lot of assistance from us but we were excited to watch them have their first stage debut. Also, we both forgot the camera so thank you Paul for the pictures.

(H is not pleased about the halo - she ended up not wearing it)

(Jack was a little shy and sat at my feet eating fruit snacks, YES - it was a bribe)

Get your Dance on

Dancing at the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Little Diva

This girl loves glittery, sparkly, shimmery everything. She loves headbands, hats, purses, etc. I sometimes find her with 3 head bands on - she loves to dress up.

Loves to show off the belly button!

Its a Potty

You might be wondering if we are actually starting to potty train our little angels. The answer is "heck NO." They are no where near ready. But, there has been some recent interest in the toilet around our house.

Jack : Uses the stool to climb on the toilet (while closed) and yells "potty" over and over.
Hannah : Can't stop playing in the water. Yuck! Little opportunist sneaks in whenever the bathroom door is even slightly ajar.

So...we got a little toilet for them just so they can see it and sit on it if they want to. (Mainly Jack). But as far as actually doing anything with it...not yet! I imagine it will be awhile and we are definitely not interested in forcing the issue which in my mind would just be making it a much longer process than necessary. For now we just read books on it.

Flashback

Me Feb. 1981 (around 18 months)

Me 2010, still playing with toys.

Jack 19 months.

Hannah scared of them being on her cheeks, 17 months.

O Christmas Tree

We put up our tree and had to wait awhile before we could decorate it due to all of us not feeling well. But, we finally found a day where we could all participate in the ornament hanging. Everybody helped and it was a lot of fun. The top part of the tree has breakables and the bottom part is sparsely filled with un-breakables since I can't seem to keep their curious little hands from touching the oh so desirable ornaments. There are also a few that just never made it on to the tree and were confiscated by my darlings as new toys - "oh well."

We only had one mishap (ahem, Jack).

But we fixed it (sort of) and the tree will go on twinkling and sitting a bit crooked until Christmas.

Here is me posing while the kids take pictures. I guess they were sick of being in them and wanted to take some too, Dad held the camera while they pushed the button.

Finishing the decorating with a cheers of eggnog.

Tulsa Treasured Monents

Here are just a few more of my favorite moments from our vacation...

My parents doing the Hokey pokey to entertain the kids who were already seated at the table.

Attempted posed picture.


"I love it in here."

Peek-a-boo.

Wish this could have captured her squeals of delight from being thrown up in the air.

Quack Quack

My kids loved feeding the ducks. They know what ducks are and they love to tell me what they say, "quack-quack." We have a book called Rainbow Duck that we read all the time, so it was fun to be able to show them some real ducks. On Turkey day it was quite cold, so we were bundled, but it was so fun! But you wouldn't have even known it was cold outside - I think they would have stood there all day throwing bread to the ducks, if we had let them. And they didn't even try to eat the bread - just threw it!

Uncle J and Aunt Amie

We had so much fun the first time we decided to go see some other ducks later in the weekend with GiGi and Grandpa at a park near the house. It was warmer this time but VERY windy.

Again, we had lots of fun and as were leaving noticed the big sign that said "Do not feed the fowl." oops!

Our Turkey Day

*Disclaimer: There are a bunch of posts coming. Due to error user on an unfamiliar computer during Thanksgiving, I could not post while we are on vacation. Then, we all got a nasty cold upon returning home, so watch out blog world...the posts have been piling up.

We had a chilly day this year for Thanksgiving, but at least it was warmer than it would have been in Colorado. We mainly played indoors in the morning - exploring all of Gigi and Grandpa's Toys. The kids had fun entertaining the likes of everyone: Gigi, Grandpa, Uncle Jacob, Aunt Amie, Great Nanny, and Great Aunt Jackie.

Jack with his Great Nanny

There were yummy smells coming from the kitchen all day, it was heavenly. Before nap time we took the kids to the park to feed the ducks along with Aunt Amie and Uncle Jacob. It was very cold but the kids had so much fun throwing bread to the ducks and yelling "quack-quack" at them. (Pictures of this will come next week).

We ate a late thanksgiving meal after the kids took naps and they loved trying all the "thanksgiving food." Also, check out my brother's pie - it was the first pie he ever made - I am so proud of him, it was good too!

