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!

Stationery card

Words Of Wonder Christmas Card

Don't send boring Christmas cards , personalize them at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

Emily's 1st Parent teacher conference

We had Em's 1st parent teacher conference tonight and it went well :) Her teacher described her as an inigma (sp??). She said she absorbs information like crazy, even when it appears as though she isn't paying a lick of attention to what they are doing. She knows all of her letters upper and lower, can count to 18 and knows her numbers to 11! They didn't test her on sounds, but I'm guessing she would have known most of those as well. They said she loves the book center and the science center, especially the magnifying glass, so I think we are going to add some science stuff to her Christmas list. They said she has a great sense of humor and laughs at a lot of things the other kids may not get. Her weak areas are fine motor and following multi-step directions so we are going to work on cutting, writing her name and following 2 and 3 step directions.

Some funny stories--Emily usually naps in the hallway. This is because lately she's not napping and when she does it usually involves talking and singing herself to sleep, which bothers the other kids who are actually napping. Apparently one day Miss Sue sees Emily's head poke around the doorway and Em asks her "Whatcha doin?" to which Miss Sue replies "none of your business". Emily then asks "my business??" and Miss Sue says, "no, my business, you need to be on your cot". Emily says "I am on my cot" Miss Sue comes out in the hallway and sure enough, Em's toes are on her cot :)

Emily is also horribly obsessed with the calendar and weather chart, and everyday wants to be the helper. When I pick her up every night she makes a beeline for the calendar to show me the day. She plays with one of my old calendars in her room nightly and makes me be the student while she plays calendar in the bathtub at night.

One day while playing on the playground some of the girls wouldn't let Em play with them (meanies!) so Em went to tell Miss Sue--here is the conversation that ensued-
Emily-Miss Sue, they won't let me play with them.
Miss Sue-Who won't let you.
Emily-points--them over there.
Miss Sue--What are there names?
Emily--I don't know.
Miss Sue-Yes you do, what are their names.
Emily--Runs over to the girls---hey, what's your name so I can tell on you?"
Girls--Ok you can play with us.

I'm so proud of our little peanut! I can't believe how fast she is growing up!!!

Time flies....

It is amazing how having a baby, moving and starting a new job manage to suck up all of my time! I keep thinking things are going to calm down soon, and they never do....so here's the cliff notes version of the last few months-

Payton will be 5 months old in 2 days! I really have no idea how that has happened. She is now rolling over when she wants to, giggling like a pro (especially at her big sis and chin tickles from daddy) and has just about mastered sitting up on her own. She started purreed food about a week ago, and so far has had squash, carrots, and green beans and seems to enjoy them all. She seems to love school, her teachers love to put her hair into pig tails on the top of her head, that are way too cute. Her current mode of locomotion is to lay on her back and scoot across the floor. She has a smile that is infectious and shares it quite regularly!

Emily has adjusted amazingly well to the chaos that was our lives these past few months. She started at her new school in August with Miss Sue and loves it! School is at our church, which is only a block away from our house, so in the mornings she walks there with daddy and mommy walks to pick her up in the afternoon. She is learning all sorts of fabulous things, currently she is working on cutting and writing her name. She also seems to really love calendar time and telling us the day and month. It never ceases to amaze me the things she absorbs.

Her current favorite tv show is Phineas and Ferb, which daddy also enjoys so they spend lots of time cuddling on the couch watching it. She was in her first wedding about a month ago when Aunt Martha and Uncle Nick got married, she did a fabulous job as flower girl and then was the queen of the dance floor at the reception. She still absolutely loves books, and looks forward to our trips to the library. She is a master at using daddy's ipad and can read books, watch movies and play games on it.

She went to her first birthday party yesterday for a boy from school, according to his mom he refers to Emily as his girlfriend....they had a roller skating party and watching 3 and 4 year olds roller skate was really quite entertaining.

The girls both seem to love dady's new job working with the college kids and have a great time spending Sunday nights at the Foundation playing with the "big" kids. We will definitely be in big trouble if Chuck ever leaves ministry...the girls won't know what to do without all their grown up friends!

That is the quick recap....I really need to be better about blogging because I feel like there are so many other things I don't want to forget that I am going to if I don't put it down soon!

The end of summer....

and the beginning of our new adventures. Summer has been crazy to say the least--here is the cliff notes version-

May 25th-Payton Charlotte is born--perfect and beautiful.

June 3-5-Chuck interviews for a job near Nashville, TN (I spend the weekend freaking out trying to figure out how we are going to move to TN if they offer him the job)

June 9th-Chuck interviews for a job in Macomb, IL (I'm much happier about this prospect)

June 9th-We all head to Living Springs Camp for a week of Marked Leadership camp (all means Chuck, Sarah, Em and Payton)

June 14th-Chuck accepts the job in Macomb and is scheduled to start July 1st--meaning we are officially moving to a new house this summer.

June 24th-27th-The girls head to St. Louis for Martha's wedding shower and other wedding preperations.

July 1st-Chuck starts his new job and we start bi-weekly trips to Macomb to get the house ready to move in July 14th.

July 9th-The girls go to Decatur for another shower for Martha.

July 14th-We move to our new house in Macomb.

July 15th-We head to Peoria to meet friends for dinner and find out our wonderful friends dream of parenthood has been fulfilled through adoption.

July 16th-19th-We head to St. Louis again. Chuck continues on to Nashville for training while the girls stay and play with Aunt Martha and Uncle Nick.

July 23-We go back to Geneseo for Payton's dedication and Martha's final shower.

July 24th-Chuck leaves for Nashville again, the girls stay in Geneseo for a few days to get the house ready to sell and take care of some odds and ends.

July 30th-We are all back in Macomb for a few days.

August 4th-We leave for our final trip of the summer and spend 4 days at a Lakehouse near St. Louis with all our friends and their many babies!

Wow--it's even more overwhelming when I put it in list form than it was in my head! Next up, a Payton and Emily update....and then a picture post of our many summer adventures!

Lots of newness in our life!

Since Payton' birthday there has been lots of craziness in the Hilman world...so there is lots to blog about! That post will be coming later though....this one is just to announce the new blog www.hilmanfamilyadventures.blogspot.com. I decided after P was born that it would make more sense to combine Emily and Payton's blog into one, since most of our adventures would be done together, and sadly it has only taken me 7weeks to figure out how to make that happen! Well here it is...and the next post..hopefully soon...will have everything that has kept me from figuring that out :) via pictures...lots and lots of pictures!