Bonzaiiiiiii!

Matt's first week on his new route has come and gone. His new route now consists of the towns surrounding us, so he's never more than 30 minutes away from the house. I have prayed that this route would be much shorter with more pay like Matt had guessed, and so far it seems Matt was right. Matt has been getting home around 5-5:30 most nights and believes that once he smooths out some kinks he'll be getting home even sooner. It feels like Christmas has already come! On his Columbia route the kids only got to see him a couple of times during the week, and by weekend we still didn't get to see very much him since had to play catch-up on sleep and energy. Now we're able to plan times for errands and appointments, he comes home in much better moods, and we're all able to spend time together. God is good.

Aly and Lorelei are doing well. Aly seems to be growing in articulation and eloquence every day, surprising me with how much she understands and the sentences she makes. For example, this past weekend Matt and I discussing something while she was trying to interrupt and have all attention on her. We kept talking, and Aly flopped into her chair, exclaiming 'Mommy and Daddy are mean. They're ignoring me.' That may not seem like much, but verbal communication hasn't been as strong developing for her as for other children. That she recognized what we were doing and made complete sentences stating how she conceived it, well... that's not been in her repertoire for very long. It's been much easier to reason with her, and to explain why or why not we do things the way we do. She's recognizing other's emotions, branching a bit away from 'me! me! me!' Her tantrums still amuse me though, since she's started stompily (if that's not a word, it should be) turning her back on whomever has wronged her and exclaiming 'I quit!'

I can actually believe she's about to be three. This year hasn't been the easiest for us; dealing with two children only 19 months apart by myself 90% of the time isn't a walk in the park, especially when the toddler age child has such a stubborn and willful personality as Aly. I'm happy to see Aly's age 2 disappear into age 3, with all its phases and messes I never want to recapture. I'm probably going to lose my mom card for that one.

As she is turning three we've been contemplating what to do for her birthday. I wanted to do something more centered around her this year, something smaller. I think we might take her and a friend (probably Hailee if April lets us, Hailee is Aly's very most favorite person (sorry Grandma!)) to the Children's Museum or something like that and then have a dinner another day so she can celebrate with the family. Thoughts?

Lorelei is growing all the time, amazing us when we forget how fast the first 1 1/2 years go by. I love watching her personality develop, as I've stated in numerous previous posts. Lorelei's personality is so dissimilar from Aly's, and yet so much the same as well. Lorelei is very much the observer, content to be on the sidelines until she gauges the situation and people involved. She will follow, but will stick up for herself if necessary. She's been saying 'ni ni' at bedtime and waving goodbye, 'no no' (lovely, huh ;)), blowing kisses, clapping, dancing, and mimicking to the best of her ability whatever she hears and sees. Biased or no, the verbal communication seems very impressive considering all the ear infections she's had.

Although handing me something and then taking it back is her favorite game, she isn't adverse to making messes. This is her getting into the bread flour. I still have no idea how she got it down from the counter, without tipping it over. 11/13

On 11/15 we went to Temple Baptist Church in Petal's Fall Festival. This church was just down the street when we lived in the rental house, and to be honest I had thought it was closed. Jessica's brother in law started preaching there this year and she's been very active in the youth, trying to help the church grow. Unfortunately when we went by there weren't too many people there, but traffic picked up as we left so hopefully it got better afterwards.

Aly went in the moon jump/bouncer thing with Ann and Emma (Jessica's daughters). I'm not sure she knew what to do, but she seemed to have fun.

Lorelei is here with Jessica, deliberating whether or not to warm up to her or not. She later did the goldfish pond and sat in a sack ;).
Aly completely surprised me when she picked out the sun for her face. I would have put money on something girly.
After that she had wanted to race with the older girls. To their credit, they didn't mind, even when the race was help up by Aly not moving an inch. Poor Aly. I'm hoping we can find a church soon with kids her age, she really needs that interaction. After patiently watching the little girls have their sack race and seeing a kid run up to Jessica begging for a sack race, Matt decided to race against the little boy, surprise. ;)

Here he is with his participation prize, a Sonic Free Cone coupon. LOL!

After all that Aly wanted to do the ring toss. Poor baby, she threw like 20 rings, some which should have encircled the cans, but none took.

I know most of you have seen these pictures before and were even there to watch them being taken, but some haven't, so you're going to have to suffer through them. Mwhahahah

Uncle Bill & Lorelei on his birthday, Thanksgiving week with the Warrens. The Lorelei & Grandad

Grandma had a Tinkerbell costume which Aly LOVED.

It was crazy how many pictures we took of the girls at the BWI ranch, and how few actually turned out well. They were not in the picture taking mood, especially not at the same time. Here are two pictures that didn't make the Christmas card (must.send.those.out).

I'm sure there have been things I missed, but kudos if you're still reading this far. I won't torture you any longer. I hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season thus far :).

OOPS!

Alllllso, if you guys are looking for something inspirational to read, I definitely recommend my friend Karen's blog, Reflective Reasonings. I love it and look forward to each post. She is wonderful.