It's been a great year . . .

. . . and it's hard to believe it's over.

2008 brought lots of smiles and laughter, along with a few tears along the way. I'll always look back at this year as the year we built many friendships, completed our family with the addition of la princesa, and watched our little guy grow up more than I ever imagined possible in one year. I can hardly remember this time last year, but yet so vividly remember praying more than I've ever prayed before that our baby girl would come home to us sometime this year. God answered that prayer, and we're still in awe of the countless blessings we have received from that experience.

Tonight we're spending time with our little ones, safe and cozy at home. I wouldn't want it any other way! When the critters go to bed, we might actually get a jump start on my mission to get more exercise next year and finally open the WiiFit that hubby got us for Christmas. Or maybe we'll just go to bed. That would be alot less effort . . .

It's been a great year--I can't wait to see what's in store for 2009.

May your New Year be safe, happy, and joyful! Have fun every chance you get, and savor every moment with family and friends--see you next year!

Edited to add: If you haven't read the previous post about the critterboy's first prayer, well, you just don't want to miss it . . .

The critterboy's first prayer

Wow--what a moment. Our little guy finally gets what prayer is about. At dinner tonight he asked to say a prayer, but then changed his mind and asked daddy-o to do it instead. After the prayer we started eating, then he wanted to say one himself. He asked us to hold hands, then we bowed our heads and he said "Dear Lord, thank you for this day, in a one horse open sleigh, HAY! Haymen!" We're going to keep working on it, but I think that's a great start, don't you??!!

Here's what he's been doing ever since:

I just love this little man to pieces . . . .

Someone must have been very good this year . . .

Santa was very generous to our critterbeasts this year. I thought we got the last half of the toys from Toys R Us last year, but I was wrong! Having little ones makes Christmas morning so much fun. Here's how the festivities went:

On Christmas Eve, daddy-o and I both had to work until noon, so we took the critterbeasts (the kids!) to "school" as usual. After our long, hard workday, we picked up the beastlets and headed to my sister's house in Choctaw to join her, my BIL, and my parents for some Christmas Eve fun. She had made a wonderful meal for us and we had presents galore! By some miracle my kids didn't trash their pristine, kidless house, with white couches and real plants, and all the things we so gladly got rid of when kiddo numero uno came along. The wild man even played on the drum set and kept a pretty good beat for a 3 year old! When we had worn out our welcome, we headed home to prepare to help Santa finish assembling the 53 step instruction having but oh so awesome kitchen that the critterboy had been asking for for the last few months. I think it finally took a total of almost 6 hours to help Santa assemble. We also helped him put the finishing touches on the "fourwhewer" Jeep that he crammed down the chimney. Ahh the joy of "some assembly required"! We left cookies out for the big guy, popped the "overnight cinnamon rolls monkey bread whatchamacallits" in the pan and into the cold oven as instructed, and went to bed earlier than we had all week. Great start!

Princess Green Bean is #1!

Little Drummer Boy

Christmas morning was wonderful. Miss Priss Pants woke up super early, so I brought her to our bed to try to get her to sleep a bit longer. No go. Daddy-o took her to the living room at about 6:45am, I got up to brush my teeth, get my contacts in, and check on the rising quality of the frozen bread dough. Guess what? Either my bundt pan is smaller than most, or the rolls I used were much bigger than the ones in the recipe. The rolls runneth over. Sticky carmelly, cinnamony goo was dripping everywhere in the oven. I did what I had to do. I took the kitchen shears to the overhanging rolls and snipped them away, then stuck the pan back in the oven with a huge cookie sheet underneath, and prayed that they would bake without running over anymore. (They ran a bit, but not bad--and they were super yummy when we devoured them!)

About that time, the critterboy came down the hall dragging his blanket and rubbing his sleepy eyes. When his eyes focused on the pile of loot, he said "Did Santa bring me all these fings?" He went straight to the Jeep and jumped in. It took alot to get him out of it to check out the other things. La princesa really didn't seem to get what all the fuss was about. She just knew that there was a cookie with a bite missing, and it was HERS! The greatest part of the morning was just not being rushed to be anywhere right away. Between opening and de-boxing a gazillion toys, reading new books, looking at new clothes, eating gooey breakfast, etc., it took almost 3 hours to open everything. I so loved not being on a schedule--so relaxing and enjoyable for all! Here are some pics of the morning:

Little cookie monster girl

Yep, he drove THRU the swingset--such a boy!

