teeth & walking

Here is our first loose tooth! Anyday now it will be out...especially since she won't stop wiggling! I remember those days!

Here is little man walking. He took about 18 steps the other night..here is about 13...this is what he loves to do all day now...so we're pretty much there!

christmas break fun

The kid hung out with Ethan the other night! Looks like they were styling in their shades!

Can you believe our little Illini fan actually wore a Michigan hat! Her true loyalty must be coming through!

Here is Madi with some friends from School! She was very excited to have them over.

Isaac got a little excited with his gifts this year....I think he got this excited after opening about every gift!

Christmas day!

After opening in the morning at home we headed to the Clarks! Here are some fun shots from there!

Austin & Elliot!

I think Elliot is trying to figure out why Madi is opening his gift! :) and Isaac is shooting him with his new transformer!

So sweet!

Daddy playing barbies with Madi!

Briannes new cow! madi and Brianne were walking around taking a bunch of pictures!
Papa & Isaac setting up his cars!

More Christmas

The kids thought id would be fun to all sit in boxes! go figure!

The poor guy! We told him he had to wait to open his new "Kingdom" until we got home. We were worried the pieces would get lost. He sat there just looking at it forever! What mean parents! He did have lots of other toys to play with...so were weren't that mean!

Here we are after church. I loved going as a family to the Christmas eve service. A good memory was Elliot jumping on my lap. He just loved all the music and bounced around to the beats! At one point one of the songs the singers were really reaching some higher notes and it got pretty loud...well Isaac decided to join in spontaneously and screamed out the words with them into the lady's ear in front of us....Jon and I just laughed..another great parenting moment..but it was hilarious! Sorry....whoever got the earful.

AFter we got home we read the Christmas story with the kids and set out a plate for santa. they went right to sleep! I think it took Madi a whole minute to fall asleep!

the next morning Isaac was the first awake....he came running in our room and said - "mom, his paper is different than ours!" Good thing daddy got some paper from Grandma & Grandpa Clark the night before!! Whew- disaster avoided! But they were so excited!

Christmas Eve!

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve! We spent the day at my mom and dads.

Here are the "triplets!" Love the matching Jami's!

Silly boy!

Papa with the kiddos!

Cheese!

Isaac's favorite spot....right night to Grandpa!

M Christmas!

The Saturday before Christmas we got together with my mom's side of the family. It was so great! My grandparents even invited one of my grandpa's cousin to join us this year! How thoughtful! It was fun to see all the babies together again and all the energy alive in the room!
Even the "big" kids enjoyed the legos!

Papa, Grandma, Dana & Elliot!

Kevin & Madi!



I think she likes the shoes!


Shelley took this one! yeah one of me! Thanks Shel!

Daddy and his girl!

Kissing Carson....again!


The boys! Caleb, Easton & Elliot!

The entire crew!

All the kids!

More on Elliot

Well we just returned from the doctor again. Elliot has another ear infection. We had him on an antibiotic as a preventive till the surgery and then on last monday we got him a stronger one since he was showing signs of a sinus infection again (more green). He had a cough at that point but it progressively got worse over christmas and we took him in today. They said he was wheezing as he was breathing so we needed to do a breathing treatment in the office. It did help some, so they sent us home with an inhailer to do more treatments at home. We also got a different antibiotic for his ears...hopefully his body is not resistant to this one and we can clear up this infection. Hopefully when they take out his adenoids on the 12th we can clear out some of this infection that we just can't get rid of. I'm amazed at how well he's done through all of this. You can tell he doesn't feel well but he's so big about it! Poor guy! Hopefully soon his ear will feel better adn we can clear him of this infection in his body. We talked to them about our concerns with all these antibiotics and they understood but said we really need to get this infection gone somehow and he needs to be on them. So we'd apprectiate your prayers that this one will work and he won't catch anything else before the surgery. So we'll be keeping him away from kiddos as much as we can!

