Happy Christmas and Merry New Year. And all that jazz.

Christmas was so wonderful. I'll have to come back to that and recap later but it was. ... It's New Year's Eve and I'm sitting on my best friend's couch... she's here, holding the baby--who's snoring, my husband is next to me playing angry birds, the older children are down stairs playing trains (ah, the power of a monitor) and cousin Kaitlyn is playing her own game. It's quiet and happy here. The dishwasher is running, the children are laughing (of course there is the occasional "Heeeeey." or "Marrrrrrrk." or "I had that first!!!" but ... that's part of it, isn't it?), there isn't a pressing schedule or an agenda... in fact any plans we had for this trip went down down down the toilet (and I do mean that literally)... being visited by the puke bug ((Which makes TWO Christmases in a ROW for Matthew)) makes any plans made obsolete. There will be other trips for dates and dinners and movies. As I sit here, I'm trying to think of something witty or clever or even sarcastic, but I can't, so I'll move on. It was awful. I'm so glad it's over. Of the five kids, only one hasn't been sick yet. Of the four adults, two. But even amid that, it was a nice trip. As soon as Micah is up and fed again we'll be leaving and perhaps it seems odd to be sitting here, typing about our trip when we're not even left yet, however the opportunity presented itself. The quiet is such a rare thing in my world. So while it's quiet I thought I'd take a glance back at this past year, as it's fitting to do on New Year's.

I'm sitting here without a calendar or anything to refresh my memory, but the most notable thing in 2011 was the birth of my third son. Micah Henry was born in March. He's our miracle baby, our Micah Bear, our love, our joy, the troll and destroyer. . . He's my little blondie. Everyone asks me "Oh, were Matthew and Mark born light haired too?" Nope. Just Micah Bear. This was a very special and precious time for me. My mom gave up so much. She sacrificed quite a bit to help me in this time, for a lengthy time, and I'm so grateful for her help in welcoming Micah to this world. I don't know what we'd have done without you dear Mom.

In March besides adding a newborn to our house, we also added a full time Daddy. Jamie received an interview phone call while we were in labor with Micah-- no joke-- in the hospital. He began his new job at the end of the month! He's been working from home ever since. There is the occasional traveling involved, but mostly he's home full time. It's wonderful. There was a lot of learning to do with a new baby and a new job, but we've learned a new dance in this life and it's a nice one.

There was family coming and going most of the spring. And then the big event of 2011 happened in June... Matthew's fifth birthday... no! Just kidding! on June 25th, my sister married the man of her dreams. I am so blessed by their marriage. Brian is such a wonderful man and she is so happy. I'm so tickled for her and am excited to see what comes their way. God has truly blessed the two of us with such wonderful husbands. I pray that God continues to bless them.

Matthew started Kindergarten in the fall. (eeeeeeeee!)

My dad was baptized in August and visited us in September, and it was the most wonderful trip we'd ever spent together. The Lord was and still is doing wonderful things in my dad's life.

September also brought Jamie's dad who started staying with us weekly while he had acquired his own new job in Atlanta. We enjoyed a sweet season of Papa staying with us, playing and loving on the boys.

November brought us the best Thanksgiving possible.

December gave Jamie's parents a new house.

And here I am, in MO for a lengthy trip and sadly it's been a not so much fun with all the puking, tummy hurting, headaching, yucky stuff going on, but it's still been good never-the-less. Being with family is good. Regardless of what's going on, regardless of who's sick or well, being with family is just so wonderful. So since the small child has woken up and been passed to his daddy from the best friend and I need to feed him... I guess I'll think about goals and such at a later time. I will say this, I'm looking forward to 2012. I can't wait to see how God continues to faithfully bless and grow my family. I'm excited to see where He will take us in this new year. May I remember to keep HIM as my focus no matter what I'm doing. And I know He will see me through anything that is to come.

My (almost) THREE Year Old.

Since we'll be traveling over Mark's birthday, I thought I'd post this a couple days early. Mark will be three on Friday. Three. Every time it's someone's birthday, I'm just amazed at how old they are, how fast the year has gone, how they have grown and changed so much and this year is no exception with my little bug.

