Thursday, January 28, 2010

Nater




Nate is now 8 1/2 months! Time flies! I'm saddened most days that he is not my little baby anymore, although he is SO much fun at this age! He is still SO easy going and almost always happy. That is unless you give him any orange colored food at all. He is sensitive to the sugars in sweet-potatoes, squash, peaches, and carrots. Which means he doesn't get much a variety when it comes to food. Hoping he grows out of this soon, for his sake.
He still reminds me of Will so much as a baby. He is getting chunkier and chunkier by the day :) and still has no teeth.



On the move with my huge thighs

Good lookin' push-up

Messy Face
Me and My sweet boy

Covering Up for the naked picture

Josh came in the other night from work and put his hat on Nate. I had to take a picture because I thought he looked just like Dopey from the 7 Dwarfs!

And here is a video of Nate clapping. Abby repeatedly sings "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and Nate just started clapping to it. Nothing else makes him clap right now, other than her singing this song... haha. And you probably can't even understand the words she is saying, it sounds Chinese!




Will's 4th Birthday

F-O-U-R


Well, Will counted down the days till his birthday for a REALLY REALLY LONG TIME! He is always asking me, "how many minutes till this?", or "how many days till this?", or "when is it dinner and night time so daddy will be home?" It gets old after the millionth time in a day! With his birthday being so close to Christmas, he counts down for so long till the next time to open presents :)!

Last year for Abby's 1st and Will's 3rd birthdays I started making a special shirt for their special day. This one is a little sloppy because I got the fabric for it the night before and thought I didn't have time to make it. Then I decided about two hours before his party to make it, and so I did it a little too quickly. Oh well, he liked it :). It had a bat and ball on the front, with his name and #4 on the back. (maybe next year I'll plan ahead a little better - his bday stuff is a little last minute because of the holidays)

This year he wanted a Lightning McQueen birthday party and cake. Who would have known??? He has loved the CARS movie ever since we first let him watch it. He has many things CARS! So Josh made him this cake:Will absolutely loved it! And I don't blame him, it turned out great!!!
He had 10 cousins over and his aunts, uncles, and Nana and Pappa.

He opened neat gifts,



Ate his yummy cake on his lightning plates,

And ended with watching "Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs" on the projector.

I can't believe 4 years ago I was having my first baby. The excitement of a first child is beyond anything I've ever experienced. He was such a great baby and so sweet right from the start. He got attached to his blanket from day 1 in the nursery. Seriously, the nurses called it the "magic blanket" because when he cried and they put it on him, he would immediately stop :)! He still is in love even with its gaping hole! I'm so thankful the Lord blessed me with Will. He has such a huge heart and loves people beyond words! He loves to share (most of the time) and is such a people person. I'm praying he becomes a man of God just like his daddy!
I love you Will!!!

Just a Pic of My BOYS!!!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Wedding Weekend

The first weekend of January, 2010, one of my twin cousins got married. Rachel Dunham married Craig Cooper in NY. I got to go just with Nate and Josh stayed home to finish his Christmas with his family and kept the other two kids for the weekend. I stayed in a hotel room with my sister Jen and her daughter Lauren. It was nice to be with family again :). Missed my other sister, Christy though! It was a little snowy on both ends of my trip, but thankfully we were safe and Nate traveled pretty well. We had a fun weekend.

Poppi, Mimmi, Nate, Lauren and Jen waiting for the ceremony to begin. We sat all the way in the back since we had Nate and I thought I would have to leave during the ceremony since he is pretty vocal now. However, I fed him baby puffs the entire time and he did great :)!

Aunt Debbie (Mother of the Bride) and my cousin Matt (brother of the bride).
My Aunts dress was so beautiful!

The front of the pretty church.


Vows being said!
Can't believe I was doing this very same thing with Josh the next day (Jan 3rd) six years ago!

Mimmi, Poppi, & Nate


Sisters and cousins

My sister Jen and I. Can't tell we are related right??

Mr. Man being held by Mimmi @ the reception!

4 generations! My grandmother (Gigi), My mom, Me and my sister,
and Nate and Lauren (Great grands)

Jen and Lauren

My gram walking in to the reception. Looking great at such a young age ;)!

My cousin Rachel and her dad, my Uncle Peter having a moment of laughter.

Nate and Lauren at the reception.

My mom and dad were SO helpful with Nate all night. It was a LONG day for him and he was a trooper. Being played with all night by his grandparents helped a lot :)!

Lauren thought Rachel was so pretty in her dress and wanted a picture with her, but then when we went to get one she was SO shy !

Jen and I with the twins. Rachel, the bride and her sister Rebecca (matron of honor) with her own wedding in a few months !

