Christmas 09

We all look forward to our tradition of making gingerbread man cookies. Here we are in the middle of it.....And here are some of the finished ones.....

7 years and 7 days ago....

...Camryn came into the world. She is precious gift and I'm so blessed to be her mom. Watching her grow up and grow into who God made her is amazing. Seven words that describe who she is.....thoughtful, cautious, observant, shy, kind, happy, artistic....
This weekend we had a small party with a few of her friends. The theme of the party was "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure". Here is the treasure box Camryn decorated. The girls went on a scavenger hunt in our house to find it. They finished too quickly and later I opened the fridge and found a clue and realized they had skipped some by finding one too soon b/c it was close to another one. The last clue was hidden in my car, but Miles had taken the car to pick up a Chic-fil-A nugget tray, so I had to make a new one. Even though it didn't all work out exactly as planned, they still thought it was fun. The treasure box had jewelry and chocolate coins. Then, for craft time they painted their own little treasure boxes.Here is Sadie's finished product.

Camryn was a happy girl tonight. And for a Hudson update....he has a new blue stool he likes to sit on. He likes to pick it up and move it around. It's just his size. I got it at Ikea. He refers to himself by name now and is talking a lot. He loves guitars and balls right now. And he still loves tools. He seems to find a guitar or a picture of one everywhere we go and he always points it out and sometimes says "dada's" meaning it looks like dada's. He says that about tools too.

I'll try to put a video of him playing guitar soon.

Richmond Marathon

Here he is waiting in a sea of 5000 runners for the start of the race..... Running with a nice guy he met for the first 16 miles.....

this is about mile 14 or 15.....taken from the car as i was driving....

Here he comes down hill to the finish line....And here he is right after finishing.....a guy who has run 2 marathons.....the second one about 8 minutes faster than the 1st. He did a great job. We were proud of him. He was frustrated that he didn't improve his time more, but he has a cold that the kids all have and was feeling a little achy and sick today, so considering that, he did amazing. No injuries (except for a lost toenail).

update

This is Hudson playing piano.....his new favorite thing to do. He does this several times a day.....plays a little and then applauds himself. He doesn't like anyone else to play with him.

He also has a new fascination with trucks. When we are in the car he points out all kinds of trucks and gets excited when he sees several in a row. Then when the truck goes out of his sight he says "truck bye bye".

This weekend Miles will be running his second marathon in Richmond, VA. He is hoping to improve his time and possibly qualify for the Boston Marathon. I'll try to get good pictures and post them on Saturday night.

This has been and continues to be our busiest fall ever. Miles has meeting on Tues, Wed., and Thurs. nights, so when Friday gets here I'm very relieved to not have to put the kids to bed by myself. I'm looking forward to the holidays and having a slower schedule.

halloween

Day at the Farm

Feeding the goats..... The Corn Crib.....

The slide through the Hay Mountain....

Climbing on the Hay Mtn.

Picking the perfect pumkin.....

Trying to break off the stems of the pumkins.....

The Hay Ride.....

The Hay Maze

Before I forget.....

All of the cute things Hudson says.....
here are a few of his words that he says often.....with translation.....
vayvee = sadie
mammin=camryn
woof=dog
foof=shoe
bop bop=flip flop
pum pum= pumpkin
nay nay= lemonade
wa wa= water, milk, juice
I ty = I try

datuum=vacuum (he loves to vacuum)

well, I can't think of anymore good ones right now. I'll have to add more later. But Hudson is at a fun age of verbal explosion. He will try to say almost anything.

week in review

Last week was quite an interesting one for our family. First of all.....Miles was gone all week to the land of Ikea, Volvo, Swedish meatballs, Swedish fish (which happens to be his favorite candy)......

looking at all the bikes there, you would think he was in China.....

but no, it was Sweden.....he was there on a vision trip with half of our staff team and some Duke staff and students. Our ministry here has a partnership with Upsala, Sweden. They went to see what it's like there so they can recruit students to go on summer trips.

I thought these pictures were funny.....from an Ice Bar.....

where everything is made of ice....the bar, seats, cups, etc.....

He had a great trip and everything went smoothly there.....however, not so smooth for us here at home. Wednesday morning, Camryn woke up and said her head was itching all over. I checked it and it was very obvious that she unfortunately had head lice. Later i realized Sadie had it too, although not as bad. I'm not going into too many details about the bugs I had to get out of their hair and how gross and difficult that was, or the treatments I used to deal with it, or all the laundry and cleaning I had to do.....all while Miles was away.....

We got through it and I was thankful for friends who helped me out in some way or brought me dinner. It's also been great to have Miles back to help with head checks and the mountain of laundry that continues to shrink and grow at the same time. So, I'm glad last week is over and here's to a better week!