Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Morning
Unwrapping presents at my folks house
Christmas morning at our house
Christmas dress from Muck & Papaw
Opening her Lily Frog from Mommy & Daddy

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We had a great time. The 15-17th we celebrated with the Rapson clan. Saturday the 22nd we celebrated with my immediate family, and on Christmas Day we opened presents at our house, then we went to both my Gma & Gpa Brads' and my Gma Burns' houses. It was very fun! Sophie was kind of a grumpus but she sure did look cute! Hope you enjoy the pics of our celebrations!

I was hoping Sophie would grow some teeth for Christmas, but no such luck. She is still our toothless wonder! Joshua has so many new toys he hardly knows what to do with himself. Bobby and I got ourselves a fancy new coffeemaker to keep our caffeine habit going!

We are thankful for all these things, but most of all thankful for Jesus, God's amazing gift to all of us. Hope you all had a great day and have a wonderful New Year!

Asking for your prayers!

My sister-in-law Sarah's (married to my brother Andy for thse of you who don't know her) dad was diagnosed with acute leukemia last Wednesday. His name is Jerry Armstrong, and he is a beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend. He just had a big round of chemo, and he needs prayer. Please pray for his health, that the chemo has done it's job, that he will be free from infection and illness since his immune system is now pretty much non-existent. He has had a lot of pain from headaches. Please pray that that will subside. Please pray for his lungs, he has one partially collaspsed and breathing is difficult. Pray that he gets rest. Pray that he is HEALED.

Please pray for his family, for his wife Carolyn, who with his daughters Amy and Sarah is sharing caretaking duties. Pray for their emotional health and strength. Pray for his sons John and Mike. Mike just broke his back skiing and needs prayer for healing and relief from pain also. Pray for his 10 granchildren Jay, Lyndi, Emily, Allison, William, Amanda, Murrin, Drew, Clinton, and Alan, some of whom are too young to understand but all of whom are old enough to be frightened and worried.

I really encourage you to visit Jerry's website. It is a real encouragement and has updates usually a couple of times a day. You can visit it by clicking here or go to www.caringbridge.org/visit/jerryarmstrong.

Thanks everyone, I really, really appreciate it. Jerry & his family, some of whom are MY family, are on my heart and mind constantly and I know they covet your prayers.

New Pictures!

Let her eat birthday cake!
It was a Cookie Monster cupcake, hence the blue!
Her 1 year portrait
My two cuties
If only she has some teeth to go with that tongue!

Well this one is for my friend Laurelle who complained to me rightly that I do not update this often enough! Sophie turned 1 on November 16th, so there are lots of new pictures to share!

The kids are doing great. Sophie still has no teeth and is crazy as ever. Joshua is learning to SPELL and his genius just knocks my socks off every day!

We just put up our Christmas tree Sunday. Of course SoSo will not LEAVE IT ALONE! She is a crazy girl! Joshua is having a ball with the Lionel train that runs around the tree.

Allright, Laurelle, are you happy now?? I'll try to do better!!

Trick-or-Treat Cuties!

Choo Choo!
Lazy Ladybug
With Cousin Kate the Daisy!

Fall pictures!!

Ok, I know, I never post on here any more. I AM GOING TO DO BETTER STARTING TODAY! So to make amends, I offer you some new pics of my kiddos!! WE went to Frank's Fruit Farm today and got pumpkins and had a great time. I'll post an update on the kids tomorrow!

Ohh the cuteness!!

Sophia showed that balloon who was boss and cracked Joshua and I up!!

I'm Thiiirrrrrty!

The cake had black icing
My friend Luanne helped Bobby pull off the party
The Supercousins!

Well the big birthday has come and gone and I survived! Bobby even managed to pull off a surprise party at church! I thought we were just gong for youth group as usual. So it was a really fun day! And I don't feel any older! Thought you'd enjoy some pictures of the fun.

Ok, I have been so delinquent!

Dave, Kathy, and James Lewis!

Joshua with cars & bruised lip
Sophie proud of her banana mess
Joshua and Sophie are BOTH proud of her pulling up skills!


