M

My son, give me your heart.

Proverbs 23:26

I know, I know. The quality is terrible. Can’t do much about it. The camera is pretty old.

This post is all about my little man. I got to looking at my previous blogs and I noticed that they were pretty heavy on the Olivia side of things. I don’t mean for that to happen, it’s just that I post a lot of videos of her so she seems to dominate the pages of this blog…….but enough about her (j/k)

I am so thankful for him in my life that I hardly know how to put that into words. Even before I got pregnant with him, I knew I wanted him to be a boy. I love that he is still cuddly in the mornings. I’m so impressed with how well he talks…and sings. I can already tell that he has a kind little heart. He loves to hug and kiss his big sister and everyday he tells me that he loves me so much. He is smart as a whip and just as cute as he can be. Not only did he inherit his looks from his daddy, but he also inherited Michael’s sense of humor as well. Just today he came into my room with this big grin on. He had gotten one of Olivia’s swim suits and put it on over his clothes. He knew I would laugh, so he came looking for me. Also, he will turn anything into a hat just because he knows we will laugh. I can be in the next room and hear him say “hat” and I can’t wait to see what new thing he has gotten to balance on his head.

I can’t imagine our family without him. He has made me a better mom and he made Olivia a big sister. Although I don’t think he looks like me at all, he does have some of my qualities. He is very particular even to the point of being quirky. I lean in that direction myself so I identify with that side of him, but at the same time I know that he needs a little help learning that it’s ok to venture outside of the comfort zone every now and then. I try to gently rock his boat every now and then just so he doesn’t become too set in his ways. He truly is a blessing and I tell him all the time that he is my favorite little boy in the whole world.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you so much for blessing us with Noah. I pray that you will bless him and keep him and cause Your face to shine on him. Give us the wisdom to raise him to know and love You. Thank you for the peaceful spirit I see developing in him. Protect him from harm in his early years and from temptation as he grows into a young man. Guard his heart so that it is always soft to You so that he walks in the plans that you have for him. I know that he was Yours first God, but thank you for the time that You have chosen to share him with me. Amen.

Olivia came home doing this last week and I thought it was so cute. This is part of the stretching they do in the first few minutes of ballet class. I”m so happy that she has been able to take dance. She looks forward to it every week. She has a Christmas recital this weekend and I will be interested in seeing how she likes performing for any audience…..or not. haha

L

Look to me and be saved.

Isaiah 45:22

Today we went to Memaw’s for her annual Christmas Cookie Bake. This was our first year. We really had a good time. Barbara had made aprons for everyone and each child had their own cookie mix, butter, egg and rolling pin. Olivia did not quite grasp the concept of egg cracking. She cracked the egg and poured it on the table before putting the shell in the cookie mix.  At least it was the whole shell so it was easy to retrive. In the picture below you can see Barbara cleaning the egg of the table. hehe

Before I could stop him, Noah had the whole stick of butter trying to eat it. I don’t think he actually ate any, but he did a great job of squishing it in his hands. Noah had a great time with the whole process, but he was not about to have anything to do with wearing an apron.

She was so proud of her cookies.

I’m not sure how many of you know my nephew Jadon, but I had to add this next picture because I was so shocked at how much Noah looked like him in this shot.

Yesterday I made Olivia this heart shaped pancake for breakfast. Naturally she loved it. I took her picture with it and then she wanted me to cut it. As soon as I made the first cut she said, “Oh no. You broke my heart.” For some reason that really tickled me and I had to share.

Later that same day I caught her and Noah in a tug of war with a toy. I asked her why she was being mean to Noah and she said, “Because I had a bad attitude.” Then I asked her why she had the bad attitude and she said, “Because God made me that way.” Pretty funny. When I aske her something and she doesn’t know the answer she has taken to saying things like that.

Things have been so hectic around here that I have not yet blogged about Turkey Day. I really was waiting until I could post some pics, but there are literally 100s and the task was a little too daunting for me to tackle right now. So, I’m going to kick it old school and simply blog sans the pics.

Wednesday: We got up and cleaned the house from top to bottom because I really hate to come home to a messy house. I knew we were going to be spending the night in Eufaula, so I wanted to get the landry caught up, bathrooms cleaned, and everything in it’s rightful place. So after a little lunch we hit the road. Eufaula bound. We went over to the Munn’s right after we arrived and had some fun playing on their trampoline with the kids. Then Michael and I went on a quick little ride on Dad’s motorcycle. Then Jessica and I started to do some prep work for the big meal and we did the deserts as well. After supper we played a little and then it was time to put the kids to bed. What a disaster! I have done an excellent job of taking two kids that are not naturally good sleepers and training them to sleep very well both at naps and at bedtime. But, as I learned Wednesday night, I have not done as well of a job making sure that they are flexible. As soon as we walked out of their room they started to scream. I’m not talking about a little crying, or even a lot of crying. I mean screaming. Think Psycho. It was like they were both terrified. I went back in there to try to calm them and Noah was yelling, “Home, home!” Through her sobs Olivia was able to beg us to let her go home and sleep in her own bed. So after some talking we decided that since I still had a cake in the oven that was going to need to be iced, Michael would take the kids home. You may not be thinking that that was the right thing to do, but trust me it was. So they went home that night, went straight to bed, and got up that morning and went straight to the car to head back to Eufaula.

