Glass Slippers

This is why glass slippers would never work for a 2 year old. Above is a picture of Audrey performing...for herself. She loves to dress up and dance in front of the Star Station. It lets her see and hear herself on our tv. You will notice her pretty piny dress up shoes. Then she decided to follow her brother's lead and attempted to jump off of the 2nd step. Right before she jumped I said, "Don't do that. You're going to fall." Well, she actually stuck the landing, but then had to sit because the shoes didn't make it...see below.

Not for long...

Andrew...about 10 days old.

I heard this song (the one that's playing...if you have your volume turned up) yesterday on the radio and it took me back. Andrew's 5th birthday is less 3 months away and it seems like just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital. In fact, just this past Sunday we were talking with a several other couples at church (one of whom is expecting their first very soon) about life with a newborn. Chip and I just looked at each other and smiled. I know we were thinking the same thing, "we had no idea what we were getting into". But, the song is so true, no sooner than we turn around I'm registering him for Kindergarten. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm ready for him to start school, but still things just change so fast. By the way, he's wearing his Cubbies vest in the recent photo. He loves his Awanas and wears the vest on a daily basis.

Oh, that boy loved to be swaddled!

SNOW Fun!

We tried our best to make a snowman yesterday, but it was really hard to get the snow to stick together. After a lot of work, we finally were able to get him standing in front of the house. Andrew was so sad today when he was almost gone. So, we tried again. This time the snow packed so much better. We were able to roll it up into a ball. We put him in the shade and added some hair. Hopefully he'll last till tomorrow!

Andrew and Frosty!...Day#1

Audrey tried to help, but Andrew wanted her to stay back!

Frosty....Day #2

So proud of his work.

SNOW Day!

Today we woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow! They had been forecasting snow, but we didn't tell Andrew because I didn't want him to be upset when we woke up this morning to no snow. That happened several times last year in TX. However, there was no disappointment this morning. He looked out the window, saw the snow and was so excited. Audrey kept saying "Help...open (door)...help...I want snowman". We held off till about 9am and finally got out in it. Chip worked from home and was able to play some too on his lunch break. There is a great hill out behind our house that we were able to sled down. We had a pool float that we attempted to use as a sled. It worked out okay, but our neighbors had a knee board (we're all from the gulf coast...we only have water toys) that was really fun. The kids loved it and had so much fun.

Looking out our back door.

The van.

Our front door.

The kids.

Chip, Andrew, & Audrey trying out the knee board.

He only made about 100 of these today!

2009

I can't believe it has been over a month since my last post. December came and went before we had time to turn around. Now, we're already a week into January and I'm still finding it hard to sit down and blog. Well, it's not that I don't have time, it's just that I've developeed a little bit of an addition since Thanksgiving and I'm putting that ahead of blogging, checking email, taking care of my kids (only kidding), etc. My mom (I'll just blame it on her) introduced me to the wonderful world of the Baxters, a series of books by Karen Kingsbury, and they are a little bit addicting.

Christmas was great. We went to Florida to visit all the family. Everyone was there and it was wonderful being able to spend Christmas with both sides of our family. Everyone always thinks that having both sets of grandparents in the same town would be a bad thing, but I love it. Especially when they are only a short 2 minute drive from each other. Sometimes it does get crazy running back and forth, but I think it is well worth it. Chip's brother, sister in-law, and their girls were all there and we were able to spend several days with them. I think that was Andrew's favorite part. All the girl cousins to run around with and I have to say that they really all play so well together. Except for a minor argument about the responsibilities of the dad (when they were playing house) they all had a great time. It is rather amusing to hear a 4 and 5 year old debate what the "dad" is supposed to do. Andrew was sure that he was going to work and his cousin was sure that today was a family day and he was staying home with the family. Audrey enjoyed all the action too. Although, she sometimes takes a back seat and just prefers to watch the action, she did spend a lot of time running around the house after the older girls and getting in on their games.

Andrew got a lot of Thomas and CARS stuff for Christmas, which has kept him very busy. Audrey got a lot of dress up clothes (she loves the shoes) and a little indoor trampoline. She loves it and spends a lot of time on it everyday. In fact, it helps Andrew get the wiggles out too. I challenge him to go 5 minutes without stopping and he loves it.

We really did have a wonderful visit and it's always hard to leave and get back to "real life" with work and school and everything else.

As far as 2009 goes, the kids are now both back at school and they are starting a gymnastics class this week. Hopefully it will be a lot of fun for both of them. Chip is taking an 8 day class this January and takes his final this Wednesday morning. After that he starts a new semester on the 23rd of January. Also, we have found a church in Raleigh that we really enjoy and are looking forward to getting more involved this year and connecting with some other families.

Below are a few pictures from the holidays. We hope your 2009 is going well.

Andrew's favorite way to get around at NeNe's house.

Our family picture at the Summeys' house.

This is a rare occasion...all 4 of us in a picture, looking at the camera, and smiling.

This picture was our Christmas card picture and actually has an interesting story to it. We took the kids to the seminary one day in December and took about 200 pictures of them all around the grounds trying to get a good one of them both smiling, with their eyes open, etc. There are a lot of benches around the seminary and we took pictures with them sitting on several. This just happened to be the picture we chose. If you look closely, you can see the words on the bench. I just knew it said "In Honor of ...... Knott". I obviously didn't know that person and couldn't read the writing under their legs. I sent a card to Audrey's Sunday School teacher at our new church and come to find out, that is her parents' bench. I couldn't believe that. Of all the pictures we took and benches to sit on, their bench was the one we picked and the best picture. Audrey's teacher and her daughter (who teaches the class with her) are really sweet and have just loved on Audrey and helped her transition to a new church, so her family has meant a lot to us in these past few months. And to think that they are sitting on the bench dedicated to her parents...it's a small world.