Not much longer

Jace 7 months:


Kayson 7 months:


Jace started crawling at 8 months. That gives me aprox. 4 weeks before Kayson starts. Yikes.

Christmas 2010

Here are some pictures from this years Christmas!!!




Frosting cookies (although I think Jace ate more frosting than cookie)




Jace helping Grandpa "roll the rolls". Everytime he finished a roll he put it on the baking sheet and yelled, "I did it!"


(Alesa loved everyone, but Uncle Scott was her FAVORITE!!!)





Our Christmas Eve Program 2010! (you won't see ALL the characters because we had a BIG family in a small room. I couldn't get everyone.) Sheep and Cows:










Shepards:


Angels:




Mary and Joseph (Makayla was right in front of me so I only got Bradley. Sorry!):


Grandma reading a Christmas story:



The End




Or maybe just more posting another day :)

SNOW DAY!!!

WOW. That's all I have to say. The moisture that has come down in our town the last 48 hours, is the same amount that came down all of LAST YEAR (in my mind anyway)!

Rain, rain, slush, rain, snow, SnOw, SNOW!!! That's all it's been the last 2 days. I knew it would be a lot but this:



is a LOT!

Ryan has been as happy as a kid at Christmas-time! Why? He FINALLY gets to use his snow blower!!! He got it as a Christmas present LAST year, but there wasn't any snow to plow. Needless to say our neighbors are very happy to let him snow plow their drive ways and side walks to his hearts content.


Jace is loving it as well. Although he is 2 1/2, this is the first year he can really play in it. He got SO excited when I asked him if he wanted to go outside to play. He layed in it, he sat in it, he walked in it, he climbed a small hill and said weeeeeee when he slid down the 1 foot length it was.




We (meaning mostly Mom) built a snowman! Jace's first one! I would have built more, but the snow wasn't packing very well, and it took me FOREVER to pack one. That's ok. He turned out great! Jace isn't smiling in this picture because he took his gloves off. Enough said. *smile* (don't you love how his expression matches his hat)


Afterwards we came inside and drank some hot chocolate to warm up! Ahhhh....



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Growing and Growing

OK so I found my camera bag (which had the camera cord to the computer in it) and have new pictures to share!!!





I LOVE these pictures, but hate them at the same time. They just prove to me that my boys are growing up. Jace looks so big in these and Kayson is moving along beside him.

*sigh*

I promise to enjoy this moment while I am in it (even if re-arranging the Christmas tree for the 3rd time makes me mad).

It must be...

that time of season. I generally get really pensive around Thanksgiving and Christmas. And this year it's been a more deep and profound kind of thinking. Yesterday Ryan had a scope done on his upper body. Nothing to report. He's fine. Just too much acid in his stomach. On our way home from the hospital we stopped by RedBox and got a couple of movies to watch while he recovered.

I must have needed to watch this particular movie without any distractions because Ryan fell asleep once we got home, Jace took a 2 1/2 hour nap on the living room floor (which was a shock because he doesn't take naps anymore let alone on the FLOOR) and Kayson took a long nap as well. I had 2 hours to devote my listening ear to the following movie:


I don't know what happened inside of me. Something clicked and I feel.... so....

balanced.

happy.

calm.

If you've been to my blog before you'll have noticed my quotes on the top right hand side. Well, I changed them. To me they seem to stick out with lessons I've learned this year. Lessons I don't want to forget. Because for the first time in my life, I feel like I could live as the person I am today... for the rest of it.

One quote from the movie I loved was:

"God lives in me as me".

I understood what Liz (the main character) was talking about when she said that, so then something else hit me. Why am I so stressed??? Why do I feel like I'm enduring life??? I'm always worried that I'm not smart enough. Not skinny enough. Not happy enough. Not organized enough. Not spiritual enough. And you know what I found???

I'M NOT!!!!

and I'm done stressing over it: a perfectly clean house, up and ready to go before the kids wake up, what to eat or not eat, what to enjoy or not enjoy. I'm not saying if you came over to my house it would look like a tornado hit it, or that I'll be stuffing my face with ice cream 24/7, but you will see toys on the floor and a batch of laundry waiting to be taken upstairs (I will never have stairs in my house again EVER), maybe even some dishes in the sink from breakfast. I will have the boys dressed, the kitchen will be tidy, and my bed will be made...(maybe).

I don't know where that pressure came from. Maybe because I see it everywhere I go and wonder why I'm not like that. But I feel like if God is going to live in me as me, then I want Him to feel the same way I do.

balanced.

happy.

calm.

I've got a long road ahead still and I do want to be better at organizing and getting ready before 10:00 am. But I feel like I can take my time and enjoy the learning process. Everyone is a teacher, everyone is a clue on how to do that.

My journey has begun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year was quite the change from last years Thanksgiving. I went from helping my Mom with the dinner for 70+ people in a church house gym, to just my family and next door neighbors Katie and Eric. Their plans fell through and I couldn't have them eating alone. It was really nice. But I now know the CRAZINESS of making food ALL DAY and fully appreciate all the years my mother did it for us!!! That's really all I did, and I LOVED it! It was perfect! I put the turkey in the oven at 8:00 am and didn't stop making food until it was time to eat. But I did get a lot of new recipes! Like: Artichoke and Spinach Dip! YUM! Pepper Cheese Ball (a Merkley favorite) and... others I can't remember right now. I made my first Chocolate Pudding Cream Pie. (and failed because Ryan told me to mix the whip cream in AFTER the pudding set up)*sigh*

In the end everything turned out great! My neighbor Katie made fruit salad and a pumpkin roll for dessert. WOW! Ryan was in heaven with that roll. After a lot of playing and eating and talking, we called it a night. It couldn't have been a more perfect "first" Thanksgiving for me and our family!

(p.s. Sorry no pictures due to a lot of cooking!)

A little nothing

Since Halloween, not much has happened. I'm happy about that. It's been quiet, normal, and fun at times. We're just waiting for the holidays to finally come around. A few things to report are:

- Kayson has learned to roll over from back to belly! (which is new to me since Jace learned belly to back first)

- Tator "turned" 1 years old. (That just means he's survived living with me)

- Isaac got a 100% on his spelling test last week!

- Ryan and I got NEW TIRES for my car! I'm so happy to have it back.

- Aunt Taci is flying in TOMORROW for Thanksgiving! We can't wait to see her!

Kayson has his 6 month check up coming soon. Yeah. More shots. He's been doing 100% better since we put the tubes in his ears. He's finally learned to have an out-loud laugh and it's SO cute! He CONSTANTLY says Ma ma ma ma which is also opposite of Jace. Jace would only say Da da da da. It makes me smile.

Since Jace learned to climb over the child safety gate, I've had to teach him how to stay in his room at night. I'm happy to say that it didn't take as long as I thought it would, and I LOVE being able to put him to bed without having to step over the gate. Now if only potty training would come as fast. I'm not officially trying to potty train him, but he will sit on the toilet happily and I thought I'd test the waters. But after the Cars underwear got peed on (with a lot of work before to go on the toilet) I decided that he needed more time. I'll wait. I want to enjoy this journey. Not be stressed.

I'm sorry to say I have no new pictures to post. I'll work on that :)