Mark, you are so cute. You just make me smile all the time. You are so smart and so quick. You are so kind-- when you want to be. You're a great eater. You love carrots and tomatoes and any fruit. You like pizza and spaghetti and sandwiches. You're not crazy about chicken or potatoes which have become a staple dinner for Matthew lately. You don't like your socks on when you're sleeping. All the time, I find socks in your bed or on the floor by the bed. You like to take your feet out of your footie pajamas and run around with the arms still in, creating a cape for Super Mark! You like Dora and Little Einsteins and Backyardigans most to watch on TV these days. You used to be crazy for Blue's Clues but that's fading. You love puzzles. It is so neat to watch you with your puzzles. You're getting quite good at the harder ones. You enjoy tracing your ABC's when I draw them for you. You love for me to sing you the "sunshine song" with you prompting me which color to use each verse. We have so much fun. One thing I'm pretty amazed about is your ability to retain information. If I tell you what items we are picking up from the store, you repeat them back to me when we get there. If I'm working with Matthew on a memory verse, the next time we say it, you chime in too. If I tell Micah no no to something, you remember that rule and tell him yourself next time he's doing it. You're memory is so cool. Your love for Micah is also so cool, you just love so much. You are so sweet, such a snuggler, such a love. I love you and the little person you are becoming. I just called you over here, and asked you some questions, so I can capture some of your favorites for today. Here's a peek at our conversation:

Me: What's your favorite colors?
Mark: green and black
Me: I thought they were green and pink?
Mark: Not today, today is green and black like Matthew.

Me: What's your favorite number?
Mark: 1

Me: What's your favorite food?
Mark: vitamin
Me: Vitamin?
Mark: Yup, and cheese
Me: Cheese?! You don't even like cheese.
Mark: Yah, I do.

Me: What's your favorite thing to play with?
Mark: colors

Me: What do you want to be when you get bigger? when you grow up?
Mark: a big boy

Me: What's your favorite animal?
Mark: a cat

Me: Who is your favorite person?
Mark: my matthew

Me: What's your favorite song?
Mark: itsy itsy spider

Me: What else do you like that you want to tell me?
Mark: Well, you forgot one question.
Me: What is it?
Mark: One more questions about children.
Me: What question did I forget, buddy?
Mark: I do like Micah
Me: Oh good. I'm glad you like Micah too.
Mark: Yup. Now that's all. That's all the directions I have for you.
Me: Okay. (laughing!)

Well my little one, I hope you have a great birthday on Friday! Happy birthday to my Markie.

Mark's Gator Cake

There a things you just never thought when you were little, dreaming about being a mommy some day, that you'd find yourself saying or doing (or hearing, for that matter!)... I never knew that I'd be so obsessed about making the boys' cakes each year. But I am. I'm a little crazy about it. And seriously, since Mark's very first cake -- which I think was my coolest one -- I just try to keep bettering myself. So far he's had a giant snowman cake, last year's decent size Blue's Clues cake, and then this year.... Alligator Cake! The conversation about a month ago went like this:

Me: Mark, what do you think you'd like to have on your birthday cake this time?
Him: Well... I do a Percy Cake.
Me: A Percy Cake?! Why? You want a Percy Cake?
Him: Yup.
Me: Why?
Him: Matthew had a Percy Cake.
Me (thinking... grrrrrreat.) : Mark, you don't even like trains, honey. Why do you want a train cake... wouldn't you like to have something else? Anything else?
Him: Oh. I like cake for my birthday.
Me (thinking... good. we're getting somewhere. let's talk about Mark's likes): You like animals.
Him: Ohhhhhh Yeah!
Me: What kind of Animal do you want on your cake? (I'm so thinking he'll say Cat or Dog)
Him: Well Momma, .... .... .... I do like a Alli-Gator.
Me: (blank stare)
Me: Huh?
Him: (nodding)
Me: Alligator?
Him: Yup I dooooooo like a Alli-Gator.
Me: Alligator.
(I'm thinking GREAT. Just great. What the heck did I just do? I could have made another Percy Train cake, and been done but nooooo... now I gotta figure out how to make an ALLIGATOR CAKE?! SHOOT.)

