Oops.

Is this blog still here? I guess so.

Well, since I last was on here much has changed...

We welcomed daughter #2 into our family, Elsie Jeralyn. She's a sweet pea, and we love her boat loads. She's starting to smile more and is just picking up the giggling.

Felicity is about half a foot taller. Well, not quite, but she did grow that much in 2013 all together. It's fun to see her grow and develop. I love now that she expresses herself more than ever before and loves to make conversation. Here are a few right off the top of my head,

Nearly every morning she hugs me and then says, "Where's Elsie? I need to see Elsie."

When opening up her Christmas presents on Christmas day she exclaimed, "What is it? Oh my! Wow! Oh my word! Oooh my! Oh my!" Haha! Thankfully we got a little bit of it recorded...it's a moment I want to watch over and over. :) The funny thing was that a couple of these gifts were from a very dear friend of ours, Kathryn, and F's expressions reminded me so much of the gift-giver. I loved it!

We were reading through the 10 plagues of Egypt in family worship, and the 10th one really seemed to stick with F. For days now she's been saying, "He died. Why did he die?" So, we've talked it over quite a few times. Now she keeps talking about how Jesus died. When I ask her why Jesus died, she says, "To take away our sins." I'm sure she's just repeating what we say, but it's neat to hear her say it anyway. It's neat, too, even if we do hear her say, ""He died. Why did he die?" over and over and over. I've tried explaining the resurrection to her, but she seems stuck on the dying part. It's okay. We can take things slowly.

Just today we were working on potty training. The bad news: accidents were had. The good news: F sat down at the dining room table with me for a snack of pretzels after we finished up our two hour practice session and said with a sigh, "This is muuuch better."

This evening  as I was getting ready to go to a baby shower when F came in and told me, "Mommy, you're so pretty." Well.melt.my.heart.

We've started a memory jar to help keep track of F and E's milestones and those cute little sayings that we want to be able to remember...because to be honest, there are too many for us to remember in our itty bitty brains. I'm hoping to put them in a scrap book at the end of each month...nothing fancy, just slap the 3x5 cards in it so it'll be semi-organized. :) Hopefully this good-intention doesn't become like this here blog.

Let's see, what else has happened?

We've spent time with lots of family in the past couple of months, which has been super fun! We had Z's family here during Thanksgiving...although, we almost froze some of his siblings by making them sleep in an RV in our front lawn. (Yes, an RV became our front lawn for more than 3 weeks. Thankfully, the neighbors didn't report us). And, we've gotten to meet (one just over Skype) several newborn nieces and nephew since September. They are F's new bffs. She talks about them constantly. And, we got to hang out with my side during Christmas...my favorite parts being the late night talks, of course.

We had record breaking cold the second week of January. Z got the whole week off school. Score. Sadly the week ended with Z getting sick and then me getting sick. So, he had to take the first day of school off. Tuesday I was still sick, but I was feeling pretty great at the end of the day...the flowers and ice cream Z brought home helped a lot. Isn't he sweet? :)

In other exciting news, we redid our dining room and kitchen floors (Well, Z and a friend, Aaron, did...thankfully, I didn't have to help...it would have been a disaster if I had to). And, it looks absolutely fabulous! The laminate slate in the dining room puts the previous 60's puke green linoleum to utter shame. Z and A did a fantastic job, and I think they had fun doing it. And, surprisingly, we found nice hardwood under the kitchen carpet. :)  

Hmm...it's good to jot down the things that have happened. I've lost the art of faithfully keeping a journal since becoming a mother. But, it's good to think back and see all the ways that God has shown us His love and faithfulness...even in the small things.