Fantasy of Trees

The 2008 Fantasy of Trees was a lot of fun! We have a family tradition of going on Thursday after enjoying a Thanksgiving meal together. The kids were looking forward to the crafts and rides, as well as visiting with Santa!
I was very impressed that both kids remembered the 3 things they planned to ask Santa for this year. Mackenzie asked for a Barbie Bike, Care Bear Cub, and Medical Plastic Earrings. Josiah asked for a Skate Board, Cars Bike, and Cars Scooter. Hmm...I see a pattern with his items...Go, Josiah, Go! :) He does like to be on the move.

Josiah in the train.

Mackenzie in the train.

My favorite thing from the Fantasy of Trees is my set of pot holders with each child's hand print. I have a set from last year, too. Mackenzie wrote her name on hers this year, making it that much more special to me!

David's parents and brother were with us for Thanksgiving and we all enjoyed the Fantasy of Trees. Being an employee of Children's Hospital, I'm a big fan of the Fantasy of Trees as the proceeds go to support the hospital! Fun times, good cause. Hope everyone had a marvelous Thanksgiving.

Half Birthday Update

My Baby Boy is 2 1/2 years old today. Where, oh where, has the time gone???

We are thankful to have David's parents here for Thanksgiving, and since they have a tradition of celebrating half birthdays...today was Josiah's special day! As a child, on his 1/2 birthday, David got to pick the place to eat. Now for the grand kids, David's parents go all out! They even brought presents to celebrate; I went and picked out half of a cake for the half birthday celebration. He, he.
I just love the look on Josiah's precious little face in the above picture. Mackenzie, along with the rest of us, was singing "Happy Half Birthday" to Josiah. He obviously knew it was his special day.
This picture just captured his pleased little expression so well.

Now this picture just cracks me up. As soon as we were finished singing, he dug right in to that cake! You can see the missing icing along the edge of the cake closest to him, as well as the clump in route to his mouth. :)

His special day was complete with gifts from Granna and Z-Pa! (Mackenzie received some gifts, too, of course!)

We had a fun day and made some neat memories. I still cannot believe my baby is two and a half! We measured him at home today; he is 36 inches tall and weighs 29.5 pounds already! I was surprised as Mackenzie did not weigh 29 pounds until she turned 3 1/2 years old-Ha. Josiah recognizes letters for over half of his alphabet now. He knows all his colors and shapes. He can almost spell his name by himself...still requires a little prompting, but correctly identifies his name when he sees it in print. Also knows all the letters in his name, just sometimes rearranges them still! He can sing the entire alphabet song. He enjoys singing lots of other songs, too. His favorite is "Jesus Loves Me." When he needs us in the night, he just gets up from his toddler bed and comes to our room to get us. He's up at 7am or slightly thereafter these days, and goes to bed between 7:30pm and 8pm. He loves his chocolate milk in a sippy cup. When Mackenzie wakes up, he loves to greet her with a morning hug and they share their "I love yous." It melts a Mommy's heart. He loves to draw. One of his favorite toys these days is anything on wheels, especially trains. Diego and Lightening McQueen are his favorite two characters, hands down. He is a good little helper, and he loves to entertain! I love his cuddles and his kisses. Today he informed us all that he is not 2 1/2 years old...he said, "I'm still just two!" I don't mind that one bit. You just stay little kiddo!

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Josiah! You are two and one half years old today. I will add to this post later...hopefully with some ball park measurement updates and some fun pictures from an upcoming half Birthday party from Granna & Z-Pa! :)

Yummy Boogers

As David changed Josiah's morning diaper, I witnessed the following conversation:

Josiah: "I have a big booger, Daddy!" (Holding out finger with aforementioned booger on it for him to see.)

David: "Yes, you sure do."

(Josiah begins to move finger with booger still on it towards open mouth.)

David: "No! Don't eat it!"

(Finger pauses in midair...)

Josiah: With lower lip protruding in a pout, "But, I'm soo hungry!"

Doesn't anyone feed this child?! ;)

(No, he did not eat it. Yes, we did feed the boy some breakfast!)