Thankful for so many things this Thanksgiving~

Our family being together - Last year we were thinking of Hannah wishing she was already with us.

Thankful for this guy!

And for time with family!

Aunt Amie, me, and Hannah at dinner.

Mark, Jack, and Uncle Jacob.

Cut it off

(Jack's new hair cut)

I have been fired from cutting little man's hair...at least that is what was strongly implied the last time I accidentally butchered (trimmed) Jack's hair in August. My best friend Becky is just finishing cosmetology school and so I decided to let Becky do the honors on Jack's ever growing mullet like head of hair...today was the day.

Jack did pretty well sitting still for an 18 month old. He didn't really like the sound of the clippers but we did lots of distracting via tootsie roll pops, hair clippies, mirrors, brushing Becky's hair, and kid apps on my phone. Becky is so great with kids and really knew how to connect with him and try and make him more at ease despite his trepidation over that buzzing thing that kept coming near his end. The end result is a little Big Kid. His hair looks great.

(Becky and Jack)

Also while there, Mark got a cut and then me too. No pictures of our new do's but here is a picture of the remnants of hair on the floor after my chopping experience.

p.s - Thanks becky - you're Awesome!

Uncle Hub-bub

Reading books of course with Uncle J...it's their favorite activity.

My brother Jacob a.k.a. "Hub-bub" recently came for a visit. It was so fun to have him visit us. He has been out in California working and was on his way back to Tulsa to see his lovely bride. We are really thankful for the time we had with him. He came on a Thursday and left on Saturday morning. It had been 6 months since the kids had seen him and they thoroughly enjoyed showing off for him. It was sad to say good-bye but we are so excited that we get to see him again for thankgsiving.

(Hannah being comforted by Jacob)

Using Jacob as a trampoline.

Grandpa Pumpkin

We recently had a visitor: my dad, (Grandpa to Jack and Hannah). He came up in the afternoon from Denver where he was on a business trip and arrived just before the kids woke up from nap time. We enjoyed the nice weather and walked to the park, we read books (lots of em), and we had lots of fun enjoying our short time with him. The next morning we had breakfast together and then Grandpa had to head back down the hill for a few more meetings before heading home to OK.

~Fun on the slide~

~Sitting on the "rock" - a new favorite word~

~Swinging time~

~Working on a puzzle~

~Reading books~

Hannah calls Grandpa something like "ba pa" and for Jack it comes out "pumpkin." Weird, right? I know he will get it eventually but for now he is Grandpa Pumpkin. We all really enjoyed the visit and are thankful that we will see him again soon at thanksgiving!!

We really love visitors and our next one comes tomorrow. We CAN'T WAIT!!!

The Last of Halloween

I am sure you could tell from our Pumpkin Party that our little ones dressed up as a scarecrow and Dorothy. Hannah had the little red shoes and everything - even a basket with a dog...not that it ended up in any photos. Jack seemed to do pretty good with his costume too and we did manage to get some photos with the hat on!

This was our first year in our new house and the first year we have had trick or treaters since Mark and I have been married. I thought I was prepared and bought candy. Then, someone told me that there really are a LOT of kids coming through so I bought more. We ran out by 6 o'clock when I had to announce the group of kids on our front porch that we were all out of candy. Oooops!
Jack and Hannah really liked seeing the kids come to our door and J even helped hand out some candy.

After we ran out of candy we fed the kids dinner and headed over to some friends house for some soup and hanging out.

Bringing Eyerus Home

There is a family from our adoption agency who is trying to bring home a special little girl named Eyerus. She is 7 yrs old and has lost her mother to AIDS. Her dad who has HIV took her to the orphanage in hopes of her finding a family who would love and take care of her. The Brown family wants to be this family for Eyerus. Take a look at their blog...http://www.bringingeyerushome.blogspot.com/.

Prayers for the family and for Eyerus.

kids halloween party

This year we decided to have a Pumpkin Decorating Party for our kids and their friends. It was really fun and chaotic. 14 adults, 9 kids (2 and under), and 6 infants (under the age of 1) --that is 31 people!!! We had treats, stickers & markers for decorating and we did lots of playing. Thankfully, it was pretty nice outside and we spent a good deal of time on the porch.

This is an attempt at a group picture...

Notice: Jack's cheeks are all puffy because I tried to bribe him to sit for the picture using candy corn.

Decorating.