Missions Monday - Grigore

My missionary friends from Romania are coming to the states.  They are asking for prayers for funds to travel and their adopted sons visa to be approved.  I am so excited to see them, she of course wants to love on my kiddos.

day in the park

a 5 yr olds grocery list

Old McRichards had a farm

For the next couple of weeks, we are learning about farm animals. The goat reminds us Jesus died for our sins. The cow reminds us God's Word helps me grow (think milk makes Read grow).  The horse reminds us to obey right away. 
We made sock puppets to reenact Old McDonald and Inside a Barn in the Country.
LE made a farmer girl and a bunny.  Bell made a pig, bunny, and little girl.  Puppet stage was a C-mas gift from Gigi a few years back.

Wordless Wednesday

Missions Monday - Missionary Kids

Rachel and Matthew have to be two of the bravest kids I know.  They trusted their parents, packed up their bedrooms and left their friends behind to travel half-way across the globe to be missionaries.  I am so proud of these kids.  They are being God's hands and feet.  Soon, the Staubers will be starting a pre-school.  I can only imagine that Rachel will be right there helping teach the little ones every day.  Matthew will be right there beside, ball and stick in hand no doubt.  Please continue to pray for them - protection, wisdom (especially in learning the Portuguese language), and friends.  There are lots of children Matthew's age, but as they get to be Rachel's age (9) they begin to leave the care points to work or care for siblings.  I pray the Lord sends a special friend especially for Rachel.

she said...

When I asked the girls where the Lincoln Memorial was located, she replied...
"on the back of a penny."

just so you know...

I remembered two more of my favorite things last night - LED pocket flashlight for the middle of the night feedings and swaddle blankets.

I went back to teaching Silver Sneakers this week.  I had 45 in class, 9 newbies!  At the end of February, I am going to Fort Worth to get certified to teach yoga and cardio fit.  We are adding the cardio fit class at the gym and I will be the only only one certified to teach it.  I will sub in yoga with hopes of an opportunity to teach it.  I would love 4 classes a week.  I get my workout in that way too. The Seniors blessed us with 500 diapers and 700 baby wipes.

It has been really difficult to get to the gym every day b/c I do not want to take R2 to the nursery yet.  Ben and I have invested in a couple of Jillian Michaels' DVDs.  This banish fat one is my favorite.  She claims if we keep it up, we will have bodies like hers, yeah we laughed at that one too.

The girls earned all of their tokens this month, they are going on a Daddy-Daughter date this morning to see Tangled.  I am having Mommy-son time in front of the tv watching season 1 of Parenthood.  This is my favorite show on tv.  I never thought I would find something I enjoyed as much as Friends, but this is right up there.  It is about a family of 4 siblings now that they are grown-up.  There are in all walks of life, each one with their own set of children and issues.  Yet, they are all there for each other in all seasons.  If you have not seen it, you are missing out.

a few of my favorite things- baby edition

1. saline spray

2. cool mist humidifier

3. powdered formula dispensers (pictured)

4. pajamas with zippers

5. Pampers Swaddlers (with the green line to show baby is wet)

6. heart beat teddy bear

7. Calming Vibrations infant to toddler rocker

 I am sure this list will grow, but so thankful for these things right now.  They make life so much more pleasurable.



Wordless Wednesday

century apart

Read meet my parent's 100 year old neighbor over the holidays.  I can only imagine the stories Mr. House can share with him.

brrr it's cold outside

Who would know though?
This week we have been pretty much stuck indoors. However, there are no shortage on dress-up and board (not bored) games. The girls were blessed with a plethera of games for Christmas including uno, SkipBo, Sequence (my fave), Operation, Trouble, Bingo, Yahtzee, Perefection & scrabble.

one month old

Read has found his voice. He loves to coo at us and we have even gotten a couple of smiles.
At his one month appointment, he weighed 9 pounds, 1 ounce and was 21 3/4 inches.
This week, I had my 6 week appointment and I had to take all 3 with me with temperatures in the low 30's.  It was an adventure getting across the parking lot, but we all made it.  During my visit, the girls were entertained by their leapsters and he slept. 

