baby turns toddler

Ansley turned 2 today. Time sure does fly...too fast. This girl loves attention and soaked it all in on her big day. We started our day off with a now traditional birthday breakfast...pancakes in the shape of the number they are turning.
Then we headed to the zoo as a family (Jason got to take the day off). It was a bit rainy but the kiddo's had a blast.
Then we had a birthday dinner that night with flower cupcakes for dessert. Ansley did great at blowing out her candles...she had lots of practice at our church's candlelit Christmas Eve service where she blew my candle out at least 3 times during the singing of Silent Night.

And with all the practice at Christmas time, she was a champ at ripping through her packages.Here she is sporting all her new loot. Notice the two purses...because one just isn't enough.

events of Christmas time

Tree lighting at the local hospital...

Free trolley rides around town to see the lights...The Christmas parade with friends...
Playing in the "snow" at the mall (bubble tree)...
The advent Jesse Tree Devotions every night before bed...

Baking goodies for our church's care packages for the elderly and widows...
Bringing food boxes to local families that are in need...
Attending the live Nativity performance...
Christmas caroling in the local nursing home...
Going to the Nutcracker Ballet...
And tomorrow night the Christmas Eve service at church!

legos

Jude is crazy about Legos. He is constantly building airplanes...which Ansley likes to swipe from him. I am glad he enjoys them so much but the thing I don't like about Legos is that there are always little pieces of them everywhere...and then I step on them. Painful! So I had to post this video of a Christian comedian named Tim Hawkins. I was crying because I was laughing so hard, mainly because I so idenitify with the pain of stepping on a Lego.

christmas pic preview

I thought I would just post the duds. If I was really computer savvy I would crop Jude in every picture and make a flip book to show all the crazy faces he makes when getting his picture taken. So anyway look for the best of the best in your mailbox soon.

Little did they know I was taking their picture...

Walked away before the timer went off...Did it again...

And then a couple of cute ones.

It's a.....

GIRL!!!! We're all very excited to be adding another little girl to our family! I'm excited Ansley will have a sister to grow up with and Ethan is glad we will have an even number of both genders....he was very concerned about that.

We took the whole family to see the ultrasound and I think we gave the technician quite the show. Ansley was quietly eating her Cheerios and dropping a few as she went...which we promised to pick up once we were done. And after we explained to the boys that we would basically be seeing the baby's skeleton, Ethan kept tyring to name all the bones he just learned..."is that the clavicle?", "is that the femur?". Jude kept saying he saw a mustache, even after we found out it was a girl and finally realized he kept seeing the pelvic bone which from a certain angle did look like a handlebar mustache. But Jude's favorite part was watching the heart beat and asked to see it over and over again. Then at one point I said "Jude there's the heart", to which he replied "I see it!! I see Jesus in her heart too!" I love his literal mind but had to explain that Jesus isn't literally sitting in our hearts...he still seems confused on that one. Then as we were leaving, the doctor asked the boys what they thought Santa was going to bring them for Christmas, to which Jude blurted out "Santa's just fake. He's just a man that dresses up in the malls." I think the doctor was a bit surprised but I'm glad he knows that Christmas isn't all about Santa...we just had to remind him not to tell his friends because some of them believe that Santa is real.

So now the planning and name picking can begin. We're thrilled and so thankful for a healthy, growing baby girl. Because we've lost two babies to miscarriages in the past, we don't take for granted the miracle of babies and we give God all the glory and praise for giving us this wonderful gift!

boy or girl

Tomorrow we find out (if this little one cooperates) if we are adding a boy or girl to our family. So I thought it would be fun to see what everyone guesses. Just leave me a comment and let me know. Then Wednesday I will post and let everyone know. We're pretty excited around here!

experiencing polynesia

The kiddo's and I took a field trip a couple of weeks ago to the Polynesian Cultural Center here on Oahu. It's one of the biggest tourist-y things to do here and this was our first experience of it. We visited Fiji and Tongan and learned about the music they made, what they made their instruments out of and a little bit about their culture.

I haven't been very good lately about remembering to take pictures so I only grabbed a few of the boys playing on the drums. Ethan was having a contest with his buddy to see who could hit it the hardest and... Jude played in great rhythm with a very serious face.

While Ansley just wanted to complain the whole time and repeat "up, peas" about every 30 seconds...at least she is polite about it.

O Christmas tree

Our yearly tradition is to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving and purposefully miss Black Friday all together. So we woke up, had pumpkin cinnamon rolls for breakfast, turned on the Christmas music, drug out our 2 boxes of Christmas decorations and spent the morning getting ready for the Christmas season. This is my favorite holiday of the year. I love and am grateful all over again for what the holiday represents (Christ and his life, death and resurrection for our salvation in fulfillment of the promises made) and I love that it brings community in the church and many family times together.

The boys were just as excited for this day and Ansley acted as if she had done this many times before. I think since this day she has re-arranged the lower half of the tree at least a dozen times.

And then, of course, you have to make a ship out of the empty Christmas tree box when you're all done.

carving our pumpkin

These pictures, sadly, are not that long ago. We didn't carve our pumpkin in time for Halloween but we did manage to get it carved before Thanksgiving...two days before. The boys were so excited needless to say that they even enjoyed digging into the slimy insides (not a favorite of mine...especially during pregnancy nausea). And then dad helped with the final carving. It only lasted about 2 days before the mold and fruit flies took over but the boys were thrilled and that's what makes it so fun.

Since we were in the fall mind-set I thought I would make caramel popcorn balls to have as a treat while we watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie...quite tricky without a candy thermometer but they actually turned out and the kiddo's gobbled them up.

This picture just made me laugh. Meet drowsy, space-y and zombie.

saying goodbye

Our dear friends moved back to the mainland a couple of weeks ago. We spent many a holiday festivities, kids birthday parties, tsunami evacuations and so much more together. So before they headed to the airport we had one more dinner together at our place.

The hard part about living in Hawaii is how transient it is...we're always meeting new friends and saying goodbye to old ones. But I feel blessed to have known so many amazing families since we've been here. I know we've grown as a family both spiritually and relationally because of who God has put in our lives. I hope to see some of these great friends again but I know if we don't that these families are somewhere else showing others Christ in their friendships and service to others. I'm thankful that God gave us the church, which not only brings biblical teaching, calls us to repentance, worship and selfless service to our Lord, but it also provides instant community because of our connection in Christ. I'm thankful for people that take the time to be involved in others lives and that truly get the idea of community/family that God designed it to be.