Branson, Part 3 (Butterfly Palace)

There was really only one touristy-type thing that we did while we were in Branson (besides shopping and visiting the IMAX - Avatar in 3D at the IMAX was absolutely breathtaking! But I digress...), and that was visiting the Butterfly Palace. This place was really cool! They have an introductory movie telling about the life cycle of a butterfly, and then you walk into this rainforest where there are hundreds of butterflies flying around!We were there for their winter display, which is all white butterflies and red flowers. I didn't think about it that day when I got dressed, but wearing a red shirt made the butterflies just LOVE me!They got really "attached" (ha ha) to my mother-in-law's glasses, too!They also seemed drawn to our cameras - they must be pretty used to the spotlight!You had to watch where you were stepping because sometimes there were butterflies just chilling on the floor!As a part of the special White Flight winter display, they also have one of their employees dress up like a statue and pose whenever visitors are there. So she was really neat looking! She came out while we were there, or else we wouldn't have even known she was alive - it really would've freaked us out when she moved her arms! But she stood so still that the butterflies often perched on her. I think that's a neat job to have!

They also had a huge poinsettia tree, and so we took a family portrait in front of it.And I thought Elias looked so sweet standing in front of the bench like the wings were his! My precious boy.On the way out, they have a three-way mirror so you can check and make sure you don't have any butterflies stowing away. Elias thought the fellow looking back at him was very handsome, too!

Branson, Part 2 (Willow Ridge Lodge)

As I said before, the hotel we stayed at was AMAZING! It also helped that we were there during the dead season, so we were literally the ONLY guests there. So we always had the pool, play room, and fitness room all to ourselves! That was completely awesome. Here are a few shots of me, Justin, and Elias at the pool!Daddy got in the big pool and played peekaboo with Elias behind the edge.Splashing is such fun!!!The hotel also had a really neat kids' play room, and we took Elias there just about every morning just to get out and do something different! This was awesome! Here he is playing with (chewing on) an Etch-a-Sketch and doing a puzzle with Daddy.And chilling on the bean bags with Mommy.
They also had a full fitness room, which Justin and I took advantage of after Elias was in bed. And they had a game room with ping pong, pool, foosball, and several arcade games. Elias loved sitting in the seat of the driving game and playing with the steering wheel.So we would definitely recommend this place, although I bet it is a madhouse during the summer season! With the weather being as cold as it was while we were there, it was nice to be able to entertain ourselves without having to leave!

Branson, Part 1 (Fun with Family!)

As I mentioned in a previous post, Justin, Elias, and I spent 5 days in Branson with Justin's parents a couple weeks ago. We celebrated our Christmas together and also just enjoyed being on vacation together! I'll take a few posts to document our time together.

Being the pathetic photographer that I am, we don't have a SINGLE group photo that contains all of us! This is the best I got at IHOP right before we headed home!We had such a good time together! We rented a 2-bedroom suite at the Marriott Willow Ridge Lodge, and this place was unbelievable. I'll do a whole post about all the fun things we did at the hotel soon. But since we had a shared living space, it was easy and fun to hang out together. We even had a full kitchen so we didn't have to eat out every meal! Elias had fun playing with his Nana and Granddad, and with the toys they brought him from the whole family! Thanks again to all who sent gifts for us!

He loved this Little People Farm.

(Also note the cute new UK shirt he's wearing that Nana and Granddad brought him! Go team!)

Granddad had to take a lot of shots before he captured Elias' face right in the window! Good job, Granddad!Here is Elias modeling the adorable fuzzy footie pajamas that Nana brought him. (Size 3T! My gigantic boy!)It wasn't just toys that Elias was excited about, either. Here is is playing peekaboo with the fleece blanket that Justin's cousin gave us! He's easily amused. :)

It was SUCH a blessing to be able to have this getaway AND spend time with family. We all had a great time and came home feeling refreshed! Thank you, John and JoBeth!

Off the Face of the Earth?

Ok, so if there are any of you lovely blog readers still out there, you may have wondered if I have fallen off the face of the earth! No, we're all still here and doing just fine. I just haven't made it on here to blog in a while!

You remember how I wrote here that motherhood was no longer stressful or exhausting now that Elias is no longer a newborn? (Did any of you mothers of older children snicker at that?) Uh, yeah. I think Elias must have read that and taken it as a personal challenge to step up his game! Terrible two's have ARRIVED! And really, I don't have anything to complain about. Even as a terrible two-er, Elias is awesome and loving and well-behaved and friendly... most of the time. (And have I mentioned lately how handsome and brilliant he is??) But he's also learning about independence and MAJORLY pushing boundaries. We have entered the world of deliberate disobedience and throwing tantrums. They are not very often, but they come without warning and completely throw off this mommy who likes her predictability.

