Little coffee addicts

Evie grabbing Stephen's coffee.

Evie's picture with the coffee reminded me of this one of Nate when he was 7 months old. I'm amazed by how much they look alike in their baby pictures since Nate favors me and Evie favors Stephen.

We love our coffee - especially these days when we're exhausted most of the time. And our kids are learning early that one of the greatest pleasures in life is a good cup of coffee. They can't keep their hands off of it!

Sweet electricity

On day #2 without electricity, our freezer started to thaw. We fired up the grill and started cooking a few things to keep them from spoiling.

When we make cookies we usually put half the dough in the freezer for another time. I wasn't about to let my cookie dough be wasted, so they baked on the grill. The grill taste wasn't too awful, and they were a nice treat during our "suffering."

We put Evie in the sun to warm up. By mid-afternoon of day #2 it was the same temperature inside and outside, but the sun was shining outside so it actually felt warmer out there. Crazy Texas weather! You can see how much of the snow had already melted.

Warming up water on the grill for tea in our Turkish teapot. Living without electricity brought back some great memories from Turkey, where going without electricity or water wasn't so unusual.

Nate drinking his hot tea and warming up.

About an hour after my last post about the snow, our electricity went out and stayed out for almost exactly 48 hours. Fort Worth had a record snowfall for a 24 hour period - about 12 inches - and I guess the power lines weren't prepared. Neither were we. I think we made the best of it though. We're thankful for our friends, Nathan and Lynsi, who offered their house as a place to warm up and take hot showers, and who would have forced us to spend the night if we weren't so stubborn.

Since I don't keep a freezer full of food we didn't lose much. We filled our coolers with snow and ice and saved our milk, cheese, and yogurt, and grilled some fish and cookies. The only major loss was a few weeks of baby food that I had in the freezer, and that's mostly a time loss anyway. And I think we're just a little bit more thankful for the small things - hot showers and warm beds - temporarily at least ...

Blizzard

The snow was really thick and easy to pick up,
so Nate grabbed handfuls of it and started throwing it.

Forming a snowball

"Snowmama" - Nate's first snowman. She's wearing my hat and scarf,
thus the name Snowmama.

It started snowing sometime in the night last night and hasn't stopped since. This is the most snow we've ever seen in Texas! Stephen's school didn't close, so when he got home he took Nate out to play. I wasn't brave enough to get Evie out in it earlier. They had a great time and froze their little (and big) hands off!

Computer Games

Entranced by the computer.

He could stay there all day!

We found some computer games online that are simple enough for Nate to play, and he LOVES them. We've learned the hard way that he can't play them before nap time or bed time though - too much stimulation or something, leading to meltdowns for the record books!

Eight Months Old

Preparing to clap ...

Yay!!

Evie turned eight months old this week! The most exciting new thing she does is clap. Last week when I was watching our little friend Joe (12 months), he would clap and Evie would copy him, and they went back and forth clapping. It was SO cute. She's definitely showing more personality these days, and is a little less serious than before. Such a sweet baby girl!

Lost and found

We pulled out our other camera this morning - our rarely used "real" camera - and found these pictures of Evie from September! I couldn't believe they had gotten lost, or at least never uploaded to the computer. Anyway, here's proof that she really can smile and giggle even if it's been since September that we've been able to capture it on camera.

January

Evie enduring some tummy time, and starting to scoot around some.

Nate likes for me to put Evie in his bed if she's awake when he wakes up from his nap. They lie there and giggle, but not for the camera of course. Yes, he still sleeps with a pacifier!

I've been quite a slacker when it comes to taking pictures. Traveling at the holidays really threw me off, and I feel like I've been trying to catch up ever since! Here are a couple from this week ...

More Christmas

With Elizabeth and Samuel

Elizabeth, Erica, and Samuel

Nathan and Samuel

Matthew (Elizabeth's boyfriend) with the cousins

Playing in the pantry ...

Surely there was something better than paper towels in there!

These are some of Elizabeth's pictures from our time in Chicago. She got some good ones of everyone!

Opening gifts

Evie's first Christmas: reaching for her first gift.

Nate with one of his gifts.

Opening his gift from Aunt Liza - cookware for his play kitchen.

This is Evie's excited face ... and her sad face, and her happy face,
and her angry face ...

Samuel checking out his baby cousin.

We spent the first part of Christmas with my brother Nathan and his family in Chicago. They were great hosts, and we had a good time relaxing, playing games, eating great food, watching Nate and his cousin Samuel run around, and just catching up. I'm so thankful for our time together.

White Christmas

Our back yard on Christmas Eve.

We originally planned to travel to Chicago on Christmas Eve, but we had to postpone our trip due to illness. Nate got horribly (I mean horribly!) sick with a stomach virus on the Sunday night before Christmas. Stephen got it two days later, and then I got it on Christmas Eve. We moved our trip back and traveled on Christmas day instead.

