Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas family and friends. We hope you are enjoying this special time of year. For those wondering, we are going to be a little late sending our Christmas letter. We wanted to make sure the house purchase is nearly finalized before sending out our future address.



We began the "present tearing" as Emerald calls it, this weekend with Steph's parents. They drove up and delivered their sleigh full of goodies. Both kids were thrilled by their "haul". Emerald woke up the next morning telling us to "go to the grocery store and buy more presents" so she could tear into them. Too cute. We had a good time with Grandma and Grandpa watching the ice and snow fall. We showed them our new house, and visited Crown Center and Union Station. What a beautiful place at Christmas!
We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Aunt Laura & Uncle Shane who are flying in from Colorado to arrive here tomorrow. It should be an exciting day tomorrow--Santa should deliver his gift(s), Laney is coming to visit, along with Nana, Pop Pop, Aunt Heidi, & Uncle Jeff. Of course Emerald thinks the dogs, Zane, Laney, and Maggie, will be eating and opening presents with us. I have feeling we will need that nice, big garage for all the presents that are heading this way. :) It is always nice to get the chance to see our family, especially now that we are close to them all.


We wish you many Christmas blessing. Join us tomorrow in singing Happy Birthday to Jesus. We'd like to add a special Christmas blessing to the 2 wonderful birthmothers who gave life to our precious angels, Josephine & Leticia. Without their sacrifice we wouldn't have our most important gift of Christmas--our sweet children.

Merry Christmas to all!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Today we getting a lot of snow. They predicted 6", but I'm not sure we will hit that. We meant to take a picture in the daylight, but forgot to catch the big fat flakes coming down. It was a little easier shopping for Christmas presents while it was snowing instead of our usual 65 degree weather.

Garmin hosted a children's holiday party today. The kids had a blast. Both did GREAT sitting on Santa's lap. Emerald helped teach Calvin how to do it (with no tears, yeah), and even shared with Mr. & Mrs. Claus what they both wanted for Christmas. Then we got her face painted (none of that for Calvin yet, but lots of crawling around), completed an ornament craft, and got a balloon animal. The cookies and candy cane were the favorite for both Daddy & Emers.

Last night we went to look at Christmas lights in a park. We enjoyed driving with Aunt Heidi & Uncle Jeff in our van (glad to have it back). Both kids were in awe over the lights. It is nice to find time to enjoy their wonderment of the season.

The house inspection went well. We have a few minor requests for the sellers. Hopefully that will go smoothly and we will be ready to close in early January.

Steph's parents had some things stolen recently at her grandmother's farm. They didn't take much, but it was more emotional than it was about the actual items taken. I hate that for them and wish them well in coping with this event in their life.


What a look given to a goofy sister!

Calvin decided to climb in Emerald's stroller. Good thing she wasn't awake, she'd want to push him around--her very own live baby doll!

Emerald is reading the K-Stater magazine with Daddy. She is our Wildcat in training!

and I quote, "It's ok Mommy, I'm just checking mail. This one's for you." She has been asking when Santa's letter will come. Maybe she was looking for that??

It's torture being a baby and getting all these silly pictures. Notice how rosy his cheeks are?? All that cold weather!

A new friend

Emerald LOVES being this close to Aunt Heidi and Uncle Jeff. They shared their Christmas present early and took her to Build-a-Bear. They are the ones that gave her Mango (for those that don't know Mango, he is Emerald's best friend) at 5 months. I don't know who was more excited for this trip, Emers or Jeff & Heidi. She is very into dinosaurs lately, yeah, I know, little weird. She picked out Dino and had a great time stuffing, naming, and dressing her. Then Emers got to take a ride on the carousel.

I think she looks good walking in the mall with her purchases. I see trouble in our future. :) She also thinks that Aunt Laura and Uncle Shane live close, because she always wants them to come over. She settles for many phone calls to them per week. I know we are all excited to see them at Christmas.

Update on the home front:

--We found out that Walt (Skip's dad) lost his job as of the end of the year. We feel very sad for him. We can only know that this is part of God's plan for him. Please say a prayer for Walt & Cheryl.

--We got our van back yesterday--much prettier than we left it. However, the sliding door isn't working right, so it may end up back in the shop. Couldn't be easy, right?

--Insurance issues with the car accident are still "fun" as we are still trying to chase down the car owner and is policy. It is such a pain!

--It has been a winter wonderland here. I wish I had my camera as we drove to get the car yesterday. It was like a picture, so beautiful!! You could see every single blade of grass and each tree branch. These are just a couple of pics out of our window at home. I wish I had taken it yesterday while there was more ice and the roads were still white.

--We have our house inspection tonight. We are anxious to see the house again and get some ideas on how "nice" it is per the inspector.