Sorry for the non-posting. I have no excuse but busy-ness!! There has been a lot going on! These children are keeping me occupied! Sophie is crawling and pulling up and being crazy!! She is EVERYWHERE! Her new favorite thing is to try and roll over and crawl away when I am changing her diper or drying her off after her bath. She's a streaker! She is also very opinionated and does NOT like to be told "no". Bobby's decided the word that best fits her is "tempestuous."



Joshua took a big fall at church yesterday and has a big, bruised bottom lip. And also a nice rug burn on his forehead. Poor guy! He was very sad!! It was HOURS before we could get him to take his hand away from his mouth. Very traumatic.



Well the latest thing that has happened to us is that Kathy & Dave Lewis have a baby boy! James Earhart Lewis was born Saturday the 25th at 9:27 pm. He is a little guy at 5lbs 6 oz. because he came 2.5 wks early! Silly James! He didn't even let his Mommy & Daddy finish their childbirth classes, which they were supposed to do tonight! HA! We can't wait to see james and Joshua is really excited about meeting his new cousin. We plan to go see them in Indy on Thursday.

Well that's all I have time for now...enjoy the pics!

IT's HOTTTT!!!!

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted! I have been working hard on Mommin' It Up and all my computer time has been devoted to that. If you haven't seen it, we launched a new site design this week so check it out!

Another reason for my lethargy has been this terrible heat we've had here. Temperatures close to 100 and horrific humidity have plagued us all week! We've tried to stay in as much as possible (much to Joshua's chagrin), but we did venture out Wednesday to the new splash-themed park in Five Oaks with my friend Jessica & her three kiddos. I must've been concentrating on gabbing with Jess rather than taking pics, because none of my pics from that morning are very good, but here are a couple in which the kids at least look cute!

We had a little surprise Thursday morning when Joshua woke up with huge HIVES all over his legs and left arm. We are really stumped as to what could've caused them. I took him to the dr., and she said to just give him Benadryl, and just in case, no peanut butter for 2 weeks. NO PEANUT BUTTER!? What is the child going to eat?? I have got to get to the grocery and stock up on mac & cheese & chicken nuggets!

Sophie is trying to pull up but hasn't quite gotten there yet. She is talking alot and it is soo cute of course. I don't think she knows what she's saying, but she does make both the "da da" and "ma ma" sounds, in addition to a lot of other cute babbling.

Yesterday I had a crazy day with the kids involving lots of pee, poop, and throw-up, but I am going to save that for Mommin' It Up! So stay tuned....

I promise to do better about posting this week!

Sophie's Supermodel Pics

Here are the pics the good folks at Evenflo took as part of Sophie's payment for her big modeling job. I wanted to share them with you because I thought they turned out great!

We've had a busy couple of days! Wednesdsay cousin Alan came over for a play date, and he & Joshua were very cute and had a great time! Yesterday we had a play date with some new friends, and today went to Grandma Burns' with cousins Kate & Andy Berry. Grandma was very impressed with Sophie's new crawling skillz. I, however, am impressed with Sophie's newly re-acquired

In other news, Bobby is about to go out with some friends, and just asked me what shoes he should wear. Since this has put cracks in my world view, I am going to go for now.

:)

More Pictures

Crazy hair after bath
Cousin Anna and Sophie
Joshua likes Papaw's fish
Muck and Sophie

I am including a few more vacation pictures for your viewing enjoyment! We really had a great time! We are adjusting to being back home, trying to get Sophie back on track with sleeping and Joshua back on track with FUSSING. He has become a whiney-booger the past few days. My mom's friend Rita would say I am getting my just desserts and that I was quite a whiner myself! Oops!

We're baaaack!

Joshua w/ cousin Bronwen and Sophia at the Greensboro Science Center
Sophie takes a dip in Otter Creek, Va.


We arrived back in Dayton about 7 pm tonight after a wonderful vacation! We had a great time with my folks in Va., a super fun visit with Ellie & fam, and we got to see new baby Iris on the way home! It was sooo fun! Sophia also learned to CRAWL at my parent's which was exciting! She is now officially EVERYWHERE!!

I'm pooped so I'll just post a couple pics but more will soon follow!

Congratulations Matt & Kelly!

