Our Christmas at Home

We celebrate today the birth of our Lord and Savior, who came to this world to die on the cross for our sins, so that we, sinners, could ascend to heaven and have eternal life. In our daughter's simpler terms, today is "happy baby Jesus", which translates into "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus"! How much fun this Christmas has been for us!" Kateli is now 2--she actually unwrapped all her gifts, plus some (she willingly helped her little brother uncover his boxes!). This year, we decided to stay home and celebrate Christmas together the four of us.

The last two days seem like it's been all work, but it culminated in a very fun time tonight. Hubby invited over a friend from church to Christmas dinner with us. Being the "homemaker" and a bit OCD wife that I am, I decided the house had to be tidy, and the dining room in usable condition--which entailed dear hubby to do a LOT of moving and cleaning in said room of the house. We started Christmas Eve day. I went to the gym in the morning, to get geared up for a day of cleaning. While I was gone, hubby and Kateli folded and stuffed Christmas letters (my apologies for a late letter!!) We finished the letter stuffing when I got home, and got to the cleaning. The kids were AWESOME!! Joshua as content as can be--didn't need to be held too much, he was happy in his bouncy chair, exer-saucer, swing or play mat! and Kateli, well she was a helper! We cleaned, we finished our Christmas letter, and then I put up wall hangings, frames and the such to decorate our bare walls! All the while, hubby cleaned out the dining room and five loads of laundry were done, in preparation for our upcoming trip home for New Year's. We found out last year, that it works best if hubby and I do our Christmas ahead of time, so that we can focus on the kids Christmas morning--the kids went to bed as usual; we stayed up past midnight (I think we've decided that next year, we'll do our Christmas ahead of time, but not at midnight--it's brutal trying to do that with a baby who's still waking up for feedings and a toddler who is ready to start her day at 7am!) So what did our Christmas look like?? Let me show you....ENJOY THE PICTURES!

My new Digital SLR Nikon Camera!! and now to learn how to take great pics

Daddy's big xmas gift, 35 lbs dumbells!

The first picture taken with the new SLR camera!

This is what you get when you ask a toddler to wait to open gifts...

We finally got her to oblige and listen intently to the Christmas story before opening gifts!

One of Kateli's gifts was a book about the Little Drummer Boy, she was genuinely touched by this story. Here she is telling me that the little drummer boy was sad...

One of Joshua's gifts from Grandma

Joshua taking interest in one of his toy gifts

Kateli opening her baby gift from Grandma, she really likes baby!

Saving the biggest for last--here is Kateli opening her last gift under the tree...

and it's a Kitchen--so cute to watch her play kitchen!

She actively participated in pulling her kitchen out of the box

Here she is washing her hands in the sink...

Here is our little guy, racked out with his blankie after opening gifts...

Our Christmas dinner entree...HAM

We also had spinach casserole, rice & cheese casserole, a salad, mashed potatoes and fresh baked rolls

this handsome little guy in his Christmas attire...

Joshua joined us at the dinner table, after waking up from a short nap

Happy Cake for Jesus' birthday...

The girl loves her chocolate...

Looking a bit mischievous...

She cares for her babies so well...

Guess Kateli wanted to see how good of a nap spot the kitchen oven was for her babydoll

Hope you enjoyed the pics of our Christmas!

Oh Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree has been up now for about two weeks. I finished putting it up the night before our power went out, so for a week we didn't get to enjoy the lights on it! Now that we have power back, it's lit again and now we have gifts under it. I've finished the majority of our xmas shopping and wrapped everything that I've gotten so far. There are only one or two left, but for the most part it's done! I'm proud of myself, although this means that other things, like our christmas letter, has suffered some delay! Anyway, here are a couple of pics of our christmas tree.

Our Power is BACK!!

What a blessing!! The power is back and our central heat is running once again keeping us warm and cozy in our own home! Last week was a challenge, and yet so humbling. Our power came back on Friday at 3:58pm. I was on the phone with a friend, at the same time laying down with Kateli on our bed trying to get her to take her afternoon nap. Joshua was in his swing sleeping. Prior to laying down with my baby girl, I peeked out the front door and saw that there were 3 ENTERGY trucks just outside the house at the neighbors, and I prayed that it meant our power would be back on shortly. As I talked with my friend and cuddled Kateli I kept my eyes focused outside of the bedroom, on the hallway and on the bath. Suddenly the hall light came on!! Oh, I LEAPED out of bed and yelled out "our power is back!!" I was ecstatic!! It was an awesome feeling...Kateli gave me this funny look, as if wondering "what has gotten into mommy?" And then she squealed out "Yey!"

So, what did I do next?? I proceeded to start up our central heat, to light up the christmas tree and to turn on all the lights (okay, not ALL the lights, but the majority of them). Then I called daddy to share the wonderful news; I also made a few more phone calls to let family and some friends know that we were no longer powerless :).

The ice storm did major damage to our city's landscape. Our neighborhood suffered immensely. There was so much debris from tree limbs and from whole trees that were lost. We got some pictures, but I have yet to download them. I'm still trying to catch up with doing all of what I missed last week, like more laundry, cleaning, vacuuming, etc etc. I still have to do some grocery shopping as we lost most of the food we had in the fridge. I'll post some of the pictures later.