So that's where we are these days. I still think I have the single most precious child on the face of the earth, but he's just a growing child who's learning how to be his own person, and that's hard for all of us. But I DO intend to get back to blogging VERY soon!!!

New Family Heirloom

We just got back from a family vacation to Branson, a tourist attraction about 1.5 hours away from where we live. Justin's parents drove and met us there, and we had the blessing of being able to spend 5 days with them there. It was SO much fun, and I plan to post several blogs about our time there once I get the pictures ready.

While we were there, we had our family Christmas together, and we are so blessed by the generosity of our family! There was too much to be able to post about each gift, but I wanted to write about something very, very special that Justin's mother made for him.

Justin is a BIG fan of UK basketball, and he has been for his whole life. There is a long tradition of wins and championships, and we're very proud to be alumni of that school. Throughout his teen years, he amassed a large collection of t-shirts commemorating UK's national championships, conference championships, and trips to the NCAA tournament. His mother saved these shirts, and this year she sewed them into a quilt!
Some of these are even shirts that Justin got when he actually attended these games, and some of them he wore for a while before his mom snatched it for her collection! She also used two more shirts to make a pillow to go with it!I think it is so beautiful and special, and it looks so fantastic hanging on our office wall! It will be a family treasure that we will pass down to Elias. Thank you, JoBeth!

Family's Visit, Part 4

Just one more post to sum up my family's visit. We had such a great time together! Mom snapped a few photos of Justin, Elias, and me, and they turned out pretty cute! She managed to catch him laughing for the second one.
Then the morning before they left, we went to a little restaurant here in town that's famous for its breakfast, especially its pancakes! So we sampled some of that action, and it sure was good! Here's Azlan with his Mickey Mouse pancake:And Grandma posing with Elias - Patriot took this picture!They were good buddies while she was here! He finally said "Grandma" to her! It sounded like "MawMawwwwwww," but she'll take what she can get.

Thanks to you all for making the trip! I'm so glad we got to see you!!!!

Family's Visit, Part 3 (Lambert's)

After we jumped our hearts out at Jump Mania, we went to refuel at the famous Lambert's Cafe: Home of Throwed Rolls. Yes, that is their name, and you're just going to have to get over the fact that the grammar is bad. Because the food is GOOD. And they throw it at you. How much more fun could that be?! A waiter walks around with a cart of rolls yelling "Fresh rolls!" You just raise your hand if you want one, and he tosses it to you! Depending on who the recipient is, sometimes he'll throw it all the way across the room! He has great aim - you almost never see a roll miss its target. Here is Patriot catching a roll!Then they have other waitresses walking around with huge bowls of various sides and they just serve them to you family style - black-eyed peas, fried okra, macaroni, fried potatoes, etc. Here is Elias trying his first bite of fried okra:It was also his last bite of fried okra... Must take after his Mommy when it comes to liking okra!

In order to take advantage of all the freebies they walk around with, you also need to order a meal off the menu, and the serving sizes are absolutely ridiculous. Like shameful. Here is Justin with the world's biggest salad:And me with the world's biggest ham:In my defense, I split my ham with all three boys! But we had a good time and definitely got enough to eat!

Family's Visit, Part 2 (Jump Mania)

The next day we went to Springfield and went to Jump Mania in the morning. What a neat place! It's just full of all these inflatable slides and bouncy houses. It only cost the kids $5 to get in for unlimited play, and the adults who came with them were free. Even better, Elias was under 2 so he was free too! We will definitely be going back there! The boys absolutely LOVED it, and the adults didn't have such a bad time either!

This is the first time Elias has been in an inflatable like this, but it didn't take him long to get the lay of the land.Bouncing is serious business!There was a special section for toddlers, and Elias had fun playing in that one too. You can see Mommy and Daddy in the background trying to coax him to actually go down the slide on the other side. He eventually did and he liked it!Playing with Cousin Azlan in the toddler area.
His favorite part about the toddler area, though, was the big doggie that had its tongue hanging out! Here he is bonding with a new friend over their mutual love for the doggie.Grandma took her big boys down the big slide! At the top:At the bottom!
Grandma worked REALLY hard to try to get all three boys in one shot... This is the best she got - not too bad!After he had his fill of bouncing, Elias discovered this slide they had, and he just did it OVER AND OVER again. He's never done a slide by himself before, but he learned how today! So Jump Mania turned out to be a big hit!

