A Great Christmas Idea

Blake and I are going to be at our house this year on Christmas day with our kids (something that has never happened before!). We are sad to not be with family in Oklahoma and to not be down with my family sooner, but we are really excited to start some traditions of our own and be able to celebrate this day with our little family! I have been thinking a lot about traditions and what kind of things we want to incorporate into our family during the Christmas season. We have been reading Advent passages (not 100% faithfully mind you!) to prepare our hearts for the true meaning of this season, when Jesus "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:6-7).

I have loved reading what other people do during the Christmas season with their families and have tried to find ideas that will point us back to Jesus. I want to share a very simple, but I think very effective idea to get our hearts and minds in the right place.

"I thought of you..."

On Christmas mornings ever since my now six foot tall sons (3) were little, we GIVE our gifts. The pile by each person has the gifts they are giving, not getting, and "I thought you could use this Dad" or "I thought of you the minute I saw it" can be heard instead of "it's MY turn".

This was on one of the GirlTalk blog posts (one of my favorite websites) about Christmas traditions. Check out the full post here.

What a great way to turn the attention from what I am getting to what I am giving! I am looking forward to starting this with our family this year, and praying that this little practice will assist my little ones to be more mindful of giving than receiving.

The Past Three Months....

Well, three months have passed since my last post. I thought I would get back into this with some highlights and pictures of what has been going on with our little family in the past few months!

I had the wonderful opportunity to get away with some college girlfriends one weekend in October. This was the first time in 2 years that I went away without my kids! It was a big deal! I was a big mess of emotions: excited, nervous, guilty, sad, happy! It was crazy! On the way down the a song played and contained this line, "I miss everything about you." I had to change the channel! I was getting a little emotional thinking about my kids! Such a mom! : ) Blake had a wonderful weekend with the kids (his very first time with them by himself for an extended amount of time!). He informed me that he made it church on time with the kids (a feat we rarely accomplish with two parents home, hmm....maybe that says something about me...!) and he even put a bow in Karis' hair! Wow! I was totally impressed, and informed him I would plan another weekend getaway since he is daddy extraordinaire! While I was away he even got out and about and took the kids to a pumpkin patch! As much fun as I had with my girlfriends, I was a little jealous that I missed this moment with my family. Here is a picture of the fun they had...


Next we come to Halloween. We had a fun get together with our small group from church, where we encouraged everyone to dress up! Karis and Owen were adorable as a bunny rabbit and a monkey! (Yay for hand-me-down costumes!)



We spent Thanksgiving down at my mom's house, and had a mini family photo shoot. Here are some shots from that day...






And now for the current update. Blake finished up his semester at school almost a week ago. It has been so nice to not have the stress of tests and assignments on his mind. He has one class this spring (a pass/fail course, so shouldn't be to difficult at all!), and then, HE WILL GRADUATE!!!! I can't believe are coming into the last semester of his seminary career! It's exciting! But, we don't know what we will do post graduation yet. Lots of prayer is going on for sure!

One last picture from our small group Christmas party last week. Get excited for Christmas friends! Jesus came! His birth, death, and resurrection gives us hope! Praise the Lord!

Merry Christmas!
(almost!)

My First Yard Sale

So, I've never done a yard sale as a married woman. Actually, I've only ever contributed things to yard sales that my mom had and did all the work for. This was quite an experience let me tell you! Number one thing I learned, advertisement is KEY! We didn't advertise until yesterday, ok let's be honest, it was last night before we put the signs up! Mistake number one folks! You have got to get the word out much sooner. That's one of those things that I knew but just didn't get around to doing. We also wanted to put an ad on Craig's list to promote it, but didn't get around to doing that either. People talk about the early birds that will come to yard sales and we were expecting to have lots of people when we got going. But the first hour only 2 people came! Those 2 people came at around 7:45! It was slow! Got to advertise!

Second thing I learned, don't plan a yard sale when you have something going on the night before. I had a Pampered Chef party for a lady last night and didn't get home until almost 10. I then had to finish up some things for the yard sale. I didn't get in the bed until 1 am, and the alarm went off at 5:45 am. This was the first time in a long while that I actually had felt like I had just laid down to go to sleep and then it was time to get up again. I will plan out my events a little better next time!

