Army Buddies

We've had a whirlwind of a family visit, both Annie and Carol and Casey's Mom and sister were in town at the same time. It's been nice, we've been doing a lot of things here and there. Today I took William to get 2 shots, poor boy when the nurse gave it to him he said cried "hot". I don't think another word could have described that better, it would be incredibly hot under the skin.
Afterwards we picked up Annie and Carol (who were doing our breakfast dishes), we went to the beach and met up with Mimi and Angie (and Ashton). Soon after my Army buddies showed up for a mini photo shoot (it was windy but some of the pictures turned out really good, check out my photography blog if you want to see more: http://momentsbymurray.blogspot.com/ )
Afterwards we went out for lunch and then went to see Tangled. That is my favorite movie, I think we are going to buy it (and we don't' really buy movies), that is how much we love it!

Family in Town

Yesterday we had both sides of the family come into town to spend some time with us before we leave country. Late this morning we spent in the backyard running around and enjoying the crisp cool weather. The kids would all line up and jump into Mimi's arms and run around, climb up the stairs and do it again.

Casey was chasing the girls around with William on his shoulders. I love the look on Ella's face! (Right below I zoomed in to show you just how tight William was holding on.
And they did some rolling down the hill.

William watching everyone.

Suz running around like a wild Indian.

By far the best seat in the house (and the fastest too).

I think cousin Ashton was enjoying all the entertaiment.

Our Nativity

This year we had to do some things different, especially since all of our things are on a barge in the middle of the ocean somewhere. We kept out our little Nativity (Little People), it has been perfect for the kids to play with (no worries about it breaking). Everyone seems to be fascinated with the baby Jesus. It make me happy.

Our Christmas 2010

Christmas Eve we spent with our good friends and Christmas day we went over to Pensacola to enjoy time with Peter's family. Will and Lindsay were really cute in the little couch they shared, I think they could pass as a little Peter and Colleen...cute little twins.

Christmas Day with the Young's

Early this Christmas morning (before the rain) I ran down to Navarre Beach with our dear friends, the Young family. Marc is Army and will be deploying right after the holiday season (3 January). This was a gift to their family, something for the Marc to have when those times get tough and homesickness sits in and also for the family behind waiting for his return.

Merry Christmas to our dear Young family.

Ella Bella

I love watching her sleep.

My Boys

Have I blogged recently just how much I love my boys?

An Audience

We had quite the captive audience during our photo shoots.

Christmas Eve and I'm Working

This week has been pretty busy for us. It is offical, or visas have come and we are now all set to fly out the 8th of January. In addition to preparing for a talk (yes we were asked to speak Sunday, which happens to be my b-day too) I was able to squeeze two family photo shoots in this morning. They turned out to be so much fun, especially the part where I was by myself and Casey was home playing Mr. Mom.

If you'd like you can check out more of these pictures on my photography blog: http://momentsbymurray.blogspot.com/

An Evening on the Beach

When we got to the beach, my words of advice, "Please don't get wet". Of course Ella, our beach baby, was covered in wet sand.
One of my good friends from the Army (Karen and Will Salyars) came into town this week. They actually moved from Colorado to Fort Walton Beach. Sadly it is right when we are on our way out, but at least we got some time tonight and will have time next week to catch up. These bonds I made in the Army are like glue, it's amazing to catch up after 10 years and feel as though not much time as passed. It's amazing how different all 13 of us Medics were (we went to AIT, Germany and 2 deployments to Bosnia together), coming from different circles of life and yet those experiences really defined just who we were. They are my best of friends.

Karen and Will's Ella.

I've got three photo shoots that I'm really excited about, two are Friday and one next week. So in addition to our talks (on my birthday), we are pretty busy!

"All I Want For Christmas is a Rainbow"

This morning as the girls were munching on an apple snack, Ella blurted out "All I want for Christmas is a rainbow", in addition Suzanna said "All I want for Christmas is snow". To be so little and have such simple wishes. I wanted to snap some photos of our backyard, it's pretty big with a lot of things for the kids to keep occupied. Today on our walk we realized that William and Ella's nursery leaders live just 6 doors down from us! They just bought their home and neither one of us knew that we had moved next to one another.

We have found some of the biggest pine cones here in Florida. Here's another huge one Suzanna found.

The kids love racing back and forth in the back. I think Suz loves racing everyone because finally she's the fastest.

Sweet Will.

