Time with Gramps

My dad is a big bluebird fan and is always making bluebird boxes
to give away. The kids got to help drill holes, a huge deal for them!
When Morgan was drilling, my dad stepped in to help and she said
to him, "Who's drilling this hole, anyway?"



Aaron's turn


The finished product


Grandpa attempting to rock Aaron to sleep

Home again

The kiddos and I went up to Lancaster again this weekend for a belated
Christmas gathering. Here are a few shots of our time together:

Grandma and the girls making a late-night batch of cookies


My uncle Jim, with Nicholas, Aaron's 2nd cousin


Aaron tackling cuz QJ


Aaron's been trucking around with the big kids!

Someone's walking!

Aaron has been taking his first official steps! He still prefers
to crawl, but he is getting better and more confident in his walking.
It is so cute to see him taking off. He also learned another new
trick today. Twice, he scaled the baby gate to get up the steps.
I think he has a little of his sister Morgan's blood.



A smile after a fall


The other day I was on the computer and turned around to see
Morgan giving Aaron a ride in the laundry basket!


Another big smile

Here comes number 4...

The day after Christmas we received a big surprise gift... I found out that I am pregnant with number 4! It was definitely a surprise but a welcome one after we got over the initial shock! We have always wanted 4 kids, it's just happening a little sooner than we would have "planned". (Thanks, Rach for that helpful perspective!)

The past few weeks have been a little rough, I have been quite sick with this one. I was very sick with my girls pregnancies and not very with Aaron. Steve thinks this one has been the worst one... who knows. Food is repulsive to me but I have to eat or I am throwing up. At least after I eat I can keep things down.

I am grateful for many things during this rough time, my girls have been very sweet, helpful, and understanding, little Aaron is always happy and just chillin', and my sweet hubby has been basically running the show while I lay around and gag. I have many friends who have called or e-mailed me notes of encouragement and said they are praying for me for strength to get through this rough time, bought food over, or have had us over. I am thankful to God for his mercies and strength that are renewed each day and are very obvious to me by the love of those around me. Hopefully in a few weeks this will pass and I will be full of strength and be able to be "normal" again.

Someone loves his daddy...

I don't know about most of you other moms, but my babies have
typically not really liked their dad until they were almost
two. Not my little Aaron. Especially recently he has really
taken a liking to Steve, it is so cute. Steve can barely get
in the door and put his things down in the evening before Aaron
is pulling on his pant leg to be held. Then last night Steve
had to go away and when he left, Aaron sat by the door and
cried, it was sad but so cute.

I know Steve will not like that I posted these pictures. The
last time I posted his picture a guy at the Pastor's College
took it and photo shopped it into some pretty unflattering
pictures of him. Ok, it was quite hilarious actually! So, hopefully
the following pics that I think are adorable will not come
back to haunt Steve!

2 more picts...

So neither of the following pictures are very good, but they are
the last of my Christmas stash and both have good story. The
first picture is my girls and probably their favorite gift...
Steve's brother and wife and also a friend from Minnesota got
the girls each a Webkin for Christmas. It's this whole virtual
world for your little pet, you have to feed it, put it to bed,
you can make money and send gifts to your friends who are also
on-line with their pets. It's a pretty crazy tech world!! They
love it and can't wait for their allotted computer time each day
so they can play on Webkinz. So here is Morgan on the lap-top
and Claudia behind her on the desktop.

The second pic is back at my parents. My mom thought it would be
funny to put lipstick on Aaron. The funny part was how much he
loved it. He sat perfectly still and tried to eat it as she put
it on.

Afton Jane Thomas

On December 26th, my brother and his wife welcomed another beautiful little girl
into this world. My parents and I were able to take a VERY quick trip out to Columbus, OH to see the new little bundle of joy. What a cutie she is.

Afton Jane Thomas


Me and Avery, big sis


Me and Afton


My parents and their newest grandchild


I realized as I was posting this that I have no pictures of my brother and
my sis-in-law. Oops. I'll do better next time.

The Hanna's

We were thankful when at home to have to chance to spend the
evening with Quay and Shannon Hanna, some of our best friends.
Shannon is my first cousin and we obviously grew up together.
When we married, we were thrilled that Steve and Quay hit it
off, they are kinda like 2 peas in a pod. They often talk
longer than Shannon and I do!

