January 7th, 2009

I haven’t posted since we returned from a week in Georgia visiting my family, mostly because the feelings I’m left with are too much for mere words. Here I will (finally) share pictures from our trip and a big thank you to Peter for taking us all to ATL and serving us while we visited, caught up with each others lives, made wonderful memories…and said goodbye.

 on the way to LAX! Jerome was blocking the sun from Ian with his new bandana.  sunset from the plane, three hours till landing. the next morning was Christmas for our family! comin’ in with presents! waiting :-) :-) the very popular trampoline. facepaint! we discovered that Corynn is a little artist!  first day with facepaints good job, Corynn! 2 butterflies  hahaha! marshmallow guns! ready and loaded! how do you work this thing?!? thanks Uncle Vann! epic marshmallow battle! reloading help we’ve missed our Gigi! I think they were playing. little cousins. Next day it’s Gigi’s turn to face paint! pretty Clara! so cool, Ethan! fun faces! Even Ian got a little cheek froggy. :-) then it was Corynn’s turn to paint Gigi’s face! :-) playing on a log at Mema’s house. playing with “growing sponges” that they got for Christmas. Mema with Cali and Peru grandchildren! Group photo - thanks Jim! sisters with Mama! Nicolosi girls with the Anderson girls with the Bishops and Andersons! Thanks so much for stopping by you wonderful people! Sweet girls! (I remember when they were itty bitty! ;-) Corynn’s first birthday gift on her sixth birthday! :-) sweet thanks and hugs Uncle Vann pushing six kids on one swing! probably the best one of all of them together. The shoot-to-shoot was almost as popular as the trampoline! Seth’s turn!  Ethan’s turn! Jerome’s turn! Time for a birthday party! Happy birthday sweet Corynn! I love her face. Thank you for the party, Gigi! presents! we love you, Corynn. Happy birthday!  Peter set off some fireworks! Happy almost New Year! playing till the very last minute together. reading Corynn’s new books together. 2 six year olds! Clara cracks me up! we had TONS of fun together. really! packin’ up. And Peter got us there and back again. No pictures of goodbyes.

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December 26th, 2008

Our morning was delightfully yummy with Scott’s fresh cinnamon rolls delivered right from his oven, and the rain was falling in a cold, gray Christmas morning when the boys woke up. Jerome was up first, of course, full of anticipation and excitement! When his brothers woke up an hour later Peter read Luke 2 before opening presents.

 Jerome was so very eager to show his brothers their stockings! Good morning, Seth! :-) Ian enjoying Seth’s new toy drill. slinkys! I love Seth’s face. :-) Merry Christmas, Seth! Merry Christmas, Jerome! Jerome helping Ian open his gift from the Jones’. He loves his pound puppy! And this was baby Bekah’s first Christmas!

It was a wonderful morning that lead to a precious day at Papa’s house. We finished Advent together and shared some Christmas hymns before exchanging gifts, then came a wonderful Christmas dinner with extended family and friends!

Tomorrow we fly to GA to see my family!

I will post again next year. Merry Christmas!

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December 21st, 2008

This past weekend Jerome announced the long awaited LOOSE two front teeth!

And last night he came to tell me he’d had a bad dream. He didn’t look at all upset to me, but it must have been exciting enough to wake him up. He told me he had dreamed that he was swinging on our rope swing but he was going too high and he flew off the swing all the way around the world! He came back and landed by the swing tree and ran home and woke up.Isaid that sounded exciting and not scary, he said no, it was scary to him. 🙂

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December 14th, 2008

 diggin’ in the dirt together, three boys and a dog. taken from my bedroom window, Ian picked a tangerine for himself… climbed up the bank to the shade and sat down to peel and enjoy his snack! notice one shoe is missing. :-) I took this out of the kitchen window. I had made him clean up his bunk bed and in the process he found his adventure gear. Here it looks like he’s fencing. After sheathing his sword he picks up this pipe to sound a rousing blast of “Doodoodoo!!!” Next he pulls his telescope out of his belt to take a look around… then puts it away to come running in the house to tell me he spotted the city maintenance men drive upto fix our fence! He’s all set for his next adventure! After a wonderful afternoon in LA with Grandma Guy celebrating her 91st birthday (I forgot to take my camera) we got home in just enough time to make a wreath! before heading to church for AWANA. Yes, those are very chapped lips on Jerome. We had a lot of fun making this wreath out of trimmings from our tree, and the boys gathered the pinecones from under the trees and rolled them in glitter glue! It’s our first wreath, so I was going to drive a nail above the door… but there wasn’t time. :-) The next day all the boys are playing outside again and I notice Ian toddeling down to the avocado tree carrying a stool? Ha! He wanted to climb the tree like he sees Jerome doing all the time. Except the stool didn’t work as well as he thought. You see him yelling at me to help him! He sat there patting the tree and saying “Tee!” over and over again! He was so happy there he didn’t want to get down so I left him sitting up there for a while, and he loved it! he was putting “clogs” (as Seth says it) of dirt in the bastket? I still haven’t asked him about that one. Seth doesn’t quite climb trees yet, either. But he asked me to take his picture :-) “Then up.” he said. He wanted me to turn the camera. :-) I lOVE my boys!

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December 9th, 2008

This is the earliest we’ve ever gotten a tree as we usually wait for Peter to finish his semester, but he graciously gave us his Sunday evening before finals. I wanted to get a tree earlier because we’re planning on being in GA for the week after Christmas and will probably take it down when we get home.

Following a wonderful tradition,  we had Darrell and Eric with us to pick out our tree, eat pizza and decorate! The boys had fun gathering branches to take home, playing with the strings discarded from unwrapped trees, and hiding in the “forest” of chopped down Christmas trees. Although Peter liked the first tree we looked at, Darrell decided that we should consider at least three trees before hauling one home…for the experience of the-perfect-tree-hunting! 🙂  I’m glad we did! A helpful and spunky employee unwrapped our perfect tree, trimmed the trunk, and netted it for us, then Peter tied it to the car while we ordered pizza! At home after a delicious meal around a table with loved ones we unpacked the decorations from our Christmas tote with much excitement and rediscovered our Christmas memories from years past. Most of them are from my childhood, and we found that Jerome has three ornaments of his own while Seth and Ian don’t have any, so I aim to change that. Not that they care now, but someday they might. Jerome had claimed a cast off pine tree branch as his own little Christmas tree and hung his own three ornaments on it with some borrowed ones and carried it around most of the evening replacing fallen ornaments over and over until we found a vase to “plant” it, wherein it could stand upright and not keep tipping over. He adores his own little tree, and I think it’s pretty clever. 🙂

So here are pictures of our Christmas tree this year:

 Darrell and Seth! Hahaha! Fun times! Ian was already in bed, but Darrell, Jerome, Seth, and Eric posed for a memory. Our tree! Jerome wanted a picture with the big tree… and his own little tree! (His ear is red because he had fallen earlier and hit it on the Christmas tote.)

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