Christmas Tree and Gingerbread House

We have been having such fun time at our house getting ready for Christmas. We have been watching Christmas movies, singing Christmas songs, talking about the nativity and our savior, making candy, drinking hot chocolate, looking at Christmas lights, and anything else we can think of, and we still have plans for going caroling and doing a Christmas pageant. I love this time of year. I love the traditions, and I especially love starting new traditions with my family and doing my best to make it a magical season for my Rachel-girl!

My Rachel-girl is so sweet! We have focused a lot on the Savior and the real reason for the season. It is so important to me that my kids know what Christmas is all about that we decided to not have Santa in our home. I know many probably think that is awful but it is a personal decision we have made for our family, and so far I have loved it. Instead of teaching my kids that Santa is watching so the need to be good so they can get presents, we are focusing on being good as a present for Jesus. I have taught Rachel that Christmas is Jesus's birthday and how we give presents to remember him on that special day and Rachel being her sweet innocent self has been telling me she wants to give Jesus a present. When I tell her the things we can do to give him presents, she says, "No, Jesus wants my fwog!"  She has been so adamant about Jesus wanting her frog for weeks now. I think it is the cutest thing ever!

As I was decorating my tree this year I wanted something on it to help remind us of the savior, so here are some of the decorations I made for the tree this year.
 

This year for the first time ever as a family we made a gingerbread house. We had so much fun and it is something I totally want to make into a tradition.

Here's Jacob helping me cut out the pieces.

 

 

Before the candy is on.

Finished product

And the back

Rachel eating some of the candy

Jacob is so good at this kind of thing. I love watching his creative side come out when he is helping me with a  project!

 

 

Rachel picked up the lights when i was decorating the tree and said to me, "Look Mom, I'm pretty!"

Again, Here is Rachel decorating herself instead of the tree. I love this girl!


Kent loves looking at the lights on our tree! I do too, that is one of my favorite things to do. Snuggling in front of the tree just looking at the lights!

 

 

 

I just love Christmas!

Big boy!

Kent turned 4 months yesterday! I can't believe how big this boy is getting! His constant state is wiggly and happy! I know that if he stops wiggling then he is getting tired and if he stops being happy then he is hungry. I love this sweet boy so much! I just weighed him and he has gained 3.1 pounds in the last month and now weighs 19 pounds which puts him above the 95th percentile for his weight! I think that is really funny because  he now out weighs Rachel at that age by a half a pound. He is wearing size 3 diapers and for the most part his clothes are size 9-12 months!

He found his toes this last week and loves to grab them. I remember when Rachel first found her toes she would pull them to her mouth and eat them, but Kent isn't as flexible as she was. He has a lot more muscle on his body than she did so he can't stretch as far.

He makes spit bubbles all day long and completely soaks his shirts.

He is officially too big for his swing. I put him in it last night while I ran to go to the bathroom. When I was in the bathroom, I heard a big thump. I ran out to see what had happened and he was laying on the ground underneath his swing just watching it move. Thankfully it is close to the ground and he wasn't hurt. He was just laying there happy and wiggly as can be. I totally should have buckled him in, but I thought he would be fine for just a minute. I felt so bad! I kept hearing that thump over and over in my head the rest of the evening. Poor little baby!

Kent is sitting up. He still tips over quite frequently and I wouldn't just leave his sitting up all by himself, but he can do it. 

He is so funny. He can be happy and wiggly and laughing one minute, and then in the next you can see a wave of tiredness come over him and he is tired and hungry and whine until you either feed him or put him down for a nap.

He is a finger sucker and a thumb sucker!

He is so wiggly and loves when you help him wiggle. In fact the easiest way to get him to sleep is to swaddle him and then bounce him. Today Jacob was putting him down for a nap and it was cracking me up because he was holding a swaddled Kent and jogging around the house. Kent was asleep within minutes.

He still doesn't sleep through the night. He wakes up on average about 2 times a night. At night he sleeps in his crib, but for naps he loves to sleep in his bouncer or in my arms. :)

He is trying to grab things with his hands. I love watching how uncoordinated  his little hands are, but he is doing a good job grabbing toys and blankets and my hand to pull into his mouth.

He can roll both directions, from his tummy to his back and from his back to his tummy, although he doesn't do it way often. His attitude about that seems to be, I already figured it out and its not a challenge anymore, so I don't need to keep doing it. 

Sorry this next picture is so blurry, and please don't look at my messy house in the background (we had just finished making a gingerbread house) but Kent will now take steps if you are holding his hands like in the picture below. It seems like since he's already mastered rolling over he wants to move on to bigger and better things.

