9 Months (& 2 weeks)

This is two weeks late but the pictures are only a week late so that is a plus. 

M2 is doing so making us smile more everyday. He is such a cute little man 

and everyone is saying that he is looking more and more like his daddy. You can judge for yourself:

So cute!!

Some accomplishments from the last month:
~ He is up to 19 lbs.
~ still has not started crawling or moving around
but I have started forcing him to have tummy time (meaning I block him);
he gets pretty upset about it after about a minute.
~ eating like a champ...he loves all food and will make "yummy" noises the whole time he eats.
(you can see a video here)
~ likes to stand-up but is not holding on alone yet
~ he has now slept four nights in a row the whole night. Each night that passes
I become more and more excited.
~ He still loves his sissy and is constantly looking for her.
~ For Christmas we drove to Pittsburgh and he did great in the car! I am happy that he has turned into such a good traveler especially since we travel so much.
~ M1 is a great big sister (except maybe when she covers him  up to play hide-and-seek. He doesn't like that game very much yet.

Pics from Jan.

I realize that it has been a months since I have put anything up here and I am sorry to those of you (maybe 2) who actually look at this. So, I do this out of love for you.
These next couple of pics speak for themselves.

This was M2's first bath without his little tub. I kept him in it so long because I was afraid
that M1 would be too rough in the tub.  

Happy New Year!

I can not believe that another year has gone by. I looked back on my little list of hopes for 2010..here is it:
A few of our 2010 hopes:

~We are praying to have a job in place before Matt is done with fellowship at the end of June. 
~For the safe delivery of our son in April. 
~For a easy move experience and possible adjustment to a new home. 
~Most of all that we are able to raise our children to have a person relationship with him.


It is neat to read this and see what we were blessed with. We did have a safe and healthy baby boy in April. As you know he lights up our house daily with his personality and smiles. 
We decided to stay here for another year while Matt works shift work at a urgent care center and an E.R. in a small town in Il. This has been a big blessing this year as Matt is home more than he has ever been before. We are now trying to decide about a job that Matt will do for the next 5 years or more. 
So my hopes for the year 2011:
~ Matt would be able to decide on a job and have peace about the decision
~ Isabella would grow to be more obedient and complain less
~ I would grow as a mom, grow in my faith and to be able to bring those two things together better. 
~ Matt and I would continue to grow as a couple.
~ Sam would continue to grow and be healthy but it would be wonderful for him to sleep through the night. 


We hope that this year holds many blessings for you and your families. And when those hard moments come, we pray that you will turn to the Lord for your comfort. Looking forward to what this year holds.

Hot Dog Shoppe

While we were in western PA we got to go to the Hot Dog Shoppe for some..you guessed it, hot dogs.
Matt grew up on these and I was introduced in college. Sara (Matt's sister) was able to come along with us and we got to share a LARGE meal together. Here are some pictures from our time taken by Sara (b/c again.. I forgot my camera at home).

Wow!! That is a lot of food while a lot of chili and cheese.

Isabella was even excited to eat...that never happens. 

If you look closely someone was eying my food. 

All gone...yummy. 

Traveling

We have gotten settled back into our home after being away for a month. We have more toys now then we need and the place seems to stay a mess but other than that things are going well. After four days in the car (two there and two back) I realize that my children get carted around a lot. Because of Matt's schedule we are able to travel a lot more than we would if he were working a "regular" job. It has been nice but I have come to be very thankful for one important detail:

my kids are great travelers.

After my first real trip with M2 I was not so sure because he screamed for an hour and half of the 6 hour trip and it was VERY painful. But he has come to really love the long car rides...at least it seems so. He was better than M1 and only had one little cry the whole 24 hours worth of driving we did. He loves to just look at his sissy and listen to music. 

I can not count how many planes M1 has been on in her short 3 years and 10 months of life. And M2 has already had 9 flights with two more coming up next week. It is crazy! I have a feeling if our kids weren't such good troopers we would have travel as much...so, thank you offspring for being such cute travelers. 

Merry Christmas! ( a little late)

We just got back into town yesterday from our road trip to Pittsburgh for Christmas. It was so nice to be with Matt's family for a few days and spend this very special time with them. Isabella is starting to really understand what Christmas is about. She talks about baby Jesus and where he was born. Don't get me wrong..she was looking for her presents while others were opening theirs. Whenever she opened a present she said "Oh my goodness!!" followed by "thank you." This put a smile on my face as I realized she was thankful even if she then asked me where her next present was.

I am thankful for Christ's birth!

I wanted to say this on Christmas but wasn't able to but it reminds me that I need to be thankful for this everyday.  This year Matt and I have heard a lot of sermons and talks that convicted us that we were not taking time daily to remember what this time is really about. So, we decided to do something different this year and try to make it special. We decided for us it meant no TV watching until after Christmas. I thought it was going to be very hard with Isabella to go cold turkey but to my surprise she did very well. So, instead of turning on the TV when we needed to clean or get something done in peace she found something else to do.

I feel this guilt that I do not remember the significance of this time more often. Jesus came down to earth while he could have stayed in Heaven where it is perfect and glorious to come here where there is pain, suffering, and death. He did this for us and to save us from eternal separation from God. If I just stop to think about it..it is incredible!!

she looks a little drugged but she loves her dr. kit!

She was pretending to be Mary. 

Here are her cousins: Charlie and Jack. She had so much fun running and playing with Jack; it was so nice to have them together. 

Today:

I am thankful for snow

We are in western PA for Christmas this year with Matt's family. It has been really nice to be with family and just relax. They have had some snow here...it is nice to have some on the ground. I have always thought snow was so beautiful. There is just something about bare trees covered in snow. Plus, I just love snow pictures in black and white.  Isabella got to play in it the other day with her cousin, Jack, and even build a snowman. I will post some pics..I forgot my camera at home and am sick about it. I will be borrowing my mother-in-law's.