The Children's Bell Choir

This past fall Anna started playing in the Children's Bell Choir at church.  She LOVES it!  It makes my heart fill with joy to see her making a joyful noise unto our Lord and I've even teared up a few times too.  Below is their Christmas performance from last Sunday.  The kids did a great job!  I am co-leading this choir but my friend Amy does most of the work and she has an incredible amount of patience with the kids.  They are blessed to have such a wonderful director.  I think I'm there for moral support and behavior control.  :)

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Happy Birthday Jesus Party

Last Sunday we had a Happy Birthday Jesus party at church and the kids had a great time.  We ate lunch and then went to many different stations where the girls made crafts, played games, and even made an edible manger scene.  Thanks to Daddy's engineering skills or maybe just the massive amounts of frosting he used, our manger scene stood on it's own.  It was quite tasty too.  :)

Celebrating the Season

It's not like Christmas time without some sweet treats sitting on the counter so the girls and I had to make our favorite Santa Buttons this past week.  Oh how yummy pretzels, melted Hershey kisses, and M&M's are all together in one bite!  :)

This little guy doesn't get much chocolate but he does love to eat the pretzels. 

He's also getting much more brave as he's started standing up without holding onto anything.  He thinks it's so funny as he giggles and screams excitedly when he does this.  What a goof!

Blessings

We were hoping to get pictures taken of the kids professionally at the beginning of November but it just wasn't working out so I decided to take them myself.  We used our back yard and the park and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.  We'll try to get some professional pictures taken this spring or next summer but for now, at least we have some updated pictures of them. 

Can't believe how fast they are growing and changing!  Love them so much!



So Grateful!

I'm so overwhelmed with gratitude right now!  My heart is bursting with love and joy and so much of that has to do with these three kiddos below.  They are such wonderful gifts and I can't thank the Lord enough for our 3 sweet miracles!  They were playing on the floor climbing all over Michael and I love having family time like that.  There's nothing better than evenings spent playing together and enjoying one another. They grow so fast - wish I could freeze time!

Here are the kiddos with their shoeboxes full of toys and neccessities for the Operation Christmas Child program.  I'm so thankful that we can give back.  I praise the Lord for all that He's given us and for blessing us with opportunities to share His love with others.  We are definitely blessed beyond measure!

 And last but definitely not least, I'm so grateful for this handsome man below.  What a great dad and husband he is.  He recently changed jobs and is now working from home and it has been soooo nice.  He gets more time with the kids and I and we are loving it!  There's quite a bit of traveling during these first weeks but after that it should slow down.  He's such a hard worker and I am grateful for his dedication to his job and proud of him for his success. 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Noah is 1!

Our little guy turned 1 on Friday, November 4th at 8:06 a.m.  Gosh, how the past year has flown by!!  We had family and friends help us celebrate that weekend.  On his actual birthday he got to have his first chocolate chip cookie which he loved of course.  He had a cupcake the next day when we had his party and he wasn't too into it.  He tasted it and ate a little of it but mostly wanted to play with it.  He got many fun new toys but wasn't overly into unwrapping presents.  The tissue paper was tons of fun to play with and he didn't like being taken away from the previous new toys he opened to open another new one.  All in all we had a great weekend celebrating our sweet Noah Michael.  We are so thankful for him and the joy he brings to our family!  What a blessing he is!

Fun with leaves

We've had beautiful weather the past few days and have a yard full of leaves that have been fun to play in.

 Audrey couldn't wait to throw them in the air!

 Anna did a great job raking up piles of leaves.

 Noah has been slobbering TONS as you can see from his shirt.  He definitely needs a bib on 24/7!

 I love the picture below of the girls... Noah was not loving laying in the leaves like they were.

 Notice his top two new teeth?

11 Months

Here's our "cuteasaurus" who's now 11 months old!  Ahhh... slow down buddy!  He's a crawling machine and is FAST!  He's pulling up on his knees and his legs to stand sometimes but is mostly content to just crawl.  I think it'll be awhile until he walks.  He's a chunk for one thing and has a lot of weight to lug around and he's just laid back, content, and not overly motivated to do more than crawl.  I also think he's lazy.  I know that's awful to say but the boy won't even hold his bottle or his sippy cup.  I kinda had a feeling he was going to be lazy from day 1 with all of the troubles we had nursing.  He was great at nursing during the let down phase but once he had to work at it, forget it!  He would then pass out and go to sleep.  Oh what struggles we had!