Power Outage - The Things we Take for Granted

It is Thursday today, and the fourth day since we lost power at home. Wow!! it's not until something like this happens that you learn to appreciate even the tiniest things that run on electricity--like LIGHT! Oklahoma was hit with a huge freeze on Sunday morning, that left about 200K homes without power--and that's just PSO service areas (PSO is electric company that serves our Tulsa area). As of yesterday evening, the number was down to 186K, so crews are working to restore power quickly. I believe it has been declared a state of emergency, so hopefully we'll get some help in to move quicker on getting everyone's power up and running. It's really cold out, so the inside temps drop quick dramatically without heat. It's hard to do it with two kiddos, but we have been lucky to find a generator that is now hooked up. We are running a couple of heaters off of it, the refrigerator, a light and a few other minor things like charging phones and such. The nights are fine, we stay warm on one side of the house with the heaters running; during the day, we try to get out and stay with friends who have power and heater running.

We are all doing well, but please pray that our power is restored quickly. As I type, I am at a friend's house doing laundry and checking email. I've got a crying baby in my lap, so this is all the update for now.

More later.

More Pictures of the kids

Look real close, what is wrong in this picture?

Little guy having fun on his playmat

Pictures of the kids

I should really be working on my christmas letter to send out this year, but I decided to procastinate that project a little longer and share these two pics that I took of the kids today...

Joshua is 3 months--closer to 4 now!

Yes, I know. I have not been real good about posting with Joshua's monthly updates. He is now actually closer to 4 months old, than to 3, but I thought I would post a little about this last month anyway!

Our little man is growing so fast!! He was about 15lbs starting out his 3rd month and just putting on the ounces like there is no tomorrow. Looking at him you would think that this little guy spends all day eating, but it's not true. Believe it or not, he eats about every 3 hours or so, and only nurses from one side at a time--but he is gaining beautifully. He has not been in to see the doctor this month for a formal monthly checkup or shots, those won't be until he is 4 months old.

This little guy is content as can be. He is definitely a second--I told a friend that other day and she asked me, "do you think they are born that way?" I don't really know the answer to that question, but I do think that God equips them with what we think are the traits of a second child: content, happy, not too demanding, not too much fussing, patient, cuddly and beautiful. I don't remember Kateli being so patient for my time, I don't recall her staying on a play mat for longer than 5 or 10 mins without fussing to be picked up. Joshua on the other hand can lay on his mat (with full belly, and rested) for about 30 mins or so. He's a happy baby and a delight all day through, but his happiest time, when he is most talkative and giggly is in the morning after wake up and right before and after bathtime. It is truly different when you have a second child--I feel like I don't enjoy him as much throughout the day as I enjoyed Kateli when she was a tiny baby. Now I've got two to juggle, and while Kateli is great with Joshua, she does ask for and has a lot of my attention throughout the day--"mommy, play", "up, pease" are the common phrases that I hear from her, especially when little guy starts to cry that he is hungry! So, the time when I truly get to enjoy this little one are during Kateli's naptime and before I put him down for the night. Daddy does "night night" with Kateli and I do "night night" with Joshua right now. I could spend all evening talking, and cooing with him; watching him smile at me; listening to his cute little giggles, and listening as he gurgles as me when I speak! So cute, melts my heart away!!

I thought having a little boy was going to be different, somehow I thought the dynamics were going to be different, not as fun I guess--but this little guy proves me and my thought wrong--little guys are TONS of fun, just like girls. In fact, I think that I may actually go to the extent to say that I am enjoying so much more the "dressing" baby each day with Joshua than I did with Kateli when she was a tiny baby. I think I've said this before in the blog, but I'll say it again--there are just "TOO" many beautiful and cute accessories and clothes for girls, that I was overwhelmed with dressing her each day, trying to make her look so cute in all her girly clothes, tights, hats, hair clips, and so on and so on....With Joshua it's so much easier, I mean how much simpler can you get than a shirt and some pants or shorts, or a onesie?? There are so many cute clothes out there for little guys too, but it's not overwhelming--maybe I'm just simple that way or something....the little sweater vests for little boys, corduroys, camo jackets, dress pants and shoes are to die for--our little guy looks "dapper" everytime I dress him up for church.

So, now that I've rambled on and on about boy clothes and girl clothes, let me get back to what's really important...our little man's milestones for this month!

We've found Joshua's tickle spot this month; it's so cute to hear him giggle when we tickle him and when we play with him. He's batting at things on his play mat, and he's holding his head up like a champ. I think we may be ready to put him in an exersaucer soon, he's doing so well with his head control. Like I said before, he's cooing, and talking and he's so expressive. We're now in size 3 diapers, but 4s are not too big anymore--we're thinking about graduating him up to a 4 which would make diaper control much easier as both kids would be in same size diapeys. Joshua has got a tight grip too, he likes to get a hold of my shirt or my hair when I pick him up and walk around with him. He loves to watch his sister play with him; the way he looks at her and smiles at her silliness is priceless....

Oh, I hear Kateli up from her nap...gotta go....you can see pics of our little 3 month old guy at

http://perfectlyandwonderfullymade.blogspot.com/2007/11/joshua-3-months.html