I think I made a whopping $11 this morning, which will buy my movie ticket when I go out later this afternoon for girly movie time! (Going to see You Again, and very excited!) Oh well, you live and learn, and then try again!

One really really cute story to share about Karis at the yard sale....

Karis stayed out and played while I was doing the yard selling today. She had so much fun and was checking out everything that my neighbor and I were offering. After a while a group of people came out to look at things. Karis followed a man up to our table and started showing him things! She would point to an item and say, "look," then move to another item, pat it and say, "It's nice," then she headed to our diaper genie, pointed and said, "pretty!" She was trying to sell our stuff! It was priceless! She offered us some comic relief on the sad yard sale day!

Any tips you have for yard selling? I would love to hear them for future reference! Ok, time for a nap for this tired household!

Karis and the Moon

Karis is adorable. I love the way she is learning things and communicating them to us! Tonight on the way home from being in downtown Raleigh, she looked out the window, and with great enthusiasm, said "Look at the moon! It's a circle! Oh my goodness! It's so pretty!" Every time she would catch a glimpse of it she would tell us to "look at the moon!" It was so great!

We have begun going through the catechism for young children at this website here.
We ask her, "Karis, who made you?" and she has two regular responses. It's either Karis or Grand-Daddy! After we say no and point up she says "God." We ask her "What else did God make?" And doing a fun little hand motion she says "everything!" It's so neat to watch her learn things and see her growing in the knowledge of the Truth! I'm praying that we will be faithful to teach our little ones about the great God that made the pretty circle moon and everything else!

September Already???

I cannot believe August came and went, and I didn't post one single thing! Wow! Well, I have some fun stuff to share about the kids so I thought I would put a little something on here today. (Don't have too much time though, we have a Labor Day cookout to get to shortly!)

My little Karis is talking so much and is learning more words and phrases. Her favorite phrase right now is "Where is ___" So it may be where is daddy, where is Owen, where is mommy, etc. She asks multiple times in the day "Where is Camden?" "Where is Co-Co?" "Where is La-La?" Camden and Co-Co are her cousins, and La-La is my sister (Cam and Co-Co's mom). I don't know if she's actually asking for her Aunt Lala, or she thinks that my mom's name is Lala. When she sees a picture of my mom she says, "Ahh!! Lala!" So, I think she's a little confused. She's constantly asking for people or things. I heard her ask today, "Where is milk?" She's a funny little girl!

She's also started a funny thing in the mornings. I usually leave the kids in their cribs for a little while in the mornings before I go down and get them. Karis' new thing to do (which I hear on the monitor) is ask, "where is mommy?" and then she proceeds to yell at the top of her lungs, "Mooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyy!!!" It's quite hilarious!

Owen is finally sleeping through the night (a day I was beginning to wonder if it would ever come!) and is such a sweet little baby! I so enjoy seeing his little face light up when he smiles and hearing his little laugh that his sister gets out of him! He loves Karis and I can't wait to see them play more together. He is still not crawling or pulling up or anything, but he can roll around like a pro!

Blake is back to school and working, so we are still adjusting to the new schedule. It has been a really fun summer and I'm sad to see it go. But, I am quite ready for the change in the seasons and all the wonderful things that come with the fall!

Family picture at the beach

Cow Appreciation Day 2010

July 9 is Cow Appreciation Day. This is not one of those days that most people have written down on their calendars and look forward to all year long. But now, I will be looking forward to 2011's celebration of our bovine friends! Chick-fil-a (definitely my go to/favorite fast food restaurant) has a generous way of celebrating this wonderful day of the year. If you dress up like a cow (attempt a head to toe costume) you get a free meal! It is awesome! I'll take free chick-fil-a however I can get it, so you best believe I was dressed up like a cow! Not only myself, but Blake and the kids too! We all received free meals! Well, we didn't cash in on Owen's, but we probably could have. We joined our friends Cory and Autumn and their little girl and had a wonderful meal, made even better by the fact that it was free! : )

Here are a few pictures of my sweet little calves.....

