Chairs loves to listen to music! When we are in the car she likes to have the music on and when we are at home she will carry her little tape recorder to me and say music, which is my cue to turn on the tunes. Her favorite song right now is probably The Wheels On the Bus. She will walk over and her hands will be flying around in circles and she will say round round round over and over until you sing The wheels On The Bus. Within this song she has a favorite line or shall I say sound. Charis loves the part where the Mamas on the bus say shh shh shh. She will even sing along with the shh shh shh. It is so cute to see her learn new things when we see babies now she will even say shh. Another song that is tops on her list (there are many) is the song about the wise and the foolish men from the Bible. The wise man built his house upon the rock and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. There is a little verse in the middle that talks about the rain coming down and the flood going up Charis loves to do the hand motions for this part. She makes the rain coming down and the flood going up motions with her hands. At the very end of this song the house on the sand goes smash but Charis loves to yell crash! It is amazing to see what they hide away in their memories and in their hearts. I am excited to be able to hide away God’s word in her heart and to see how He uses it later in her life. I am thankful for silly songs and songs with meaning. It is amazing to see what she likes and I love seeing her desire to sing out.

Charis is currently listening to this tape in her tape player and she loves it!

Oh the week of Thanksgiving is such a sweet week at our house! One of the sweet parts is that I do not have to cook! I know that someday I will be the cook of the feast but for now the mom’s seem to love what they do and do not care for some crazy pregnant lady coming in with her weird and random cravings to mess up Thanksgiving! Ha ha ha! I love being with our families on Thanksgiving Day! What a blessing it is that we live close to both sides and that we are able to make the rounds. Sometimes I do think that it would be sweet to live out of town just to be able to spend the nights with our families it just feels like what you are supposed to do for some reason. I must admit though I have grown to love just having time with Brad the night of Thanksgiving and Christmas in our own home. It is just sweet sweet time to remember and reflect.
My most super favorite part of the week of Thanksgiving is that we get to celebrate our anniversary! Hip hip hooray for 8 years! I love that we got married so close to Thanksgiving as it just encourages me that much more to see the gift that the Lord has given me in Brad and how much I truly have to be thankful for in that precious gift! Brad is my best friend and it feels like we have been together for a lifetime although we have only known each other for half of my lifetime (incredible still). I am excited to see where the Lord takes us and what he calls us to do daily and in the future. I am also excited to see what it will feel like when we have been married for so much longer than this! Exciting times to come I am sure!
As you can see it will be a sweet week of celebrating and gathering with friends and family. I wanted to close this post with a song that we sang at our wedding and I hope that it will fill your heart and mind as you gather this week with those near you! May we be thankful as we gather with friends and family this week for all the Lord has blessed us with and all that He has done in our lives.

As we gather may Your Spirit work within us
As we gather may we glorify Your name
Knowing well that as our hearts begin to worship
We’ll be blessed because we came
We’ll be blessed because we came

-As We Gather by Mike Fay and Tom Coomes

It has felt a little like Christmas at our house this weekend. Brad has been greatly anticipating the arrival of the Nintendo Wii! I am sure that you will be able to read about his journey (saga) shortly on his blog that is if he can breakaway from the Wii! I have greatly been anticipating the Wii only because it can play all the old school games like the original Mario Brothers etc. therefore to me it has felt like Christmas. When I was little I remember begging (my mom and grandparents would say this is an understatement) for the new game console that was coming out. Everyone was talking about the Nintendo and it was going to be so much better than the Atari; that sealed the deal and I just needed to have one don’t ya know! I was so excited to open it Christmas morning (I am sure that I knew that I was getting it since I am a bit of a peeker)! For the rest of the break I would sit with my cousins and even my grandparents to play for hours on end. Brad and I have been like little kids wanting to both play the Wii and neither wanting to take turns. It has been fun to remember being a kid and just having silly fun! Although we cannot play for hours on end after all we have to wait for bedtime for Charis and plus we are old and cannot stay up to late quite like we use to. After Charis is down though we do break out the fun! Poor thing! One day I am sure that she will be able to join in…if we share!

This past week I discovered that we have a few daffodils trying to make their big debut a little early. We have had a warm fall and the poor little things have gotten a bit confused. I do love seeing them when they arrive in the spring but the holiday season is not the time for little daffys! We are finally receiving some cooler weather so hopefully the others will not follow suit. Talk about decorating early!

