Friday, December 16, 2011

Picture dump....

As promised...some pictures

This is from Thanksgiving weekend....Papa and I took Em and P to John Deere Commons to see a giant combine built out of canned food....she wasn't too impressed with the combine but had fun climbing in the tractors.
P at the daycare Christmas program...snoozing!

Emily singing...she did an awesome job!
Telling Santa our wish list for Christmas...she was thinking really hard!
And videos from their program...P's isn't the best, it is video of a video, but still cute I think.
I have more pictures but for some silly reason blogger is only letting me put 5 up, so the rest will have to wait for another post!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Christmas anticipation...

4 years ago Chuck and I were anticipating the birth of our 1st child soon after Christmas--Chuck wrote this Advent devotional for church. As we look forward to our first Christmas of parents of 2 children I think it continues to be applicable, especially as I watch Emily's excitement over the approaching holiday! May we all look forward to Christmas with her childlike faith!!

I Think I Get It Now Chuck Hilman
�You will be with child and give birth to a
son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
He will be great and will be called the Son of
the Most High. The Lord God will give him
the throne of his father David, and he will
reign over the house of Jacob forever; his
kingdom will never end.�
I think I finally get it now.
For hundreds of years the Jews looked
forward to the day their messiah would come
and restore their kingdom. They wrote about
their desire for him to come. They prayed
for his coming deliverance. The eagerly
expected him. I think I finally understand
their sense of anticipation.
As Sarah and I wait for our first child to
be born I am beginning to understand the
anticipation felt by the entire Jewish nation
(on a much smaller scale, of course). We
have spent the last six months preparing ourselves,
and our home, for our child�s arrival.
We have prayed for our child every day. We
have put together baby things, cleaned, and
prayed some more. Sarah has eaten and I
have taken that as a challenge to eat more
than her. I think I�m winning.
The level of excitement about Christmas
is a little higher this year because I know
what it�s like to anticipate the birth of a child.
I would like to remind everyone about
how exciting this Advent season really is.
There is a reason the whole world is not excited
about the birth of our child. He (or she)
is not the savior of the world! We are anticipating
the one who has saved us from our
sins and redeemed us from the curse of the
fall!
I pray that you would enter this Advent season
with a sense of excitement and eager anticipation.


Wow...

We have a crawler! Payton has been "moving" for about 2 weeks now...but not really in any explainable fashion, until today! Today she officially did a crawl! We are definitely in for it now. I'm convinced she will go from crawling to running very quickly, if for no other reason than to get away from her sister!


In other news Emily has officially been broken of the binkie habit! It's been a month since we took it away and we've done well! She will randomly ask for it, but accepts the answer that it is broken and moves on with life! She is also virtually potty trained. We still have a poo accident on occasion, especially now that the upstairs bathroom is torn up, but we are definitely having more successes than not! Our baby girl is growing up way too fast!
Christmas is just around the corner, so I'm sure there will be a picture filled post soon!