Christmas + toddler = HEAVEN

Hellooooooo!

Christmas is an altogether different experience with a toddler, what a JOY it was to watch him open his presents!! And to watch him now playing and learning is amazing. Here are some pics.

Kitchen set from me and Dar - Noah LOVES it. My niece gave him a shopping cart that came with fake food so he takes the cans of beans and soup and shakes them into the pan. He's such a good cook.



Nana and Papa got him a quad - look out! He loves to stand on it when he rides, he's such a stuntman...



Noah watches Handy Manny, a cartoon that teaches that everyone should work together and is important. We got him a plush manny and toolset that's pretty cool :)



Grandma and Grandpa Jenson got him the great house in the first pic, complete with doorbell and mailbox. I made him some little letters that he loves to send and receive.

This is the shopping cart I mentioned. Noah pushes this around ALL. DAY. LONG.



We don't normally like licensed disney stuff, but when I pushed Elmo's tummy and he sang about how much he loved Noah so so much, I had to get it!



Noah loves to pull his full-size wagons around the house and bang them into everything. We thought he would enjoy this one more his size. He got it from Auntie Juju and can now drag a wagon around without so much collateral damage.



A fun shirt I got for Dar - it has Mr. Rogers on it, get it?



I have to post these pictures. I was so impressed that Darren made a little envelope out of wrapping paper to keep his receipts in! I, on the other hand, misplaced most of mine... I may have to hire his skills next year :)

Our Funniest Home Video

This is worth watching the whole way through - he is so patient!

Sorry! This video had to be removed because on Grandpa's urging we submitted it to AFV :) Who knows, maybe we'll win $10,000 or more!

Kisses for Mommy :)

Merry Christmas!

We have decorated our house pretty minimally this year, but it is enough to feel like it's Christmas around here :) Unfortunately something has gone strangely awry with our tree and it never took in water.... this means that our tree is DEAD, quite dead. It is a light, dry-looking green and bits of it's branches fall off if you simply walk by it. Good thing we are just a few days away! (note the absence of ornaments on the bottom of the tree - clearly the sign of a toddler in the house)







This is a nativity scene that I fell in love with last year and Darren bought it for me as a surprise... it came too late to put it up so I was glad to have it for this year!

Mary

The angel

A shepherd

And baby Jesus with a whole lotta hair!

A friend was going to paint them over to look a bit more true to their ethnicity but she said they were beautifully done in a particular style and didn't want to mess with them. Oh how I long for the day when a nativity scene is full of people from the middle east! My inside set has a Jesus that looks like Dan Quayle and a shepherd that looks like an English schoolboy...

I will never forget you Olive

Yesterday I had the honor and great privilege of participating in the celebration of little Olive Jacqueline Waltenburg. She lived just an hour but impacted many people for a lifetime.

I would like to include an excerpt from that message:

Olive’s life taught many of us to take a stand on what we believe. She challenged us to ask ourselves if we truly believed the Bible when it shows us that God wants to heal the sick. Where we wavered in the past, we pressed in for Olive. We searched the scriptures and found reference upon reference of God’s desire to heal and we pushed our faith outside of the box of our own experience and dared to believe.

And even though things didn’t turn out how we had hoped, and we are left with unanswered questions, we are not turning back. We will no longer believe that God makes someone sick for the greater good, or takes a baby away from her loving parents to teach them something. This is NOT the heart of a Father - the Father’s heart is to heal. Death and sickness, from the beginning, have come from Satan (the adversary). Jesus said he came to destroy the works of the enemy. Our God loves us, and He is for us, not against us.

Sweet Olive had Potter's Syndrome, and if you'd like to know more about her or her amazing parents you will find their story under "links".

I'm so proud!

Darren was in TX this last week for work and discovered that he and his business cohort were the top sales team of the first quarter AND the second quarter. God has blessed us so much through Darren's work... they have walked with great favor and have worked hard to bring in some big deals. Here is the bling they presented him with. These are HEAVY, and have rainbow blinking lights on them of course.



Noah has taken to going to the drive-in recently. He loves to climb into his stroller, get strapped in, and watch one of his TV shows. I wish he loved his stroller that much when we were out and about instead of flailing his arms around and announcing to the world that he is "all done!"

Juju and Noah enjoying a rare pizza night in front of the TV :)

Hello!

Yay Leapfrog!

Some of you know I worked at Leapfrog a few years ago. When I was there they came out with a video called the Letter Factory. Well, after 1 week of owning it and probably 5 views, this was my conversation with Noah a few minutes ago.

Hey Noah,
what does the letter A say? Ah
what does the letter B say? Buh
what does the letter D say? Duh
what does the letter M say? Muh
what does the letter S say? Ssss
what does the letter O say? Ooo
what does the letter P say? Puh

He knew a couple of these already but I thought it was just amazing!
kim

Mommy cleans up

I have felt so frumpy lately that when it was time for Cornerstone's Womens Christmas dinner I wanted to dress up nice. It was the first time I really did my hair with purpose and I was so happy with it! I felt great! Here are a couple pics.

Heat, Hair and Red Patent Leather

Kind of sounds like a book I wouldn't be allowed to read! No worries though, this is a family site and all is well :)

I had to take a picture of Noah the morning after I asked Darren "you don't think he'll unzip himself right out of that thing??" to which he replied "Nah...he'll be fine"

Apparently he was hot!



Noah has a new fascination walking around in shoes, ANY shoes... from work boots to ballet flats, this kid rocks the runway in his bold style.



In honor of my very best friend losing her hair to chemotherapy, I decided to give 8" of my hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths campaign (www.beautifullengths.com) They donate wigs to women going through chemotherapy. I'll post a pic of the finished product later.