Merry Christmas Eve!

We hope you "Think of your fellow men, lend him a helping hand, and put a little love in your heart - We hope when you decide kindness will be your guide, and you put a little love in your heart." The world will be a better place.

Thank you God for sending your son to die for us. We know the pain of losing a son, and I will be eternally grateful for the sacrifice you made to share your son with a world who did not deserve it. Thank you for the joy this holiday brings, and the reason we have to celebrate it.
Merry Christmas.

This pretty much sums up my week...

Kenron has aquired and shared a cold with Axel and me. We are now pretty much over it, and we are smiling again. But we haven't recovered completely yet to clean our shirts or the snacks stuck in our boogies :)

I really do love this cutie
On a high note Axel is falling into a lovely sleep schedule, which includes sleeping 11 hours at night.

Honesty.

This is the latest I've ever put up my tree, and it's not even done. I cant seem to catch up since Thanksgiving. I have this little "Christmas Corner" that feels kind of pitiful..

I feel like I'm bursting with energy to really dig in and make this house "Ours" and yet it seems like its in a constant state of chaos lately..







And have I mentioned Axel cries.. A LOT. SO I dont get to do all the things I would like. Somedays things get done with a crying baby in the background. Somedays having two little kids really kicks my butt.

Then this sweet face shows up and things arent so bad.
Axel and I haven't quite found our groove yet, but I'm so happy he is here I get choked up just thinking about life without him. He has truly filled a very empty spot in my heart that has been aching for another little boy. I cant tell you how lovely it is to have a baby boy this time of year to hold in my arms, when three years ago I was dying to hold my first son who was too far away in the NICU.

So even though I may not feel so comfortable in my body at the moment, or the clutter of my house is making my hair stand on its end... I can take comfort in the joy that I dont get to take any of these things to heaven. Honestly the only things I get to take to heaven with me are my boys, and isnt that really the only thing that matters?
~ remind me of this tomorrow when they are both screaming and I'm opening up my own Ebay account to see how much two fussy boys go for these days :)

Hope your holidays are joyful and remember to slow down and enjoy the little things, because it all goes by too fast.

Thanksgiving 09

Axel's FIRST THANKSGIVING - I'm not sure he was very impressed.

Kenron liked his dinner.

And he liked playing on Mac's chair. He would say "Up-ah There!"

But he loved playing with "Carter" (Claire) more...

Ivy was so good at holding Axel.

Kenron joined in on the tradition of bowling but was more interested in the arcade games behind us.

The little carousel was the BEST!

He played "Marbles" at Mac and Pa's, who he kept calling "Beesie Pa's" He would call Mac, Mac and Pa - Pa, but when we were driving to their house and we were talking about Mac and Pa's he kept singing "Beesie Pa's, Beesie Pa's" hehe too cute.

and OF COURSE Pa worked his magic on Axel-rooney.

I had a REALLY good time, and the boys were awesome on each 8 hour trip! Thank you God for a wonderful and relaxing time with our family.

Axel is two months old

yikes, we aren't going to talk about how fast my baby is growing up. So instead we'll talk about what a huge baby he is...

At his appt monday we found out he is 13lbs 14oz (one full diaper away from 14 lbs!) and 23 1/4" - Kenron was 11.5 lbs and 23".

Kenron is still loving his brother - He is really proud to show him off to strangers in the store and people at church...

We haven't mastered "holding" the baby yet :)

update on Kenron

Kenron has been a little Parrot lately, repeating the things we say - Here he is saying "oops, oops" then he says "Its overflowing! Its Over flowing" (sounds like "going, going") Then he finds his star, and starts to sing his version of twinkle twinkle which sounds like "up-ah star, up-ah star"

He has been getting more emotional about things. If he's happy he's REALLY happy, and if he's annoyed he's REALLY annoyed, and when he's excited he's REALLY excited. This video is him watching the previews before Curious George - I bet you'll know exactly when George shows up :)

Kenron has been willing to help me a lot lately. So I let him help me make the cornbread for small group on sunday. I'm sure food network will be calling anyday now :)

Guess who climbed out of his crib this morning...

We'll see if this becomes a habit... oiy.

My "little snack machine"

Here is Axel at 6 weeks old...


He's started smiling and cooing - Oh its just the BEST!

Eat your heart out Martha Stewart...

Ok so a few years ago when my college friends threw me a bridal shower I got recipes from them, and I requested a specific cookie recipe from my friend Sunny.

To my delight she was more than gracious enough to share it with me. The secret is one of the ingredients is a package of instant pudding.

Now if you looked in the baking isle lately you will see that Jello has a "seasonal pumpkin spice" pudding out at the moment. When I saw this I was INSTANTLY inspired to make some cookies.

SO, I tried it out - using the pudding, adding pumpkin puree, a few more spices, and replacing butterscotch chips for some of the chocolate chips...

And Holy smokes are they GOOD!! - So good infact that I decided to share them for a bake sale our friends from church were having.

I got little baggies and tags and put it all together..

Two cookies per bag, and a little golden leaf

I think I should start a bakery dont you?

These cookies were a HUGE HIT!! I was so very UN-humble when it came to taking credit and let everyone know how proud I was that it was MY recipe I made up. Really I owe it all to Sunny's generosity.

So thanks Sunny, you are truly the BEST!

Thanks to Auntie Shan-Shan we have Fall Photos!



Coming to a Mail Box near you!

Monthly Pictures - first month

Ok here it is Axel's one month old picture.

He's really starting to fill out, its all I can do to not eat him up whole.


PS. OH. MY. WORD. This was Kenron last year.
Stop growing up so fast your killin' me smalls.

Mr. Turtle and Little Pumpkin Man

We had fun at our church's "Knock Knock Night", it was Kenron's first time trick or treating, and he really didnt know what to think. He wasnt really scared, but he wasn't totally excited. It was almost like you could see him thinking "Ok what's the catch, you cant just be giving this candy to me for no reason" hehe

We also had (no exageration)15+ people ask us where Jack Sparrow was. Most of them were ladies :) I mean I cant blame them - he looked GOOD last year.

3 weeks old

Grammie and Bucca came to visit and we went out to Cracker Barrel to celebrate the twins birthday with Grancie and Grandy.
On friday night Axel and I went to his first scrapbooking night and he was an angel. He slept the whole time in his carseat and only fussed to eat...
But 8 o'clock came WAYYY too early the next morning :) hehehe

We had Baby Dedication sunday that same weekend and we went out to eat at Earls afterwards with Grancie and Grandy, and Tara and Jeremy. It was a fun, and crazy weekend!

Two weeks old.

Kenron is in love with his "Bee-Bee" He loves to hold him (for two seconds) and kiss him and play with his fingers..

This kid has awesome hair. We are in love with it.

Kenron was such a baldy, I thought I was just destined to have hairless babies, but Axel has lots of hair, and its even curly on the top!

He is also a champion burper and pooper. So much so that wednesday night he projectile vomited, and pooped through two outfits.. so he ended up in just a blanket. But he was still so cute I had to take a picture :)

I can tell Mat and I are MUCH more relaxed the second time around. I dont worry over the little things and Mat is more confident in all things baby - changing diapers, soothing a fussy one, and getting out the burps. Its nice. Axel has even slept 6 hours at night for the past two nights.. of course I have now jinxed it by telling all the internet world, but either way God has been gracious to us in our parenting, and Axel couldn't be more of a blessing.