Happy Birthday, Jeff!

...and G'ma Colleen!

We celebrated our family's December birthdays at Jen and Kevin's house...red velvet cake, kids playing with Janie's toys, and some exhausted adults on a Friday evening. :)

Jeff turned 56 and Colleen turned 31 this year...

Anthony was so sweet with Josh--he kept bringing Josh Fisher Price power tools to his lap.

And apparently the camera only likes kids, birthday people, and Papa Scott. Or maybe it's that he's always with the kids. I'll have to work at diversifying my photography portfolio over the Christmas season. :)

Sweet Brooklyn

This is Grace's good friend Brooklyn. I had to get a few pictures of them jumping on the bed at "G'ma Dianne's" house. We love this girl! :) (...and BOY, can these two jump on the bed! What monkeys!)

All Josh Wants For Christmas...

...is for his legs to learn to keep him from scootching backward!

He wants to crawl SO BADLY!!!

"Christmas star..."

"...shining bright,

Lead us to this child tonight..."

"...up in the sky, a guiding light,

Shining for this King tonight..."

"We're following the Christmas star, so bright
We're following the Christmas star."

Grace got to be part of the kids' program at church earlier this month. She has the song down--mostly because we listen to it in the car non-stop. (Instead of whining to have us replay the song as soon as it's over, we taught her to say, "Play it again, Sam!" She's gotten pretty good at it, but most of the time she says, "I want it on again, Sam! Please.") When she was on the stage with the other kids she was impressed with the stage and stood there, taking it all in. It was pretty cute!

Rubber Ducky, You're the One...

Or is the ducky actually Josh's missing BINKY? I think he has ducky-binky confusion.

Don't Call Me Sweetie.

I moved Josh away from something he was getting into the other day and said something like, "Let's try sitting over here, Sweetie." Gracie immediately started giggling and corrected me: "He's not SWEETIE!" When I asked her why he wasn't, she replied, "SWEETIE belongs to Annie and Drew!"

Ohhhhh--I guess if Josh is sometimes Joshy, then Swede, our favorite canine (next to Brodie, of course) could be SWEDEY.

Santa and the Firemen

I really thought Gracie accidentally called 911 on my phone the other night when fire trucks and sirens pulled up to our house. I was quite relieved to see that they were actually announcing the arrival of Santa, who was being transported around the neighborhood in a trailer, escorted by the county firemen. We had the Huggins and Templins over for games, so we all headed out to greet this guy from the North Pole.




Gracie wasn't too sure at first--telling herself that "Santa won't get me" as she walked up to the trailer, but after he gave her a candy cane she kept saying, "That Santa was so nice!" all evening.


The glowing trailer...

Snow Man

As I catch up on my blogging, looking at the rain coming down and making our snow disappear, I remember that we had A LOT OF SNOW a couple of weeks ago. In fact, G'pa Harvey informs me that we set November Snow Records. I realize that I don't have any pictures of the SNOW at our house, but I did snap a couple of our Snow Removal Guy after his strenuous endeavors to keep us from being snowed-in. One of Jeff's spiritual gifts is being able to fall asleep anywhere. Well, I don't know how spiritual it is, but it is a gift! I love this about him--it always cracks me up!

More from the Farm

The day after Thanksgiving the cousins got out on the sled--with G'ma Joan! Jeff got video of G'ma sledding, but no pics. Great memories!

Just for the record, Jeff and I DID get to the stores the day after Thanksgiving by 5AM--my sister helped us get going! Brooke stayed the night so that she could watch Josh and Grace while we were gone. This is where she stashed Josh for a few minutes. She's so fun!

And the girls were coloring...Gracie's hair braided...this babysitter is HIRED! :)

And later that day under Mom's watch, Josh took down the silk plant with the help of his retro walker. He was quite proud of himself.

Is it Christmas Yet?

We're anticipating Christmas around here...