Christmas Card Pic

We spent over an hour yesterday attempting to get our "Christmas Card Picture" for this year. I am pleased to announce that....we did it! The last photo in this post (also the current blog title pic) is the winner. I have to say...we had soo much fun taking the gazillion pictures required to get the one "winner." (Thank goodness for digital.) You could get some really good laughs by seeing ALL the pictures, but I'll spare you the time involved. Ha. For now, I thought I'd share just a few. Above is my favorite silly one.

Here is my favorite of Josiah, the reindeer, with Santa peering over his shoulder!

This is my favorite of Mackenzie in front of our Christmas tree. Yes, we do have our Christmas decorations up already! We actually decorated almost a week ago. The kids were very excited and ready to decorate, so...why not?! :)

This is the one we chose for our Christmas Cards. (Ahem, FYI, Sam's Club has GREAT pricing on bulk quantity photo cards...just in case you need to know...and we LOVE pictures to add to our fridge and memo boards...hint, hint.) ;)

Wonderful Weekend

Mackenzie and I had a "Girls Day Out" and went to Disney on Ice together. We had so much fun! She spotted a billboard advertising for Disney on Ice about a month ago. She then began telling people that we were going and she was so excited. Only problem was...we did not actually have tickets. Thanks to my papa, we ended up with tickets and thoroughly enjoyed the event! Mackenzie was living a dream. Her enthusiasm was priceless and contagious! On our way there she spontaneously said, "Mom, I love you and I just love our girl time together." Yes, I was teary eyed and we were barely even out of our neighborhood!
Several of the children around us had light up toys and souvenirs. She had nothing. The thing that struck me the most was that she did not ask for anything, though she looked longing at the other kids. I decided to take her during intermission to the souvenir stand and let her pick out an item. Her eyes were huge as she looked at the table full of toys. Within seconds, she selected a butterfly princess wand that has lights and sounds, too. Perfect! She has been asking for a princess wand for a couple of months now. How fun that she got one while at Disney on Ice!

Yeah, that picture is very blurry. At least you kinda get the idea about the beauty of Cinderella and her carriage!

And a fabulous part of our weekend was spent with the Miller Family! We were delighted to have them at our house on Thursday night. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the time together (and just did the "sisterly thing" towards the very end of the visit)! I was just enjoying the visit so much that I forgot to take pictures of the kids until this morning at church. I was able to snap some before church began.

Precious Friendship. Josiah, Laura, and Mackenzie at church today. We miss the Miller's so very much; it was a treat to get to see them this weekend!

Halloween

Yep, that picture says it all! The kids were silly and ready to go trick or treating...forget posing for pictures, Momma!
Me with my precious little Superman and my precious little Snow White.

Our WONDERFUL neighbors with our kiddos. This was our first stop and our kids were right at home. As soon as the door was opened, they just went right on in! I think the kids had a bucket full just after that one stop! (These are the neighbors that Mackenzie has claimed as an additional set of grandparents!)


I felt bad for Josiah as at the very next stop, when the door opened, he went right on in...as we had in the picture above...but since we didn't know the people this time, we were retrieving him. I think he was embarrassed as he just thought we were supposed to go inside. He tries so hard to do things just the right way, just like Mackenzie does, except he's still little enough that he doesn't remember last year or the proper etiquette! I tried to explain things better before our next stop so he could enjoy it without being embarrassed.

David and Josiah.

Mackenzie and Josiah knocking on the next door.

This is one of my favorite pictures from Halloween night. We were barely inside our own front door when the two of them sat down on the stairs, with the buckets by their sides, and began to enjoy their loot!

Spiders and Braids

Blogger is uploading my pictures in the exact opposite order that I am trying to upload them in...but since I don't want to do it all over again...here they are! My second attempt at french braiding. I'm beginning to figure it out, though I have a hard time remember which way to go next and being able to hold the three strands while picking up more hair and still holding it all tight enough. Whew. I'm having fun trying, and I promise I won't post pictures with every attempt from here forward! Please forgive the toys strewn everywhere!
We were having some down time while watching Curious George.

...And, we made a cozy place to lay while watching Curious George! Can you see how tired the kids are just by looking at their faces?!

Mackenzie made these "spiders." My mom passed the idea along to us, and it was very easy and fun, too. Just take a Ritz cracker, smear peanut butter on it, place pretzel sticks as legs, and use M&M's for eyes.

Here's our finished product! Other than smearing the peanut butter, Mackenzie made them all by herself!