Downward dog baby

You really only need to watch the first 30 seconds of this video...silly thing wouldn't let me upload the edited version. Yes, it's cold and the baby really should be wearing pants and socks, but we found that he practices crawling a lot more without them.
Not that he needs a lot of practice, because he's EVERYWHERE. This afternoon I placed him in my room with a toy, right in front of the bathroom door while I was blow drying my hair. All of the sudden I heard a big thud. When a peaked out at him, he had flopped himself on his belly, weaseled his way to the wall, yanked on a cord and pulled my alarm clock off the end table. I'm so not used to this. Alison would have sat there quietly and played with the toy for an hour. Eliot says forget this silly toy, I want danger!

Snowed in!

We got about 14 inches of snow on Sunday. Church was canceled and the town pretty much shut down for the next 2 days.

We took advantage of our snowed in days and did a whole lot of nothing. I loved it! We stayed in our jammies, took naps, read books, drank tea and played some games.Ben took Alison outside for awhile. She could barely walk through the snow, but they made snow angels, a snowman and she even got daddy to play house.

Eli and I stayed nice and toasty inside. He did not like being left out of the fun, but we had fun getting hot cocoa ready for Ben and Alison.

Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve
We celebrated Christmas Eve different than most, but I suppose we always will. As the kids get older our traditions will change, but for now I'm enjoying what we have. We had the Boomer's over for Christmas Eve dinner on Wednesday so we could all relax and enjoy our time together and not have to worry about rushing off to church. Christmas Eve day Ben made cheesesticks and dessert pizza for lunch and then we opened our Christmas PJ's.

I was surprised how great the kids did during the "family friendly" Christmas Eve service. I know they see Ben play music all the time, but I was just waiting for Eli to shout "Dadda!" or Alison to run up to him on stage. They acted like it was no big deal Daddy was up on stage and were more interested in the bulletin than anything else. It was a sweet time for me. Alison leaned over to me and whispered, "Mommy, they're reading the same story that's in our Advent book!". Praise the Lord something's been sinking in this season!


My favorite memory of this Christmas was seeing Alison sprint out of her room at 7:30 (the kids actually slept in!) to see her stocking. We all snuggled in our bed to open stockings.

Ben made tea pastries and Alison took her time putting every single item of her stocking away, in it's exact place.
With a fire lit, tea pastries in the oven and hot coffee in hand, we let the kids open their presents. Eliot was excited to play with the wrapping paper and we enjoyed time playing with each new toy. My favorite gift was a box of nutty bars. I know, it's funny. But Ben and I both have fond memories of nutty bars when we were kids and it was fun to reminisce and share some stories with the kids. They were even our "fancy" treat for our princess tea party.

After naps, we went to the Williams' for dinner. I'm so thankful for their friendship and the kids had a blast playing together.

We had a great Christmas and I hope next year, and every year after that is just as good.

Merry Christmas!

This Speaks For Itself

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

A house full of LOVE

I love my family!

Snow Day

A random blizzard hit yesterday...well, for Virginia it was a blizzard. We woke up to a few flurries and by the afternoon we had about 4 inches on the ground. We only played outside for a couple of minutes, but Alison LOVED it and immediately started throwing snowballs.

We enjoyed a quite day at home and made gingerbread cookies.
I love snow days, especially when I get to stay in my nice warm home with my family.

A Simply Shear Sunday

We were loading up the car yesterday to go to church, when I noticed Alison was carrying a tiara. I asked her why she needed to bring her tiara to church.
"Just in case I need to be a princess, Mommy."

Eliot learned a little more than about Jesus in Sunday school. He came home with a whole new vocabulary and hasn't stopped jabbering for 2 days.

8 Months!

We've had a great family day, celebrating Eliot's 8 months of life. We watched Alison in her ballet class (aka: watch Alison stand in one spot with a glazed look on her face while all the other kids do the routine) and then we went to the Christmas Parade. Eliot's second tooth came through this morning. He seems to handle teething much better than "sister bear" (as Alison likes to be called) ever did. He's been a little clingy/cranky, but nothing unbearable.

Eliot was SO happy to get his first "famous daddy's" cheese stick tonight.

Just some random things

Eliot is on the verge of crawling. He gets up on all fours and just rocks back and forth. He scootches backwards and now he just needs to figure out how to go forward.
We're hoping he waits until after Christmas to really get on the move, or our presents and tree are going to be in trouble.

Alison has been asking to wear dresses every day this week. Yesterday she wore a cute little bracelet and carried her pink purse with her the entire day...even during school.

We're thinking singing might be in Eli's future....and this is what happens when you make Alison watch Veggie Tales for school.

Letter J

We kicked off the Advent season with 'J' is for Jesus. We talked a lot about Jesus' birth and used a sticker board to help narrate the story, although somehow baby Jesus ended up with a pet lizard. It's important to us that our kids know the truth and have the focus of Christ...which brings me to my beef with Santa. Alison had a Christmas party this week at her art class. The teachers had her make a popsicle tree and told her to put it in her house so Santa knew to come give her presents. This is one of my ultimate pet peeves. Why do people think they have the right to convince my daughter to believe in lies! She came home asking when Santa was coming to our house to give her everything she's ever wanted. So, sorry to all you parents out there-but I told my daughter the truth, that Santa is just pretend and we give gifts to each other to celebrate Jesus' birth and the ultimate gift that God gave us through his son-forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. A few days later, Alison had another art class in which they were writing letters to Santa. She felt very convicted that her teachers needed to know the truth about Santa. I wasn't there for the class, but she told me later that her teachers talked about Santa again and she very bluntly told them that Santa doesn't come to our house.
Besides killing Christmas for all the other kids at the Y, we...

jumped in some leaves,

played jump rope and learned how to do jumping jacks. We sang jingle bells and made some jewelry. We also learned about jungle animals and jaguars. We worked on telling time, lacing, tracing and letter recognition.

I had "WOW!" moment this week. I started a prep for Kindergarten workbook with Alison this week. I've hesitated for awhile because I felt like the concepts were a little too advanced for her, but I finally decided just to jump in and give it a try. First page, with no prompting, she got it 100%. She was able to look at a picture and circle the correct letter the word started with. For example, she could look at a picture of a rainbow and find an "Rr" and circle it. WOW. I didn't have say anything or point to anything...no instruction, she just got it. Is she Ben's daughter or what?!

Shows: Veggie Tales: Josh and the big wall, Veggie Tales: Jonah, Gigi: Dreaming of a pink Christmas, JoJo's circus

Books: Cusious George takes a job, Jaguars, Let's Go, Jill and Joe!, Johnny Appleseed, The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the wash, My "j" book, Jungle Animals, The story of Christmas

Biblestories: Jesus' birth: Luke 1-2, Jonah: Jonah 1-4, Joshua: Joshua 6

And for a little fun, we spiked Eli's hair