Later in the afternoon, after naps even, we went to my aunt Charlene's house for an early dinner and more presents. We're going to have to build an addition to the house to keep all of this stuff. One of my very urgent projects is to go through all the toys in this house and decide what can be donated, sold, kept, passed on, etc. Anyway, we had a great afternoon of activity, and for the most part the kids weren't cranky and played really well. We sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and let the wild man blow out the candle on the gum drop cake I made. The cake was not a big hit at all--total bummer because it was a real pain to cut all those gumdrops into quarters then make the cake from scratch. Oh well. I love that the little guy is starting to understand the real meaning of Christmas. He can even tell you that Mary was Jesus' mommy, Joseph was his daddy (I have given up trying to explain to him that God is his father in Heaven and Joseph was his daddy on earth--too much for him to grasp!) and he was born in Bethlehem on some hay "because he didn't have no crib for a bed"! So cute! I totally blew it with my Weight Watchers points tracking this week though. I'm dreading the scale on Tuesday morning, but I enjoyed every bite of what I ate. And, I've lost just over 20 lbs, and while I don't ever want to have a gain on my "record", it's Christmas week for goodness sake, and it will be what it will be!

This was a very memorable Christmas for our family. Last year we just had our baby girl in pictures. We had her first Christmas ornament on the tree and kept a framed picture of her beside us as we opened gifts and took pictures so she will always know she was with us for her first Christmas, even when physically she was so far away. It still amazes me that God has entrusted us with these little blessings, and having them both here for Christmas and everyday forever is just awesome.

Work is really crazy for me right now--I have vowed to not discuss my job on my blog, and I won't start now, but please pray that I get through all of the craziness and find a way to not bring the stress of work home with me each day. It's so important to me that family time be family time, and I don't want anything to change that.

Also, my BFF Krista is on a mission trip to Belize this week. I'm so proud of her for going on this trip, and jealous that she's so close to Guatemala! I told her to be sure to wave to Guatemala for me. Sometimes I just ache to be back there--not sure what thats all about, but I'm sure someday I'll know. Anyway, keep Krista and her group in your prayers, too, for safe travels and a memorable trip doing such great work in Central America. It will surely change them forever. You can check out their trip journal HERE.

Take care, loyal readers! I'll be back soon . . .

A game called catch up . . .

Wow--this is the longest blogging funk I've ever been in. I apologize to all of my loyal fans (hee hee--no, I don't REALLY think that much of myself!) who have been waiting more than 3 weeks for an update on mi familia. Hang with me and I'll give you the rundown!

I really don't know where to start, so picture it: A cold Friday night in downtown Oklahoma City. My BFF Steph and I had decided that we would drag our munchkins and our hubbies out into the freezing cold tundra of our awesome downtown area called Bricktown. We have what's called "The Canal"--almost like the Riverwalk in San Antonio, but we didn't want to copy them, so the city officials came up with the boring name of "the canal"--and they (not sure who they are, but probably some city workers) transform the area along the canal into a winter wonderland (the critterboy's term for Christmas lights) of lights and give all the crazy nutjobs like us free water taxi rides to enjoy it. Here's how the schedule was supposed to go and how it actually went:

6:00pm - arrive and park in the far northwest corner of the Bass Pro Shops parking lot; begin to bundle up the munchkins who have no idea just how cold they're going to get; meet up with BFF and fam; exchange pleasantries, etc. etc. (this part actually went as planned)

6:05pm - depart said parking lot on foot toward Zio's, where our name is "on the list" for a table. Freeze all tushies off on the looooonnnngg walk to the restaurant. (this part also went as planned--we're off to a good start!)

