December Fun

This month has afforded lots of fun activities for the kids...

Making gingerbread houses thanks to an early Christmas present. (He actually loved it, and this face is his attempt at a "sweet smile")

Painting with some new art supplies

A trip to Oma and Opa's house

Making Christmas cookies and playing superheros with our adopted college students from church.


A visit from Papaw today

And some good old baths- This happens to be one of my favorite Karis-faces!

Christmas Trees and Babies

I've been a little delinquent in the blogging department. Mostly because I've been going to bed at 8:30 or 9:00 most nights-exhausted. Because...I'm PREGNANT! We're expecting a sweet little addition to our family at the end of June. Everyone is super excited, especially Krieg, whose response when we told him was, "How can I take care of two little sisters?" Such a sweet big brother!

This weekend we managed a trip to the Stewart Family Tree Farm to see lots of friends from Cullowhee and cut down a Christmas tree. They had a hay ride, hot chocolate and lots of trees for Krieg and his old buddies to play hide and seek in. We actually lost Krieg in the trees for a good 5 minutes because he had such a good hiding spot. Here are a few shots from the day.

We got to see Amanda and sweet baby Haley!

And here is the finished tree!

Hello Fall

Our huge oak trees are some of the last in the neighborhood to lose their leaves, so the kids finally got their first chance to jump in leaf piles the other day. This particular pile Krieg raked down the driveway all by himself. I was pretty impressed.

We have also all been sick this week, so we've had to be a little creative in the house.


This is Krieg and I's reenactment of the Mayflower and pilgrims meeting Squanto and the Native Americans. He was way more excited about this than I expected.


And Krieg put on his first sock puppet show- inspired by the sock puppets in If You Give a Moose A Muffin.

these days

Apart from a weekend visit from my parents (which I have no pictures to show for) life has been pretty ordinary these days. But here are a few things that we have been enjoying lately...

• Science experiments from Mudpies to Magnets which we are all loving. It was a great library pick up this month.
• Karis finally letting me pull her hair out of her face!
• Bird Watching out the kitchen window. Most days we spend at least a cumulative 30 minutes looking at Cardinals and Chickadees at the bird feeders.
• Pumpkin Carving- thanks daddy!

Cousin Time

Cousin Alexandra came to visit Clemson for the first time this weekend!!


And the girls just so happened to match!

Thanks for making the trip Bristows. We love you!

Who's that Big Girl?

Today was Day 1 of Potty Training Boot Camp for this little lady!

She spent the first half of the day looking like this- naked bottomed-protesting big girl undies, but thrilled to be bare-bottomed!


The second half of the day she decided it was cool to wear undies, and of course she has shoes on-that's a given.


And this big guy- well, he was super cooperative and played along as the chief encourager. His rewards were the same as Karis', if he did his job.


The day went significantly smoother than I thought. By the afternoon Karis had figured out that she was supposed to only go to the bathroom on the potty, and would tell me she had to go. Not that she made it every time, but by the end she was pretty close. The one thing I haven't quite figured out is how we are going to master pottying outside the house, since she refuses to use the words for potty, pee-pee or poop, but instead just points to the bathroom. It should make for a few interesting trips out of the house.

Yay for our big girl Karis! We are both so glad to be done with diapers and diaper rashes!

Apples Apples Everywhere

We LOVE Skytop Orchard! Can you tell? The kids and I spent the morning on the top of the mountain picking apples, lots of them- actually 90, if you count the three we ate while we were picking. Krieg and I took estimates of how many we picked, so we had to actually count them when we got back! Along with apple picking, they have a little area with farm animals, which the kids loved, swing sets, play houses in the shape of apples and pumpkins, and the best donuts you have ever put in your mouth.

So my task for the next two days, make and freeze lots of applesauce and apple butter and perfect the apple pie!

Have no fear...

Spidergirl is here!!

You know you are a stay-at-home-mom when you get just as excited about fun, new toys as your kids do. Well, today was one of those days. Our church had a big yard sale and I picked up a huge set of Magnetix for $7, which I think retails for about $40. Krieg loves to build, and I figured these would be a hit, once he figured out what all you could do with them. And I was right. We played with them for a good two hours today, and I had to make him put them away for bed. Kevin declared these "possibly one of your best toy purchases yet!"

Krieg and I have been learning all about Creation this week and talking about ways that we imitate God by creating things. He is not real into arts and crafts type things lately, but if you give him just about anything and ask him to build something, he will spend forever on it. I've always thought about being creative more in the sense of crafty, artsy stuff, but this week I've seen more of God's creative image in us in things like building and designing as well. I love to see Krieg use his imagination as he makes something and then proudly declares what it is, showing me how what he made reflects the real thing. The picture about was an "adult park" filled with slides, swings, walking trails and all!

Introducing...

SPIDERMAN!

The last month we have entered a new stage with Krieg- Superheroes. He is pretty obsessed with them. Thanks to a boy at church who introduced him to Batman, and a 10 cent yard sale purchase of a figurine, Krieg has been hooked. He is constantly talking about saving and rescuing people, being the strongest and fastest. So when I ran across the Spiderman suit in the way-too-early Halloween section at a thrift store today for $2, I couldn't pass it up. Krieg was SO excited.

July wrap-up

Apparently I have been a little slow on blogging this month. So, here is a little snapshot of the month, which has mostly consisted of catching up with friends and trying to get life back in order after our month at the beach.

First up, free Chick-Fil-A with our friends, the Wylies on Cow Appreciation Day! Emily made Karis and Lydda Grace matching cow dresses. They were so cute!



Next Stop: The Happy Berry farm to pick blueberries and blackberries. This picture was taken a few weeks ago, but the kids and I just went back this morning for our second round of blueberries with a friend. Krieg has become quite the expert in berry picking, and Karis, well, she successfully put about 5 blueberries in the bucket, and about 500 in her mouth!

This past weekend we headed to Charleston for the weekend with a bunch of our friends from college and their families. It was great catching up with everyone, and the kids had a great time. Russell took all the kids out on the boat, which was a first for our kiddos. Krieg manned this same spot on the boat just taking everything in for the whole 45min ride. He also caught his first fish this weekend too!

Now we are looking forward to our staff and students trickling back into town and getting back to some sort of routine and normalcy, or at least this momma is. The craziness of summer has gotten the best of me!

and the fun continues...

These are a few of our favorite things...

The Jumping Fountains at Broadway

Our babysitter Brittni

The farmers' market that is 2 blocks away and eating watermelons in bathing suits (or in diapers!)

Leadership Project

We are settled in at the Leadership Project and our kids are officially loving it. They have constant playmates (in part thanks to our awesome babysitter!) and lots of eager to play college students. Then you add in a pool and an ocean and what's not to like about it! I finally got the camera out tonight when we went to the beach for the sand castle competition.