Will it ever be picture ready?

That's the question of the day! Hahah! We're still working on getting the house put together. We're mostly done, except for a few boxes here and there (most of them in our bedroom - the last place that ever gets unpacked). The few we have left here in the living room we've kept around as a barrier to keep Elizabeth "contained" until we can finish getting the dining room area baby proofed a little better. LOL

This week, the packing has slowed quite a bit because we have a sick bug running through the house. So far Elizabeth and now Dennis have been the only unfortunate victims. Nothing too bad, just a head cold, you know how miserable babies can be with head colds though.

We're back on schedule with home school. It's been a struggle getting back into the old grind again - for all of us! Slowly we're getting used to being on a schedule though. I've added a German language course for the boys, now. We listen to an audio adventure that has a few German words sprinkled through it for vocabulary and then it asks questions at the end. It's fun, and better than dry workbook stuff.

For History, the boys have been studying Early colonial/pre-Revolution life and we are watching this really neat series I got on DVD called Drive Thru History. The host drives around to all the historical places and explains the events that went on. It's got a nice fast pace to it and is really entertaining. The boys complain but they would anyway even if SpongeBob was teaching history. HAHA! They prefer it over reading out of the textbook at least.

For Science we've given the Flying Creatures book a rest for a bit. Sean is reading about different masses - this week he learned about air and water cycle, clouds, etc. Ryan is learning about his 5 senses and his body. I've broken them up for a while, for Science, (we were studying all together before) to give Sean some independent study time.

OH! And Elizabeth, she's learning the parts of a face (haha) and learning how to walk! :) She knows how to stand up and will stand on her own for a few seconds until BOOM! She also cruises along the furniture walking. Not too much longer now, she'll be toddling around!

Well I just wanted to check in real quick since I havent really had time to write lately. I will check in again later, hopefully with a few pictures. TTFN! (that's Ta-Ta For Now for all you who are not fluent in Tigger-speak ;) )

Settling in

I'm just popping in here real quick to let you all know we are moved in and getting settled into our new apartment. We just got around to setting the internet up tonight and have about half the house unpacked. Surprisingly we haven't had much problem fitting into the apartment here. The boys have already met our next door neighbor (they have a young boy around their age, maybe a little older) and have met a few other kids at the playground.

Moving into the house has been great. I cant say the same for our moving out of the other house. UGH!! What a disaster, probably one of our worst moves to date! I wont get into it now or I'll just get all upset and mad all over again but just pray for us! We could use it! I think Dennis and I have already resigned to give it over for God to handle, frankly He's the only one who can. I'm sorry to be so cryptic, I just really dont feel like going into detail about it.

We will post pictures of the apartment soon (hopefully) as soon as we get the rest of this stuff unpacked... and find my camera. haha!

Elizabeth's First Snow

Well, it isnt our first snow of the year, but it is our biggest so far. It snowed all day and night yesterday leaving us with a whole bunch of snow to play in today. It's supposed to snow some more tonight and tomorrow, but so far not much has happened today (dont count my chickens, right?).

We layered up the boys and Elizabeth (think, the movie Christmas story: "I cant put my arms down!") and headed outside to play, Copper too. Elizabeth, she wasnt quite sure what to think of all this white stuff.





But Daddy and Copper helped ease her concerns.



Eventually she sat down in the snow by her self.



And Ryan introduced her to her first snow "ball"





It didnt take her long to start eating it!



Ryan either, yellow snow jokes aside.



The boys began to gear up for their snow fight.



The first ball was throw... war has broken out!





POW!!! (I love the expression)



Counter attack!





Oh No!! He's got Sean!





The boys had a good time but I think it's about time for hot cocoa!



Dont worry, Elli was safe through all this. Copper was watching after her! LOL



Elizabeth enjoyed her first snow!

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's almost 2010?! The year sounds so "space-age". I remember being in science class as a kid and my "far out" teacher talking about how we'd all be living on the moon by 2000 and all the crazy things we'd be doing by 2010. In retrospect, she was a bit of a dreamer to put it lightly. Ha!

Well, anyway, Happy New Year! I will probably forget to write on here tomorrow, that's why I'm saying it now. Not that we're doing anything exciting - we're not exactly party animals anymore. We're planning to use tomorrow to get some stuff done and organized before we move... 2 more weeks!! We actually got the key to the apartment (for good) yesterday, so we are going to start bringing a few things over there.

I forgot to post on here about Elizabeth's birthday... she's a big girl now, a whole 1 year old!! :) I put all her pressies in bags this time, after she wasn't too thrilled with the whole unwrapping thing at Christmas. Oh! and she's hanging out in her onsie in these pictures because we had just come home from church, daddy took off her pretty dress to make her more comfy. I wasn't even thinking straight that we'd be taking pictures, should have left her in her dress... oh well, chubby legs are cute too. :)




Here's a quick video I took this morning. Elizabeth and I were up very early this morning. She was scooting around and talking on her phone so I took a little bit of video. See how she scoots on her bottom? yep, that's her version of "crawling". haha!



Well, Elizabeth is now napping and I'm going to go work on my 2nd cup of coffee *yawn*. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you had as wonderful of a Christmas as we had here.

Last night, for Christmas eve, we spent the evening with our friends at church. We had a wonderful meal, devotion time and had a "white elephant" gift exchange. You know, the ones where you can go up to the table and unwrap a gift or decide to take one that someone has already opened. Lots of fun!!

The children received some gifts as well. They waited patiently for the Pastor to call out their name to get their pressie.

Elizabeth getting her very first Christmas present. :)

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The next morning, we woke up to many many pressies under the tree that the boys were bursting to dive in and start opening!

Everyone with their "big" gifts.

Which one to open first?

Notice Elizabeth in the back, swiping everyone's unguarded gifts.

Elizabeth didnt quite understand what was going on but sure enjoyed playing with anything she could get her little hands on, including daddy's hat that he got from Sean. She rips off any winter hat you put on her head but this one she LOVED!! She would even shake her head to make it jingle.

Classic Dennis right here! haha!

Seany helping his baby sister out, such a good big brother. :)

Elizabeth found a light saber just her size! haha!

Probably one of her favorite toys... the stuffed doggy that looks just like Copper.

Standing at her new activity table.

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Cookies

We finally got around to making christmas cookies today. The boys did a good job helping. We made fudge, sugar cookies and ginger bread bears.

Somehow or another we all managed to fit into the closet...err.. I mean kitchen.


Those ready-made frosting squeeze bag things are awesome!!!



The end result! HAHA! The boys were pretty creative! Notice the burnt, non-frosted ones in the upper right corner... those are Dennis's, he likes the burnt ones. ;)

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas Play

Our church did our annual Christmas performance today. This year they put on a play and did such a great job!! Sean played a Shepherd and Ryan was one of the Wisemen.

The Narrator begins the story:

The children singing 'Away in the Manger':

The Mom and Pop telling the story of Christmas to the children:

Mary receiving the news of her conception:

Joseph has a dream that Mary is carrying our Savior:

Joseph and Mary:

The shepherds receive news that Christ is born (Sean in red):

The wisemen bringing gifts to Christ (Ryan in silver):

Here is a video of some of the clips from the play. I found some neat video editing softward and had fun putting all these clips together - enjoy!! Unfortunately I didnt get it all, because my camera cannot hold that much video. They also spoke of why Jesus came and how he gave his life on the cross for all of us to be saved. The greatest gift of all!



And here is are pictures of the boys and Elizabeth before we left for church this morning. They looked so handsome (and cute for Elizabeth) in their little outfits. :) Merry Christmas!!!