• Addie tends to pick up on lines from movies and then out of the blue (even weeks later) she'll use them in perfect context. It's almost always hilarious! During our long drive from Canada to Colorado the then later down to Texas, we used her portable DVD player to help the hours on the road pass peacefully. Anyway, here are few of her favorites: After I said something goofy, Addie came back with,"That's not funny...and I know funny!" I'm pretty sure this came from Finding Nemo. And another ~ one day I asked Addie to zip her lips because she was talking way too loud. Her retort was, "Mom, do you really want to fight this fight?" My eyes practically bugged out! After a quick interrogation she confessed that that one came from Horton Hears a Who!
• While visiting our German friends in Canada during the month of October Addie called me a German. But when I asked her, "What is a German?" she replied, "You know, like when you have Germans in your mouth and you have to brush your teeth to clean them." Ha ha! I think the Karys got a good laugh out of that one.
• Lately at such random times she tells me, "Mom, I want to be like you." It's so sweet.
• She's still sorting through ideas about what boy and girls can do. For instance, she's convinced that girls don't play guitar. She also argues that girls don't ski...boys don't bake...girls shouldn't have to wear shirts if boys don't, etc. We're working out the kinks in her think.
• Earlier this month Addie pointed at the lowercase "t" in her alphabet book and exclaimed, "That looks like the cross where Jesus died & then came back to life!" It was so great to hear her starting to put together gospel concepts. The pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fit together in her mind! This Fall I started using The Lamb to teach Addison about the Bible's main message; I highly recommend it. The Lamb is one of many tools created by GoodSeed, the ministry we worked while in Canada. It's an awesome book!
• Addison has memorized 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Eph 2:8, both of which she became interested in from songs that she likes to listen to from the Seeds Family Worship albums. Their music is a great way to teach children Scripture. Addie also decided to learned Psalm 118:24 after my Granny recited it to her one day ~ "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." She & Ayden both like to sing the song about that one.
• Addie's latest nicknames for Ayden: Buddy & Sweetheart. Her oft used transition words: Anyway, But & Well. Descriptive adjectives that are at the top of her list: Beautiful, Scrumptious & Fantastic.

I've found that Valentine's Day has become such a fun holiday to celebrate with kiddos. These past few years we've done crafts and baking together; A&A love being creative and are always up for sweets! Instead of talking about Valentine's Day in the traditional sense, we've focused on God and His perfect love for us, the ways He show us His unconditional love, and how we can express Christ-like love to others. This year Jim's parents sent up a holiday package full of goodies for the kids. Thanks guys for helping us gear up for several days of fun!

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This New Year's my family decided to come and visit us for the first time in our new home in Colorado. We had such a great time and enjoyed watching the kids literally cling to Mac and Nonnie and Uncle Joe Joe. This shoot was a blast just getting out of the house and playing in the snow. Thanks to each of them for making it such a memorable time!

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This is another catch up post with a group of random pictures from this fall ~ most of which were taken with our point in shoot. In October we returned to Alberta for Missy & Mike's wedding (Jim's pictures yet to come). We had a great time celebrating their marriage and getting to see all our friends again. Addison & I were both in the wedding and loved every minute of it. This was Addison's second time to be a flower girl; she looked beautiful and way too grown up!

There are a few pics from September of Ayden hanging out with Pappy and some of Tim & Jarod giving Addie the pretty pink camera they made her! I also attempted to get pics of A&A with Evan & Maren the day after the wedding. What a gong show! Next time I'll leave that task up to JD! The photos at the end are of Jarod's 9th birthday party. What a fun time!

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One of the hardest parts of returning to the States was leaving our Canadian family behind. The Karys & Geiblers took us in as their own early on. From birthdays to holidays to vacations to Bible studies, they were a huge part of our lives and a great influence on our young & growing family. There were also the births of A&A, middle of the night emergency room trips, babysitting, and staying up way too late talking. Oh yeah, and eating...we did ALOT of eating! These guys can feed a small army at a moments notice!!

So in my effort to catch up on our blogging, I'm finally posting these pictures we took last summer of the Addison & Ayden with all their Canadian family! We sure do miss this crazy group!

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This year we hosted Christmas at our house and were joined by my parents, brother and sweet Granny. In lieu of the traditional turkey dinner, we decided to have brisket like we have for the past couple of years in Canada with the Thomases. But this time, JD took over; he grilled and smoked a 14 pound brisket for close to half a day. The final product was fantastic!! In fact, the leftovers are long gone, and I'm already craving more!

Now that Addison is 3, she is understanding more and more that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ. It was fun to hear her say, "Happy birthday Jesus!" and to see her take interest in the real reason for the season. That being said, she was still quite captivated with the present opening part of the holiday and so was Ayden. They are at a fun age for sure!