6:15pm - arrive at Zio's. The kiddos are really hungry. Tell them we're there and that our table should be waiting. (But wait, the rude hostess actually said that being "on the list" doesn't mean you have a table, it just means that you get to wait the wait time they gave you on the phone, 30 minutes, instead of the current wait of 45 min. to one hour. Ummm, no. Not gonna happen with the cold screamin' mimi's--mine, not Steph's. Lo and behold they called our name almost after the clueless chick got me all riled up) Woo hoo! We're still on track! (But wait again, we drew the short straw and got stuck with the slowest of slow waiters. Ugghh!) What should have been an hour in the restaurant ended up being almost 2 hours. Oh well--it gave us lots of time to talk, and gave the other patrons of Zio's the opportunity to experience Miss Priss Pants' blood curdling screams, which she uses indiscriminately to express happiness, excitement, hunger, fear, sleepiness, you name it! It's only fair that others suffer hearing loss, too, right?!

My suggested timeline (yes and no, I'm that crazy--I'm really pretty flexible) got all messed up due to the lonnnnngggg meal ordeal, so we headed straight for the water taxi, again on foot in the freezing cold. Guess what--the elevator down to the water level was broken. We carried the sweet sissy priss's stroller down the steep stairs. As luck would have it, the water taxi makes a stop at Bass Pro Shops, so our crew decided to cut it short and get off while the gettin' was good. The kids loved seeing the lights. Sissy priss, who loved being held by her "aunt Steph", stared and said "ooooooooh" at all the lights. The other kids were old enough to know how cold it was and still had a good time! I'll call that a success . . .

We headed into Bass Pro so the kids could see Santa. It was a hoot, as you would imagine it would be. I even managed to completely, panickingly lose the critterboy for a few minutes. I hope that NEVER happens again! It really was a great night--hilarious and nuts just like most of our family outings. I realize every time I see BFF Steph how much I miss her. What a great family that I'm blessed to be friends with!

Then, later that weekend the critterboy and I made daddy-o a birthday cookie. It's hard to believe that he's the big 34 now--a far cry from the 19 that he was when we met! I think the cookie turned out great if I do say so myself! As if that weren't fun enough for one weekend, I also had the bright idea to make a gingerbread house with my little man and daddy-o. I didn't factor in how much waiting the little guy would have to do while we got the icing on. I also didn't factor in the fact that 3 year olds, even the bright ones like my little guy, don't understand why they can't eat all of the candy that is supposed to go on the house. I can't blame him, though, so when he got bored with it, we let him go play while we finished the house. It was fun, and while I'm a total perfectionist and wasn't super thrilled with my skills (or lack-there-of) over all, it turned out pretty nicely.

We've been so busy having fun, getting ready for Christmas, that there's so much more to share. La princesa is doing well--working on cutting several teeth and is Miss Crankypants quite a bit lately. She's walking so fast that she's almost running and has finally mastered the step down into our living room. She's amazing to watch--it's hard to believe that she's even the same girl that we brought home nearly 7 months ago.

The critterboy is mostly potty trained, too! Yay! We sent him to "school" last week in underwear (Batman and Lightning McQueen are the current faves) and lots of pairs of sweatpants. A few accidents the first couple of days, then viola! Virtually no accidents, and he's even waking up dry some mornings. He says "my tank was full!" every morning when he goes. I'm beyond proud of him. I always knew that he would do it when he was ready and I guess the time was finally right. I'm happy to not have to buy diapers for two kiddos, but I have to admit that I'm a little sad that this last little bit of babyhood is nearly gone. I can't help but wonder what's next for him--he's an amazing little critter, to be sure!

There'll be more soon. For now, though, here's some Matthewspeak to tide you over.

Crosty the Snowman--I love love love how he says crosty for frosty and crozen for frozen. I'll miss it when he starts to get them right.

Lazin hot--I always tell him to blow on his food because it's blazin' hot. He leaves off the b and says lazin!

And, he sings Jingle Bells. I need to get this on video--it's really that great! Instead of "oh what fun . . ." he says "oh much fun . . ." and he sings it with so much gusto! I don't know why, but it makes me fall over laughing and beam with pride at the same time.

Hopefully I'll have another update before Christmas. If not, I hope you and yours have a safe and wonderful Christmas!