Not sure why this picture is so small. I made the onsie for him. I think this is my favorite picture of him thus far in his little life! He was so stinkin cute tonight! : )

I think Karis looks more like a cross between a cat and a cow. I didn't know how else to do the ears, but they definitely look cat-like to me!

It was such a fun night with the family and our friends! I am seriously looking forward to next year! : ) Here is to Cow Appreciation Day!

My little Talkers

Karis is now officially two years old! That is just crazy to me! With her growing up comes some fun new things, and one thing is her talking more and more! She has said some funny things in the past few days, and this is one I just have to share!

Karis has a new phrase that she is saying a lot. If she is playing with Owen and he happens to grab her hair or in any other way accidentally hurt her she makes a grimacing face and says, "Oww! Ee it me." (He hit me) We have no clue where she got this from! We are trying to teach her that Owen is not hitting her and that he doesn't mean to hurt her. We are also trying not to laugh when she says this too! It is funny, but definitely don't want to encourage a habit or tattle-telling! I've actually heard her say this when she bumps into inanimate objects as well! She's crazy!

Owen is almost 6 months old now! (How crazy is that!) He is starting to get a lot more vocal too! Pretty sure he said "da-da" this week, though it was in midst of babbling! He says "ba-ba" and "da-da" now. He is getting so big, and so cute!

My kids, man do I love them!

What a night....

I think it will be therapeutic to write out this amazingly horrible night. First let me give some back ground info....

We are on our way back from our big trip out west (which I will have to blog about another time to share all the fun that we had!) and planned before we left to stop and spend the night somewhere on our way back. Normally we push through and drive through the night, but Owen is NOT a good car rider and needs a break. So, we decided to drive to Nashville, TN which would put us over halfway home. I had this idea in my head that we would have a fun evening together, stay at a hotel with restaurants nearby so we could walk around, and just relax and have fun as a family! Well.....let me just tell you how the evening actually played out.

About an hour before getting to Nashville Owen started screaming and crying. It wasn't time to eat, he was just ready to be out of the car! We knew we were getting really close so we just kept going (mistake number one). My wonderful mom got online for us and started looking up hotels that were in the Nashville area. After calling a few we decided we would hit up a Holiday Inn Express that was outside of town a bit. Blake then said that we should have my mom check on Expedia to see if there were any deals on hotels in downtown Nashville (mistake number two). We thought it would be fun to stay right in the heart of things (mistake number three). Mom found a deal for Best Western in downtown, so we decide we will go for it instead of the Holiday Inn Express (mistake number four). With Owen still screaming we just wanted to get out of the car and into a hotel! We didn't clearly listen to my Mom while she gave us directions and couldn't find the hotel. We turned around and finally got on the right road. We found the hotel, and we were not too happy with what we found!

The hotel is not in the best looking area of town and we did not want to stay there. So, I started asking how we could cancel the reservation. The lady at the front desk said that we would have to go through Expedia (who we just booked the hotel with about 10 minutes earlier). So, I call expedia. They have to contact the manager of the hotel to see if we can cancel. We start driving away to head to the Holiday Inn Express when the expedia lady comes back on the phone to tell me that unfortunately the Best Western will not issue us a refund. So, we turn around and grin and bear the hotel. I'm trying to stay positive and think that we can still have a nice night even if we are in a not so good hotel. But, things don't get any better.

We get to the hotel, check in and find out that we are on the fourth floor. Not the easiest thing with two kids, but ok, we will deal with it. We get the kids inside with a few luggage items and wait for the elevator. After standing at the elevator for close to five minutes a hotel employee (who had been standing there the whole time) comes over to inform us that the elevator is being worked on and won't be ready for 30 minutes or so! AND WE ARE ON THE FOURTH FLOOR!!!!! I was shocked! I just couldn't believe it! We carried our little ones up to our room and Blake went and got more luggage. While he was gone, both my kids were screaming and crying, and I just wanted to join in with them!

