Twelve Days of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Old Man Murphy gave to me:

12 childrens' movies

11 loads of laundry

10 days of antibiotics

9 chapter books read

8 days indoors

7 trips to Target

6 days of fever

5 PRESCRIPTIONS!

4 dozen nebulizer treatments

3 sick kids

2 worn out parents

And a white Christmas not to be enjoyed.

It was not what we hoped, worse than what I feared, but there were still precious moments this holiday. To name a few: Kate leaning against the sliding door watching her neighborhood friends play in the snow Sunday, but not getting to play in it herself as she was recovering from walking pneumonia. Nancy pressing her snotty nose against her window to look at the snow, too sick to care about playing in it. Cuddling with my baby boy, too sick and tired to stay awake for even 30 minutes.

We were still able to enjoy Christmas Eve with Ryan's parents, and our Christmas Eve worship service with our church. My favorite gift was from my dad - a framed box containing the medals my grandfather wore on his uniform at our wedding, the last time he wore them. Watching my grandmother love on her seventh and youngest great-grandchild.

I had to let go of the nostalgia that Christmas time brings to my mind and instead embrace in a fresh way the reality that God sent His Son Jesus so that we can have One who can relate to us, who has been through what we have suffered and experienced, so that God can relate to us.

A few of my favorite snapshots:

Kate's elation over her American Girl doll. There were tears of joy.

Monie and Thomas.

Sick and tired boy. Worried mom.

New Christmas gifts made breathing treatments "fun".

Oh happy day! The Christmas tree is being kicked to the curb!

Snow, and trying to make a happy memory.

"Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him."

Hebrews 5:9

A Poem by Kate

Thanksgiving

By: Kate Burns

We gather together on this speashle day! To celibrate things that we'er thankful for. Cloths, food, family, freinds, doctters, firefighters, sheltter, toys and chuches.

On the day of Thanksgiveing there are joys all over the world. Can you think of what it would be like if you couldn't celibrate Thanksgiveing? No cloths, food, family, friends, doctters, firefighters, sheltter, toys and chuches.

We should be thankful for Thanksgiveing and what God has blessed us with!

Nancy is Thankful For:

My Bikes

A chicken

The Zoo

Scissors

Mommy and Daddy

"Little Dude" Hair

To India, With Love

Trick? or Treat?

Cheerleader: "I want CANDY!! I don't want to take a picture!"

Angel: "Oh, boo, I made the baby cry and that is not fun. I only like him when he's happy. I'm done."

Pumpkin in Denim: "WHHHHHHHHHAAAAA is everyone yelling and laughing and WHHHHAAAAAA are we leaving the house when it's my bedtime?!?!?!"

T Love

If you are a parent, aunt, uncle, or close friend, you find yourself making nicknames for the special kids in your life. Kate is "Bug" most often. We call Nancy "Nan" or "Nanners", some friends of ours call her "Nan-nan". Every now and then a "Rosie" will slip out. Thomas has lots, maybe because he's little. He sometimes gets "Tommy" by friends, mainly to irk me. Nancy Rose quickly corrects them. He gets "Little Man", "Sweet Boy", "My Boy" (that's me calling him that), "Chunky Monkey", "Wild Man" and even "The Best Baby in the Whole World". Okay, so maybe that's not a nickname. But he still gets called that....

Anyway, most often he is "T". I do not plan on calling him T, it just comes out though. And lemme just say, I can't get enough of my sweet T. He is the perfect addition to our family, and already has such a fun personality that we get to see come out more and more every day. Here are some pictures of Thomas, who is now 5 months old.

Kate was playing with Thomas one day and this made him giggle so much. She's saying "Thomas is an antique!" I don't know where she learned that word, and I've realized that's what happens when you have a kid in the house that's independently reading: they pick up on new words daily and their speech and way of talking is constantly changing. The other day she used "BFF" in a story she wrote. But that probably didn't come from one of her books....anyway. Watch this. Baby laughing. Super cute.

Snippits

I haven't posted many pictures lately. I'm too impatient to choose and upload. While the posts may be about what funny things the girls are saying these days, it greatly underestimates how often I pull out the camera to capture them and the other little moments of our daily life. Here are a few snippits from August to now. And by "now", I mean up until 2 weeks ago when strep throat turned our home upside down for a couple of weeks. All I want to say right now is that October 2010 has been an overwhelming month. More on that later. Maybe.

August 16 was Kate's first day of 2nd Grade. Her teacher is Mrs. (Katherine) Hawkins. I knew I'd like her the first time we met her: she told Kate, "we Katherines have to stick together."

An army of brushes, compliments of Nancy Rose.

When Kate is at school, I try and be intentional about my time with Nancy. This morning was lunch wearing dress up clothes and eating in the fort in front of the tv.

Nancy learned she can wink.

Thomas gets plenty of attention, even though it's not always from me.

Weekly trips to Michael's, Hobby Lobby and AC Moore began in August as well.

We took a quick trip to Sky Top in August, just to get apples for jelly & apple butter. This picture captures who these girls really are....

Minute to Win It games with our Community Group. Could you stack 3 golf balls on top of each other in 60 seconds? Mark Clark can, in less than 15!!

I call this Thomas's "carpool line face".

Ryan and I celebrated his 31st Birthday in Tiger Town. Horrible game. We still had a blast, and even got to tailgate with our friends the Bolings.

What do you think Thomas thinks of cereal?

I am in love with this baby boy.

We found an old birthday present for Nancy under our bed. Totally forgot to give her the hippity hop in February, but pulled it out on a day when boredom was threatening to bring the house down. Hippity hop to the rescue!