Family's Visit, Part 1 (Fantastic Caverns)

My family came into town last weekend, and I have a whole slew of pictures to post! In order to spare you all, I'll split it up into several posts. But we had a great time together, and I'm so thankful they braved the weather and the long car trip to come for a visit! My mom came along with my sister, brother-in-law (Matt), and two nephews (Patriot - 5 and Azlan - 3). Dad, unfortunately, couldn't get off work to come, but he was with us in spirit! I guess I'll do the pictures chronologically.

They arrived late on Sunday night, so I was the only one up late enough to welcome them! The next morning, we got up and went to Fantastic Caverns, which turned out to be really neat! It's a cave about 30 minutes from our house where you get on a wagon and ride through, so it's safe to take the little ones, who LOVED it! Here are Matt, Justin, Elias, and me in the wagon ready to enter the cave:It was COLD outside, like in the 20s, but the temperature is 60 degrees year-round in the cave. So it was quite comfortable once we got underground! Azlan, Patriot, and Mom are excited to be in there!We rode right past the coolest formations - it was beautiful and educational too!

Then once we made it home, it was naptime for the boys, followed by snack time. When you're with family, even snacking together is fun!
That night, we put in the P90X workout DVD's that my sister had brought because Justin and I wanted to try them. Boy, did we get good workouts! Mom took a picture of us all working out together, but I'm afraid my family may murder me if I post it on the internet... Soooo, I'll just have to leave that one for your imagination! (By the way, we LOVED the P90X workouts and are considering purchasing them for ourselves! Talk about a challenge!)

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

I'm generally not one to make New Year's resolutions. If something about me needs to change, I should work on changing it now instead of once a year. However, I do think that the New Year gives a feeling of new beginnings, which is a great time for looking back, evaluating, and setting goals. I'm all for evaluating and setting goals! So here are my thoughts about what I'd like to work on in 2010.

1. Prayer Life - I am so blessed to have a husband who takes care of Elias in the mornings to allow me to have a quiet time. This year I was also blessed to be able to join a Bible study for stay-at-home moms, and we went through Breaking Free, which completely rocked my world. But having these small victories in my walk with the Lord has caused me to want more. I KNOW there is more to be had with Him, and I believe that prayer is the way to access His power in my life and in the lives of those I pray for. I want a greater hunger for Him and a closer walk with Him, and I think prayer is the way to get both of those things. Plus, with my realm being so limited because of staying home with Elias, I don't have much opportunity to get out and serve and minister and be Christ's hands to people. So I believe that prayer is how I can influence the whole world - I can be Christ's heart for people. I think it was Oswald Chambers who said, "Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work." May that be so in me. If anybody has any good suggestions for Bible studies on prayer, please feel free to let me know.

2. Giving - Having said that about prayer being the greater work, Justin and I are both feeling like we want to be better stewards of our financial resources, using them better for Christ. Our theme verse for this is James 1:27, which says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." I want to be more aware of the helpless and hurting both here and around the world, and I want to be doing something about it in the name of Christ. Since I am the one who handles the budget in our house, I want to rearrange it so that we are able to give more to those in need both here and around the world. Justin also wrote a bit about it on his blog here.

3. Personal Appearance - I want to take more pride in my appearance and work harder at looking better. I'm not necessarily talking about losing weight here. I mean, I do need to lose weight and I will be working on that in the new year. But this is something I'm already in the process of doing, and nothing about that really needs to change - I just need to keep up the hard work! What I'm talking about here is that my child is 19-months-old, so I really don't have an excuse anymore to go around looking like the mommy of a newborn! I'm not saying I'm going to start wearing makeup or anything - let's not get crazy here. But I'm thinking maybe I could, you know, like, fix my hair or occasionally wear something besides a t-shirt. This goal also includes things like taking care of my skin and you know, actually looking in the mirror and brushing my hair before I go to the grocery store.

4. Using My Time Well - As I stated in #3, I am no longer the mommy of a newborn. I do actually have quite a bit of free time and motherhood is no longer stressful and exhausting. So I don't really have an excuse anymore (like the mommies of newborns do!) to spend all my free time on leisure - things like reading and playing games. I don't really have a specific goal for how to do this, so suggestions would be welcome, but I think my time would be better spent reading the occasional nonfiction book in addition to the fiction I so greedily consume. Or I could knit blankets and hats for the local pregnancy crisis center. Or I could write letters to missionaries. Or I could pray for them. These would all be time well spent. So this one is going to require a bit more thought and planning on my part, but getting it out here might help me keep my eye on the prize.

