Happy New Year

Playing Church

Lydia and Henry are playing Church Worship Team in this video.  Lydia (in a police chief costume) is the leader and is holding our church bulletin.  The best part of this is that she is making up the words to the song!   Dan has a talent for making up songs, and he's turned it into a game with her.  She is really good at it.  I only caught the end of the song on video.  

"He was born in a manger, He was born in a manger, He was born in a manger.  

We shout it, we shout it, we shout it out loud."

Just some good ole praise and worship in this one.  

Necklace + Tape = ?

They came up with this on their own!  Their favorite show is Fireman Sam. In one episode Norman, a little boy, walks around listening to his mp3 player.  That is what they are imitating.

Nativity Game

We spend a few days in Corpus Christi with my parents for Christmas.  After we got home, Lydia was really into reenacting the nativity story.  She dragged us into it one evening.  We really played it up with costumes and everything!  The best part was how Henry couldn't quite keep the Christmas story separate form Moses in a basket.  So when the wise men came to tell us to leave Bethlehem to get away from Kind Herod, we came up with a great plan to put Jesus in a basket in the Nile River.  Try not laughing at that!

Henry's room

Henry wanted to show everyone his room!  Navy, gray and orange.  We just got these storage bins from Land of Nod. and they are WONDERFUL for cleaning up at the end of the day.

 So cute I almost want to make his bed every morning.  Almost.

Our West Texas Home

We are finally in our newly built, 1 1/2 story, west texas home!  We even put up a few Christmas decorations!  

 Thank you, Lydia, for showing off the entry!

Feeding the ducks and fish at our pond, a one minute walk from the house!

Our tiny playground.

Mabel loves this spot to practice standing!

Mabel riding horsey

Mabel reading a book

Mabel eating one of our few Christmas decorations

My superhero bedtime protectors

We even had our first visitor!  

It's......Stephanie!!!

 Steph came for a quick weekend to help me set up some rooms.  It was WONDERFUL to have her drive all the way to help out.

Headed West

God blessed Dan with a great career opportunity and a better balance between work and family life.  Our family is headed west to Midland, Texas.  As we've told people about the move, I have only heard positive things about raising a family in west Texas so we are thrilled to move and give it a try!  We sold our house (by owner in one week for over asking price, praise the Lord!) and quickly moved out at the end of October. A wonderful family bought the house and will love living there.  I showed them pictures of the Bible verses that cover the studs and concrete subsurfaces, and they were blessed to bring their new family together into a home built on God's foundation.

After a long weekend in the Woodlands with Amy's family, I brought the kids to Corpus Christi for two weeks at my parent's house.  Nana and Paca had fireman costumes and a new John Deere riding tractor for us to play with.  My nephew Ryan was also with us for most of the visit.

 Henry being the boss

The boys getting along this time

visiting the fire station

going for a pony ride out on the ranch 

 

 

 Mabel was happing crawling around the kitchen

My parents went to a 20s themed ball, and I helped my mom with her hairdo