Still trying to stay positive, we get dressed and walk a little ways to go get dinner (the one thing I really wanted to do that we actually did!) We ate at a place called Otter's. Ordered our food, and I misspoke and ordered the wrong thing only realizing it after we had paid. Dinner was pretty pleasant, then we got back to the hotel. Owen was over this whole being out and being up thing, so he started screaming and crying again. I put Karis in the bath and let her play a bit while I passed Owen over to Blake. When I got back to Karis saw that she had pooped in the tub. Yep, that was awesome. Who doesn't want to clean poop from a hotel bathroom after a frustrating evening! : ) Owen finally calmed down and went to sleep, Karis finally wound down and went to sleep, and Blake and I are now getting some much needed rest.

I've been trying to think positively and be thankful all night in midst of one frustration after another, and let me tell you it has been a challenge! Karis has a veggie tale video and the words to one of the songs has rung in my ears all evening "A thankful heart is a happy heart..." I have not had a happy heart but I am fighting for it! I am thankful for God's grace and that He is in control, even over nights where nothing goes your way! He is good even when my circumstances are not.

Ahh...that was therapeutic. What a night, what a night! I sure hope the rest of our drive home is uneventful and smooth! Here is to having a happy, thankful heart!

Still Here....

It's 12:12 pm, and the van is still not ready. If it's not ready by 5 pm we are going to take my mom's car that they have so graciously offered us. It's smaller than the van, so we will be much tighter. But, we need to get to Iowa! Please say a prayer that our van will be fixed by 5 o'clock tonight.

Once again, in our heart we planned our way, but our Lord is directing the steps. Hopefully we will be on the road soon. I will update later today.

Our Trip Has Been Delayed....

Grrr....our trip to Iowa has been delayed by about 12 hours or so. The plan was to leave here tonight around 8 or 9 pm, but now we are leaving tomorrow morning sometime. We came down to my Mom's on Sunday evening to have our van worked on before we head out for our trip. The AC has not been working and we were not about to drive halfway across the country with no AC!!!! So, we dropped the van off Monday morning at 9 am, they worked on it, got a call Tuesday morning saying that they discovered it was the condenser and they had to go get the part in Charlotte. At one o'clock they told us that the part was in and they would call us when it was ready. We didn't hear anything until almost five o'clock when they let us know that they found another problem and the van wouldn't be fixed until Wednesday morning. I am so thankful for the guys working on the van and the extent that they are going to to get this thing fixed! But, I'm still a little bummed that our plan is not working out the way we, well, planned.

We had ourselves psyched up for the night drive (Blake stayed up until 5am last night and slept half the day to prepare for the drive) and had our plan in our mind as to how things were hopefully going to go. Now, we are waiting. We hope the van will be done early tomorrow, but they didn't give us an exact time. I'm shooting for before noon. That would be great! We will see though. I am ready to get this big drive over, and really wish that half the trip could have been driven through the night while the kids were sleeping. Well, I keep thinking this verse and taking comfort in it...

"In his heart a man plans his course,

but the Lord determines his steps."

Proverbs 16:9

This delay doesn't surprise the Lord. I've been trying to think on the positives too. Today was my dad's birthday and we were able to spend more time with him this evening. We are able to spend one more night with my mom and step-dad (who had knee surgery today!). We were able to get our hair cut by my fabulous sister! The kids, as well as Blake and I, will get a good night's rest. We are still going to take our time and stop when we need to with the kids. We will probably stop and spend the night somewhere tomorrow night too.

So, we are going to be ok. God just wanted us to leave Wednesday during the day instead of Tuesday night. I'm a little more anxious about driving in the middle of the day with our little ones! Prayers are again most appreciated! I'll let everyone know how it goes in a day or so!

Our Big Trip Out West

Tomorrow the family and I are off on a big adventure. We are driving to Iowa. Did you get that? DRIVING to IOWA! If you are unfamiliar with where Iowa is, just think the very center of the U.S., then straight up almost to Canada (Minnesota is between Iowa and Canada). Without stopping the drive should take 20 hours. Did you get that? 20 HOURS IN THE CAR! And we have two under 2! So, if it's not clear from this post already, I'm a little nervous/not looking foward to this LOOOOONG drive. I would greatly appreciate all the prayers we can get for this!

Though I'm not excited about the drive, there are several things I am excited about with this big trip. First, I'm so excited to have some extended time being together as a family. Blake works a lot during the week and we are often busy with things, so it will be nice to just have some good time together as a family over these next two weeks (we won't be back until the end of the month). I am excited to make memories with our little family of 4! I am hoping to make the most of the drive out, so we are planning on stopping for longer periods of time to just get out and play and run around some! Should be fun!