He is totally wanting to eat food. He stares at us and whines when we are eating in front of him. We have given him licks of pears, apples, and bananas, and it makes him so happy when we share with him. Also he loves water. He will just stare at our water bottles until we share with him. I even gave him a sippy cup the other day and he totally figured out how to suck on it. He is getting a sippy cup and rice cereal for Christmas this year. :)

The other day I had him sitting in the bumbo while I was making dinner. Rachel came in and asked for a drink of water. Kent watched me walk across the room, open the cupboard, fill up her sippy cup and give it to Rachel. The funny part was that he was just staring at the sippy cup and when I gave it to Rachel, he cried! It totally hurt his feelings that I gave it to Rachel instead of giving it to him. I then got a little cup and shared some water with him and he was happy again. 

We love this little boy so much and we are so glad he is in our family!

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home!

Kent LOVES his daddy! Here is a super cute video of how excited Kent gets when Daddy comes home from work and starts to talk to him!

Superman of Power!

If you've never read a Piggie and Elephant book by Mo Willems, go do it. Now, after you read this post! 

We love the Piggie and Elephant books at our house. In fact we read at least one of them almost every day. Some families quote movies, but ours quote Piggie and Gerald. There is one book about throwing a ball, and Piggie throws Gerald's ball and he thinks he has thrown it around the world when in fact it only went a few feet and landed behind him. In the book Piggie is really excited and says, "Call me super pig with my arm of power! Need to throw a ball, here's the pig to call!" 

Rachel is really cute and she is trying to make all sorts of connections. She loves these books. Today she came up to me and said, "Call me Superman of Power! Ha ha ha!" She kept saying it over and over and Jacob was the one to figure out she was trying to quote that Piggie and elephant book. She knows who Superman is because that is what Kent was for Halloween, so she made the connection. I had heard her say that before sometimes followed by "power of God!" but had never made the connection to the book. She frequently quotes those books and I love it! I love how much she loves reading books! She would honestly rather read book than do just about anything else! 

As part of our night time routine, Jacob reads her three books. I know she is going to miss that special time with her Daddy when he is deployed. I think we are going to record him reading some books so she can still have that for while he's gone. 

I love seeing this cute sight every night! I love my famiy!

I'm a people!

This week I made some fudge and put it in plates to take around to some of our friends for Christmas. Rachel likes to help me when ever I'm making something. She asked me what I had gotten the plates out for and I told her that we were going to put the fudge on them to take around to people. Her response, 

"Oh! I'm a people!"

She was making sure I knew she was a people too so she could have fudge too! I thought it was so cute! Then anytime she wanted a piece of fudge she would tell me, 

"Mom, I'm a people! I want fudge!"

I love my little people girl! She makes my heart so happy, and I just love hearing all of the funny little things she says!

A beating

Rachel cane over to me this morning with her arms full of her stuffed animals and dolls and said to me, "Mom, will you beat my friends?"

Me (not sure I had heard right): "Beat them?"

Rachel: "Yes!"

Me (still a little confused): "Do you mean love them?"

Rachel: "Oh, yeah! Love them!"

I love that I live in a home where my kids can confuse beating with loving!

I love these kids!

Blogging for Books: No Safe Harbor by Elizabeth Ludwig

Another book review. This time I received a copy of No Safe Harbor by Elizabeth Ludwig from Bethany House Publishers, and I loved it. It was set in New York City in 1897. The story follows a young Irish immigrant who comes to New York searching for her twin brother she believed was dead. She was warned not to trust anyone, but she had no clue why. Alone in a new country with no where to turn she ends up trusting the very man who wants her brother dead. The book is a good mixture of suspense and just a little romance. Once I started reading it, I had to know what was going to happen and didn't want to put it down. I can hardly wait for the next book to come out! It will definitely be on my wish list. 

I received a free copy of No Safe Harbor from Bethany House Publishers. My opinion of the book is my own.To become a book reviewer and receive books for free follow this link: www.bethanyhouse.com/bookreviewers

Pumpkin patch

A few weeks ago we went to a pumpkin festival about an hours drive away. There was a corn maze, a pumpkin patch, a petting zoo, tons of booths to spend money on and even more things to be allergic to. 

We had only ever been to a corn maze at night before, and we found out why. Corn mazes during the day in Tucson are HOT!!! We didn't spend nearly as much time doing everything as we had wanted to. Mainly because it was really hot and miserable, and because Jacob got really sick from allergies poor guy. He was totally ready to go by the time we did! Jacob also got pretty sunburned. I didn't even think about bringing sunscreen! Who uses sunscreen in October? People who live in Tucson I guess. Thankfully neither one of the kids got sunburned!

I had never seen a real pumpkin patch before, and I thought it was super exciting to pick our own pumpkins from one! :)We picked 2 super cute pumpkins!

Probably the favorite part for everyone was the petting zoo. Rachel was so cute and got so excited to get to see and touch all of the animals!

