What a player...football that is...

 

Thanks Uncle Tommy and Ms. Julie for this sweet football outfit. It fits great and is awesome for this upcoming bowl season. Oh and go Flordia...I like Tebow!
Thanks for helping this stud out.
Love, Owen

Happy Thanksgiving

Now where did she learn this?

 

A New Thanksgiving Tradition

Justin bought me this book by Noel Piper. Treasuring God in our Traditions. An encouraging read-pretty fast read-yes, I recommed it. Though this tradition I am blogging about doesn't seem to have God in it, it does! This is a fun thing that points to the fact that God wants our family to have fun and be joyful. These cereals sure do bring a lot of energy to everyone, especially Katie! We will see how well she sleeps... :)

But here is our new tradition. The night before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve we eat cereal for dinner-we choose a our own box (oh the memories Kix brings from Childhood). We are doing this in prepration for all the yummy foods we eat on the actual holiday!

Justin braved the long lines at Harris Teeter to buy four boxes of cereal. He did get some funny looks. He brought these home and we devored our individual bowls in about 20 minutes. I think I ate 3 bowls!

Justin picked-Peanut Butter Captain Crunch
Me-Kix
Melissa-regular Captain Crunch
Chelsea-Honey Nut Cheerios
Katie-wanted some PB Captain Crunch and Kix. (she did not want her regular Cheerios :)

It was a hit. We are going to finish off our cereal on Christmas Eve!

What traditions do you all do?

 
 
 
 

How to get ready with a toddler and newborn

 

This was my morning...trying to get ready to go to a friends house...

Owen-incredible stinky diaper which got ALL over his outfit, needed a bath.

Katie-not to be left out wanted a bath too.

Owen-got him dressed and then let him look around from his place on the floor.

katie-wanted a few more minutes to play in the bath in which she dumped out the entire contents of her shampoo to make bubbles and to wash her "baby wawa". :(

Me-desperately trying to get my teeth brushed, hair in some sort of order(decided a hat was necessary), clothes on that were not spit up upon, contacts in and maybe even a few pats of make up.

Only took about 2 hours! :)

Welcome Chelsea!

 

Welcome new lower suite dweller!

Sorry it has taken me so long to post about Chelsea, but she is our new college girl. She moved in right after Owen was born and really it has be so hectic. I guess she has gotten to see us in all our craziness of up and downs with a newborn and toddler.

But we are thankful she has joined us and hopefully it will be a great time for her here!

Katie's friend Chris Mas

Justin went in to get Katie this morning and this is the conversation that they had as Katie got out of bed.

Katie, "Daddy, when is my friend coming for Christmas?"

Daddy, "What friend, Katie?"

Katie, "My friend Chris (first name) Mas (last name). She is coming over to share her toys."

SO....katie understands one thing...Christmas means toys! I am amazed at her thinking and how she has put this holiday season together in her mind. And from another story I posted about Katie, I know one thing...she wants it all! Whew, that is going to be expensive.
Now, on to teach her about Jesus...again. How hard it is to keep Him at the forefront of our minds, adults and children alike! :)

Shower again?

 

I was DETERMINED to have a shower today and one hopefully by myself, but...this transpired.

katie, "I need to take a shower again."

mommy, "why?"

katie, "I just ate an apple and got dirty."

What I thought? Apples do not get you dirty! So what was unknown to me before is now known to me. Apples do get you dirty if you are 2 1/2 years old.

She waned one again because I was taking one. And she was just as determined as I was to have one. I guess I shouldn't have worked on her loving showers so much!

Oh brother..I JUST want a few minutes by myself... :)

Grace...

Justin and Katie were having some talk time over an issue of disobedience and this is how it went.

Daddy, "Katie, we go tinkle in the potty not on the stool."

Katie, "Give me grace."

Daddy, "What is grace?"

Katie with very serious eyes and her head nodding, "I have NO idea. Call Mommy."