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I am finally posting a blog...the first since October! Maybe in the new year things will settle down for us. No promises.

JD & I are celebrating our 9th anniversary today! Woohoo!! We've been blessed.

Addison has pink eye, but seems to be on the mend. Hopefully Ayden won't fall prey as well.

I'd say we are about 75% settled in the new house. We've just started hanging things on the walls. The goal is to get all the windows measured in the next day or two so we can retire all the temporary shades before the new year. Our master bedroom is undergoing a transformation. We moved our other furniture to the guest room and bought new stuff for our room including a king-sized platform bed. Now we're just waiting for the mattress and bedding to arrive. I'm super excited!

You can see the mountains from all our west-facing bedrooms upstairs. JD & I both have a thing for the mountains. They are BEAUTIFUL!

My family will be joining us here at the house for Christmas and JD's parents and brother are coming up for a New Year's visit. We're really looking forward to being with everyone over the holidays. However, it will be sad to not be with all the Karys and Thomases this year too ~ we miss you guys and all our other comrades up in Canada!

JD's GreenTent work is going very well. One of his co-workers, Josh, his wife Hannah, and their son Elijah have relocated to Colorado as well. It's been fun hanging out and getting to know them better. How nice to already have good friends just minutes away.

The snow has come and gone but will surely return. Not sure if we will have a white Christmas or not.

Hopefully before long we will have lots of pictures to post from the past many months. There is much catching up to do!

This month has flown by! Is tomorrow really Nov 1st? Where did October go? We spent the early part of the month playing catch up and doing move related things. Mid-month the four of us headed back to Canada for Missy's wedding. Missy is the oldest of our "Canadian sisters" and the first of all the Kary kids to get married. She and Mike's ceremony was God-honoring and beautiful! Addie & I were both thrilled to be in their wedding. More details and pictures soon...

Unfortunately we found out a few days after the wedding that JD's grandmother was not expected to live through the week. So he caught a flight from Calgary to Lubbock to spend some time with Grandmother and be with all of his family. Jane went to be with the Lord this past Monday. She will be dearly missed! But as my mother-in-law, Connie, so beautifully put it ~ Jane left the struggles of this life for the glory of life eternal! There is much more to say about this special woman, but I'll leave that for JD to do at a later date.

After the funeral, JD's return to Colorado was delayed by several days due to bad weather and hazardous driving conditions. This morning he was finally able to head this way. It's been a day short of 2 weeks since we parted in Alberta; it will be great for us all to be back together again. We are expecting him later this evening. Hurry home Jimmy D!

Well, I guess that wraps up October. Next Friday we are scheduled to close on our new house in Thornton. We're anxious to get settled and into the swing of things. November should be fun!

On October 5th our little girl turned 3! Can it be? Not only is she acting older (she thinks she's already a teenager), but she's definitely looking more and more grown up. In some ways it seems like just yesterday she was an itty bitty with barely-there-hair and now all of the sudden she has beautiful, long blond hair and even longer legs!

Originally Addison requested a raspberry cake but then later set her mind on strawberry. Much to her delight JD & I got her a bike; she's been asking to get one for her birthday for at least 6 months now. She's a pretty good rider ~ too bad the weather is already turning cold and putting a damper on her outside play time.

GG, PaPa & Uncle Ryan helped make Addie's day extra special. Since most of Addie's friends and other family are in Alberta and Texas, we decided to head downtown instead of doing a traditional birthday party. We spent the day at the Children's Museum of Denver. Both Addie & Ayden had a great time. We took some fun pics with our iPhones, but unfortunately our camera was on the blink that afternoon ~ boo! Afterward we went to Pappadeaux where Addie got a free chocolate dessert with a candle on top.

All in all it was a fun day of celebrating our sweet & animated Addie Avery! Follow the link below to see just how expressive this child really is! There are also some shots of her and the long awaited bike.

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I suppose it's about time to start doing Toddler Talk entries for Ayden too. Each month he's adding new words. He has the cutest little boy voice! Here's his vocabulary list thus far:

• Names he can say are Momma, Daddy, Addie and Papa. When he wakes up in the morning he will often lay in bed softly saying Momma over and over.
• He loves to say "hi" and "bye bye" and has a good wave to go along with them.
• He says "milk" without opening his mouth. It's interesting. He can also say "drink".
• "Uh-oh" is still one of his favorites and so is "ball."
• For night-night he says "ni-ni."
• He calls Bandit "BB" and "Bob."
• He does a good job at saying "thank you" but won't give "please" a try just yet.
• He's always asking "what's that?" Except it sounds more like "uh dat?"
• If I ask how he slept he'll say" Good."
• Much like Addison, he loves to pretend to talk on the phone. It's so cute to see him toddling around while holding a phone up to his ear.