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.