Kayleigh's Present Has Arrived!

After getting asked each day of this week if her present would arrive today, it has finally made it to our door almost a week past Christmas. What is this missing present you ask? Her very own play kitchen. She was very excited and wanted to start cooking right away. I am so glad it finally came!

Merry Christmas!

We have had a wonderful Christmas. This morning we spent most of the morning on Skype talking to our families. Zeb's gift of the day was opening "The King" a CARS character. I am pretty sure that he is permanently attached to it now and it will go wherever he goes. Sadly, Kayleigh's main gift did not arrive today so we had to tell her that it was on a train on its way here. She was a good sport about it and seemed fine. The highlight of her day was opening the "Cat In The Hat" Game. She had played it at the Anchor Home school library and loved it. A friend of mine offered it to me since her kids had out grown it. It was so kind of her to give that to Kayleigh.

I have to admit this has been one of the hardest Christmas's I have had here. We have been here for 6 Christmas seasons and I have never cried till this one. I think it was a combination of things. Missing our families is certainly on the list. Two sets of our dear friends no longer live here with us and although we haven't celebrated Christmas with them in a long time they were in the city to call on Christmas day . I also missed other dear friends that still live here with us but were celebrating with others. It could have been that we have done the same thing for 5 years straight and we changed things up a little bit this year. We didn't get together with friends till tonight so around lunch time when I was usually surrounded by "my family" here no one was around. John says it has nothing to do with me being pregnant! Ha! No matter what it is I am so glad that my Savior can give me comfort and peace.

By tonight I was fine and we were together with our friends celebrating, exchanging gifts, and eating an awesome meal.

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve! Everyone came to my house for a feast of steaks, potatoes, salad, rolls, and a banana pudding for dessert. After dinner Zach and Kate played some Christmas carols for us and we also read the Christmas story. The kids are super excited about tomorrow. Kayleigh's main Christmas present that we ordered has still not arrived. I am hoping that it will come tomorrow! Looking forward to a great Christmas day.

Kate and Zach playing the guitar!

Zeb and Michelle

Kayleigh and Michelle

I love the look on Zeb's face. This of course is his sad face and he must of not gotten something that he wanted.

This picture is for my dear friends Laura and EA who have been with me through every pregnancy but this one. Finally a picture of my belly for the both of you as you requested!

Happy Birthday John!

I am sad that I have no pictures to remember this day by. Lately, my pregnancy brain has been in full effect. All in all we had a great day with our family. The kids and I made a pineapple upside down cake for John this morning. I am pretty sure they ate half the batter. Then we headed to lunch at the Wicker Basket with our good friends the Rupp's. Tonight we went to dinner at Bangkok Cafe, one of our favorite restaurants. It was a low key day but lots of fun. We have more fun planned for his birthday on Wednesday. I plan to make a lasagna and take it to our friend's Marianne and David's house. She is making yet another pineapple upside down cake and we plan to have some great quality time with them without the kids!

Anchor Party

In the fall Kayleigh started to attend a co-op class once a week for home school kids. She goes to a library called the Anchor and it has a wonderful selection of library books the kids can check out as well as home school materials. Kayleigh has really enjoyed making friends there and being a part of the class. Today they had a Christmas party for the all the kids. She had a great time. They played games, made some crafts, and had a gift exchange among all the kids.

Kayleigh making an ornament.

To The Moon!

If you as ask Kayleigh what she did for her friend Lily's birthday party she will tell you that she went to the moon! In our city we have found a place called Baby Dream Land. I'm not quite sure why they call it that since a child under 3 can not participate in any of the activities but none the less it is wonderful. They have tons of different stations that you can choose to participate in and pretend to be things like a fire fighter, airplane pilot, doctor, and astronaut to name a few. Lily chose for them to all be astronaut and go to the moon. It was really neat. The kids dressed up in astronaut suits and learned all about how a rocket works. I have to give complete credit to my friend Brooke who did a ton of the translating from Chinese to English for the kids. They actually entered a space ship simulation and they closed the doors. The space ship moved all around just like if they were taking off to the moon. Once they landed, another door was opened and they were on the moon! The kids just loved it! All the girls also pretended to be nurses in a hospital and learned how to take care of newborn babies. The pretend babies really weighed around 10 pounds it was crazy! I can foresee that Kayleigh will choose to have her birthday there because she had so much fun!

Our little astronauts!

In the space shuttle getting ready to go to the moon.

Stepping onto the moon.

We took a break and had some cake and the kids decided to get on stage and do a little dance.

The nurses ready for duty. I love their costumes! So 1950's!

Taking care of the babies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had an awesome Thanksgiving. Our friends came over around lunch and we had one the best Thanksgiving feast I have had in a long time. Then everyone stayed and hung out till late tonight. We even watched the movie Elf to start off the Christmas season! We have so much to be thankful for this year. Two precious blessings and one on the way plus so many other things that are too many to list. So glad that we have friends here to celebrate with since we can't be with our families.

Our crew!

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

What are all these kids staring at??

Charlie Brown! We decided to have Kayleigh and Zeb's friends over to watch the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. The show is about the Mayflower voyage and how the first Thanksgiving came about. The kids loved it and I thought it was very educational. They especially liked the popcorn.

This is a sad attempt to get a picture of all of them. It is hard to get 9 kids to smile for a picture all at the same time.

