"Ca"

Since we have been in Atlanta, Coleman has been real fascinated by the cat. He walks up to the cat and points and says, "Ca." He likes to try to pet the cat, but he has trouble being gentle.
We also found this picture that we took of Callie when she was 1. She was just as fascinated with the cat and loved to point at him too.

Jesse Tree

This year we've added something new to our Christmas tradition. It's called a Jesse Tree. I had never heard of this until recently. Basically it's an advent calendar of sorts. You can use a little tree, a drawing of a tree, or as in our case a branch from your live tree. Then you have ornaments that correspond with a story from scripture (i.e. a prophesy in the old testament that points to the coming of Christ). Online you can find a list of ornaments with corresponding scripture references for each day in the month of December (all leading up to the birth of Christ). The main reason that I got motivated to make this a part of our Christmas tradition is that I got invited to a Jesse Tree party (btw the name "jesse" tree comes from the prophesy from Isaiah that says that the Christ would come "out of the stump of Jesse" (Jesse being King David's father). So, anyway, the way the party worked was that 25 women were invited. Each woman made 25 of the same ornaments corresponding to one of the days. For instance, my ornament was the little town of Bethlehem. I made 25 of those. Each woman then collected an entire (unique) set. It was a lot of fun and I think it will be a nice thing to remember my time at our church here in Minnesota by. So, it has been fun doing our little devotions as a family each morning. Charlie will read the scripture passage and share a little bit. Then, Callie will pick out which ornament she thinks corresponds with the story and hang it on the tree. Then, we sing a Christmas hymn. Here's our little tree before any ornaments.

Here's what it looks like with all the ornaments on. I had to test our little tree when I first was setting it up just to make sure it would hold them all.

Tea Party Birthday

Last Saturday we were able to celebrate Callie's birthday ( a little early) with her girlfriends. It was a lot of having a girly tea party! I found some real china for a dollar a set at the thrift store. That's my kinda price (esp. since it could get shattered at any moment). Note the plastic-ware was for the littlest girls.

We had a light lunch with finger sandwiches, pretzels, etc. and these little raspberry cheesecake cupcakes. I thought they were cute, but none of the girls ate them! The moms enjoyed them! And, thankfully I had also made these white chocolate covered vanilla wafer pops which proved to be a big hit among the young ladies.

we had to fancy up before the actual tea party began. We had a couple of beautifying stations. So, while some of the girls were getting their nails painted, the others were making/designing their own headbands. Callie's sweet Daddy was nice enough to hot glue each flower in the exact spot that each girl wanted. Finally, everyone was beautiful and ready for the party.

around the table we have Annie, Callie, Sophie, Lucy, Maddux, and Evey.

such a sophisticated bunch!

I love you Callie girl! It has been a joyful (almost) 4 years!

Pool Time

It was great having Papa and Bebe visit for the long weekend over Thanksgiving. This year they stayed at the Radisson down the road from us. The big perk with that was that there was a nice indoor pool.

they had a baby pool

they had a hot tub

and of course they had a normal size heated pool. Here's Callie ready to jump. She is still quite the little fish. She picked right back up from where she left off last summer.

Decorating

After cutting down the tree (and a yummy lunch at Potbelly's), we went home to decorate! It was a lot of fun this year (more so than last year when I think I was too tired after recently having a baby). Bebe and I worked on a little table decoration (used up some cranberries that I had).

putting on the ornaments

Callie reunited with her reindeer.

our Jesse tree (more to come on that later)

the finished product

Minnesota Memories

Since this is likely our last year in Minnesota, I find myself beginning to get sentimental. I will probably be blogging a lot about our last winter in Minnesota. This year we had a great Thanksgiving. Charlie's parents joined us and we went to the home of the parents of one of our friends on staff with us. We have frequently gone to their home to celebrate the holidays when we've been unable to get back south. This year it was fun to have Papa and Bebe come along as well.

The weather was typical bizarre Minnesota! When I woke up Thanksgiving morning, it was a balmy 54 degrees. That was perfect for our race. Here's a shot of us turkey trotters right before the big (only 3.1 mile) race. This was my third year doing the Minneapolis turkey trot. It was a fun one to end on. It was one of those days where the high occurs first thing in the morning and the day gets colder and colder as a front moves in. Almost as if on cue when we sat down to eat thanksgiving dinner that evening, it started snowing.

We have our little family tradition of cutting down our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year did not disappoint! It was a lot of fun getting our tree in the snow. Made for a memorable time!

At this point, we're getting pretty cold!

We were surprised that they had free pony rides this year. We couldn't pass that up!

Warm Days

The past few days have been unseasonably warm, and we have been taking advantage of it! We've gone to the park a lot. Callie's been riding her trike. We've read books outdoors. We are soaking up what little warmth we have left (in fact the temp. is supposed to plummet tonight).

her pilgrim hat from her Thanksgiving feast at preschool (think Charlie Brown style feast with popcorn and candy)

They continue to be friends. I am so thankful.

Coleman turns 1

I can't believe it has been a year already! It truly does go faster the second time around. We celebrated Coleman's birthday a couple saturdays ago. It was a lot of fun. We invited all the staff with little boys (which is more than just one family now!). Also, despite the fact we didn't get any pictures with them, Gami and Papa Phil were in town. It was great that they were able to visit over Coleman's birthday weekend.

A picture of the spread. It was a sports ball theme.

Our best attempt at getting a picture with all the party goers. From left to right: baby Isaac, Josiah, baby Micah, Owen, Callie, birthday boy, Evey, Jackson/Grayson Knight. I can actually tell the twins apart pretty well but only when they don't have hats on.

Halloween

I feel like I am trying to play catch up with the blog. We have a ton of pictures from Coleman's birthday but wanted to get these up first. These pictures are kinda struggling. There's something wrong with every one of them (blurry, dark, red eye, etc.) But, bad pics and all, we wanted to remember what we did on Halloween and how the kids were dressed. Callie dressed up like "Fancy Nancy", a book character. Coleman was Whinnie the Pooh. We went trick or treating with the Reagan, Poteats, and Lonergans. It was a lot of fun!