--Calvin has gotten a new tooth, which brings his total up to 8 now. He is into everything right now, and smiling just as cute as ever. Emerald loves to try to help him walk these days, but doesn't quite understand that he can't go as fast as her. Here is a picture of Emers trying to close him in a toy box.

That's it for now. Hopefully we will have some good news about the house after tonight.

PS Happy birthday to Karen and belated happy birthday to Anna & Anthony!

We bought a house!!!!!

Our new home (barring problems), 2 story, 4 car garage (ridiculous, I know)


Wonderful back deck to watch the kids play in the spacious backyard.


The wet bar in the basement. Great for margaritas!


This kitchen really is nice. I love the cabinets and the double-ovens.


This is the theater/media room. Won't the watch parties work great here?


OK, so the chaos of our lives continues. We were supposed to go out house shopping today but the weather prevented that, too icy. Instead we spent hours on the phone with Mike (our agent) and made an offer on this house. It went back and forth, and short story..............they accepted our offer! Thanks Mike for all your help! We hope to clarify with all the details later this week. We will keep you updated. Too bad we can't be in by Christmas, but shortly after, with closing set for January. Anybody out there feel like packing and moving in the dead of winter?? :)

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Happy St. Nick's day to all! We had St. Nick visit last night and leave some goodies for our good boy and girl. Emerald was very excited and couldn't wait to (see) share Calvin's stocking when he woke up.

Unfortunatly, we lost our computer monitor on our main computer, and this was the way we dumped our digital pics. So, for now, you will have to wait for pics. I will ask Skip to help, but it doesn't seem a priority for us right now.

We put the car in the shop and are hoping it will look brand new soon. We did go see 5 potential houses last night with our realtor. We saw a couple of potentials last night. One of them is a fantastic home, with a media room setup and fantastic wet bar. It has a 4 car garage (ridiculous, I know) that Skip said would make a great indoor driving range. :) Leave it to Skip. We are going out again this weekend to look at more options. Hopefully this will give us many good possibilities.

I will try to post pics when I can, but it could be a couple of weeks. Sorry!

Many Hats

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel as if you couldn't possibly spread yourself any thinner? That is my day. We haven't posted in a long time, but honestly, we haven't had time! We spent the first half of the day dealing with insurance (yuck), but the car is going in the shop tomorrow to get fixed. We are trying to get all of the paperwork done with Calvin's adoption, which is almost there. Next we are busy preparing for the upcoming Christmas season by teaching them about the season, decorating the house, finding the right gift without little eyes seeing and telling everyone what they are getting. We looked at 12 houses yesterday and are meeting with our agent tonight. That isn't even talking about time being a wife, mommy, and oh, friend, to all thouse deprived friends out there, sorry!

I included a few random shots. Calvin is trying to clap these days. His signing is getting much better, and I think he is trying to show us bye-bye. Emers, well, I don't know what she was thinking with Calvin's hat & bib. As you can see, I need to find timefor a haircut for the kids, and then pictures with Santa. Argh, I need 10 more hours per day. They were also hanging out having a good time with Daddy before bed.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

We drove the broken van home. The seal between the doors was broken (as the door was bent) so it was a little cold driving home. I know it doesn't look all that bad, it could have been a lot worse! It just stinks knowing that we've only had this van for 6 months and it is a 2007! Let me tell you, while we were driving home, we continued to observe each ditch we drove by. God really was in charge as we drove down the embankment....it was so shallow and easy to take at the speed we were driving. How much difference a second can make in life. I know I already said that, but truly, it means a lot to me right now. Even the cries from my kids seem so much sweeter.

We did find time the next day to build a snowman. If we are going to live in this cold weather, at least we can enjoy the benefits of the cold. It was Emerald's first real snowman and true "playing" in the snow. She had such a good time. Calvin napped through our snow time, and when he woke up, most of the snow had melted. Unfortunatly, we didn't get a picture of him with this snowman, but I have a feeling there will be more to come in the near future.

We hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. We feel like we ate too much and now feel like we need to eat nothing for a week.

On our plates for the upcoming week....take care of the car, start looking for a house with our new real estate agent, continue Christmas shopping, unpack from our 2 weekends of travel, and start decorating our house for Christmas. That should be a fun, calm week for us!

Thank You God!!

Well, as if we didn't have enough going on in our busy lives...............we were in a car accident this evening. Most importantly, everyone is OK!! It is times like this that you realize how much difference 1 second can mean!! We were driving back from Wichita where we had dinner with Steph's parents and Aunt & Uncle from Florida. We were heading toward Skip's parents house. We got about 12 miles south of McPherson, and were crossing a bridge. The snow was coming down pretty good. The car in front of us slowed down and began to fish-tale in front of us, heading toward the left. We went onto the right shoulder and they "slammed on their brakes" (something they told the police) and whipped 300 degrees around to slam into the side of us, pushing us 100 yards into the ditch where, thank God, it was a gradual decline to the access road. Everyone was fine, but I lost it because the car slammed into the side near Skip and Emerald. Calvin slept through the entire thing (yes, my son that never sleeps :) ). We are away from our home computer, so we aren't able to dump pictures to show the damage. It doesn't look all that bad, but we can't open either driver door. We were able to drive back to McPherson. I guess we will call tomorrow and see what to do next. Wish us luck with this new event and please say a special Thanksgiving (appropriate) prayer to God for keeping us safe this evening.