This list is by no means comprehensive, it's just what's on my mind tonight. My biggest goal for 2010 is just that God will have His way in and through me. I think that will involve these four things, but it may not. Either way, may He receive all glory in and through me! Amen.

Playing in the Snow

We were surprised when our first snow of the season came overnight on Christmas Eve, so we woke up to 2-3 inches of snow on Christmas Day! Elias did see snow a little bit last year, but he wasn't big enough to play in it. So he got his first experience of frolicking in the snow this Christmas! I wasn't sure what to expect, but he LOVED it! He just ran and ran and ran! We didn't stay out long because it was REEEEEEALLY cold, but we got a few pictures and let him have the experience! Here's a video of him in the snow:

You can hear him saying "Sa, sa, sa" over and over again... We figure he was trying to say snow!

And here are a few more pics:

Elias' Presents

Since we didn't travel to see our families for Christmas this year, we mailed our presents to each other. So I'm posting this blog for those family members who sent Elias presents so they can see the joy he had in opening them and playing with them! We tried to spread it out a bit, so we opened a couple on Christmas Eve... We wanted him to enjoy each gift instead of getting swamped with a whole bunch of things and not be able to appreciate each one.

So the first gift he opened was a Sesame Street letters toy from Grandma and Grandpa. He actually grabbed it while it was still wrapped, and it started talking! So he knew it was Elmo before he even opened it! Talk about excited. :) He didn't know quite what to do with a wrapped present, but he sure liked the toy once he got it out. Here he is opening that:


Then he got a giant lego set that Nana had bought for him when she was here in October. He doesn't quite get putting them together yet, but he sure likes tearing them apart!And of course, he loves the bag they came in. :)

On Christmas Day, the first toy he got was a Build-a-Bear frog from his cousins Patriot and Azlan! He really likes the frog, and in this picture he's making it hop... He loves it when I make it jump really high and say "Boing, boing, boing!"
Then he got a Curious George puzzle from Aunt Jessica and Uncle Matt. Elias can't appreciate this yet, but they bought it for him at FAO Schwartz in NYC! Mommy thinks that's pretty cool. :) Elias LOVES this puzzle, though, and does great with it! I was surprised at how well he can put the pieces in their places. Here he is playing with that:


And finally we have a police car with a siren from Grandma and Grandpa. Oh, what joy! He loves cars, police cars, and toys with lights and sounds. So this was a home run, Grandma! :)


This was just round one of Christmas because Justin's parents are bringing that side of the family's gifts when they visit in January!

Thank you so much to all of our dear family that sent us presents. We love you and can't wait to see you soon!

Merry Christmas to All!

I wanted to post the digital copy of our photo card on here to send Christmas blessings to you all since we weren't able to send most of you printed copies. I am so thankful for all of my friends and family scattered across the country, and I pray you all have a very blessed Christmas!
The text says "May the Joy of Christ Fill Your Hearts This Christmas."

I also thought I'd post the full version of each picture that was included on the card so you can see them closer, since they're pretty small on the card. My cutie pie!

Developing So Fast!

Here's a video of my precious boy counting to 20!

He gets a little lost in the mid-teens - 14 and 15 are both "dis-dis." But he actually got 16 this time, which he doesn't usually. But he nails 17-20 every time! My so smart boy!

And please don't think we're drilling him with flash cards or anything. He just picks this stuff up! He hears 1-20 on his Elmo video that he watches about twice a week, and he hears me counting the mandarin oranges that he eats at lunch. And he just picked it up from that! We about fell over when he started counting along with me!

Other things he has just picked up in the past week that completely surprised us:
- My child actually counted to 10 IN FRENCH. He got that from a little toy remote he has.
- He knows the words to "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes!" and can say them along with someone singing it!

Big Boy Haircut

Elias got his first big boy haircut yesterday, by which I mean we used the clippers instead of scissors. Many of you saw on Facebook that it was rough, but we got it done! Although he hated it just as much as getting a scissor cut, at least it was faster! The only problem now is trying to use the scissors to trim around his ears. Still haven't managed to do that yet, so don't look too closely at his ears in these pictures! But look how handsome and grown up he looks with the short hair!Our method, as suggested by a friend, was to strap him in his booster seat in front of the TV with a favorite movie playing. Then Daddy held his arms away from his head while Mommy did the clipping. There was a lot of screaming, but we got the job done. I'm thinking maybe we let him watch next time Daddy gets his hair cut with the clippers so he can see that it doesn't hurt... Any thoughts on the matter? Note: We had no idea which guard to use or how long it was going to end up. This was with a #5 guard. I would like it a bit longer, but at least this way we won't have to cut it again so soon! Ha!