Mimmi and Lauren doing their ballerina twirls!

Rachel and Craig, Congrats! It was a beautiful wedding!

New Years Day 2010

We started out New Years Day, 2010 by going to my in-laws for another Christmas celebration that morning. To celebrate with the whole family, we did the adult presents exchange when Matt and Melissa (Josh's oldest brother and wife) were able to come down from Buffalo. Nana started a tradition of reading this story about giving is better than receiving.


Abby and Charis listening to the story. Abby had major frizz hair!

Some of the boy cousins together on Papa's chair listening to the story, with my two sister-in-laws behind them.

Matt and some more cousins :).

The girls listening in !

My 3 little cuties.

Lovin on Nate

Then we opened presents and Nate enjoyed eating the paper !

Then everyone went on the ice rink while Nate and I left for a family wedding. This ice rink was made by Josh and his brother Jason. It's huge and the kids have a blast on it almost everyday! I will post better pictures of it another time.

Monday, January 11, 2010

All of December in one Post

This is going to be a LONG ONE!

We started off going a couple miles down the street to cut down our Christmas tree.
This was our first year cutting down our own tree. We had such a fun time searching for the one we wanted and the kids enjoyed watching Josh cut it down and drag it back to the car.

Right near where we cut down the trees we saw a house that dressed up an old car to be Mater, from the CARS movie. Since Will is obsessed with all things CARS, he loved seeing this!

Then we came home and decorated the tree.


Later that night we had to go back to see him all lit up. Too Cute!

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Then we took a ride one Sunday afternoon on the "Santa Express." It is a new train ride in a town nearby. The kids were to dress up in pj's and take a ride on the train to the north pole to meet santa, like the polar express. Being that we don't really do santa up big, the kids still enjoyed it and know that "santa" used to be real.

Us and the kids on the train.

Abby's first time meeting Santa. I'm surprised she wasn't scared or anything.

It snowed the night before, so it was so pretty outside.

Will, holding his ticket and looking out for santa to make his way onto our train.
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The next weekend we went to church for a day called "gingerbread dreams." We got to decorate a gingerbread house together as a family. A first for all of us, including Josh and I. We got to eat cookies, watch the new Christmas Veggie Tales movie, and make lots of Christmas crafts. It was a fun family time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Then we were blessed to have Mimi and Poppi come to visit. They came for a whole week! That never has happened before. To have both of my parents in for that long. They were up this way for a family wedding, so were able to break up their long drive with a stop in at our place. Lets just say the kids got so attached and were SO sad to see them go.

We made LOTS and....

LOTS of cookies ALL week!!!! :)

We played games upon games, and built lots of towers!

We cuddled and watched movies.

My parents and Will did some yoga :)!!! I just watched and laughed.

And we played in the snow and did lots of sledding.

We went to dinner and then to our church's Christmas Eve service. The kids were all in the service with us and surprisingly, Abby did well. They all did. Nate was jumping around like a crazy man because of all that was going on. Abby loved seeing this one girl do a "ballerina dance." It was nice to worship together as a family, and with my mom and dad too. Doesn't get to happen often.

Then came Christmas morning. What fun. We had Will sleeping in our room all week while my parents were in his room. We were woken up by him singing Jingle Bells :)! Great memories. Will really was into it this year. Daddy started by reading Jesus's birth story out of the kids Bible. Then we let them open their stockings.

The kids got one big gift from us this year and stocking stuffers. Will's was this motorized gator, that he loves!

And Abby's was this kitchen. She really enjoys playing "cook" and feeding us all sorts of stuff. Josh's ecretary blessed us with this set and we were so grateful. Thanks so much Jeanine!!!!

Nate slept through it all, and when he woke up we gave him Will's old turtle spinner toy. He plays with this non-stop :).


We let Will ride his gator in the snow and temperatures in the teens... haha, but he was thrilled.
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Then Christmas mid-morning we took the kids down to celebrate with Josh's family. It was our year with his family for Christmas, so after opening gifts at home, we went down there.

Will and Abby with Nana hanging up their ornaments. Nana has an ornament for each kid that they get to put up on the tree with her Christmas day.

Papa read the Christmas story and each child put up a character from the story into the nativity scene during the reading.


Then we opened gifts and had a meal together. The food was amazing!!!!!

After a bit the little ones, Nate and Ren, joined us!
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Then we had Mimi and Poppi here for a few more days of fun and spoiling.


It was a great December! What a joy to have family together during this season. We are so thankful for the gift of our Jesus to us! He has blessed us in many ways. We are so thankful for health this year, especially for Nate. Praise God for sending us his Son, so we can have hope in ALL things!