Papa and Grandma Brooke drove up last weekend for a visit. Nadia was so excited and Amelie caught on really quick that she was going to have fun. They tag teamed the girls for play time and told Mike and I we could go out to lunch alone. I had some Cheesecake Factory gift cards from my birthday so we headed over and had such a nice time. (I enjoyed eating a complete meal without feeding someone else or taking someone to the bathroom. HA!)

They brought beautiful spring outfits for the girls and fun treats like flash cards and stickers!

Nadia engaging Brooke in one of her serious play sessions.

The next morning we had WAFFLEMANIA! I made regular and chocolate Belgium waffles. The chocolate ones had chocolate chips and peanut butter chips inside and really should have been considered dessert for breakfast. We also had butter, syrup, whipped cream, nutella and strawberries for toppings. It’s such a fun tradition every time they come to visit.

After waffles there was a lightsaber duel.

And Amelie is down – she didn’t last long. It was a nice fun weekend – thanks for coming Dad and Brooke!

• For our friends the Hatcher’s who are in China right now and their new daughter Lulu. One less orphan in the world.
• For all the new babies who will be joining families in our church this year.
• For all the people working to prevent trafficking at this years Super Bowl. Thousands of girls will be trafficked into Indy this year for the illegal sex trade. Please pray for the people working in the trenches to save these girls and women.
• For the beautiful weather this week – we had so much fun at the zoo.
• For the 73 degree weather at the end of January.
• For the money we have to pay for our zoo membership.
• For the KIDS HOPE USA party we are going to have this weekend.
• For the faithfulness of my mentors and their love for the children they are matched with.

Introduced Amelie to color wonder markers. She thought they were awesome!

Block City by Nadia. She really worked hard on this project.

Playdough is always fun!

The weather has been glorious this month so the girls have spent a lot of time outside. Just chillin’ on Mr. Crabs.

Amelie is starting to learn her letters. She has come so far in all kinds of other areas that I think she is going to do well.

Happy Chinese New Year from our “dragons”.

Check out the link here to enter to win on their facebook page. They are going to choose 2 winners for a playset and Oasis Garden set which looks super cool. The best part is that it will keep out those pesky rabbits!

http://www.swingsetsonline.com/backyard-ideas/backyard-blog/playsets/January%202012/Double_the_Prize_Double_the_Fun_Sweepstakes

Click the photo above to see the whole album.

Christmas is always an exciting time for me, but this year I really felt over the top. This being Amelie’s first Christmas and her being a toddler changed everything. Unlike and infant who doesn’t really know what is happening, it’s been really fun to see the delight she has at all the new things we have done. Nadia was really sweet the whole month wanting to point stuff out to Amelie and saying, “This is your first Christmas. Do you want to see this or do that?” The first gifts they saw were the sleeping bags/pillows. Thanks Lynnea for posting about them so I could score them myself at Costco. Nadia wanted to open up the sleeping bags and try them out right away. Then it was on to the stockings.

Amelie was really funny because she would open a gift and then want to clean up the paper and THEN check out the gift. We kept telling her not to worry about it, but she didn’t really listen until the end of the presents. The girls each got a medical kit in their stocking and apparently Mommy needed a lot of doctoring.

Nadia with her new cookbooks and kitchen gadgets from Papa and Grandma Brooke.

Amelie with her Tag Jr from Papa and Grandma Brooke.

Nadia with Darth Maul. She was totally amazed with all the Star Wars galactic hero figures and ships she got. (These were the rest of the set that we bought at her birthday. She asked us where we got them and we told her eBay. I am now convinced she thinks eBay is a magical storehouse of Star Wars figures you can’t buy in stores)

Amelie loving the wand (and tutu) from Kim, Eddie and the kids.

Spanish Dancer pose.

My sister Tahni and her husband Joseph were going to be in our area for 2 hours on Christmas Day so we told her to let us know who to invite for some coffee, appetizers and visiting. The time went too fast, but we all had fun before everyone broke off to have their meals with the other half of their families.

4 generations here!

Grammie and some of her grandkids.

My favorite of the day – the Prom Pose of cousins and spouses/fiancées.  I love that everyone humored me!

Once everyone was gone we put the girls down for a nap and after they woke up we went to visit with Mike’s mom at her assisted living apartment. That night for dinner I made Mexican food and the girls had a blast playing with all their new gifts. I think Amelie was totally and completely overloaded by the end of the day and we could tell by her attitude so bedtime came quick.

It was a wonderful day and we are so blessed!

I love the tulips!

Grammie, Me, Amelie and Aunt Paula – thanks for coming!

The moms and babies. We missed the couple that were out due to sickness, but we still prayed for them.

Amelie’s keepsake with all of her prayer cards inside.

We spent Christmas Eve day in a relaxed way. I had a couple odds and ends to pick up and in the early evening we went to church for the Christmas Eve service. We came home and Amelie helped me bake the cookies from an earlier post. We had arranged for my mom and sister Michelle to Skype with us while my mom read the Polar Express and Michelle did sound effects. It was just as much fun as last year because they get so into the story telling.  Then we let the girls open 1 present after dinner. The girls had plenty of time to play before we sent them off to bed.

Then we put the finishing touches on everything and went to sleep ourselves.

Nadia working on the scented dough to represent the frankincense and myrrh.

Here are our crafts (we missed the crafts on some days -but still did the readings with all our other activity in December, but we almost completed the full 24):

Light, Kingdom, Zechariah

Gabriel, Mary, Mary and Elizabeth with pregnant bellies

Song, Sun, Joseph, Joseph’s pillow (for his dream)

Bethlehem, Stable, Clothes, Sheep

Shepards, Temple, Star

Wise Men, Gifts

• For having 1st world problems. (What is that?)
• For things like our house flooding. When we had insurance and a place to stay while it was being fixed. And guess what? Through it all we had a HOUSE – with a yard and a garage with 2 working cars in it.
• For when the washer breaks. Sure it has to be fixed, but what must a washer seem like to someone in a 3rd world country? A magic box connected to your wall that fills with CLEAN water to wash your dirty clothes. You just dump in some soap that you can find at any store within 100 miles. Then you move it to another magic box that drys them for you so they can come out fresh and clean. So I am grateful that we have the money to fix our magic box when it breaks.
• on that note, For CLEAN water that pumps into my house without me giving it a 2nd thought. Our American toilet water is cleaner than what the bulk of the world walks miles everyday to collect.
• For when our A/C motor went out in the middle of the summer and we all spent a really hot night waiting for the repair man to come in the morning. Another magic item that we take for granted that keeps us comfortable day and night no matter what the weather. Once again grateful for the money we had to fix it.
• For having 3 toilets to clean.  How blessed are we to not ever have to think about where we go to the bathroom or what to do with it when we are done.

I could go on and on, but instead I ask you to post some of your 1st world problems you are thankful for today.