Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas together as a family! This was taken at the Christmas Eve service... maybe next year they'll be two more pregnant bellies??

These are just 4 of the 14 babies that are due next year... in order of expected appearance!

Christmas morning was fun! Mackenzie came out all sleepy-eyed in the Christmas Eve jammies from Memom. She opened her big present (a doll house) one strip of paper at a time. She'd tear a little piece, walk over to her Nana, hand it to her, and then go back and tear off a little more. By the time she finally opened it, she wasn't really interested in it anymore. I tried to show her how to play with a doll house, but it is WAY too soon for this... we'll try again next year! (Luckily, this was just a yard sale find, so no big deal!)

Jake was happy with his gifts... lots of tools!

Mackenzie liked standing on all of daddy's new tools!

Here's our girlie trying to put a ribbon in her hair... she is such a girl!

Here she is sporting the cute jammies from Nana and excited that she figured out how to get into the M&Ms!

Before I could chase her down, she managed to get at least one blue one in her mouth... look at her hands... who says M&Ms only melt in your mouth... not so if you're a toddler!

We did stockings together as a family Christmas night. Mackenzie had a very special stocking made for her by my Mommom!!

Jake's neice and nephew came over with his parents the day after Christmas and Kayla gave Mackenzie a night light for her room... I couldn't believe it because that is the one thing I wanted to get for her that I never got around to getting! It was so perfect! Mackenzie really liked it... she knows she's not allowed to touch it, but when I rocked her before bed that night, she kept peering over my shoulder and waving to it and saying "hi"... so cute!

So here's the run down: Christmas morning was spent at our house with Jake's parents joining us. We went to my parent's house for lunch (she made 18 strombolis for us to pig out on!) and presents in the afternoon. Christmas night we spent as a family, opening our stockings and playing the Wii we got each other... so much fun! We're still enjoying a visit with his parents, they're in NY right now visiting John's sister, but they'll be back this week for more visits before heading home to Florida on Sunday. We're hoping to get together with Jake's sister's family on Saturday... will post more pictures soon!

Today Kenzie and I spent a lot of time getting ready for Christmas... baking, wrapping, finishing up gifts. I needed a close up picture of her looking at the camera for several of my gifts, and it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to get a good one... but I got tons of cute ones!

Next time I post I'll have Christmas pictures, belly shots, and one of Mackenzie "kissing Aubrey". Today my mom asked Mackenzie where Aubrey was and she pointed to my belly, picked up my shirt, and loved on my belly. I think that's a good sign...

The Holiday Happenings at The Moons

Here's an update from the beginning of December until now... this really is a very busy month! We finally celebrated Jake's birthday with my family on Dec. 6th. We decided to start combining birthday's since my family has gone from 7 members to 11 (almost 12) and we'd be getting together all the time if we celebrated them all individually... so we voted and decided to combine birthdays and Jake and Jeff celebrated together. Jake asked for lemon cupcakes, but then all he ate was the pound cake Angie made for Jeff... go figure =) We still went around and honored Jeff and Jake separately... I'm so glad we're keeping that tradition... it's even more fun now to hear my husband be honored than to be honored myself! Mackenzie is in a new stage where she is very into "helping" mommy. That means when I fold laundry, she has to hand me everything out of the dryer. If there are clothes on the floor, she has to put them in the hamper... dirty or clean. I found both my sneakers in there yesterday! I don't know how she figured she was "helping" me by emptying my bottom drawer, but she does this almost once a day and I decided to let her have fun. She hasn't emptied any of my other drawers, so as long as it stays to just this one, I can let her have her fun and "help" me!

What's wrong, little girl?

Oh... did you discover that you can throw all your toys, books, animals, blankets, and cups out of your crib?? Now how are you going to go to sleep??

"Helping" mommy clean up the mess. I couldn't get flat enough on my belly to scooch under her crib... luckily my one-year-old was happy to help!

Jamie had a great idea this year and an instead of giving out presents, she had all her friends over to her house for a Christmas dinner. She did such a nice job making us feel welcome and lavished. Her house is so pretty... she really knows how to decorate! She did the coolest thing, under each of our plates she had written us a personal encouragement note and then given us three more little pieces of paper to write three more encouragement notes to people at the table. It was a great opportunity to look around and all these girls, some I'm close with, others I barely know, and think of something they could each be encouraged for... the hardest part was picking just three! The funniest thing is I encouraged Laura for the exact same thing she encouraged me for! It was a great night! Good fellowship and great food!

Here are Liv and Aubrey in Liv's room... can't wait to see our girls together next Christmas!

We got to babysit for Jake's sister's kids, Kayla and Conor. The cousins had fun together... although it looks like Conor had the most fun just being himself!

She really likes graham crackers all of a sudden... they can make almost any tears go away!

