Happy Halloween!

A crabby chicken and an uncooperative lion...what a pair!

Busy Girl!

Our baby girl is growing up so fast...she took her first step a couple of weeks ago and now she's up to about 10 steps in a row. She still crawls a lot but she's walking places more and more. She has two more teeth now, so she's up to four on top and two on the bottom. She also started drinking cow's milk last week (a little early but I am SO tired of buying formula). I wanted to start her full time on sippy cups when I switched her to milk but she's having nothing to do with it. She'll drink milk and juice from a cup but definitely NOT milk (I'm sure that stubborn streak will come in handy someday!).

She also said her first words this week...on Saturday we were shopping and she kept dropping her toy (on purpose, of course) and I kept picking it up and saying "uh-oh" to her and then she dropped it again and she said "uh-oh"! It's funny because that was Dylan's first word too. I'm guessing Matt and I must say it a lot :). Today we also decided that she is officially saying "Mama." She follows me around the house, pulling on my leg, saying "Mama, Mama." I'm pretty sure Dylan said Dada before he said Mama, so I feel good about this! At dinner tonight, Matt kept trying to get her to say Daddy and she would just look at him and say "Mama!"

Next up -- switching her car seat around. She'll be one in 12 days!

Post Family Farm

Family Pictures, Take 27

After about 20 shots, I think we finally got a keeper for my parents' Christmas card. There are also a couple of cute ones my brother took...one of the boy cousins on Nana and Pa's bridge and a family picture of us with the kids--the first is how we look 1% of the time, the second is how we look the other 99%.

Our (Not-So-Small) Small Group

Almost five years ago, we walked into a living room filled with strangers, not sure what to expect...half a decade later the families in our small group at Mars Hill are some of our closest and dearest friends, more like family than friends at this point. We just took our annual group shot on Sunday, and I thought it would be fun to post some previous pictures too to show how we've grown. When we started, we were all recently married couples and no one had kids. Now there are seven little ones running around!

The 2007 picture...Ellen is four, Dylan and Micah are two, Arika, Elizabeth, and Jalen are one, and Ella is 11 months. Who's next?? :)

The 2006 picture...three toddlers, three babies and one on the way!

The 2005 picture...the older kids aren't in this picture, but I thought it was funny because four of us are pregnant at the same time. There was a period of time where it seemed like everytime we met, someone announced they were pregnant!

Matt & Mat

Matt went to the Mat Kearney concert Monday night with his brothers Brandon and Chad, and they ended up running into and hanging out with Mat Kearney and his band at the Curragh afterwards. They drank beer, talked about life, and exchanged emails and cell phone numbers. Let's just say that Matt was pretty excited. Here's a picture to prove it...


And Matt would want you to know that he was a Mat Kearney fan even before he made it big--back in the days when Mat was opening for bigger bands like the Frey (and before his breakout song on Grey's Anatomy :))

Ella's Room

Here are some pictures of Ella's room and one of her enjoying her new space :) We need to hang a couple of more things up, and I might eventually paint her furniture white when I work up the energy (it's dark grean right now...it was my furniture from high school and then Matt and my furniture after we were married...it's good stuff, just needs an update).

not as easy as ABC

I'm working on an ABC scrapbook for Dylan's birthday and I'm looking for some help on a few letters (I put in parentheses what I already have--I'm just looking for 1-2 more things for each)...

I (Isaac, ice cream)
J (Jeep, jelly beans)
K (Kyle, ketchup)
L (Legos, Lions)
O (ocean)
Q (question mark)
R (reading)
U (umbrella)
W (waffles)
X (???)
Y (Yesenia, yogurt)
Z (zoo, zebra)

...let me know if you have any ideas. I'm trying to relate as many items as possible to Dylan's life, but I'm willing to go generic at this point. This is harder than it looks!

Ella's Dedication

Yesterday afternoon we had Ella's baby dedication at church and then we celebrated with family afterwards at our house (pictures courtesy of Uncle Kyle Photography). Ella is 11 months old on Friday and we can't believe how big she's getting!

Dylan's room...

I just ordered these pictures off of eBay for Dylan's room. I'm excited because I was looking for something for his walls, but I didn't want it to be too little boy-ish; I was really looking for something that could grow with him. As an added bonus, they were pretty cheap too - $9.99 each (they're new, but they just look old).

We have almost everything on the walls, so I will try to take some pictures in the next couple of days of the house for those of you who are curious.

Quick Fix

I switched out our shower head last night and shower-taking around here is sooo much better. Conversation with Matt last night:

Me: I just switched out our showerhead.
Him: It must have been really easy then?

Yes, it was easy (who knew all you had to do was unscrew one and screw on the other?), but isn't he implying that I couldn't have taken on a plumbing project by myself? ;) I just thought it was funny. We are not in the least bit handy around here (hanging pictures is a major endeavor), but we are starting to learn.

Just call us Mr. and Mrs. Fix-It.

Moving Day

A BIG thanks to everyone who helped out last Saturday. I was reminded by how loved we are because you don't help someone move unless you really love them :) We moved all the furniture in the morning and then a lot of people stuck around in the afternoon helping us set up beds, hooking up appliances, and organizing my kitchen. We feel pretty "settled" at this point, mostly because Matt can't stand unpacked boxes and unfinished tasks. We just have to hang some pictures and some curtains and we'll be all set.