Christmas is over!

All the energy put into getting ready for Christmas week and now it is over. Crazy! I am looking forward to hanging out here at home with my boys! Yeah for hanging out all morning in PJs! I am sure that you are interested in knowing how we spent our Christmas week?!

This was an interesting Christmas, as this was a our first in Ohio, in a new house and being on staff at a church. Our week started on Monday with a trip to Indiana for our annual Progressive Dinner we have with Dave's family. It is always a great time spent with family laughing and catching up on their lives. I love it because there are a bunch of kids Alex's age. It is always fun to watch him interact with his own kind!

Here is Alex with his cousin's Jack and Julia

This is Dave's cousin's son, Luke. He is 4 months older then Alex and such a cutie!

And our new cousin Katie. She is Luke's sister and is three months younger then Elijah! Oh the fun these kids are going to have together.

Dave received this hat in the gift exchange. Needless to say this picture is one of his favorites, he loves to see his boys sporting the black and gold!

Well, Tuesday we made out way back to Ohio since Dave now has responsibility at the Christmas Eve Service. My parents flew out Christmas morning to California to see my brother and sister in law for Christmas. Since they flew out of Columbus, we got them for Christmas Eve. We decided to open gifts while they were with us since we were headed back to Indiana Christmas morning. Alex had a blast opening gifts!

Alex wore himself out opening all his presents and playing with Grandpa J! He is sporting his new hat! Dave got one just life like it!

Christmas morning we loaded the car once again to head back to Indiana.

I love this picture of Jack and Eli. Oh so sweet!

Here's Millie enjoying one of her presents with her big sister Maddy.

We did stay in Indiana until Saturday before heading back to Ohio. It was good to stay in one place for a few day. But now here we are, getting back on schedule and finding places for all the new toys. We are also enjoying have Dave around this week. With the office closed, we get his company! Fun times with Dad!

A visit from Santa's raindeer!

The other Saturday, we enjoyed some family time and headed downtown for some lunch and to see raindeer! I had heard that Hoggie's (a resturant) was having real raindeer come in for the kids to see. It just so happened that Hoogie's is located just across the street from one of our new favorite places to eat. When we arrived downtown, there were no raindeer in sight. Oh well, at least we could get lunch at Gulla's Lunch and head home for naps. After we order our food, a truck and a huge trailer pull up to Hoggies (which we could see from where we were sitting). So has we ate lunch and stayed warm, we watched them unload the raindeer. Alex thought it was pretty cool. He had never seen raindeer before! After we ate we headed over for the photo opt and to see the raindeer up close. Very cool!

Open Mama Please

I will explain the title of this post after some back ground info. Tuesday night night, the family is hanging out in the kitchen making dinner and playing. Dave and I were talking and I can hear Alex in the background saying "Ball." I figured he was just playing and ignored it. Next thing I know, he is by my side saying "Mama" and points to the counter where he had thrown his ball. I was very impressed! Alex has been saying Mama for a while but never to get my attention, it was more of a label (who is that? Mama!). So for him to call me by name was HUGE! So, as any mama would do, we had a mini celebration for him to encourage him to do it again.

So after dinner, we are still hanging out in the kitchen and Alex is playing once a again with a ball! For those of you who don't know, we are currently living in a very small place, so hanging out in the kitchen for us it not hard since there is not a lot of rooms to hang out in! Anyways, our one bathroom is located off our kitchen and so Alex at times wanders in there to play with something. And since the house is so small, I can keep my eye on him while he is in there. I noticed that he was by the tub and continued with my conversation with Dave, The next thing I know, Alex is at my side saying "open, (using his sign) Mama, please (using his sign)" very clearly! This is the first time Alex has said a three word sentence to me in order to communicate something to me without being promoted to use his words and telling him which words to use (which often just produces more crying!) I knew exactly what he was asking for, he had thrown his ball into the tub and wanted me to get it out (our tub has door on it, that is were the open came from) Ohhh the party we threw for him!!! Yeah Alex.

Thanksgiving blessing

Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on what we are thankful for. Every year I have the same basic things I can say that I am thankful for; health, family, friends, etc. This year life is a little different. I am extremely thankful for and amazed by God's faithfulness!

I am not sure how many of you are aware of the journey Dave and I have had these past few months with moving. As everyone knows that housing market right now is horrible!!! This is no time to be selling a house. So when Dave and I decided to take this new job and move, the only thing that scared us about the decision was selling our house. But we agreed that selling house was not a good enough reason not to take the job, God is in the business of miracles, right? So I figure, God would sell our house in record time and off we would go to Delaware! Boy was I wrong! But faithfully with a two year old and a new baby, I got the house ready several time for showings but not takers! Our moving date was drawing near and no takers. What happened to my miracle?

Well, a month before we were to move, a furnished apartment was offered to us at a reasonable rate that we could afford and still pay our mortgage. This way we did have to move all of our stuff and then have to figure out were to store some of it. It would have been hard to fit our stuff from a four bedroom house to a two bedroom apartment! Two weeks before our moving date I started thinking that I did not like the idea of leaving all our stuff in a vacant house. Just did not seem safe. So it came to, if only we could find someone to live here and house sit. But who would be willing to live here with all of our stuff and not sign a lease for a certain period of time? We did not want to take the house off the market. Whoever moved in needed to be able to move out when we sold the house. Within a week we found a college student (my boss's daughter) who was living at home but looking for a place to rent. We offered and she accepted. It is a great deal, she gets a get place to live for cheap, and we get someone to watch our house. So here we are in Delaware with a house in Illinois! Even though we are not there to take care of our house we now have our neighbor, our college student, her parents, and our friend who is helping us sell the place looking after it! It is being cared for by more people now then when we lived it in!

So though we have not gotten our big miracle of God selling our house in record time. He have not abandoned us. He continues to take care of us and give us all these other miracles until he is ready to give us the "big" one! I have so much to be thankful for this year! Though our family living situation is not what I ever imagined us in, we are together, happy and warm!