Staying in Texas an extra day meant seeing the most snowfall we've ever seen here. It almost covered the grass. It was nice to have some snow even though we were too sick to really enjoy it!

Caramel Popcorn

In an effort to keep things simple this Christmas, I decided to skip the Christmas cookie baking frenzy and go with something a little easier. I made a few batches of Mom's famous caramel popcorn. I don't remember a year that Mom didn't make batch after batch of this popcorn to give away (along with all of her traditional cookies of course). It was even easier than I expected. Just a little messy. I packed it in these popcorn boxes for Stephen to give to his coworkers. I'll probably do some more for our friends and neighbors, and maybe even to transport to Chicago for a taste of home at our Iles Christmas gathering.

Birthday Party

Super Nate!

Nate's cape

Nate, with Jack beside him, making their capes.

A couple of super heroes protecting Evie.

Nate went to his friend, Jack's, birthday party last Sunday. It was a Super Hero themed party, and the kids made capes, wore masks, played super hero games and ate super hero food. Nate had a great time and has been singing "Happy Birthday" to Jack ever since! Thanks for throwing such a fun party, Lynsi.

Art projects

Macaroni art Christmas tree

Another Christmas tree. Nate saw me throwing scraps in the trash, so he wadded up the Christmas tree and threw it in too. That's why it looks so rough. I salvaged what was left of it. I guess he was just trying to help.

Reindeer gingerbread cookies. They're supposed to have red noses,
but I just used what I had on hand.

Nate's chocolate mouth after eating a couple reindeer.

I've been trying some art projects with Nate lately. I have two things going against me: 1) he's a two-year-old and 2) I'm not very artsy. The combo makes for some pitiful artwork! But we'll probably keep trying new things to help his coloring, cutting, and pasting skills develop. He'll be a pro by the time kindergarten rolls around! :)

Stoic

"Stoic" is Stephen's favorite word to describe Evie. She's not a smiley, giggly baby, but she's a really happy baby. And oh so sweet! She doesn't cry or fuss much and seems mostly unfazed by her brother's attempts to make her cry.

I'm a little late with a 6 month old post, so Evie is now 6 1/2 months old. At her 6 month check-up she weighed 19.5 lbs and was almost 28 inches long. Her two bottom teeth are in and she's sitting up really well. She's added pears, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, yogurt and oatmeal to her diet. She obviously eats really well!

What she's not doing is rolling over. For some reason my children skip that milestone. Nate never rolled over, and it looks like Evie is following in his footsteps! I'm not sure what I do to my children to keep them from learning this skill, but Nate seems to have made it just fine without it, so I guess Evie will too.

Fruity Christmas

In the almost seven years that we've been married, Stephen and I have never put up a Christmas tree, and this definitely wasn't the year to begin putting one up. But, I saw the above idea on a Rachael Ray show and decided it looked like fun. I formed the letters by sticking whole cloves in apples and oranges and placed them around the house. Unfortunately the apples rotted within a couple of days, but the oranges, the hope, is still there.

It's ironic that of the three, hope, joy, and peace, hope is the one that remains. It's been a rough couple of months, and hope has seemed distant. But we want to claim that our hope isn't in people or things that will fail us, but our hope is in the Lord because with him there is unfailing love and with him there is full redemption.

So, without a tree or much ado about Christmas, hope is our theme this year, and HOPEfully will be for years to come ...

Thanksgiving 2009

This is what happens when you ask a stranger to take your picture.
Half the picture (the good half) was cut off.

Nate doesn't look very happy in this picture, but he really did okay
most of the time. Evie stayed warm and cozy with no complaints!

We decided not to travel this Thanksgiving. So, we ran a 5k in the Fort Worth Turkey Trot to give us something to look forward to on Thanksgiving day. It was fun, but it wasn't a good choice for my first 5k because it was so crowded that I couldn't run at a good pace. We were constantly dodging people, dogs, and other strollers. I think I'll stick to smaller races if I do it again.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with a good friend and her family/friends. It was nice to be with family, even if it was someone else's family.

Many days are difficult, but the holidays especially are difficult without Mom and a place to call home. There are no words to explain. They're difficult in a way that only someone who has experienced the same or a similar loss can understand. I've heard many times that the second year (and possibly the third) is the hardest. This is the second year. I'll be glad when the holidays are over.

Correction: There actually are words to explain. I'm just choosing not to write them here.

Family Portrait

We didn't plan on getting a family portrait, but I didn't like any of the pictures of Nate and Evie together, so we chose this one instead.

Finally, a picture of Evie's sweet smile, or partial smile at least! In Turkish they say to babies, "Seni yiyeceğim!" which means "I could just eat you!" It sounds a bit inhumane, but that's exactly how I feel about Evie. She's so sweet that I could take a big ol' bite out of her!

Nate's portrait looks a lot like his from a year ago, except he looks
like a little boy now instead of a baby. I still LOVE his gap teeth!