Justin and I both had a great chuckle over this one. And so it seems that Katie does not want to be disciplined so therefore she needs grace. She obviously gets some of it that if she receives grace there is no discipline. Now on to working on her truly understanding His perfect Grace and what it costs.

Whew....so much to teach!

I want it all...

Katie was looking at some catalogs and said...

Katie, "Daddy, I want all of these."

Justin, "Well, Katie, you need to pray about that."

Katie, "Father, I pray for all this." ...and she pointed to the entire page

This brought a chuckle to both Justin and I. :)

What a huge responsibility to teach and train our little ones to be content with what they have and to trust Jesus to provide all things.

Love this little guy!

 

Owen Bradley ~5 weeks

Nana was here, yeah!

WE ARE SO THANKFUL FOR YOU BEING HERE, NANA!
I loved you being here to hold Owen and play with Katie--plus Katie's bathroom never looked cleaner! :)
We want you to come back soon, please?
Love you,
the NC 4

Being Katy Duck on Halloween

Since Owen is so young and we were SO tired, we decided to have Katie dress up and have fun around here for Halloween.

One of the fun things I enjoy doing for halloween is dressing up like a book character. And this book is a hit with Katie right now. In it the main character, Katy Duck, loves to dance, "Tra La La Quack Quack", Katy sings. In it Katy is also dealing with a new baby brother-perfect!

So our Katie dressed up with her tutu and pink snowflake pjs and danced around the house like a butterfly and snowflake. It was pretty cute. The only thing she was missing was the big bow. She LOVED it!

Go Dory Go!

Dorian, Justin's brother, plays basketball for Colorado State University and we are decked out cheering for him this year! He is a freshman, the current starting point guard and on a full scholarship. What a stud!

When the family went out to CSU's"late night" opening season scrimage, they bought the kiddos some clothes...and the clothes are super cute!

Katie was having a blast jumping up and down, cheering and saying, Go Dory Go...Go Dory Go!
And you can see she is doing a stunt with Bella the mouse-a lift in the air. (We do need to work on her showing her belly.) :)

Owen was pondering, while wearing his CSU hat, just how good was Dorian going to be this year...conclusion...really good!

So Dorian, have a great season and we are keeping up with you by reading all that comes out of Fort Collins. We are also so glad that Justin got to see you play out in Oregan, what a treat!

Nana taken, Family Photos

I decided that yes, we needed a new family photo and yes, we should try this even though the kids were not in the best of moods. So we roped Nana, while she was here, into taking some. I think she did a fantastic job. Of course Katie wouldn't look and for the most part Owen screamed. But at least there are some now for the memory books. We did have a wonderful day and plenty of leaves to pick up and play with after it was all said and done. Owen is 3 weeks old here and Katie is 2 1/2 years old.
Thanks Nana for all your help!

The rest of the family photos

Owen's nursery

Here is our little ones nursery. It is in the guest room and done in greens and blues. I really like the simplicity of it. Owen will try it out after my parents head back to Kansas from their week long visit. :) There two last things to do and those are to get Owen's name up on the walland a few photos printed off.

And if you want to come and visit us, we will move Owen back to our room for the time. Promise! You won't have to sleep with a newborn.

katie says...

K, looking very serious-"Momma, I could help you, but I am to busy."

Me-"To busy doing what?"

K with large eyes intently telling me-"To busy being with my babies."

Not sure why she was "with her babies" because this was while she was eating lunch...


Byt do you think she has heard something like this while I am helping Owen?

We have a parrot mimicking everything these days!

Four weeks and growing fast!

So Owen is now 4 weeks old. WOW!
There have been some hard long nights but the weeks have flown by. He is around 11 pounds now and sleeping/nursing every two hours. I will blog more about his difficulty in digesting food for my reference and hopefully for someones benefit with their little one.
We sure do love these two and prayerfully within a few years they will be great siblings!