Christmas 2009

 

 

Christmas Eve

 

 

We had a wonderful Christmas. It was a little rough on mommy because she fractured her wrist two days before and felt pretty cruddy. We still had a great time being together, nothing like a child's face on Christmas morning!

Brady's Christmas Program

 

  

 

Gearing up for Christmas!

 

  

  

Brady's 8!

Wow, Brady is now an 8 year old!!!!

Where did the time go?

We had a birthday party for him at his choice of restaurant and that would be Mi Jalepeno! He really wanted to get whipped cream smashed in his face!  We had a wonderful time with friends and family and appreciate all of you coming to celebrate with us!!

 

He is a wonderful boy! He has grown so much this past year! He loves to read and is excelling way above average for 2nd grade! We are so proud of him!

Annie!

We wanted to introduce you to our new baby!!

Well, she's not that small but...


She's a bit camera shy and although we do not allow doggies on the sofa, this was one of the best pictures we have. :)

Annie is a Great Dane and is about 3 years old. We are in love with her! The kids adore her! She's a big sweetie! She greets us at the door with her stuffed doggie in tow!


Kirk built her a food dish stand. It was just too hard to have to eat so low. She seems to like this a lot better!

She is our gentle giant!!

Georgia the Bunny!

Ding Dong...

THE TRUCK IS GONE!!!




We are happy to announce that we finally sold the truck!


Bye Truck!

Halloween

Optimus Prime(Transformer), a Mermaid and a Cheerleader!!!

The kids had fun carving their pumpkins this year. They helped clean out all the goop and then both Brady and Bethany drew their own face on their pumpkins. Brady carved his out all by himself! Georgia thought the pumpkin was interesting!! :)

They were able to load up on candy in the neighborhood and see some friends and teacher s along their journey.

Daddy had to take care of a lot of the festivities. Mommy was very sick with bronchitis(she spent 4 hours in the Urgent Care to get some meds on Sunday-not fun!) :(

Mommy is feeling better now and we have one more place to wear our costumes one more time. Church is having a little kids festival tomorrow. It should be fun.

P.S. Does that cheerleader look familiar? I bet if you go back a few years you would see another one just like this cute one! ;) You should take a peak!

Little News...

I recently started as the Preschool Children's Church Director at church. I'm very excited!! I had never really ever thought about doing anything like this. I just didn't think it was my calling and it never crossed my mind. But after our previous director left, little nudges kept creeping into my mind. I had talked with my my mom and talked with Kirk and prayed a lot. I decided that Kirk and I would work a Sunday and see how I REALLY felt afterwards(I mean these kids could drive me batty, right?).
After that Sunday I felt this is truly what I wanted to do!! It is a volunteer position, basically just getting the curriculum together, taking care of the classroom, lining up teachers, etc. As I said before I'm so excited. My heart just leaps every time I think about it!!
I'm looking forward to this new adventure God is taking me on!!

9 months

Georgia is 9 mths old!!

Can I just say S T I N K E R!!!

Helllllloooooo 3rd child!!!

Wow, she is super fast. She hasn't started walking yet. But she crawls fast! She is gone before you know it. She has 3 favorite spots that she usually heads to first 1. Dog's water dish 2. Dog cage and 3. Bathroom. These seem to intrigue her the most right now. :)

She is starting to babble. She's says "mamamamama" quite well which makes Mommy happy! No dada's yet! ;) She also says "bababababa" well too. She knows where here food comes from! haha

Oh! Big news! She has 2 teeth!! The bottom two popped through a couple weeks ago. There are a couple on top that look about ready to come too.

She is loving wrestling with the kids. Bethany thinks it's so funny. One of these days she really going to be able to push them down!!!

She's doing well, staying healthy. She's a little more than 20 lbs. So she's evening out a little but not so much rapid weight gain as what was happening.

Here are some more pics:

HIS Love!

After a really hard week, struggling with lots of different things. Praying for answers. God showed himself to me so vividly! This morning we sang this song in church and it was just an affirmation of HIS love for me! AMEN!

Bethany's 4!

Bethany turned 4 years old today!

We had a wonderful time with our little girl today. She was able to pick where she wanted to eat after church and she picked Applebees. :) The servers came around and sang Happy Birthday to her and gave her a Hot Fudge Sundae! She thought it was really special. We then went home and had a PINK cake that mommy made and opened her gifts. She is so sweet! She loved every one and thought they were the greatest thing ever!
We didn't have a big party for her this year, but we did invite a few friends from church and their mommies for a Mommy/Daughter Mani/Pedi Party! The girls were so excited! They each got to pick out their own nail polish and their own lotion. The moms made an "assembly" line, they each got to soak their feet in a bubble spa, then get exfoliated, cleansed moisturized and finally beautified with color! The girls then ate CHEESE pizza of course and mommy made a fancier dinner for the other mommies. I think everyone had a great time including the mommies!! :)

Ok, lets catch you up with a little bit of info on Bethany!
She has started preschool! She goes 4 days a week, half day. She LOVES it! She's doing really good and I already can tell she's learning so much! She is still into dance. She is taking tap right now. But she has informed us that she wants to be a cheerleader once basketball starts. ;)
Here favorite color is still dark pink, but she also says that purple is ok too. She loves to wear dresses. She's still a girly girl! She loves Polly Pockets and her Barbies. She loves to help us cook. She is getting more into coloring, which makes me very happy. She loves to sing too!
She's a good little girl and we love her very much!!

Apple picking

We all went Apple picking today! It was very wet but we still had fun. We were able to get a lot of apples so we can make applesauce and other yummy appley things. Our kids love apples, so we get them as much as we can.

Bethany's a Preschooler!