I am also excited to see all the family out west! Blake's family is mainly in OK (we will be traveling there after our time in Iowa) and we get to see them about once a year. Most of them have not met our little Owen yet, so I'm thankful to get out there so soon after he was born. We will be having a family reunion in Iowa with Blake's dad's side of the family, and there are some fun things planned for our time there. Once down in OK we will see Blake's mom's side of the family. I'm just so ready to see everyone, and wish this 20 hour drive wasn't in our way (if only flying were much much cheaper!).

We will be making a stop in Branson, Missouri too! I have heard so much about this place and I am just SO excited to have some time there! We will be visiting with Blake's step-mom there!

Lots of family time and lots of fun on the way! I know it's going to be a great trip overall, but the drive, ughh! Again, prayers are much appreciated!

A Great Moment

I think I had my favorite moment (thus far) with my two kids tonight. As I was getting ready to put the kids to bed tonight, I found myself with Owen sitting on my lap in the glider and Karis sitting on the footstool facing us. She started making a little sound that Owen found quite funny, and so he started giggling. She stopped, so I prodded her a bit to keep on since Owen really liked it. So, she started doing some other crazy things (just shaking her head back and forth and making noises) which proceeded to make Owen laugh even more! And then Karis started cracking up, which made Owen laugh more, which made Karis laugh more! All the while I'm laughing and just trying to soak up this sweet sweet memory with my two kiddos! Owen ADORES his big sister! He lights up when she comes around, and she does alot seeing how she LOVES her little "bubba!"

One day they may not like each other very much at times and may fight and get angry with one another, but I will remember back to the sweet times when they just liked to laugh at eachother. I'll remember how sweet they were with eachother, and I will try my best to remind them of that too! But, I sure hope there are more moments like these as the days go along!

Our Four Month Old Needed a Hair Cut!!

I am still intending on sharing pictures from our getaway weekend at the lake with my family, but I have something else to share tonight!

Our little sweet Owen has had some interesting hair for a while now. Most of his hair has fallen out, except for right down the middle (natural mohawk). Also, at the end of his little mohawk has been this little bunch of hair, affectionately called the "tuft" of hair. It somewhat resembled a rooster's tail! For a while we have been saying, "the tuft has got to go!" So last night, we gave our little four month old his first hair cut! We captured the whole event on camera, so enjoy the footage!

(The first video is of the cutting of the tuft, the second is finishing the hair cutting process, with a little bit of proof of life thrown in at the end!)

So, what do you think?? He looks good without the tuft, huh?!?

Excuses for not blogging in a week.....

We were out of town for the weekend, I've not felt so great since we've been back, I have two kids under two, Blake finished up his semester last week, went super double coupon shopping at Harris Teeter, I had to pack for our weekend getaway, we didn't take the computer on the trip, watched the Lost finale (all 4 1/2 lovely hours), contemplated the lost finale for a while, and have been reading articles about lost after the lost finale.

I should be back in gear tomorrow with some pictures from our weekend away!

Karis' Prayer

For a long time Karis has been great about being quiet and holding our hands when it's time to pray over our meals. She bows her head, peaks up on occasion, and then excitedly says "Amen" after us. Recently we started having her repeat a small prayer after us, just to practice. This is how it goes.....

Daddy: Karis say, "Dear"
Karis: Dear
Daddy: God
Karis: God
Daddy: Thank you
Karis: Thank you
Daddy: For
Karis: Five (instead of repeating, she starts counting!)
Daddy: the food
Karis: the food

We have been working with her on counting, so it's good to see she is connecting the numbers together. I think our next lesson will be on homonymns though! : )

Until then we'll enjoy her little prayers thanking God five the food!

Proof of Life

Snack time and veggie tales video

Today, I was talking to Karis and telling her how much I loved her and how I wouldn't trade her for anything. I hugged her and kissed her, then she grabbed my face to kiss my cheek (I thought) and proceeded to blow a raspberry instead. Priceless moment with my girl! She's awesome!