Claudia, QJ (their son) and Shannon snugglin'


Morgan and Carrie (Shannon's sis)


QJ had his hand like this while they were watching a movie. Too cute

Christmas Day

Me and my kiddos on Christmas Eve


Aaron enjoying the presents


The girls and their new Heely's, a gift from Steve's mom


Aaron and his new football

Random fun

Morgan and her grandma making ornaments


An intense game of monopoly. Steve was teaching Claudia
and Morgan was perfectly content to be the banker


Who says you need to wait until Easter to play with the eggs?


Morgan was outside helping her grandpa wash his truck. All of
a sudden we heard her yelling. This adorable little puppy had
come to visit her. He was so cute, jumping up all over us. Even
my mom enjoyed it! (Those who know my mom know that's a big day for
her to even smile at a dog!!) This dog was precious, for about 5
minutes it made me want to buy my girls a puppy. We found out that
the dog was a new arrival for our neighbor and had escaped. It
was fun to play with him for a few minutes.


Aaron and his second cuz, Stella

Cake time

On Christmas day we finally got to give Aaron his cake. He was so funny.
He dove right in and gave us all some good laughts.

Birthday picts

Since most of us were very sick on Aaron's b-day all he got was a couple pictures taken and to open his gifts. Thankfully, he did not care!

Fun Pictures

This past fall, a friend and fellow PC student, Raymond Cournoyer, kindly
took our family pictures. He did an excellent job and got some great shots
for us. I know some of you have seen these on our
Christmas card, but I threw a couple more of my favorites in.

I can hardly believe this pose worked, Aaron
hates to stand like this.


My cutie girls


My favorite family shot


This is my favorite picture. I think it looks
like a Gap jean ad.

Fifi is my hero

Bruce Chick is the pastor of the Sovereign Grace Community Church in Roanoke, VA, and our instructor for this week. He is teaching the 2nd of our Old Testament classes, after teaching the first component last fall. Besides being a warmly pastoral man, Bruce also has the distinction of being one of the few pastors in Sovereign Grace with bona-fide athletic skills. He played AAA baseball, primarily in the Red Sox farm system, in the early-mid 90’s before attending seminary and becoming a pastor. So, one of his unique contributions to our year here is to introduce athletic challenges throughout his weeks of teaching that allow us to opt-out of quizzes if we are successful.
Thursday’s challenge was archery. Fortunately, one of the members of our class, Efisio Setzu, is a bowhunter. Efisio, whom we affectionately call Fifi, is from Vista New Life Church in El Paso, TX. He is generally a quiet and unassuming guy, though he does bear a striking resemblance to Nacho Libre. His first challenge was to beat one of the interns here, Merritt Anderson, in a shooting contest from 20 yards. He won handily. But then we elevated the stakes. We asked Bruce if we could get an essay removed from our test if Fifi knocked an apple of the target from 20 yards away. Bruce agreed and the stage was set. The apple was carefully perched atop the target and Efisio readied himself. We all were eagerly waiting to see what the outcome would be, though 20 yards seemed a huge distance for such a small target. Efisio loosed his arrow and a split-second later, phoosh!, the apple was knocked from its perch. That might have been the biggest roar heard from the PC this entire year. It was a small but important victory for the entire class, and Fifi is our official hero--at least for a few days. Just a brief insight into the trials and travails of Pastors College life.

Still here

I just wanted to take a minute to fill in all you faithful readers. We returned to Gaithersburg on Monday after 2 1/2 weeks in Lancaster. After we all recovered from the stomach virus we did have a great time on our vacation. This week has been a little crazy trying to unpack and get back in the swing of life after having help with the kids for so long!!

I have lots of pictures that I want to share but something is wrong with our iphoto... we are waiting on a new piece of computer something (way above my head). Hopefully this weekend I will get a chance to catch up with what has been happening.

One quick funny story, my little boy is turning from nice to naughty... since we have been back here he is into everything, climbing on top of things, trying to climb out of the bathtub, going up or down steps and we have no idea where he disappeared to. The other day I was sitting here on the computer and I have no idea how the following unfolded with out me realizing... I hear Aaron crying and here he is IN the fireplace (obviously not being used), stuck and trying to get out. He had opened the glass doors, opened the screen, crawled in and was covered with black ashes. We have never actually used the fireplace but apparently the people before us did. Little stinker. For a split second I considered running and getting my camera but that would have been mean to leave him stuck there crying!! Aaron still has no desire to walk, once in awhile he will stand and take a step or two. He is very content to crawl and climb wherever he needs to go!