ENT

So we have returned from the ENT. He really recommends we have Elliots adenoids removed. He believes there is infection in his body and that the adenoids are the cause. We had had him on antibiotics for 21 days straight(this last time) and then within 4 days off from them he was green with infection again. At Elliots age they say allergy testing is so inconclusive that they would recommend the surgery before that. It's so hard to tell with how they can test kids at this age what he would be allergic to...so allergies may play into his problem but at this time they feel the best soution is to remvoe his adenoids and get source of some of the infection out. Someday down the road we'll do the allergy testing when he is older adn they feel the test will be more conclusive. So that is where we are at. His surgery will be January 12. We'll get the time the friday before.

prayer

Please pray for us...we're going to attempt to take Elliot to the ENT...the soonest they can reschedule is Jan. 9 so we're going ot try and get there at 1 today before the office closes. Pleas pray we make it there and home safely in this weather.Thank you!!

Isaac's artwork!

Isaac was having fun drawing this morning...and they are actualy starting to look like what he says! madi even took it from Elliot so he wouldn't mess up Isaac's art! Wow..that was nice!

His car.

His train.

Visiting Santa!

Madi was so cute...she lifted Isaac up so he could see Santa over everything in the way! He was so excited..."mom, it's Santa...he's really here!"

I don't think Elliot cared much for Santa...sorry the picture is blurry..I was laughing too hard! Good mom!

he stopped crying for a sec to find me! Then he cried again!

New things with Elliot!

Elliots new favorite game!

Here he is playing with his truck....he loves just to push a car around and make "car noises!" Boys!

one more...he loves his walker! He has even been taking soem steps this week! He gets so excited. Ever since Wednesday he just stands up and tries to take a step or twoall the time now! Yeah!!! I can't believe my baby is walking!!! We thought it might be by Christmas!

Here is attempting to walk on his own! We're getting close!

Straight No Chaser

Have you guys seen this christmas mix...I hear these guys were contacted thi year because this You-Tube video had so many hits to make a cd....i think its out in stores already...that would be nice. Its a fun "mix up song"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

Song Download

Here are a couple of links to some free music downloads!

Sara Groves: toy Packaging (christain christmas)

http://www.ccmmagazine.com/news/stories/11582350/

Franchesca Battistelli (ends dec. 19)
http://www.francescamusic.com/download

How Isaac burns energy

When Madi is gone at school..sometimes Isaac just does not know what to do with himself!

Christmas Programs.

Both the kids had their own Christmas Programs this year! What I enjoyed most was seeing our family sitting with us at both events. For each one we were saving at least 12 seats just for the kids family! That is so wonderful! We are very blessed to have two wonderful families that take the time to support our children! Even if they could not attend they were so good about calling to see how it went. I love our families! Thanks everyone!

Here is Isaac singing at church! Sorry its so up and down! I had trouble holding it up high enough over the crowd...but you get the idea. Its a little long because its the whole song, but its fun to see him sing through all of it, yawn, and then finally at the last verse do the motions!






Here is Madi at her School concert! She even got to ring the bells in one of the songs..she was so excited to do this part! She had told us she had a surprise we had to watch for!


In between songs the choir sang..I think Madi started to get bored!

Our Christmas!

EVery year we set aside the first Saturday in December to do "Our" christmas with the kids. We've tried to set this as our tradition because Christmas Day and Christmas Eve get so busy with family that we wanted one whole day with just our kids. This year we were afraid the snow was going to keep us from going..but we braved the weather. It was good we headed out so early in the morning because the roads were still in good condition when we headed out...the way home was a little slower..but i'm so glad we ventured out.

We started the night before with a Christmas movie on TV....next year we'll rent our own...we had stop watching for some "language" we didn't approve of! But I think the kids just liked snuggling...

Isaac had made his fire truck earlier in the day. At one point he grabbed my camera and took this next shot all by himself. I think he was very excited about his firetruck! Nice composition bud!!!

Here are the kids "freezing!" We getting all bundled up to go cut our tree!

Riding out to the tree!

Our tree!

Elliot and I waited in the barn for them to return...he had fun looking out the window!

On the way home we hit Burger King so the kids could play on the toys!

Check out Elliots new word....I love it!

Next came presents! Jon drew up a floor plan of the house (go figure) of where the kids presents were hid..we had to help them "read" the plans of course...but they soon found them!

One of the gifts was matching PJ's - moms favorite!

Do you think she's sick of pictures?

or just being silly!

Lastly we decorated the tree. The kids were finally old enough to let them do most of the tree themselves!

Setting up the manger..it was fun because Madi kept interupting Jon with how the story should go! She's got it down pretty good!

Overall it was a great day!!!