Friends!

I was telling Adrienne just the other day that I am kind of jealous of my children and their already wonderful friends! I mean if you start off as friends from the day you are born, you already have almost as much history as jonathan and i will have!!! What wonderful friendships my children are going to have!

Have you hugged your pumpkin lately?

Here are a few fall photos of the girls... a couple weeks ago.. or closer to a month ago now.. sorry! Anyways.. first photos i have ever had the thought that they might actually look like sisters!! wow...

This weather...

is incredible!!! The girls were outside with nothing but diapers on the other day!!! couldn't believe it!! I mean it is november and we can wear only diapers outside...UNBeliEvAblE!!!!

a few weeks ago...

we went to a harvest party where we drank yummy apple cider and hot cocoa, ate hot dogs and chili, carved some pumpkins...(see next post) and spent time with some of our dear dear friends... The gray family, well both of the gray families that is!!! A shout out to Teresa... thanks for throwing the harvest party... looking forward to next year!!!! So fun! In the pictures is the Taylor, Adrienne, Joel David and Benjamin, Silas family, ... plus taylor and town's mom cindy!!! We had fun!!! did i say that already???

our pumpkin....

was carved by someone spectacular!! Our friend BEnjAmiN!!! Thank you benjamin for carving our pumpkin.. he had a happy life on our front porch for a couple of weeks!!! or maybe only a week!

lovin' the sunshine!!

These last two weeks have been, with lack of a better word, awesome!!!! Give me my sunshine any day over the rainy cold junky days where you have to stay inside all day. Just last saturday, jonathan, the girls and i went to a fun little lake park and hung out in the sun all day and "stole" a peddle boat and just had an overall day of refreshment... It was so much fun!!!! too bad, i didn't have the camera that day!! it was a fun day!

Personalities and latest happenings with the girls!!!

What personalities these two are turning out to have!!! As you see Ruthie looks much much sillier, but don't get elly m. wrong, she too can be pretty silly!! I feel like they are both pretty reserved, but ruthie has the look. A look that kills people.. i have never had someone ask me if elly m. is having a bad day, but almost every other time we go somewhere, someone asks me if ruthie is grouchy or having a bad day.. her dad will tell you... don't judge her by the way she looks. She is probably actually pretty happy on the inside!!! Ruthie has become pretty cuddly recently, which i didn't plan on or see coming!! She likes to give out hugs and kisses, well at least to people she knows and she gets really happy to say hi to people she knows and animals of course. Elly m. has always been cuddly.... and remains to be. She would prefer to never be alone, but in the company of people she loves the most. She can spend much time behind the couch playing with little plastic animals, just talking to them or her baby. She also is liking tv a little too much for my liking.. when she is just sitting her at home, she often asks for certain pbskids.org shows... i can't explain how much stuff we do besides watch t.v.... i mean what kid gets to go the zoo weekly and outside to play everyday and still wants to watch tv.... elly m. i guess!! Elly m. also loves loves loves having books read to her, especially a book about mowgli that her and her daddy are reading together...

Health wise, the last month has been wonderful!!! Everyone has been healthy... Praise the Lord... i didn't know we could go a whole month without being sick! Ruthie got tubes put in her ears about 4 weeks ago and has felt so much better since... i am so happy.... she has also been getting her molars... she has 8 teeth, plus working on her fourth molar and one eye tooth!! woww. and elly m. has all of her teeth now.. and boy do they both use them... they just talk talk talk away... i am not sure who is quicker with speech... but man oh mighty they both have a lot to say all the time.

And sleep, well it is improving.. jonathan and i slept on the couch for a week to separate the girls, because not of ruthie, but elly m. was waking up and screaming so much... but that too has improved and we are sleeping a lot more.. well maybe not a lot, but at least at the right times....

A little treat!

While Sofia was here, she claimed to love Indian food, we couldn't of been more excited to go with her on a little adventure eating at an Indian restaurant. So, the four of us, mickie, sofia, teresa and her two little girls all piled into a table at the Indian restaurant. I'll bet everyone there was so excited to see us with four little ones... but i will say the girls did absolutely great... i'll bet there wasn't any complaints around those parts!!!!

The crazy thing about these pictures is that I often think that elly m. resembles my family and that ruthie resembles jonathan's family!!! I have yet to see myself in ruthie that often, maybe some of her mannerisms and strong personality, and elly m. the same with jonathan... elly m. is often called little mickie.. up in the clouds kind of personality sometimes and ruthie is often called mormor and not just by jonathan and me, but someone who knows her at church whispered in my ear this last weekend... "do you know who ruthie reminds me of???"... i did wonder to myself and vicki said... "MorMor!"... i couldn't agree more!

A special Swede...

Sofia has come and gone, but we really enjoyed our time with her. She even made the nightly prayer list for elly m. one evening.. you know you made family then! We took sofia many places... to see the ducks, to the zoo, beale street, the mall, the big backyard, the botanical gardens to see the humungo fish, ben and jerry's and i can't remember everywhere else. We had a busy few weeks with her and we miss her dearly. We wish that she wasn't allergic to cats so that she could of stayed with us, but it might of been nicer for her to get some alone time, because everyone with small children, knows alone time is few and far between!!!!! Sofia, if you are reading this, we enjoyed your presence tremendously and we miss you even more!! As mickie and i dropped her off at the airport, i just remember the feeling of dropping family off there and just how hard it is to live across the world from family!!! sorry, for the lack of posts in october, what a jerk i am to the grandparents of our children!!!! they need to be seen... they are growing up fast!

lovin' my girls!!!

I love my little ones!! They bring joy to my heart and i am so happy that they will actually see me in some pictures someday when they are older!!! thank you sofia for taking some pics while you were here. i was so happy to steal some of your pictures because i often don't get in pics with my kids.. i might be to blame i guess.. i don't enjoy my picture being taken, but i do love my girls.