Christmas morning at Gigi's

We spent Christmas morning with Gigi and PopPop. The girls received a leapster explorer from them and they were so excited. Every time we go to Colin and Merrick's they play theirs and ask for one. We have already replaced the batteries and it only gets used in the car and at dr appts (we have had a lot of appointments this month). The girls made each of their grandparents and great-grandmas birdhouses for Christmas. They also got jammies, a baby boy doll and wooden paper dolls.

Missions Monday- Williams Fam

Yes, this post is a day late, was waiting for my pics. 
We were so excited to see my missionary friends, Isaac and Carol at a South African brai (BBQ) this weekend.  They are missionaries to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.
We spent the entire afternoon catching up with most everyone from our church who has traveled to Africa.  They have two girls, ages 9 and 23 months.  I told our girls we were going to be seeing some friends from Africa, they were a little surprised they were not the same "color" as our Watoto friends. 
Bella and their oldest daughter were playing and Bell got really upset b/c Elena would not answer her, she speaks primarily Portugese and this was her first time being exposed to English.  We had such a great time, but I am missing Africa again and chomping at the bits to hear from God about when Ben and I get to return.  One of my favorite sayings is "once you go to Africa, you will go back in your mind every day for the rest of your life."  Ringing very true for me lately.

we've moved

When we came home from Christmas break, we were welcomed by this sign.  I liked living in my town, I did not want to be annexed by a neighboring town.  As of now, we still have our old address. 

Christmas Eve morning

We had a great morning at my parents on Christmas Eve. Our family is truly blessed to have a tight-knit family. I am so thankful we can all come together and spend the morning together. We had 3 special elves to pass out the gifts and 2 grandsons celebrating their first Christmas. Both of my grandmothers were there to spend the day.
Ben and I finally gave the girls their James Avery charm bracelets. We have been adding charms since the year they were born. This Christmas, Bella got the middle child charm and LE got the ABC charm to commemorate her starting kindergarten. LE and Bella picked out gifts for each other and LE picked out a special Daddy's girl frame for Ben. I of course recieved my Canon 60D camera that we have been saving for (thus the 1 heart the 60's title). It was a special morning, and one I hope the girls will remember. LE was just as excited to see others open their gifts from her as she was to open her own, thats a trait she gets from me.

meeting Granny and Grandma

Over the Christmas holidays, Read got to meet his great-grandmothers. Granny is my maternal grandmother and Grandma is my paternal grandmother. Both of my grandfathers have passed away and Ben's grandparents have passed away too. He has a step-grandpa that I hope we get to make the trip to San Antonio to see very soon.
Granny is here visiting us now, so I know she will get some good spoiling time in.

too many to hang with care

Our family gets bigger and bigger each year and traditions have to change each year. One thing I LOVED about this Christmas was that my Dad dressed up like Santa and delivered the stockings to us the night before we opened our gifts. My mom does all of our stockings and thankfully Aunt Rissa remembered to do Mom's this year, I completely forgot!
The girls got crayons, word finds, color books, toothbrushes, Mimi-made cake pops, and stickers. Mommy got new C-mas socks and other Charming Charlie goodies.  Daddy got candy and Star Wars goodies.  I hope this becomes a Neal tradition.

meeting "Santa"

"I think PawPaw Claus is the best Santa too."
My Dad, Christmas Eve.

holiday traditions

Two years in a row constitutes a tradition, right?
We were so blessed to have friends bring us meals after I came home from the hospital. One of them brought us a gingerbread house to create with the girls. I would have thought this project would have been harder than the gingerbread men we made last year, but it was far easier. Read even joined us, but he enjoyed his papasan chair more than the icing.