Mary & Baby Jesus

I walked into the girls bedroom tonight to find my 2 year old in the laundry basket with her blanket over her. She said "I'm baby Jesus." "I'm baby Jesus." Then to her sister she said, "Are you Mary?" Immediately the 4 year old grabbed her blanket and put it around her head and sat down by the "manger". The 2 year old began to sing "Away in the Manger" and then "Sing it H---" to her older sister. I took a couple of pics and then we tucked the girls into bed, turned off the lights, and gave them hugs...at which point the 2 year old rolled over and said to the 4 year old "Good night Mary." To which the 4 year old responded "Good night baby Jesus."

Christmas was Snow Much Fun!

I think overall we got close to 20 inches of snow over the last week.

I loved it....but of course I didn't have to shovel the driveway everytime.
Check out the wall of snow at the base of our driveway. It is almost up to Eric's knees. They had shoveled it clear the day before. This was all brand new snow from overnight. We definitely had to dig out if we wanted to go anywhere.Eric and Jason Morehead began to dread every time it began to snow.

The girls loved it...They got to go sledding. I don't have any pictures of that because, my camera is in Oklahoma. Thankfully, these pics are brought to you courtesy of Eric's parents who stayed with us over Christmas.
Deep Snow!

We began building a snowman in late afternoon. But of course...we have 2 little girls obsessed with princesses. So the snowman was a little more creative.

The Snow Princess in all her glory!

If we would have put her in the front yard, sure she would have made the evening news.

It's a Fish!

That's what H2 said about what she saw on the ultrasound machine.

Actually before that Eric asked her what she saw on the screen. She said very clearly. "It's a baby boy." That was before we knew what it was. And then later she said "It's a fish." But, a brother is what her sister and her were hoping for. H1 really wanted a brother. We had to prepare her the night before in case it was a baby girl. Eric and I both felt in our hearts that it was another girl. But.......

It was a baby boy on the ultrasound machine! So the girls are going to have their wish come true. H1 can't wait for spring. She's going to teach the baby all about how to play with trains and to ride a bike, etc. She says her job is to make the baby laugh. They are both so excited and so are we. We just don't know what we are going to do with a boy yet. But I'm sure we'll figure it out.

It's Beginning to look a lot like......

The Festival of the TreesThis was a fundraiser for our hospital that takes place every year.

They have every kind of Christmas tree you can imagine, which are all up for bid. I just forgot to take pictures of the trees. The best part was the Christmas Play which allowed all the kids to join in "looking" for Christmas at the end of the play.
It was H1's big moment. She kept smiling @ us and we knew she loved being up front.This elf was the star of the play.Picture with friends.

They also had an electric train set up that was so neat, coloring for the kids, and downstairs was a princess party. We didn't go to the princess tea party this year, because it costs alot. But I think we will budget it for it next year. It might as well have been disneyland. The girls watched all the princesses downstairs and were so excited. One little girl, about 3, was dressed up as Snow White and had come up stairs with her parents to look @ the trees. H2 squealed at the top of her lungs...multiple times..."It's Snow White! It's Snow White!" Poor little girl.. she had no clue she was famous. H2 ran over to her and got right in her face and waved at her saying, "Hi Snow White! Hi Snow White!" The little girl just kind of faded behind her mom. We were laughing so hard as we tried to drag H2 away. I literally had tears in my eyes. We can't wait to take her to Disneyland for real in January.

And of course Santa himself! This Santa was cool, way better than the mall....he is a real "grandpa" and he had a real beard. We got a really nice 5x7 picture with him for $7. Beats the $25.00 the mall charges to sit on some weirdos lap. (And it all goes to help the hospital). I definitely recommend the festival of trees and think we will make it a tradition from now on.
I highly reccommend this video. I haven't seen the girls dance so much in a long time. I especially like the fact that they have several songs, including "Away in the Manger", that are specifically about Christ's birth. They even have the kids dressed up in the characters of the Nativity and interview them about who they are dressed as. It's not quite "Christian"...but they definitely celebrate what the first Christmas was truly about. I got mine for $5.00 @ Ross.

Jesus is the Reason for the Season!

Have a Wiggly Wiggly Christmas!

Turkeys

This Thanksgiving, Eric and I are so thankful for our two little turkeys.

They are so much fun and such a blessing.

We are also thankful for out new little turkey, which will be joining our family sometime around May 12th. We will find out if it is a boy or a girl the week of Christmas! What fun! We could definitely use a boy around here to balance out all the pink, but another little princess would be three times the fun.

It's Official

We have a Reader....

Just don't ask her to read the whole book. She gets a little overwhelmed and wants to go play. We're just working on a few pages at a time.

My Friend Pooh

H2 really wanted a Pooh Party for her birthday. I'm not sure why it never occured to me to actually get her a Pooh Bear. That would have made sense wouldn't it have. So today we were in JCPenney and we saw the cutest Pooh. She immediately grabbed it and held it tight and was so excited about the Pooh bear. As a parent of course I wanted her to have it, and again I thought..."why didn't I get that for her birthday?" But her birthday has passed and Christmas is coming up...I really try not to buy my kids things spontaneously, but instead make them wait for a special occasion. Then I remembered that she had gotten birthday money from Uncle Ben & Aunt Rebecca and it was still in her piggy bank waiting for something special. So the sweet girl got her pooh, and I got the money in the piggy bank. And Ben & Rebecca got her the best gift of all.
H2 is also allergic to milk, cheese, milk chocolate etc. Since not everybody knows this that she interacts with, I'm trying to train her to realize and say that she can't have cheese. So it was funny on Sunday when she walked into Sunday school for snack time, they have a variety of cookies and snacks the kids can choose from including cheese crackers, H2, unprompted, just walked up to the teacher and shook her head emphatically and said "I can't have cheese". It was so cute. So I asked her to do it for the camera just for fun. See below.