Kent was two months old that day and did nothing but sleep the whole time. It was so hot, I don't blame him for just wanting to sleep!

Can you see everyone's pink cheeks in these pictures? Like I said it was pretty miserable. We didn't even get any relief from the heat on the way home, because our air conditioner on our car is broken. :(

Kent loved the stroller! 

If we were going to be here again next year, (which we probably won't be) I would definitely want to do it later in the day! We would probably do the pumpkin picking first thing instead of last too, because by the time we got to the pumpkin picking everyone was miserable and just wanting to go and that was the most exciting part (to me anyway!)

Pumpkin Carving

So we carved our pumpkins for family night the Monday before Halloween, and when I say we, I mean Jacob. We decided last year that if there is a 5th Monday in a month, that would be a party family night. Well this was a 5th Monday, so we decided that carving pumpkins would be perfect for our party. Kent didn't think so. He bawled and bawled so I ended up ditching the party to put him to bed. Rachel was bored out of her mind and Jacob ended up putting her to bed, and he carved them all by himself. We had another Family night the next night to make it up to Rachel.

 

 

He did an awesome job on our family of pumpkins though, don't you think?

 

Daddy and Mommy Pumpkin

Rachel and Baby Kent Pumpkin

I love it!

 

I love how he gave the daddy pumpkin parted hair and glasses just like him. He is so cute!

 

Birthday girl!

My dear Rachel-girl,
I can't believe you are two! It seems like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital and now today you can run and jump and sing and play. I am so happy to have you in my family! Our family definitely wouldn't be the same with out you in it! I love how big you are getting and I love to watch you figure out new things! You are so smart and funny and happy, but more importantly, you are kind. You are concerned about the feelings of others and are always trying to help out. You love your little brother and are such a good big sister to him. I love you so much my Rachel girl!

Love,
Your Mama-girl

Things about Rachel at 2 years old:

She is very tall and growing like a weed! She is now tall enough to turn lights on and off in every room in our house.
She is 36 inches tall. Three feet excatly which makes her in the 93rd percentile for height!
She weighs 33.3 pounds which puts her in the 97th percentile for weight.
In shirts and dresses she is no longer in toddler sizes. She wears an extra small in little girl sizes. In pants she wears 5T.
She loves loves loves nursery and talks about it all week long.
She remembers everything and repeats everything.
She loves to be outside and to color and to sing and to read books.
She likes to pick out what Baby Kent is going to wear every day.
She loves kisses, especially butterfly kisses, Eskimo kisses, and puppy kisses.
She talks up a storm and remembers the words from books and songs.
She says her "L's" like "Y's" and she drops her "S's" at the beginning of words that have a consonant after them, for example tore instead of store.
She wants to read books all day long, in fact if you want to get on her good side, just read her a few books and you will be her new best friend. Some of her favorite books are the piggy and elephant books by Mo Willems. In fact she asked for piggy cupcakes for her birthday.
She pulls the cookie cutters out of my drawers and plays the game where she asks me, "What's that Mommy?" about every cookie cutter, and after I tell her she says, "Yes!" Except there are a few cookie cutters that she is a little confused about and she always corrects me, such as the motorcycle cookie cutter she thinks is a pigeon, and the clover one she things is a tree.
She likes to give everyone pretend medicine and make sure that everyone is healthy. And she will say, "My a little sick."
If her window in the car is open she will always say, "My cold. Shut m' weeendow!" Even if it isn't cold.
She can count to 12.
She knows all of her letters including their sounds and can recognize all of their signs.
She will do anything if you make it into a game.
She is a little shy around people at first, but it doesn't take her long to warm up.
She sleeps with a teddy bear named Scratch. One night Jacob positioned Scratch so it looked like he was drinking her bed time milk. She got so excited and said, "Scratch grinkin' my milk!" It made her so happy that it has become a nightly routine.
She asks to be tickled.
She would rather jump or run than walk.
She says the funniest things.
She will come up to me or Jacob (or pretend to be talking to someone on the phone) and she says,"Hi, whats going on to you?"
If you ask her what she is thankful for the first thing she always says is, "Jesus!"
She loves dollies and stuffed animals.
If she things anyone is sad she is quick to give them kisses (even if they are in books).
She is so funny (but don't tell her I said so because she thinks only boys are funny). Jacob will sometimes sing nursery rhymes to her and sometimes he changes the words and says "Rachel Bo-peep has lost her sheep." She immediately has a come apart and says, "Rachel not a Bo-peep!" Then I will tease her and call her Rachel Bo-peep and she just laughs. She can't let Jacob call her that though.
There is much much more I could write about her, but she is currently sitting on my lap begging to be tickled and played with and that is much more important than writing on my blog.

Here are a few pictures of my little Rachel girl over the last year showing how much she has grown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy birthday little Rachel-girl! I love you!