We came home this afternoon to find that Christmas has arrived early for our neighbors across the street. Last year they were the new kids on the block. The house is a rental and I guess that they were getting the feel of the neighborhood. They put up a little projector projecting on their garage of Christmas scenes and while this was a little embarrassing when we had friends over (everyone commented on it) it was only one little thing and kind of humorous especially since Brad really likes projectors. We got a lot of good jokes out of it. Well this year they are kicking it up a few notches the projector has gone out and inflatables are in! That is right inflatableS! They are still a little hard to make out as they have not been filled with air yet but as we can best tell we will have some type of inflatable snow globe and a chimney with Santa not to mention that these items will have spot lights and there are lighted deer just in case that was not enough. Now I cannot chat too much because I do LOVE to hop in the car and drive around to see all the Christmas lights but I usually go to other neighborhoods for this activity. Brad and I are pretty plain and simple we do put Christmas wreaths on all the windows but no spotlights. If you miss it during the day you will not be seeing it at night either you will just have to wait until the next day. The people across the street have kids but they are much older so it will be total enjoyment for Charis. I told Brad it will almost be like having a Christmas parade constantly outside your house. She will love it and I will love it as she loves it with my child heart but I am thankful that there is not much grass left in their yard for other inflatables.

Many have asked why the lack in posts lately well my friends there just is not that much to say about the inside of a toilet which is pretty much all I have been seeing lately. The little one growing inside me seems to not like anything much that I eat, smell or look at. That is right miss Charis has a sibling on the way! Brad and I are quite excited but we are also both excited for the sickness and tiredness to come to an end…all in sweet time! Charis is hanging in there she is clueless to what is actually going on of course and it makes her pretty mad when I step into the bathroom and shut the door behind me but she is quick to recover. Brad and I have chosen a gender-neutral name for this child so no matter the sex we have a name. Brad has loved the name Micaiah for a long time. It is Hebrew for “Who is like the Lord?”. We will wait for the sex for a middle name. Charis will often mention Cai (Micaiah) and point to a toy, to my belly or to her belly. It is quite precious but I do believe that she will have a rude awakening next spring when her sibling arrives. It will be a sweet thing to grow up with a sibling though. I am excited to be able to give Charis that sweet gift. We are so thankful to the Lord for this pregnancy and little one! There will be more and more to share on this little blog yet for now though please pardon me as I choose not to share about the inside of our toilets. I must say in these last few weeks they are probably much cleaner than they have been in a long time. If you have to stare at something you might as well make it as pretty as you can!

I am not one to pass along rumors but this one has me quite concerned! A few of our friends have shared with us upon their recent visits to Chili’s Restaurant that the chips that come with the chips and salsa have changed! Oh the sadness! Chili’s chips were almost perfect! Yes, a little salty but yet so thin and crispy complementing the salsa oh so well. The rumor is that the chips are now like bag chips from the grocery store. Can you imagine? Sadness! One of our friends remarked to their waiter about the devastation of the chips and the waiter expressed their sadness and suggested that they might fill out a comment card, as the switch is nation wide. Wow! I just wanted to share that sadness with my fellow lovers of the Chili’s chips and salsa…sad!

Today was Charis’s 18 month check up and boy was it a blast! It just started off badly with Charis already feeling a little under the weather so she was a bit cranky (shocking to the grandparents I know). They took her measurements first which she decided was terrible and awful and shared that with us as she screamed. They did share with us that she is the size of a three year old! Next she got to have her finger pricked and blood drawn, which just about did us both in. The nurse asked me to apply pressure to her finger so that it would stop bleeding and of course Charis did not care for this. She was flailing around and screaming. I decided to give up on the “apply pressure” tactic and go for the band-aid and it turns out that Charis totally dislikes band-aids today! She screamed even louder and eventually took it off. Here is the picture for your mind to grasp…I am alone in the room with Charis screaming and there is blood everywhere! Great huh! I went back to the apply pressure method and just held her down until it stopped bleeding then she was happy for about 5 seconds until the doctor came in. Charis usually takes the doctor in stride and just deals with it but this was not the day for that. She was such a mess that he told me that I could just hold her while he listened to her lungs and checked her ears etc. He did say that he got to hear her lungs really well since she was screaming her head off. By the end of the visit I figured that it could not be much worse so I just went ahead and got Charis her flu shot as well, yes that went over fabulously but I was already expecting that by this point in the visit. By the time we made it to the car (you could hear the people in the office breathe a sigh of relief that we were going) Charis and I were both totally exhausted. I tried to think of a treat for her so we headed to McDonalds for a biscuit. This did the trick and she started smiling again. Phew! Six more months until her two-year check up!