I am super-geeky-happy that my friends Matt & Kelly Cooke became parents yesterday! Iris Claire Cooke was born at 2:37 pm and weighed 7 lbs 6 oz and is 21 inches long!! Matt & Kelly are thrilled and all are doing great. Because Kelly is an overachiever, she had the baby on her due date and did not have any drugs! She's like my own personal super hero. We're hoping to stop by Athens to see the little wonder baby on our way home from Virginia to see my folks. We are leaving tomorrow night, staying the night in Charleston, W.Va., and hoping to be at my parent's by noon Monday. I seriously cannot wait!!!!!! Toward the end of the week, we are going to take a side trip to Greensboro, NC see Bobby's cousin Ellie, & her family, Dan, Bronwen, & Piper, who we have never met! They haven't met our kids either so we are all excited.

All right, mucho packing to do, gotta go!

Oh, if you haven't voted for my story yet, please click here to to so before Monday at noon! Thanks!

Vote for ME!

Hi all!
For those of you who don't know, I write a blog about MOTHERHOOD with my cousin Emily. You can find it at http://momminitup.com! Well, anyhoo, one of my posts is entered in a contest at another blog called PediaScribe. So from NOON TODAY until NOON MONDAY, July 23, you can go to www.pediascribe.com and vote for MY STORY!! It's called "When Motherhood Meets HAZMAT" by Jenny at Mommin' It Up. SO....I'd apreciate it!! Thanks!
And please tell any of your friends who wouldn't mind doing so also....

I know, he's a genius!

Joshua has taken an interest in learning to write his numbers. Bobby was working with him on it last night and he was ever so proud of this "10" that he wrote all by himself! He's backed off on the wanting to read thing, so I'm glad he's still pursuing some sort of learning! He can make 10, 11, and 7 really well. I am sure Papaw and Uncle Charles will be very proud!

Supermodel Sophie

Today Sophie became a professional model. I suppose it was just destiny for such a beautiful little girl! Ha ha! Here's what really happened: I joined the Evenflo Moms Research Group, so I could get paid for testing baby products. (Evenflo is headquartered here in the Dayton area.) Well, they sent an email asking any group members who were interested to send pictures of their babies to be considered for a photo shoot for the Evenflo Snugli (baby carrier). I sent So's pic in and she was chosen! Today we went to the photo shoot. We were there about 1.5 hrs and she spent 30-40 minutes in a Snugli strapped to a fake "Mommy" (a model who looked about 22 and was about a size 2. I dare say she hasn't had any kids! Sophie's weight about snapped her in half.) There was also a fake daddy to gaze adoringly at her. (He also looked nothing like her real daddy!) Sophie did GREAT! She was very cheerful and gave some great smiles and angelic looks. Everyone fawned over her of course. She is now extremely conceited. She is going to expect a personal hairstylist every day now! I don't know what I'm going to do to keep her humble. :) For her work, she was paid $50. Woohoo! A pretty good hourly rate if you ask me. I think as her agent I should get 20%. Ha! Who knows if So will model again. I guess she can do any gig where they don't want to put bronzer or eyeliner on her. As long as it's in the Dayton area. So, the opportunities will be limited. It was fun though! I am going to keep testing Evenflo products, because I get paid $75 for two hours, and I don't have to be in any pictures!

Splish Splash!

Joshua & Sophia took their first bath together after we got back from the Lake on Sunday. It was a blast! They both really enjoyed it as you can tell. We are glad to be home although we did have much family fun! Sophie is allllllll messed up schedule-wise. She prefers to take her naps Lake-style, under a tree on a blanket! She won't nap now without being nursed or rocked to sleep, and has been waking up multiple times at night. So I am pooped. She is really close to crawling though and gets around really well scooting!

Last night we had a par-tay for our friend Chelle from church and her new baby boy Nathan! It was so fun! We cooked out even though we had to dodge some storms to do so.

Well we have a busy day ahead so I must get going!

Just Pictures!

Sophia & Isabel Hartenstein

Here are some of the pictures from our adventures at Kiser Lake with the Rapson family. I've included the names of those in the photos (if they aren't obvious!) Most of them are of our nieces & nephews enjoying cousin time. I'll have more pics soon, I just ran out of steam tonight!