Christmas Tree Delivery

With p.j.'s on and everyone getting ready to go to bed we heard a knock at the door. It was the Lanham family with a Christmas basket full of things. There was a light up tree (Suzanna especially was excited, she'd been lamenting the fact that we didn't have one), three nativity puzzles, cookie dough and frosting to make cut out cookies and other little things. It just made our night! Merry, Merry, Christ-mas everyone!

Our Big Red Door

Nativity

This afternoon on our walk we saw a few cute Christmas decorations from the Nativity (the girls love Baby Jesus the best of all) and also some palm trees with ornaments. The owner of the home (with the Nativity) invited the kids to have a close up look, they were sweetly kissing and hugging baby Jesus.

I love seeing this, when it gets a bit chilly the palm trees are wrapped up, I've even seen some wrapped in sleeping bags.

All Three Ride

I've been doing a lot of research and wheeling and dealing these past few months. With some buying and reselling of various baby items, we finally found the perfect tiny (sit and stand) for our needs and something we could fit all three children at the same time. Let me introduce you to our new baby, big orange.

Big Orange will be our saving grace as we travel around Europe with the three wee. I brought my camera on our walk today so I could snap some shots of it. Funny thing, Casey's sponsor has the same stroller and this last Spring (on a trip to France) someone stole it! They actually have a picture of them and the suspicious person in the background taking the stroller. (Crazy) We just bought a bike lock for our stroller, just in case.

No Touch

William has been napping once again, thankfully. Church usually zonks him out but today when I went to check in on him I noticed he had piled up all his things in the corner of the crib with him on top of it. It was almost like, "Okay Mom, these things you will NOT ship overseas, no, I'm keeping them". I have to keep reassuring the kids "yes, we will see our things, no the packers didn't keep any of them" and other questions like that. I think Suz is most worried about leaving her kindergarten teacher and friends, Ella will miss being the queen bee in Nursery and Will has not a worry in the world.

Grateful Sunday

*The delight of finding treasures at the thrift store
*Date Nights with Casey
*A great rental home to live in until we move (again)
*Watching William greeting his sisters with hugs
*Sunday night dinner's with Peter's family
*The girls hair getting longer and longer
*Florida winter's warming back up to 60 degrees
*The way mint makes everything taste just that much better
*Getting the opportunity each week teaching the kids music, the best job at church by far
*Singing next to Suzanna
*Video conferences with Alisha and her family, makes Washington seem that much closer
*My camera every chance I get
*Moving to England, what an adventure of a life time just a few weeks away
*Braiding Ella's yellow hair, so silky and soft
*Sleeping in (with kids 6:30am feels like sleeping in)
*Looking into Suzanna's green eyes
*Being married to an easy going man
*The privilege of wearing my Gran's wedding diamond
*Getting chocked up while singing in the Christmas Cantata at church, I really do love Jesus

Aye!

We are on our way! We heard word from the British Consulate that they received our visa applications. They gave us some numbers, how quickly people get them and so forth. We don't think we'll hit our deadline/airplane date of 8 January, no biggie (thankfully the tickets were issued to us) we'll just set a new date, a few days later or so.
I thought we better start using some of the King's English, so we fit in and all (notice the title subject line).I found Will and Ella playing in the portacrib. It was cute, they play so well together. Now we've got all three at home, Suz is home for the next 2 weeks as it is Christmas break. Yipee! All week I've been hurrying them to wake so we could leave the house by 7am for school. I bet now that we have not a worry in the world they'll be up at the crack of dawn!

Stretch

When we first moved to Florida from St. Louis, William was 3 months old and slept in a mini-travel portable crib (given to us by friends). That made it really easy to tuck him away in a closet for naps and bedtime. Two years later, he fits the portacrib exactly. There's no room to grow, we hope that he won't grow too much in this in between time before we see our house hold goods on the other end (maybe 2 months from now). Gone are the days of closet sleeping, but thankfully this little bed is his until we can unpack one of the old toddler beds and call it his.

Suzanna's Christmas Creations

I just love homemade Christmas decorations, those are my favorite. Suzanna made these in school yesterday, it was fun, especially since I was head of the craft table and got to enjoy watching her make them. I wonder what new Christmas traditions we will learn in England. Santa doesn't come to our house, we've had long talks (although the kids seem to forget everything we talk about after they come home from school) about how he is pretend and why he doesn't come to our house. We focus our entire efforts and put our entire faith in someone who is real and who did live and has changed our lives forever; Jesus Christ.