(The sun was in her eyes)

Bethany and Elena

Today was Bethany's Official 1st day of preschool(aka no mommy). She was ready to go! No hesitation, no goodbyes-off she went! Although, it did make me a little sad when she trotted off it also made me happy and relieved that she is so excited. I was a bit worried, becasue sometimes Bethany is a bit timid. Her friend Elena is in her same class, it nice to have her there and also Erin and I can swap pick up times and help each other out! :) It seems like yesterday I was bringing this little bundle home from the hospital and now she's off to preschool! Bethany will go 4 days a week, 9am-1pm. She eats lunch there too! She's super excited about that. We decided to send her to the same preschool that Brady went to, Epworth UMC, we had such a good experience with him. He was also super prepared for kindergarten, his kinder teacher said you can definitely tell a difference. That seals the deal for us! It's awfully quiet in the house this morning, it's going to be an adjustment. :)

1st day of 2nd grade!

Today was Brady's 1st day of 2nd grade! He was very excited! We were able to go to his classroom last night and drop off his school supplies. We love his teacher Mrs. Strine. (Kirk actually taught with her at Ridgedale for a short time) He has quite a few friends in his class and a couple from his baseball team too. Mommy can't believe how fast the summer flew by!

Georgia is 7 months!

Our sweet Georgia turns 7 months old today!
She is changing so much! She is little miss speedy! She is crawling all over the house. Pulling herself up and has started to move around the furniture! Yikes! She has started eating a good amount of baby food(which Daddy and Mommy are making homemade!) She LOVES her food! ;) She has just recently started the "fake cough" she l thinks she's pretty special when she does it. Her favorite noise is still the raspberry though. She lights up when brother and sister walk in the room. She loves the animals! She will pet them an pull their hair too.

She is such a joy! She is such a happy baby! We feel honored and blessed to have her apart of our lives!

Georgia's Dedication

This past Sunday we were able to gather with our families and dedicate Georgia Marie to our Lord Jesus Christ. We have recieved such a blessing and dear gift from God. We pray that we direct her in the path she should go, it's a big job being a parent and having the job of raising a child. It is only through Jesus that we are able to do what we do!

We are so happy we have Christ-centered families!

10 Year Anniversary Party!

Kirk and I decided to celebrate this milestone with a Garden Dinner Party! We had it catered and everyone dressed up! We were so happy that we had some of our closest friends and family with us. We tried to get as many from our wedding party as we could, we really missed the ones that could not attend.

It was such a fun relaxing evening, we are so blessed!

10 Years!

Wow, can't believe 10 years have already gone by! Seems like yesterday we were in college just starting to date. Now we are much older, have 3 kids, dog, cats, a house! Crazy!

We would be lying if we said that these 10 years were absolutely perfect, there of course have been bumpy roads. Roads that took us around curves and up and down hills. We've gone through some pretty low valleys. But we have also been on some tall mountians. Thinking about the past 10 years, makes us laugh, we did some pretty dumb stuff. haha We won't go into that. We're happy where we are, I think I can say for both of us that we are probably the most content we have ever been. I know for me there were times I didn't know if that would ever happen. :) We think God for giving us both such wonderful parents. Without them guiding us, helping us and cheering us on, we wouldn'tbe where we are. Thank you, I often realize we don't say this enough, but we truly are thankful for you!!

I'm so happy to have been married to my best friend for 10 wonderful years! Thank you for my life, my kids and my happiness. I can't wait to spend the next 10 and beyond with you!

Join the Registry - Be The Match Bone Marrow Registry

Our dear friend from college, Melissa Prater Rex desperately needs your help. She is in need of a bone marrow transplant. Please consider joining to see if you are a match for her or possibly someone else. The process is simple. Please follow the link below for more information.
Thank you,
Kirk and Amanda

To learn more about Melissa please go to: Dance in the Rain



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Trip to Illinois

Coming Soon...

Georgia is 6 mths!

We can't believe Georgia has been with us for 6 months already! A half a year!

She is such a joy, words can not totally describe!

She has really changed a lot within the last month. She is sitting all by herself and she is now an official crawler! Watch Out! She is starting to "try" and pull herself up but she has a little time before she can I think. She now uses her "boo boo" lip more. She's pretty attached to her mama! She's getting a bit more hair albeit not a lot we still have a bit more. Yes, it's still red-eyebrows and all! She absolutely loves the kids! She lights up every time they talk or walk in the room. She also thinks Daisy is ALL it! Daisy's pretty good with letting her "pet" her.
She weighs about 18.5 lbs now and is about 27" long. We love her roly poly legs and arms!

4th of July

We went up to my parents for the 4th this year. Eric, Christy and the girls came over also! We went to Cornerstone Chapel's Celebration on the 3rd. They had some bounce toys for the kids to play in and face painting. Plus, sno-cones and some other goodies. It was so nice to see some friends we had not seen in awhile. We were able to watch the Medina Fireworks at the church too. They were pretty good I must say! Every time we thought it was the finale, they started back up again! The kids enjoyed them, well, Georgia fell asleep, but the other two enjoyed them. It always feels so comfortable being back at the church I grew up in, I miss it!

On the 4th, we hung out at my parents. My dad grilled some yummy steaks and chicken and my mom added the sides. It was so good! We had fun watching the kids play together. It is seriously going to be crazy when they get a little older! We made a visit to DQ to enjoy some ice cream and then watched the parade before we headed back home.

We made it back in time to catch the Marion Fireworks with Scott, Amber and Macie. The kids got to play with some Sparklers, Poppers, and Snakes(Brady was obsessed with those things-don't ask me why! haha). The girls are so goofy, they totally feed off each other! We were happy to spend some time with them.

Happy to live in a free nation! God Bless America!