Turning 5

How can it be that our baby is 5?  This has been a big year of growth for Elizabeth physically, mentally and emotionally.  We could not be prouder of how she is blossoming.  She even announced that she remembered crying at her last birthday during the song and that this year she thought she was bigger and would be okay.  Sure enough she was!  Elizabeth had 25 friends come to her party at Bounce U.  Mom just kept exclaiming - "This is not at my house!  I am so happy this is not at my house!"  It was so special to meet a lot of E's new school friends.  She introduced us to her "best" new friend from school and pointed out other people that she enjoyed playing with.  So cute!  There was lots of crazy bouncing and sliding!  Then pizza and cake for all.  We ran out of time for presents which actually worked out better.  This allowed E to have a smaller crowd for opening without as many grabbing hands.  We continued to celebrate with family and at school over the next week.  It was a joy to celebrate this milestone with so many people that love her.  

Here she is with her friend from birth - Kate.  Kate was born one day before Elizabeth and we are blessed to continue to celebrate these girls together.

Some of Elizabeth's favorite things right now:

Any song that Mrs. Bradshaw sings at school or Ms. Karen sings at church
Lucky Charms
Corn Dogs
Princesses and Barbies - the pinker and more sparkly the better!
Sofia the First and Doc McStuffins
Looking through family photos and doing her best to read board books
Teaching and helping her imaginary "kids"
The Sound of Music
Art, art and more art
Dancing!

Moving

So there has been a hiatus from the blog.  Mom is trying to fill in the gaps, but has decided to give herself grace for this season.  We placed an offer on a house in August.  We had been looking about a month casually.  Well, let's back up.  Dad had been looking online for a few years.  Every now and then he checked in with Mom and there was no interest in moving.  Last July, the kids went to Kansas for a week.  Mom had decided that Dad was probably right and it would be nice for the kids to have more space and several open house dates were planned for this week.  The very first house was everything we wanted.  We couldn't tell if it was just the fun of looking at houses or if this could become "the one".  A few houses later, nothing else came close to the first house.  So in late August we made the offer and the selling family did not want to close till October as they were building a new house.  This was fine with us as we had not put our house on the market yet and we hoped we could sell it in the meantime.  It was one of those times in our lives where it was so clear to us that we were hearing God and truly in sync in our family goals.

So we put our house on the market in early September, had Ben's 7th birthday, went to Disney World over Fall Break and then closed the following week on the new house.  Whew!  We were showing our old house this whole time, but hadn't closed yet.  This allowed us to move slowly, but also kept Dad working on touching up the old house and maintaining it.  We were so grateful when it sold before Christmas and closed right after the new year.  What a blessing!!

During the time right after we moved to our new house, we took a couple of quick weekend trips that were already planned to Dallas and Branson.  They were super fun, but cut into our unpacking time.  So what better time than to sign up to host a few Christmas parties?  What?  That was part of why we bought this house.  We wanted to be able to host and fellowship.  Might as well start right away!  This inspired some quick work of the common areas and getting things in order to be able to have groups over.  Just having moved, though, also gave us an excuse that we did not have a dining table or anything to sit on in our formal dining and living rooms.  :)  We were so blessed and cannot wait to continue to open our home.  It was a wonderful way to spend the holiday season. 

Now that we are into the new year, things are still yet to be done, but coming together.  We have started to hang things on the walls and get the less used rooms organized.  We are at the point we actually seem to have a manageable list of what we want to accomplish.  The kids' rooms are a work in progress, but very well loved already.  

This isn't our furniture, but shows that Ben's room has Marvel comic wallpaper border and E's room is PINK!

It was part of our life plan, but it definitely wasn't on the "to do" list for the fall (especially when it felt like we already had a busy season planned).  But there is never a good time to move.  On this side of things we are so glad we went ahead and are loving our new home.  It has literally felt like home from the first day.  We are feeling so blessed!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

This was a Christmas to bottle and save forever....magical!  Ben has always loved Santa and E has always been wary.  Totally understandable!  This year our season started off with some Black Friday shopping at the Home Depot.  Santa happened to be visiting there and Elizabeth immediately shouted that she wanted to see him.  Yeah, right, thought Mom.  We got a couple of aisles into the store having promised to go back and see Santa in a bit.  Elizabeth kept begging for him so we told her she could go.  She took off running leaving Brother in the dust and climbed right up in his lap.  What?  Who's kid was this?  Mom didn't know what to do.  Thinking it might not last she called for Ben to get ready for the picture.  After a nice chat with Santa (there was no line) we got a family pic to remember.  Elizabeth was happy and enjoyed her time talking to Santa.  She even begged to go back later in the season. 

The kids both wanted Disney Infinity.  Ben knew exactly what it was and E was just interested in the figurines that were princesses.  Santa delivered and brought them a Wii U and Disney Infinity with boy and girl characters.  They were both so excited.  Ben had nearly made himself sick the night before trying to get to sleep and wondering what Santa would bring.  After he saw the Wii and Infinity, Mom asked if he felt any better.  He had a big sigh and said that yes, he could relax now.  Santa had done well!  The kids were blessed to celebrate with different parts of the family over the week and opened presents on 4 different days.  It seemed to never end!  Hopefully these memories will last their lifetimes.  It was really magical for everyone.