Christmas is here!

This Christmas is already so fun with a 2 1/2 year old. Jadeyn is starting to "get" christmas, ie: Jesus' birthday, Santa bringing presents...There's still way more to learn on her end, but she understands the basics. But wow, it's going to be fun! My parents have a stuffed advent tree numbered days 1-24. Each day you move the star to the correct date. Well, Jadeyn wakes up every day asking if it's christmas yet. After just a couple days of this, I showed her the advent tree and told her it's not christmas until the star is on day 24. So, thinking as a child, what's the obvious response? Of course! She just moved the star to day 24 and ran into the "present room"! LOVE HER!

It's also awesome to hear her talk about baby Jesus and how He is the reason we celebrate christmas anyway. Her bible verse this month is Jesus was born, and she has got that one down! She's always looking for baby Jesus in our house and will randomly ask me at different places, "Where is baby Jesus now?"

I took her shopping today for a christmas present for Jimmy. She was convinced he needed a big jewlery box of beads.

Yes, this christmas will be lots of fun with some great memories ahead. Can't wait!

Enthralled with Nutcracker Twinkle Toes

Cutting the packaging from the tree

Watching Frosty!

Jadeyn's first taste of Egg Nog

Little Brynlee (she had to miss out on the movie/egg nog festivities since it was past her bedtime, but she LOVED seeing the tree the next morning!)

God loves me, WONDERFUL!

There are some fundamental Truths that we overlook as we grow older in our faith. The sweetness of a child is so refreshing. Jadeyn has been learning scripture and loves saying it. However, she mixes up two verses. At school, she learned "God made me wonderful" and at church, she learned "God loves me". It would come out as "God loves me, wonderful!" (with big arm movements and shouting WONDERFUL!) When she first started saying her verses, I would correct her. But the more I listened to her, I began to think, God really does love us wonderful. His love is wonderful. He is wonderful. He thinks of us as wonderful. He takes joy in us and delights in us. So friends, remember, as I was reminded -
God loves YOU, wonderful!

You know your child isn't sleeping...

 when you find this in the hallway the next morning!

lazy summer days

Well, I know it's been a couple months since I've blogged. I am SO BAD at losing my camera cord! I finally ran out of space on my memory card so took it to Wal-Mart and put them all on a cd. So...if anyone has an extra canon camera cord they aren't using... : )

This summer is so fun with Jadeyn; and Brynlee is such a cute and FUNNY baby, she goes along for the ride and it's been a blast! My parents got a pool this summer for their backyard so we've spent many afternoon's in their pool. Jadeyn is a stud when it comes to swimming. She constantly asks to "swim myself", literally meaning by herself with no lifejacket or swim ring, floaties, anything. Of course, we hold on to her bottom, but she is so proud when she does it all by herself. *wink* Brynlee seems to really like the water when she's not tired or hungry! She'll stay in her little floatie and even kick her legs.

days spent at unpluggits! lots of crafts/indoor playground, perfect for these crazy hot temps this summer!

we bought a new kitchen table...that's awesome! i've been on the hunt for chairs, jadeyn gets to help (in her purple gloves) while jimmy fixes it

it's the fourth!!

maegan and the girls

jadeyn lighting a smoke ball

walking up to UCO for the fireworks show!

my mamaw bought this chair for jadeyn and she wanted to help paint it. it sits proudly in our living room

2nd cousins, hannah and jadeyn showing how they drink from a big cup!

figured out a new way to swing!

"Go Thunder!!" - Jadeyn

This picture was all Jimmy's doing. He loves bandanas

Brynlee's first taste of real food. I made her squash and she was NOT a fan. She does like to eat though, just not squash!

Ahhh...the best part of hot weather. Frozen hot chocolate from Serendipities, THE BEST!

Jadeyn's "first's"

I wouldn't think there would be many more "first's" for Jadeyn, but this summer we've done a number of things that Jadeyn has never done before. It's been fun!

Jimmy took her fishing and she LOVED it. Oh boy.

showing the worms

trying to hook the worm...ha!

catching a fish!

reeling it in!

...and showing it off!

We also decided it was time to see how she would do camping out, in a tent and all. There was a chance of rain the night we wanted to, so opted to camp out in my parents' backyard. We had a ton of fun, making smores, setting up the tent, singing campfire songs! We decided not to try and put her to bed at 8 and just let her stay up until she was ready. It was about 9:30 when she asked to go lay down in the tent. But then, she had a ball choosing which sleeping bag to lay down on and kept trying them all out. It was about 10:15 or so before she crashed...and slept all night outside!

Mini Vaca

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you will notice we go to Branson a lot! Jimmy's parents have a timeshare there, season passes to Silver Dollar City and it's about 3 hours from Tulsa. So they love it. They are always so accomodating whenever they go to invite us and stay in their condo, pay for our food, etc, etc. We took a few days off in June to head up there, play in the pool and go to SDC. The adults played a lot of "hand and foot" each night once all the kids were in bed and Jimmy finished reading book 6 of the HP series! I've been pushing him to read all 7 for a long time now and he did it!

Jadeyn's first "big kid" amusement park ride

We had fun spending 3 days in Branson with Jimmy's family. Thanks for inviting us!