 He loves to play with airplanes just like his Daddy.  Good thing Daddy chose airplanes to decorate his room with.

 Such a silly boy who loves to wave and yell "Ha!" (meaning hi) at everyone he sees while we're out and about or even at home.  He's definitely a very friendly little guy and hasn't shown much stranger anxiety up to this point.

Growing Kids

I wrote down the kids' growth stats from their check-ups back in August and I'm terrified I'm going to lose my slip of paper with the info on it before I get it transferred to their baby books so I'm going to post the info on here.  This is what Moms who have lost their mind do.  When you can't find your mind, you go to the blog to remember everything you've forgotten.  =) 

As of August 2011...

Anna at 6 years old weighed 60 lbs and was 49" tall. (off the chart in percentile for both)

Audrey at 3 years old weighed 29 lbs (25th perc.) and was 37" tall (50th perc.).

Noah at 9 months old weighed 25 lbs and was 29" tall. (80th percentile each)

There, now I don't have to fret about losing my slip of paper anymore.  Because I'm really surprised it hasn't come up missing yet as we have a little girl in our house who is 3 with very sticky fingers that seems to pick up things that don't belong to her and then she misplaces them and we can't find them.  Sigh...  Life is always interesting that's for sure!  There's definitely no time for boredom in our house.

It's Fall

These 3 little faces bring me such joy!  I'm so grateful for these miracles the Lord has entrusted to us.  And, we are really enjoying the beautiful fall weather He's blessed us with as well.  The 60 and 70 degree daytime temperatures are perfect for playing outside.  The leaves are starting to change and the yards are pretty and green again as they've been given many drinks of rain to help spruce them back up from the dry, ugly brown they were this past summer.  Thank you Lord for your blessings, both big and small!

Little Miss Preschooler

Audrey started preschool last Tuesday and thinks she is big stuff!  She was a bit apprehensive about staying in her class without me but didn't cry when I left her thankfully. 

 She's awfully proud of her new backpack.

 She found her cubby right away with Miss Kimberly.

 As soon as we got to her classroom she went straight over to check out the class pet, a hermit crab, and immediately opened the top of the cage to "let it out".  Thankfully her teacher was standing nearby and quickly closed the cage back up.  I'm sure she made a mental note too about needing to constantly keep her eye on Audrey.  You never know what this curious little girl will think of next!

She's enjoying school as they get to paint and cut with scissors everyday which she loves to do.  The only thing she hasn't liked is that they haven't gone out for recess yet and that's the main thing she was looking forward to as that's what she hears big sister Anna talk about often.  The preschool has an abbreviated schedule the first two weeks where the class is split into two different groups and each group goes for only an hour to ease them into the transition of preschool.  Once she starts going full time next week she'll get to have recess.  She'll be one excited little girl when that happens!

10 Months Old

Our little guy isn't staying little.  He's a solid boy who likes to eat most table food and continues to grow very fast.  He's getting very mobile... crawling everywhere and pulling up to things on his knees.  If he can't see us, he comes to find us. 

 He continues to be happy and laid back and a great sleeper, praise the Lord!  His top two teeth have recently just broke through the skin and those have caused some night time fussing but overall he's done very well with teething so far. 

 He loves to play with puzzle pieces and stacking rings.  He will patiently sit and try to put the pieces in the puzzle even though he's too little to master that task but he can successfully put the rings back on the stacking tube.  He loves to play with blocks and take things in and out of containers.  He's also found enjoyment in opening and closing drawers which has also resulted in some pinched fingers - ouch!  Overall, he's doing great, getting so big, and such a joy to all of us.  Mommy especially enjoys his newfound hobby of giving me kisses... open mouth slobber all over my cheek.  =)  Such a sweet, precious boy!

And of course the boy loves to play with balls!  He even watches sports on t.v. with enjoyment already.  :)

Helpful Checklist

I quickly figured out that Anna needed some guidance in the morning when getting ready for school so I thought a checklist would help her get ready on her own with minimal help from me.  It has worked GREAT!  She thinks she's big stuff marking off the tasks as she gets them done.  :)