Here she is "helping" me again... although I really don't appreciate her help when I'm trying to type! Notice her pig tails are getting bigger!
And then there's our roof! We had a really heavy branch fall on our roof and it put a hole in the shingles and through the plywood. Water tripped through the insulation and the ceiling and onto my dresser. I noticed it Friday morning after all that rain on Thurs. Luckily the dresser wasn't ruined, but we totally need a new roof and bedroom ceiling! Jake poked a holing the ceiling to relieve the pressure and it just poured in. It's finally slowed to a drip and the insurance adjuster is supposed to come today... I'm really hoping we get good news about what they will cover! Pray, pray, pray!

That's all from us for now... but many more parties and plays and concerts and more parties to go until Christmas! Hopefully we'll continue to avoid the stomach bug that's been plaguing the church! Oh... and Mackenzie had her 15 month check up and Dr. Murphy said she was really smart and developing really well! She is back on her normal track of being 50% for weight and 75% for height... phew... she had fallen off her normal track at 12 months, but now she's right back where she was! She weighs 23 lbs. and is 31 in. She cried more for getting measured than she did for her shots! What a silly girl!

Three Videos

Our Remarkable Gingerbread House!

Here's the finished project. Jake and I had fun working on this for two nights straight after Mackenzie went to bed! I'm quite impressed with my icicles, if I may say so myself!

What a stud... he took his job of putting the house together very seriously!

Jake caught me more than once licking my fingers... I think I'll be the only one to eat this house after Christmas anyway, so what does it matter?

More pictures of our tree cutting to come!

Our Thanksgiving Brunch and Turkey Bowl

We had a nice Thanksgiving this year. Thursday we went to my mom's house for our annual Thanksgiving brunch (she makes brunch so we can have dinner with our in-laws later in the day) and foot ball game. Here we are waiting around for the brunch to begin... it was all so yummy, except for my sour cream coffee cake that I forgot to add baking powder too!
Here's Angie, Amy, and me looking our best right before the game started!
The boys got so tired of our huddle, but we had some really sweet plays because my dad is on our team and he comes up with great stuff!

Great action shot, Mommom!
I think this picture's hysterical... look at Stephen on the ground just missing my mom and Jeff about to tackle her!

This is after Jake tackled me and I still held onto the ball to get our first (and only) touch down! The boys were supposed to play two-hand touch (the girls only had to touch them with one hand), but somehow I ended up landing with the ball under my belly and grass stains on my knees!

Here are the men in their huddle... they were so cute!

I love this picture of Jake and my mom. He looks like he's afraid to break her, but he's determined to stop her!

That's my boy making a pretty sweet play... he almost got impaled by the fence!

Gotta love this action shot! Stephen tore up this game... the boys definitly wouldn't have won without him!

Here I am claiming pregnancy... it got really hard to run at the end so Jeff would just tell Jake to go long and I couldn't keep up so he'd catch the ball every time!

Being the perfect little girl that she is, she slept through our whole brunch and football game and woke up right when it was over. Here she is eating her Thanksgiving brunch with Daddy!

This year my dad asked us to say what we were thankful for about God. It was neat to think about how I've experience the power of God in a whole new way this year by being a mom. I've seen how God protects Mackenzie even when I make dumb mistakes. I've seen Him watch over her and care for her when I couldn't be with her. I've experienced the blessing of His wisdom in parenting decision... so many times I've been at an impass about what to do and God so gently speaks to my heart and leads me in the way I should lead Mackenzie. That verse in Isaiah about how He "gently leads those with young..." has been on the forfront of my mind recently because I feel like that is how I've been cared for by God. He does gently lead me when I cry to Him for wisdom!

Some Mackenzie updates: She is getting SO smart!! The other day I asked her where her cup was (more or less talking to myself, but I always talk outloud now a days!) and she ran to the pantry and started beating on the door. I went over and opened it and sure enough, there was her cup! I was blown away that not only did she know I was asking WHERE her cup was, but she also REMEMBERED where she had put it! So cool! She understands so much now... if I ask her to get me the ball or the book, she knows exactly what I mean. She communicates very clearly what she wants through sign language, pointing, and... let's face it... whining... and totally gets her point across! She's trying to say more words, but "at" means: up, on, off, eat, out, and that. She now takes naps and goes to bed without fussing... which is HUGE... I thought she'd never learn to fall asleep without tears! She'll sit in her little chair and look at books for 15 mins. at a time... she won't let me read to her more than a few pages, but she'll sit by herself and look through a family photo album that I made for her and point to all the pictures, then close it, open it, and start all over again. She adores her daddy... literally, he's the only one she talks about all day. If a car drives by she cries if it's not him. When he pulls up she runs to the front window to greet him, then the side window to see him walk by, then the front door. She now stands in front of you and puts her arms up when she wants to be picked up... it's so cute... esp. with her pig tails in! She's getting way attached to her silky blanket and she'll pull it out of her crib and snuggle with it, which is so cute too! She's learning to use a fork and a spoon. Usually I'll stab the food and hand it to her and she'll take her bite and hand the fork right back to me. I think that's it... I just feel like there's been a big jump from just 12 months to 14 months!