Countless Blessings

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. John Milton

Papa and Mama's top 3 most thankful list (though they could go on and on)!

We dedicate this post in memory of our dear friend Rich who passed away the week before Thanksgiving and whose favorite poet was John Milton. Though our hearts were heavy as we thought of his family and their loss, we celebrated his life as a wonderful father, friend, and English Professor.

Drum roll please!!!

We are excited! Love, Cris, Stephanie, and M and E.

Happy 22-months to ME!

We have had a busy month and know the next 2 months leading up to our birthday are going to be just as busy and fly by way too fast! We were lucky to take 2 trips to the apple orchard. One with Papa and Mama and the other with our cousins Breydin and Leela, and the rest of the family.








We had our 2nd stay in a hotel, but the first one we can really remember. Our favorite attraction in the room was to color and eat snacks at the desk and of course we loved, loved our time in the pool.

We continue to work on potty time and are each other's biggest cheerleaders. One of us has had success with both #1 and #2 (M) while the other does best with #1 (E) and gets really excited when she can help "dump" things into the toilet! It is an exciting learning process all in all and Papa and Mama are very proud of us!

We continue our dance class 1x/week and are improving each time in our ability to learn the actions and follow directions. We also enjoy singing/dancing to these songs outside of dance time and basically enjoy any song which involves hand movements, etc. or playing on the piano. Still no white stuff on the ground yet but likely to happen sooner versus later!
Hugs, ME

Halloween 2010!

Experiencing our first cleaning of the inside of a pumpkin...




We decided to be Cowgirls this year being we continue to love the horses out at Grandpa and Grandma's. We didn't keep our outfits on the entire evening, nor allow Mama to capture a picture of us by our pumpkins, but as you can imagine we had fun! We again had a little get-together at our house and were busy handing out candy to all the trick-or-treaters and enjoying our company!




Enjoying a game of pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern with cousin Breydin...




Showing much more interest in the candy in our hands versus the attempt at a family photo...

Thanks everyone for making our 2nd Halloween a blast! Love, ME

Our secret no longer!

HINT #1:

HINT #2:

Hoping you are getting warm...

HINT #3:

Surprise, we are going to be BIG SISTERS!!!!

Mama is 15-weeks along and things are going well. We (Papa and Mama especially) are feeling extremely blessed and excited for this addition to our family in mid-April 2011!

Much love from all of us!

Happy 21-months to ME!

This month has been all about the letter "P"...piggies, potties, and play!

Our hair still doesn't quite stay in 100% but we will now let Mama (and of course others such as Grandma Linda & Auntie Laura) put our hair in piggies. We feel very grown-up with our hair like this and proudly say "May May" being we think we look like our big cousin Leela May.


We also have brought our potty chairs out and spend most of our day at home running around in a diaper (or without) in order to try catch the moment. One of us (M) is a bit more interested in this than the other, but either way we have fun sitting by each other. Sometimes we even sing songs and do funny dances if the mood is right!


And of course play, especially mischevious play, has always been at the center of our household. Mama has been trying to organize some closests lately and put summer things away, etc. so this is what you get when we are left to come up with fun on our own...interesting outerwear accessory combinations!



A few other things to note: We love to pray at all of our meals and E is especially good at reminding us if we start without doing so. We have been infatuated with the Moon Song at bedtime for almost the entire month now. We love spotting airplanes in the sky and seeing tractors in the corn fields. Our favorite videos to watch when allowed have Elmo in the them and the most favorite as of recently has been Elmo's Potty Time. We continue to love to sing and dance. We both love apples (and this is really the only fruit E will eat...little turkey). We still give the best hugs, kisses, and snuggle time (and yes, even on occasion still in Papa and Mama's bed at night), and we know Papa and Mama secretly wish for these to never end!!!

Hope all is well with you! ME

Dancing Queens!

On a recent rainy day we decided to get our wiggles out and have fun dancing to music in the basement. This of course required wearing the appropriate attire and it indeed involved dancing to ABBA (and some of our favorites too)!

We were quite exhausted after all of our fun and thought the best way to relax was to have a tea party.

This recent increased interest in moving to music got Mama thinking that we might be ready for dance class so guess what we started last week...

Watch out Dancing with the Stars!

Love, ME