the last of 2008

just got back home. tuckered out. had a blast. more to come. :)

santa, baby

jon and i enjoyed wendy's frostys after lunch-- haven enjoyed the spoon

hae did wear tights and a bodysuit under her little dress this morning; however, there was a minor accident this morning in nursery in which she lost both. she was plenty warm i assure you all... mom. :)

this post is for branden and laura who weren't in town this morning and missed seeing this great outfit. the best part is that the hat's a little too big, so while our church enjoyed breakfast and fellowship before worship this morning, you could hear a little shriek every few minutes from about knee-height when haven's hat slipped over her eyes and she couldn't figure out what was going on. unlike any other baby i've ever met, haven doesn't mind hats and has never reached up to pull one off-- which became a little torturous, but oh-so-cute this morning.

oh, and haven stayed with me during worship music this morning (*jon led and did an outstanding job if i may say so) and was so sweet. she clapped her hands, sang loudly, and even raised her hands a couple times-- it was precious and unprompted, so great.

wowie-zowie no. 7

hi.lar.ious

y'all HAVE to see this video-- my favorite part is what's for dinner... i LOVE quiche and chai!

dog house video

whats for dessert?

I snapped this picure of Haven today on our way to lunch. She is always ready to eat....even in her sleep!

merry christmas

Make a Smilebox greeting

the end of the hiatus

it's been a while since the last post. my heart is full--so many wonderful things that i got a bit clogged up. you know what i'm talking about... like, when you have a twenty page paper due tomorrow and some how you just can't seem to write the first line? so, here's an un-detailed run down so that i don't miss anything, but don't get weighted down in trying to create 72 posts. cheese.

1.) haven took her first step on monday! we can't get her to repeat really, but we're certainly not pressing our 8 month old to start running around the house. :)

2.) as part of our christmas gifts to each other, jon took me (and four of our closest friends) to a bethany dillon, phil wickham, shane and shane concert last friday. un. be. liev. able. worship + christmas music + incredible musicians = full heart. so good. ahhhh.

3.)sonic. as in the greasy fast food, cherry limeade sonic. this was our dinner the night of the concert and it earns its own entry because there are sonic commercials on tv all.the.time BUT the closest ( and only one in our state) is an hour and fifteen away. praise god for tater tots.

4.) i am loving the season as a first-time mom. really sitting in this moment, taking it all in, pondering things in my heart. thinking back to our last christmas when we announced that we would be adopting, wondering if we'd be parents ever. putting our daughter to bed tonight wondering if Jesus was ever anti-nap the way haven's been this week. studying scripture and gaining insight from a poor virgin mothering the savior of the world. wanting to be just as faith-filled and sacrificing.

5.) jon and i are such little kids (*mom, if you're reading this, stop now. i know you won't, so you're not allowed to get mad at me for this one--you were warned). we just exchanged our christmas gifts for each other because jon couldn't wait to give his(it's my post, so i'm blaming it all on jon... we all know i'm just as giddy and guilty). love it. i made him wrap it up before he gave it to me because that's half the fun. i can now feel my toes thanks to my fabulous new ugg-like slippers and jon's sportin' a fantastic new wallet. 

6.) i'm really loving baking this year. so far, there's gingerbread cookies (thanks to my college roomate's mom's great recipe!) raspberry pinwheels, and even scooby snacks for the pup! 

7.) we are grateful for God's sovereignty and mercy. today, jon's job was spared as he watched many of his friends leave the office for the last time. we are undeserving and pray that those laid-off would be surrounded by our Prince of Peace and Jehovah-Jira.

8.) here's some recent pics of our growing gal. she's so cool. she signs 'all done', waves bye-bye (to herself), claps when you say 'good job!', shakes her head 'no' for both yes and no, and parrots all of our noises. love her, love her.

merry christmas!!!

the queen of o's

hae excited to have the camera out-- what a hamm!

this is haven's friend e who comes to play each week. 

check out these two and their pigtails!

i wish there were sound effects for the next two pics-- e is four months older than hae, and is constantly teaching her new tricks. e is shrieking at the top of her little lungs which sounds pretty loud...