Tasty, Easy, Low Fat Dessert

We had the opportunity to fix a meal tonight for some friends of ours who just had a sweet baby girl a few weeks ago. I made my favorite chicken and rice casserole (a staple of my childhood), green beans, salad, biscuits, and a little dessert. I like to call them little pudding pies, and I want to share the recipe with anyone who may be interested in a very tasty and not so bad for you sweet treat. I made these a lot after having Karis as a way to indulge without feeling so guilty!

Little Pudding Pies

1 pack of sugar free fat free Jello Pudding (I use chocolate or chocolate fudge, but any pudding will work)

1 cup of fat free milk

1 cup of fat free whipped cream (plus extra to top the pies with)

1 pack of keebler mini graham cracker crusts (they come in a pack of 6)

Combine the jello and the milk in a medium size bowl. Mix until the jello is mostly combined with the milk.

Add the whipped cream and mix until thoroughly combined.

Fill each mini crust with the pudding mixture.

Top each pudding pie with whipped cream

You can also add little extras to the top of each pie too. I have done chocolate sprinkles and some fruit. I once used oreo pudding and put crumbled oreos on top (a little less good for you, but still not too bad!)

Also, you can make it in a regular graham cracker crust, but I would double the recipe to allow enough to fill it entirely.

So, that's my little recipe! So simple and easy, and so very yummy! Try it out, and let me know what you think!

Proof of Life

I got the "Proof of Life" idea from a friend who got the idea from a friend. To see the explanation for this series go here.

What does an almost two year old, a pen, and Daddy's Westminster Larger Catechism equal.....

Mother's Day and Owen's Baby Dedication

What a day this has been! My third mother's day as a mother (we celebrated when I was pregnant with Karis too) and it was great! I am so thankful for my kids and so proud to be their momma! They are growing up so very fast. Makes me sad if I think about it too long, so instead I'll just get to some pictures of our day....

In addition to Mother's Day, we also celebrated Owen's baby dedication at church. There were twelve babies presented before the church today (and lots more little ones on the way). It was a time of thanking God for the gift that these children are, asking the church family to help us in the spiritual shaping of our children, and asking the Lord to guide our children to saving faith in Jesus Christ. We were asked this list of questions during the dedication:

1. Do you today recognize these children as the gifts of God and give heartfelt thanks for God’s blessing?
2. Do you now dedicate your children to the Lord who gave them to you all, surrendering all worldly claims upon their lives in the hope that they will belong wholly to God?
3. Do you pledge as parents that, with God’s fatherly help you will bring up your children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” making every reasonable effort, with patience and love, to build the Word of God, the character of Christ and the joy of the Lord into their lives?
4. Do you promise to provide, through God’s blessing, for the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of your children, looking to your own heavenly Father for the wisdom, love and strength to serve them and not use them?
5. Do you promise, God helping you, to make it your regular prayer that, by God’s grace, your children will come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins and for the fulfillment of all his promises to them, even eternal life; and in this faith follow Jesus as Lord and obey his teachings?

The section that I highlighted there is a line that has stood out to me since Karis' baby dedication (where we were asked these same questions). This line sums up what the baby dedication is, a surrendering of all worldly claims on my child's life. I firmly believe that my children are ultimately the Lord's. He has seen fit to entrust them to me for a time, and I am to be a good steward of this gift of motherhood. Whatever He chooses to do with their lives is His concern, and I am to trust Him completely. These are difficult things to say and believe in my flesh, and I know that as they get older it will become more and more difficult. But they are the Lord's. I will do all I can do to provide for them, protect them, teach them, love them and be an example for them. But at the end of each day I must say, these children are the Lord's.

I dedicate you, my little baby Owen, to the Lord who gave you to me, surrendering all worldly claims upon your life in the hope that you will belong wholly to God. And, I promise to make it my regular prayer that, by God's grace, you will come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins, and that you will follow Jesus as Lord and obey His teachings.

I love you,

Momma

Saturday Fun

The kids and I went over to our great friend Lisa's house today for lunch with some other fun girls. After having a yummy tropical salad with beans and fruit and veggies (but no meat!) Lisa made us all milkshakes. And, miss Karis enjoyed a little milkshake of her own, vanilla to be exact! Here is a picture of my cutey little girl....