What two year olds do....

I remember my first daughter doing this when she was about this age. I have some videos of her, so I knew I needed to get some videos of my youngest also. This is what she looked like when I first found her. This is what she looked like a little while later. And yes all of the stuff from the first picture was still on her. When I undressed her,....crying with resistance of course, she had on 14 articles of clothing, not including her own clothes. Big sis didn't want to be left out if the camera was involved.
Of course, it was cute that day and I took lots of pictures. But then when it happened again the next day, and then every time I turned around....and then when I had to wrestle my property off a screaming child everytime.....it started to become not so cute. But these videos are still pretty cute.

I didn't realize that I was taking a sideways video.
(Please ignore my messy room.)



Fun memories!

Two Years Old!

Can't believe she's two!

We celebrated with Pooh!

How sweet is she!

Singing Happy Birthday with Friends:

Opening Gifts:

Reading Cards:

Trying on the goods:

What a happy day!

Happy birthday precious girl!

It would be nice if Cinderella wore jeans once in awhile.

Overheard this morning: (The brief version.)

"Mommy, can I wear a beautiful skirt today?" (She wears a skirt everyday.)

"I'd really like you to wear jeans today. Your sister is wearing jeans. I think you need to wear jeans today."

"I don't want to wear jeans!" (Arms crossed emphatically.)

"I think it would be good for you to wear jeans once in a while."

"I'm a princess and princesses don't wear jeans!" (Fists thrown down to sides.)

"Princesses wear jeans sometimes."

"No they don't!"

"They do when they play. Look at these jeans, they have hearts on them."

"They have bones on them and I don't like bones!"

"Those are arrows that go with the hearts. They stand for love."

"I don't like arrows!"

"Sweetheart you need to wear jeans because you need to learn to appreciate the things you have."

"Princesses don't wear jeans!" (Through tears.)

"Sometimes they do wear jeans"

"Cinderella, Belle, and Snow White don't wear jeans!"

"Sweetheart, those princesses aren't really real, they are just a story."

"They live in a real castle! They are real!"

"They are just a story, but God is real and he is the true King...and because you are his child that makes you a true princess."

"Is God a girl?" (I almost have her jeans on her now.)

"No. God is a man..? ..a boy..?... a male."

"Princesses are real!" (A final emphatic word of defiance.)

(Silence.)

"Mom will you tickle me?"

He's the Man

Not only did he bring home this cool shirt ....

He also brought home a $25.00 gift certificate to Red Lobster. WooHoo!

Way to go EJ!

Goose eggs, skirts, & a pretty heart

I have a goose egg on my forehead from my 2 year old who ran up, dove and head butted me as I was sitting nicely on the grass at the park. I saw stars and had to lay back for atleast 30 seconds because it hurt so bad. It involved my sunglasses somehow, and I'm not sure how she did not get hurt, but she only laughed, got up and ran off.

As I was watching my 2 girls playing in the park in their skirts and tights I was reminded of the conversation I overhead between the two of them this morning. You see the four year old only wants to wear skirts. Thankfully my mom was here last weekend, and she helped stock her up with tights so she could continue to wear her skirts for fall and winter. And the four year old only has a few pairs of pants for winter, but I'm not buying any more, because she doesn't wear them. The two year old has a lot of pants, and only two non-church skirts. The bad thing is that she has caught on to this wearing skirts thing and now she only wants to wear skirts. (I don't want to buy a new wardrobe, when she has lots of perfectly good pants.) So this morning the two year old ran into her room and opened the closet, which I was in because we were playing hide and seek, yelling "I want my dress, I want my dress." So I helped her put on some tights and one of the two skirts she has. She immediately said, "I pitty" (pretty). Then she ran into the four year olds room and said "Look @ me...I pitty." We can always tell when the two year old feels pretty because she starts swaying or spinning in circles singing "La, la, la.... la, la, la."

So before I finish the conversation between the girls I further have to explain about the Four year old. There are many days that she comes down the stairs, saying "Look @ me mommy, don't I look gorgeous? All my friends are going to say that I'm so beautiful." So then I have to talk to her about the fact that she is beautiful, but her friends don't care what she looks like, they care how she treats them. We talk about how being kind and obeying your parents are things that really make you beautiful in your heart. Something along those lines. We have that conversation a lot.

So this morning when lil sis ran in and said "Look @ me....I pitty," Big sis told her "Your not pretty, your heart is."

And after that we went to the park.

It's not Arkansas

I miss the fall in Arkansas, but Idaho is still pretty in it's own way.
My parents arrived just in time to take all the furniture and pull all the carpet out of our house.

Since we were displaced for a day and a half we went for a drive.

These pictures are from Kelly Canyon which is about an hour and 15 minutes from my house.

We saw about 5 bald eagles "fishing" along the river.

Then we drove to Swan Valley, my dad's favorite spot.

Tree climber

Wanna be tree climber.

H2 got dedicated @ church on Sunday.

Grandma brought the girls new outfits. Aren't they sweet. Here they are on our new carpet. I didn't get a single picture of my parents with the girls. Not sure what happened, except that we were all working the whole time to patch and paint wall and lots of other stuff. Thanks for all your help mom & dad!