...until haven takes her turn. wow. can you see the little vein in her forehead?!

there's a carcass in my kitchen!

(***disclaimer: all of these pictures are horribly out of order-- does anyone have any blogger suggestions on uploading chronologically?***)

mark goofing off :)

exploring princeton's campus

the clean up crew

half of the football team

the littlest one

jammin'

well... there's no longer anything dead (*that i'm aware of) in the kitchen any more-- it was just too good of a title to pass up just because i meant to post yesterday and didn't. :) we spent thanksgiving in the great state of nj this year with some friends that feel-like-family and new friends too. jon was in charge of cooking our bird, all 19.2 pounds of it. and may i just say what a great job he did-- it was delicious (*i actually ate the ham, but i heard good things...)! yesterday we did some early morning shopping and today we headed to princeton for the BEST pineapple coconut pancakes you'll ever have in your whole entire live-til-your-116 life. with or great friend mark.

 

The Holidays have begun!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

semi-pro photographer, sorta

what a great weekend! it finally feels like winter, all the leaves have been removed from our yard (and i had nothing to do with it-- thanks d,a,n, and e!), elena cut my hair (which really means i got to totally relax in her salon and feel like a beautiful princess), haven was as cute as always AND i became a semi-pro photographer. sorta. 

our friend branden is the PRESIDENT OF A RECORD LABEL (yeah, i missed that happening-- i thought it was just a dj thing on a radio station...) and needed a few new pictures of our other friend chris. check out his music here(*jon's the one playing the drums--he's so hot...). i was super excited to be asked to help and had a GREAT time on my first 'real' photo shoot (all of haven's don't really count since we're related n' all...). here's a few of my favorite shots. y'all can look, but really i just wanted to post them so my mom could see what i did this weekend. :) 

eight months old and it's all about the o's

i'm a few days early in posting h's eight month update, but this morning's cheerio scene was too good to pass up. :) eight months brings a bunch of action! haven is ALL over the place, cruising across the furniture, feeding herself, standing alone for a few seconds at a time, putting EVERYTHING in her mouth (which means i'm cleaning floors about seven times more often than before, but she still seems to find random leaves that blow in from outside before i do), waving (there's about a 4 minute delay from when we try to get her to wave and when she actually does...), shaking her head 'no' (i don't think she knows what this means-- jon nor i really shake our head 'no'. she usually does it in the highchair and then immediately opens her mouth for another spoonful), she loves to listen to jon sing and play guitar, patty cake, and laughing. laughing is the greatest. her little personality is really starting to appear and she is such a delight. oh, and we've caught her dancing a couple times which is so cute too.

beautiful

regardless of what i did behind the curtain yesterday, it is now my freedom, duty, and privilege to pray for our new leader and our great nation. i saw this art on this blog and found it beautiful. 

election day benefits

yea for election day! free starbucks, chick-fil-a, and ben and jerry's!!! that's a full day of free-ness and i didn't even have to wait in a long line to vote....

ahhhh democracy. :)

from georgia with love

haven got her first letter in the mail today-- a card from her oma and grandad! even though she can't read yet, she loved it. :)

from the peanut gallery

happy halloween! love, sarah, harry and our little peanut :)

how'd she get in there?

i've been recovering from a cold and hence moved our little garbage can near the bed to toss tissue more easily. haven, who's only recently become mobile, usually takes her afternoon nap on our bed. does anyone see where this is going? usually, hae will let out a little cry or start 'singing' to let us know that she's waking. thursday was the reason i typed 'usually'. so... i'm sitting in the next room when i hear a little rustle from the bedroom. 'i guess she's just stirring' i thought to myself. but then, i hear it again and it sounds a little like papers crunching. my initial thought is that there's an R.O.U.S in our room. i turned the corner and here's what i found... i have NO idea how she got here-- especially feet first! nor how long she'd been playing in the trash can-- she never let out a peep! (*thankfully, i'd just emptied the tissues from my cold...)