This is the lead teacher Mrs. Syneseal who is also a Purdue grad. Yea!
She's had a great time playing on her carpet square this afternoon. She's sang songs, dismissed her students to line up at the door, sang the calendar song while pointing to the wall, etc. She's quite the teacher imitator.
A few weeks ago Anna was out playing in the snow and poor Audrey had to stay in and watch out the window. Thankfully Audrey was content to watch Anna entertain her through the window. It's much more fun to get snow thrown at you when a window is blocking it. :)
We couldn't leave Audrey out of the fun so we decided to give her her first sprout. Too cute!! Gotta get her used to pony tails and hair bows now so that she's not pulling them out in a few months. :0)
In a few weeks this will be home. Michael has accepted a job offer with his previous employer and we'll be heading to West Virginia. We're excited yet sad to leave family and friends. God's hand has been very evident in all of this and He's given us a sense of peace in knowing that this is His will for us. We went house hunting last weekend and after two intense days of looking at many houses, we decided this was the one. It's in a nice neighborhood where many of the houses had swing sets in their yards so hopefully that means playmates for the girls. We also visited a church we really liked while we were there so we're looking forward to going back to it. Anna keeps asking to see a picture of our new church. :) Won't be long and she'll be seeing it in person. Thank you to those of you who've been praying for us as we've faced some difficult decisions over the past few weeks. This has been a whirlwind and we've begged God for His wisdom and guidance and praise Him for answering our prayers. It is so comforting to know that "God is with you wherever you go" (Joshua 1:9) which happens to be the verse this year for Anna's preschool.
Thankfully she likes her bed during the day...just not always at night. :0)
4 Generations
New outfits
Siblings
Audrey with her new Cookie Monster.
My grandparents with the girls.
My mom made each of the grandkids their own fleece blanket. They are so soft and each is sized accordingly to the kid. You can imagine how much material it took to make the older kids!
By the end of this week we started seeing their pretty smiles again...what a blessing!
Audrey really enjoyed tearing the paper just as much if not more than the new toys. Anna has spent most of the day playing with her new kitchen and also with her new dollhouse accessories.
We made cupcakes to celebrate Jesus's birthday and had fun coloring pictures of the nativity while Daddy read about Jesus's birth from the Children's Bible. Anna helped narrate... she loves to tell about the angels talking to the shepherds.
We hope everyone has had a great day celebrating the birth of our Savior. The past month has been fun for us as a family with Anna being old enough now to understand some of the Christmas story. We walked through the living nativity, went caroling at a nursing home and to some homes of older people in our church, and delivered sweets to our neighbors. Anna's excitement with each activity has made it all the more fun.
Audrey's 9 month check-up was yesterday and she's doing really well. Dr. Miller took her off of her Zantac so she's only taking Prevacid now and if things continue to go well, she'll take her off of that at her 1 year check-up. I never would've thought she'd be on reflux medecine her entire first year but I praise the Lord that it's helped her body heal and made her a lot more comfortable. She weighed 16 lbs. 8 oz. (continues to gain 1 pound a month) and was 27 3/4 inches long. Compared to Anna at 9 months she weighed 2 pounds less and was only 1/4 of an inch shorter which has been the pattern at each check-up. She's gotten really picky with food, seems to do best with table food. She'll eat peas and green beans if we put small pieces on her tray but she won't eat them very well out of a baby food container. She loves bread, yogurt, and fruit puffs. She's even gotten picky with her cereal which just a week ago she loved. She doesn't want to take much time to eat as she'd rather be down on the floor working hard at walking. I've even decided to wean her from nursing as she's not into taking a full feeding. She'd rather "graze" and have an open buffet all day and mommy's not into that. At 8 months she mastered standing up, crawling, and walking behind things so I wonder what 9 months will bring. She is definitely on a mission to walk. She crawls over to anything she can stand up to, even the wall, and then cruises along usually holding on with just one hand. She is constantly scaring me! And it seems that I really can't get anything done now because she doesn't stay in the same spot. She either follows me right on my heels or gets into stuff. The bathroom doors now have to be shut as well as the pantry and laundry room doors. Anna is our "policewoman" hollering often to let us know what Audrey's getting into. That's probably why Audrey grabs handfuls of Anna's hair any chance she gets. :0) Here is a video of Audrey cruising behind her walk along toy. She uses this to get around the house and as you can see, gets frustrated when she runs into something and is stuck.
Thankfully I found her a snowsuit she could actually bend in. It's my $1 garage sale bargain!
Audrey gets so warm and cozy in the car that she usually drifts off to sleep even if she's not been awake very long. Riding in the car has always made me very sleepy too. Nothing like motion and the low hum of the tires on the road to lull you off into dreamland!