Later... at Thanksgiving we repeated the story and my sister, who was trying to guess his cake, goes "Do you want a Giraffe cake?" I about smacked her! Don't make it any harder! ... he goes "Ohhh YEAH!" Fortunately she got him to want his Alligator back... ha! Can you see me making a giraffe cake? I know I don't have the counter space for that thing!

Anyhow... so, here we are... we celebrated Mark's birthday a little early this year and he got to enjoy his very own Alligator Cake. Here's a few pics from his party...

it's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

Since we're leaving for Christmas this year, we decided not to deck all the halls this year... We have put up our advent calendar, our mantel decorations and this year we opted for a mini tree, since we live with Micah-the destroyer currently in his crawling/pulling up/pulling down things stage. And that's really all we're setting out. I love our little tree. He's so cute. And it's not as "charlie brown" as I thought it might be. We normally do colored lights, so the white lights are new and fun... plus, it will mean less clean up after we get back into town after the holidays!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

more from Thanksgiving

When I was writing the other post, I had my time on the computer cut short and so I only posted a few pictures, but I wanted to get a couple more on here. We really did have a great week. Kris and Brian took the kids to a bouncy place one day, to the park another day... they had so much fun. And there was all the track making too. We made in total 7 pies and had a whole pie song too. It started with simply pumpkin pie but then added more pies to the tune. "We gonna have pumpkin pie! We gonna have apple pie! We gonna have chocolate pie!" We played 20 or 30 games of train. We visited with our sweet friends, Dan and Deb from church. We laughed and laughed and laughed. The visits with my family are just getting better and better, sweeter and sweeter each time, each trip.

Uncle Brian's so cool. He's getting more and more
comfortable holding those little ones...

Micah with "cousin" Baby Katherine

We again cooked our Thanksgiving Turkey under a bucket!

This picture makes me so happy. Matthew has come so far. Last Thanksgiving, it was torture to get him to even eat his nuggets... this year he had his chicken fries, apples, a bite of peas, a bite of sweet potatoes, a bite of ham, a bite of turkey and pie. SO proud of him. He's come so far. It's a slow process, but we sure are getting there. Bite by bite.

Mark of course, has no trouble eating!

Kris took a really neat pictures -- it's not often
I get all three of my boys with me in one shot.

Oh, this is what happens when you put a basket in
my way, I'll just crawl up into it. HA!

(too much angry birds)

better and better

There is just something wonderful about having your family
all around you time and time again. Thanksgiving this year was wonderful.

if a picture is worth a 1000 words...

then what are these two saying?

I hope you cracked a smile... I can't help but to!

Cool Cars Race Track

Oh it was like Christmas morning... Grandpa and Grammy had given the boys a present while they were in town (more on that later) and man alive, you'd have thought it was Christmas morning. As much as Matthew loves his trains and track... he hasn't built a single track since these cars were unwrapped and set up. What was funny is that I'm not sure who had more fun with them last week... Mark and Matthew or Uncle Brian! Uncle Brian happens to be the BEST engineer you see. Matthew has said more than five times now that he NEEDS Uncle Brian to help me. I am not doing a great job of track building. Today it took a while to get the split in the track going the way it needed to go to make the loop work... bah! It's beyond me. But they love it. We sat in the play room today for a lengthy time, Mark being a tunnel for the cars to pass under and Matthew and I working the tracks out. We have discovered that the little cars can push balls on the tracks. So now it's funny to see what else they can push and what makes them crash... any how, here are some of the first pictures of these new cool cars.

Oh yah, and I did I mention that they are even
super fun to play with at night... in the dark....

pictures at stone mountain

Jennifer has done it again. Thank you thank you thank you. She has captured some sweet memories and precious moments of my family loving on each other this past weekend at Stone Mountain. Here's a small sample. If anyone in the area needs a photographer, I'm telling you, she's it!