Thanksgiving Activities

Yesterday we went to my friend Brooke's house to do some Thanksgiving activities. First, Brooke read them a story about the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower. Then the kids made some Indian hats. Brooke also made the kids these awesome desserts that looked like pilgrim hats. Kayleigh and Zeb had a lot of fun and hopefully learned something about why we celebrate Thanksgiving.

Success!

Zeb is potty trained! I don't have any pictures to prove it but I do have video. Maybe I can get John to post an awesome video of Zeb teaching Kayleigh's baby doll how to use the potty. It is hilarious. Anyways, I have to say I am very amazed at my little man. The morning I decided to start I had a very serious conversation with the Lord. I prayed for LOTS of patience and very LOW expectations. The Lord far exceeded my expectations. Zeb was just ready and seemed to pick it up quite quickly. I think he likes to be like his big sister. I love not having to use diapers any more for at least a couple of months before it all starts over again with our new little one!

Tea Time!

Kayleigh loves to play tea party especially if I let her fill her pot with sweet tea! Yesterday Zeb thought he needed to take part in the action as well. After the first pot of tea was gone I decided to just give them water. They really had a lot of fun and water was everywhere which is the reason for the towels under their cups.

Fall Festival

The annual Fall Festival usually falls on the last Friday of October every year. This year it was a week late. We have taken Kayleigh to almost every one of them since she was about 18 months old. I think this year was the first year she was able to really enjoy it fully. She could actually participate in most of the games and her main motivation of course was candy! Look below for some highlights!

We can't get real round pumpkins here so this background has to do for our fall picture.

They played games like toss the bean bag into the Jack-O-Lantern.

Decorated some cookies that Zeb thought would be best by just licking off the icing.

They also both got fake tattoos.

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween we took a different approach. We have a lot of new people on our crew that were missing the fact that they did not get to partake in the North Carolina Fair this year. So we did our best to try and reenact that by going to a local park near our house. The park did not have elephant ears or vinegar fries for sale but you could buy a pretty disgusting hot dog on a stick. We road the Ferris wheel and our friends road a roller coaster to try and help bring back the feel of the fair. It was a lot of fun and a beautiful day. That night our friend Chad brought us some home made candy apples. They were amazing! That did bring back some memories for me of fall in America.

Track and Field Day

Back in the summer some friends of ours found a field tucked away behind a concrete wall near our house. It actually belongs to a high school but they don't mind us playing there. My friend Lindsey and I have decided to make Wednesday mornings a regular track and field day. The kids love being able to run in the grass. Not something they are able to do very often. We usually start out with a lap around the track then on to some fun games like "Mother May I" and "Simon Says". They love throwing around some balls and doing exercises. I really like it because it gets all their energy out!

Here they are getting ready to make a lap around the track.

Zeb and Kayleigh's favorite place to play is the long jump sand pit. It makes for a huge mess and a much needed bath when we get back home.

Looking for Blue Queen

If anyone knows Zeb then you would know that he is obsessed with the movie "Cars". He also loves all the "Cars" characters that he owns. One of these characters is Lightening McQueen. Lately, he has been particularly attached to what he affectionately calls "blue Queen". That would be Lightening McQueen in Dinoco blue when he dreams of being sponsored by Dinoco. Can you tell I have watched this movie one too many times? Anyways, one morning he could not find "blue queen". So I sent Kayleigh on a mission to help him find it. When I came into the living room this is where I found them! Once they emptied the entire toy box they thought it would be fun to play inside. I love my kids. They come up with some crazy things to do sometimes.

Crew Get Away

We just got back from a trip with our crew. We went to a lake about 2 hours away from our city. We had a great time! I was sad that it rained a lot and was beautiful on the day we left but we found things to do that kept us busy. This lake is one of the few in our country that you can swim in. However, it was too cold to do any swimming. Here we are eating at a restaurant across the street from the hotel. Sometimes little "hole in the wall" restaurants like this have really good food and this one did.

At the end of the hall of our hotel there was a balcony that overlooked the water and an island. The kids loved going out there and looking around. We decided that if it stopped raining we would try and take a boat over to that island.

Here is probably a fisherman rowing around the lake.

The hotel had a bowling alley so while we waited out the rain we did some bowling. Not sure what kind of pose Kayleigh is giving off in this picture. It definitely reflects an attitude.

The rain stopped in the afternoon so the guys headed out to figure out how we could get to the island. They found a way! This is the longest canoe I have ever been in!

We had two guys rowing our boat. I was thankful they handed out life vests.

Here is the entrance to the island.

We hiked to the top and played around a little.

I am so glad that we went and we hope to go back sometime when it is warm so we can swim and the kids can play in the sand.

IT'S A.....

It's a girl! Yes number 3 is a girl. We went today to the hospital to get an ultrasound to see what we were having. Kayleigh has been hoping the whole time that the baby was a girl. I asked her this morning before we left how she would feel if it was a boy. She told me "Mom, I will be very angry!"

I am glad for her sake that it turned out to be a girl. We took Zeb and Kayleigh with us to get the ultrasound. Kayleigh loved looking at the baby's fingers and toes. She is really into having a little sister and was thrilled with the news when they told us. Kayleigh often talks about holding her and says the baby will laugh when she tickles her. I think it is so sweet that she is so into this baby. She was so young when I was pregnant with Zeb that she didn't really understand. We will see how Zeb takes to her arrival soon enough!

He looks like.....

Today I dressed Zeb for Church and then I looked at him and thought "He looks like his Grandy ( John's dad)!" John's dad often wears this type of outfit to church. So not only does he share the same name as his grandfather he has taken up dressing like him too!