Thursday: Jessica and I spent all day in the kitchen cooking the food and we had a great time. Hands down this was the best food any of us had had on Thanksgiving ever. The menue was Turkey, gravy, sweet potatoe casserole, dressing, corn casserole, brocolli rice casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, turtle pumpkin pie, and chocolate cake with cream cheese icing. The meal was great, but Noah couldn’t stay awake so he slept on Michael’s shoulder while we all ate. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and we went back home at a decent hour. I went to bed at about midnight.

Friday: I woke up about 1 in the morning and had to run to the bathroom with the throw ups and the yuck yucks. I then repeated this pattern for the next several hours. Sometimes the trips to the bathroom would be 30 minutes apart and sometimes they would be 5 mins apart. The most violent stomach bug I have ever had. By 5am I was able to go back to sleep. At 7 Olivia woke up and started vomiting. She vomited all day and I only had enough strength to lay on the sofa with her and hold a towel for her. We went through all our towels and all her clothes and then finally I had to get off the sofa to do the laundry. Oh, by the way. I was really glad that I had taken the time  Wednesday to clean the toilets. Nothing says I love you like a clean toilet to throw up in. Finally the day was done and we all went to bed and slept all night.

Saturday: We were all feeling pretty drained and Olivia still had to fight off the last little bit of her bug. We had a shower to go to in Eufaula that I was pretty sure we would not be able to make it to, but as the day wore on everyone seemed to rally so we took naps and then headed to the shower. About a mile from our house we saw a wreck. Nothing major, but some pretty bad damage to both cars. Thankfully no injuries. When we were about 15 minutes away from our destination we came up on the worst wreck I have ever seen. We were the first or second car to get there. I was not expecting any survivors from one of the vehicles. But God was watching out for this family of four. The kids were 18 months and then a very fresh new born. The dad and kids seemed to be totally unharmed and the mother had what seemed to be minor injuries. The dad just walked up to me holding the baby and gave him to me. I patted the baby until he was asleep and talked to the mom who was on the ground, in pain, but alert and breathing well. What a miracle. There was nothing salvagable about those vehicles but some how all five people walked away from it. The shower was nice and the ride home was uneventful.

So that was a brief recap of our Thanksgiving. We had a good time but, as usual, I was ready for Monday when me and the kids could get back into our routine and back to normal.

K

Keep your tongue from evil.

Psalm 34:13

Ok. I’m going to attempt to catch you up on our weekend, but so much went on that I’m afraid I may lose some of you before I’m done. Grab a cup of coffee and get ready for a marathon blog. I will tell the story with as many pictures as possible to keep this from getting too wordy.

Olivia has been begging us to get our Christmas tree up for a couple weeks now. Everytime we go into a store we see trees displayed and it has almost been too much for her to wait. I usually like to put the tree up around Thanksgiving, but I love Christmas so much that I figured why wait. If Wal-Mart can decorate for Christmas in mid November, so can I.

Here are the kids waiting while Michael gets the tree out of the attic.

So we finally got the tree up. Can you tell that the kids helped? We seem to have a high concentration of ornaments right on their level. I love it.

Time for bath and I just had to share these. The kids LOVE bath time and I love playing with their hair when it’s soapy.

Saturday morning rolled around and I had a TERRIBLE case of cabin fever. I needed to get out of the house in a bad way. I decided to take Olivia with me and leave Noah with his daddy for some bonding for all of us. I love my little girl so much and I really enjoyed spending some one on one with her. We went to the Dollar Tree and she picked out some sun catchers to paint. Next we went to Target and then on to Hobby Lobby. Finally we ended up at Kroger and by that time it was time to make our way back to the house for nap time. We didn’t really do anything special, but we got to be together without any distractions. She really is a cool little girl and I savor all these sweet moments together. Isn’t she cute?

After naps the kiddos wanted to paint their sun catchers. Olivia was really into it and Noah had fun, but I think painting in those little spaces was a bit out of his league. Basically he diped his brush in the paint and splattered it everywhere. Oh well. There’s always next year for Noah to paint Christmas sun catchers. He kept saying, “I did it!”

Just as we were finishing up with the sun catchers Olivia starts complaining that her legs are itchy. I just figured that it was dry skin because we all get a little itchy in the winter. I noticed that she was really scratching so I asked her to pull her pants down so I could put some lotion on her legs. Well what do ya know. She was COVERED in hives. I mean large areas were completely covered. The worst part was that she had some on her face and neck too. I gave some Benadryl and called the Dr. to make sure I didn’t need to do anything else. Boy oh boy. Never a dull moment.

Sunday unfolded without any major news or drama. We did our weekly grocery shopping after naps and just enjoyed the down time together.

Today Olivia had a major catastrophy. If you know Olivia, you know this was a serious problem…

Her beloved high heel shoes broke while she was wearing them. Thankfully she didn’t get hurt. She literally wears these shoes every minute that we are at home except when she sleeps. After some major crying we decided to hop in the car and go get some more shoes. She used her birthday money and got to pick the ones she wanted.

No worries. All is right with the world now.

I blogged about our game day fun a few weeks ago, and I promised more pictures would be on their way. Well, Melissa was so kind as to make me a CD from the pics from her camera. There were probably close to 100 pics, so I had a hard time narrowing it down, but I decided on these. We had such a fun day.

Stay tuned and I will be blogging tonight about all the fun we had this weekend.