Our First Kansas Snow!

Yep, that's snow you see, and on Calvin's 10 month b-day! It was 75 degrees yesterday and snowing with 30 mph north winds. The actual temp right now at 3:15 pm is 32, and wind chill is 20. Let me say again, it was 75 yesterday! What were we thinking :) Emerald kept asking "where is the snow" this morning. We didn't bring Calvin out yet, as he is just getting over a 2 weeks illness.

We went to Wichita/Belle Plaine last weekend to celebrate with Steph's family. Her 2 cousins flew in from Chicago and brought 8 month old Ben. It was nice to meet him. Her aunt was there from Florida. We had a nice visit, too bad it was so short.

This weekend we are headed to McPherson to see Skip's family and our Laney girl. We miss her lots and can't wait to cuddle up with her in this cold weather.

Calvin is looking forward to his first Thanksgiving. Emerald just wants to eat all the pie!

Happy Thanksgiving! We are thankful for our family and friends, our health, new job, and most importantly for the 2 little angels in our life that keep us smiling every day. May God bless you with as many things to be thankful for, also.

Calvin is SOOOOO Big!

It amazes me how these sweet angels continue to learn something new every day. We have been SICK, SICK, SICK at our house this weekend. Even through feeling like crud, Calvin made us smile by showing us he was "Soooo Big" all weekend. Now he will raise those hands on command every 20 seconds if you ask (and Emerald does, often). I even got one picture of him trying to say it while crawling.

It was so sad to watch both kids as sick as they were and not be able to help them. Luckily, Nana was here and she and Daddy took good care of the kids. Sad to say, they both got sick later, as did Uncle Jeff (how nice of us all to share). For Skip to take a day off work, that is saying a lot. Hopefully we will all be feeling better soon.

Since the last post, we have had Steph's friend Stephanie Lindsay and her family, Kyle, Keegan, and Gavin visit. It was tons of fun. We visited a kid's play space that was perfect for our little munchkins. It was a little busy trying to keep 4 kids under age 4 entertained, fed, and napped on a sane schedule. The best part of the week for me, though, was going to the opening night of the Garth Brooks concert! Talk about a blast! I wish Skip could have gone, maybe next time. I miss Garth.

We started to look at houses and did see 7 houses the first weekend of the month. At one of the housese Emerald was offered her favorite, a sucker, from a very sweet lady. As you can see, she thoroughly enjoyed every last lick. Maybe we should call her Smurfette. We plan to get back into house hunting once the family feels better. For now, it is lots of rest and liquids. Oh, and many, many diaper changes. I can't imagine how any single parents do this job!

We're Kansans Now!!

Here we are in front of our Texas house for the last time.

We made it....finally. It took an extra U-Haul and lots of help from family and friends, but we are here now. We have been crazy busy the last couple of weeks unpacking, taking turns getting sick, Skip getting adjusted to his new job (that he really likes a lot), and celebrating Halloween. Our rental house turned out very nice, considering we never saw it before we moved in. It has been an adjustment having to fight Calvin with the stairs. Emerald tells us several times a day that "I like my new house." It confused her a little as we began a new search for our next home (the permanent home). She keeps pointing to every house we pass and says, "That's my new house??" She misses Laney, as do we all. She is staying with Walt & Cheryl and "chasing Maggie" as Emerald thinks. Now we are just focusing on selling our Texas house, finding the right area to raise the kids, and beginning to shuffle plans around the holidays. Wish us lots of luck in our endeavors. We really need to sell the house in Texas to make Skip feel comfortable.

Emerald was so worn out from the move that she fell asleep in her cow. We searched all over the room for her, and finally looked inside the cow to see her curled up with Mango.

Calvin likes the stairs. He loves to pull up on them and laugh at the happenings below.

Calvin as the golf ball in Daddy's arms. We got to trick-or-treat at Daddy's work (Garmin). Skip is really enjoying his new job. If any of you need a GPS system, let us know!

I had witnesses for the photo session. Jeff & Heidi can agree that trying to get a happy, smiling picture of both kids is near impossible. It was a long day. As you can tell, Calvin made it thru 2 costumes. The golf ball only last an hour, then we had to change clothes and he became "brother bear." Emerald helped pick out this costume.