We have more fun stuff going on this evening, so it's going to be a busy great Saturday around here!

Play date with Angela and Cannon

The kids and I have been down visiting family this week to give Blake some time to work on papers and study in peace. Only a couple of weeks left in the semester which equals crunch time! Since being down here we have shopped (Ikea, I love that place), seen lots of family (my Nana and Paw-Paw met Owen for the first time!), and have just relaxed! Yesterday Karis, Owen and I had the chance to hang out with my college roomate Angela and one of the little boys she nannies for. We hit up the park for some fun since it was such a beautiful day! Cannon is just a few months older than Karis. He's shy, and Karis is not shy at all! She was running up to all the other kids and trying to talk and play with them! Here is a picture of the two kiddos, so cute!

I think Karis looks like such a big girl in this picture! She's growing up too fast for me! We had a great day! We will head back home tomorrow. I'm so anxious to get home to Blake, but sad to leave everyone here. It has been a great trip, as always!

"Girl, you need to blog again!"

In the words of my bff Angela, "Girl, you need to blog again!" Yes, yes, it's been nearly three months, so it goes with me and blogging. I do have great intentions, I really do. I think about blogging a lot, but just haven't done it. So, there's no better time than the present huh!?!

Angela encouraged me today to just blog about life, the realness of your days, whatever! It is a great tool to look back through and recall what has happened. I ran across a blog the other day of a girl who blogged every day for the first year of her son's life. She would put up a picture, share what they did, fun things that her little boy did, and whatever else to document his first year of life! That is pretty awesome to me, and I want to be able to look back at things like that too. So, here is to blogging about the everyday things that happen, and perhaps some other things too!

Well, to catch us up to speed, here are a few little things about the past months....

Life with two little kiddos:

-It has been a MUCH easier transition than I ever thought it would be! God has been incredibly gracious with this new phase of life. I get out and about with both kids quite frequently, and with not much drama! My life saver is my Ergo baby carrier! Wow, that thing is AMAZING! I can't imagine life without it now having two kids! It's like a magic sleep inducing item for Owen. I pop him in and he goes right to sleep! It has made my Target shopping trips so much easier.

-Having two in diapers = lots and lots and lots of diaper changing and diapers everywhere!

-Owen doesn't like to ride in the car at all! Karis would knock out on our three hour trips to my mom and dad's area really quickly when she was a few months old. But Owen, not at all! He maybe slept an hour on one trip down. Other than that, he's a screamer! (Hmmm....if only I could figure out a way to combine the Ergo and his carseat....)

-I have only had one day where I thought, "I think two kids is enough for me!" Other than that one moment, I am completely open to more little blessings if the Lord so wills.

I LOVE my kids and am so thankful for the opportunity to be their momma! It has been a wonderful three months with Owen, and a wonderful almost 22 months with Karis! I'll blog more about our new adventures with them later (and hopefully be more consistent in the future, but how many times have I said that? But this time I'm serious! No, seriously, I'm serious!) : )

It was nice to blog again. Thanks for the encouragement Ang!

Karis and Owen

It has been another long time since I have updated things here, but I have a moment and thought I would! Being a mother of two little babies now (our son Owen was born on January 21st!) has been, for the most part, great! Owen is super easy right now, as he really only eats, sleeps and yes poops! He is perfectly content to hang out in the bouncy seat, but he is quick to let you know when he is hungry and ready to eat! Karis has really done a wonderful job with her baby brother. It is so sweet to hear her say "Heyyyyy" to him whenever she sees him. She's really curious when he cries and will say "Ok" (her way of telling him that it's ok, no need to cry!) but does it so sweetly and gently. She definitely has a very caring way about her with him. This video was taken when Owen was one week old. Karis climbed into the glider in their room, held up her arms, and said "baby." We think it was her way of telling us that she was ready to hold him. I had waited a while to let her hold him, but I thought, as obviously Karis did too, that this was the time to let her. So, here is one of the sweetest moments yet of my two kiddos....

I will try to be better about posting on here. Trying to adjust to this new life with two is taking a little time, but I will do my best!