My 30th birthday is on Sunday the 8th and my best friend Alicia has the same birthday! This last Tuesday she surprised me and took me out for a massage, manicure, pedicure, and a margarita! We had a wonderful time. My body was so relaxed and my heart was so full of joy when our evening was over. Her friendship is the best birthday present!

Last weekend some friends gave us white twin beds that bunk for the girls. They are old wood beds that have curvy spindly head boards and foot boards and when they are bunked they are shorter than the normal bunk bed. I love them. So, we moved Mallory out of the crib and into a bed. As we were taking the crib down we all got sad. It has been up in our house for 7 years and all three babies have slept in it. They all wanted to get in and say one last goodbye. James was the most emotional, he cried hard for about five minutes. He has such a tender heart...so sweet. I will post a pic of the girls room when we actually get the beds bunked (we have to do a few things to spruce them up and make them safe).

Over spring break we took our annual Henslee/Morris camping trip. We went to Robbers Cave in southeast OK. This was on the bluff. It had rained the entire week before we left and was still raining as we drove into the park but as we pulled into our campsite the rain stopped and never returned. The rest of the days were sunny and beautiful. Everything went great this trip. We had everything we needed. No one was sick. Mallory's ears did start draining the minute we got there and of course I didn't take her drops but I was so thankful for those tubes because she was happy the whole time in spite of an ear infection. On a side note but related to ears, the past month I have been feeling like Kinley can't hear me. We had her regular check up with the ENT (her tubes fell out in the Fall) and he said she has a lot of fluid on both ears and probably really can't hear me. He wants to give it one more month then put tubes back in if the fluid is still there.

James posing after some hard core rock climbing.

Derrick and Rachel were heating oil for a fish fry and Derrick went to the bathroom. Josh, Rachel and I were doing other things and all the sudden the dutch oven went up in flames. The Oil in the pot had caught on fire. Josh took it off the fire and it burned like this for about five minutes. It was crazy but thankfully the ground was good and wet so the fire didn't spread.

Josh and I went to Rome the last week in February because he earned his second Edward Jones trip in a row!! We had a fabulous time. The weather was perfect. Travel went well and all the details were taken care of for us. The city was beautiful and it was all exactly like the movies make it seem. I just knew I would be disappointed with reality but I wasn't at all. There were even accordion players on the street corners playing traditional Italian music!

One day we took a train south to Sorrento. It was beautiful. We had the famous Lemoncello (it is an alcoholic beverage that was invented in Sorrento because of their large supply of lemons. We went in a shop and asked for a sample and the guy got out a little dixie cup and poured us each about two ounces. We asked where we could get a glass and he said the bar around the corner. We went to the bar and asked for a glass. The guy got out two little dixie cups and poured us each about 2 oz! They were 4 euros each! We should have stuck with the samples! It was a REALLY sour drink that burned all the way down. They like it strong in Italy!

That is the dome on St. Peter's.

This is inside St. Peter's. It was beautiful and extravagant. The architecture and detail amazed me. We climbed to the top of St. Peter's dome and enjoyed the view of the city. It was about 540 steps to the top and it was a very tight and winding staircase.

Josh took illegal pictures in the Sistine Chapel.

A random church made a beautiful picture.

Our hotel, the Westin Excelsior, is apparently an icon in Rome. Many US presidents, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and other famous people have stayed there through the years. It was a nice hotel and the coffee was wonderful!

Josh has already earned the next trip and we are in the midst of deciding where to go. We love working for Jones and feel extremely blessed to have this amazing job.

James has been having a really difficult time talking kindly to people. This is generational sin continuing it's cycle right before my eyes! It makes me so sad but I am serious about it stopping it, so we have been working on it a lot. We recently made a family covenant that we all helped write and set up our own consequences for breaking it. It has been going well so far. We got the idea from Gary Smalley's book The Key to Your Child's Heart. I would definitely recommend every parent to read it.

Below are his two favorite bears. He does all kinds of things with them. Here they have easter eggs as hats and they are tied together. Yesterday we made one of them clothing.

One day the whole family was in the car and James and Kinley had been fighting a lot. James was being really mean and Kinley finally said "Bubba, don't you know that God made you to be kind and that Jesus died on the cross for your sins"!! We were like preach it girl! If only we all really knew how God sees us and let Jesus' death cleanse our sins and give us the power to love.

We were listening to a praise song that said something about "His grace" and Kinley said "His grace?? I'm His grace!!" (her middle name is Grace).

I asked Kinley to write the alphabet for me and this is what she did. I did give her a copy of the alphabet to look at.

James has continued to do really well at school. He had a downturn after Christmas when he just seemed bored out of his mind but he has recovered. He is soaking up every bit of information he can these days. It is fun to watch and it makes me want to hang on to it. I hope his love of learning sticks around.

James is playing T-Ball at the Y. It is his first sport or organized activity. I'm pretty pumped that we made it 6.5 years! He is loving T-Ball and doing really well at it so far. Josh is helping coach and James thinks that is awesome. Entertaining the girls during the game is no fun though. I need some tips from more seasoned mom's!

James built this tower of blocks by himself. You don't think he's OCD and Type A personality do you?

Lunch time serenade. Mallory sings London Bridge.

We enjoyed our first official snow day. I say official because it's the first time a snow day was different than any other day since James is in school now. We definitely could have driven to school, the roads were fine, but we were glad to be home together.

Taking everyone outside in the snow is so much work, but James is the easiest. He gets dressed and then he just wants to live in the snow.

He is getting so BIG and handsome. He is also quiet the know it all. We've been working a lot on being teachable and respectful. He has been much better this past week so today I taught him how to tie his shoes. He picked it up after three times and the experience was even enjoyable!

This firecracker has been in a hard phase the past couple of weeks. She is disobeying, hitting, throwing fits, throwing phones, etc. She's even been throwing in "you're not my dad any more", "I don't want to live in this house anymore", and "you are so mean to me". Today while I was teaching James to tie his shoes she was trying to lasso a door knob with a ribbon.

On the sweet side, she wanted to send Santa a valentine. She has also become quiet the big sister to Mallory. She teaches her everything she knows and loves to see her pick up something new. She insists that Mallory signs or speaks every time she wants something. She is loving the power of being the older one and balancing it with love and kindness more that I thought she would.

This little piggy got tubes in her ears on Friday the 10th. She did really well but was pretty sore and fussy Friday and Saturday. She has had a pretty nasty cold on top of the surgery so that hasn't helped. Her walking is completely up to speed. It is as if she was never behind. She gets going so fast that she can stop. It is adorable and really fun to have her walking.

She loves hot chocolate and chocolate milk and insists on drinking those to things out of a "big" cup.

While panting today she helped herself to the brown and blue - notice the huge puddle on the plate. She is really into it and will paint for 30 minutes to an hour! I have to surrender to the mess or it isn't any fun. Today there was green glitter glue all over the wall. Yay for washable paint!

James LOVES art! He made this today. The red T is our outdoor table with a pile of snow balls on it. He is the blue person beside it wearing a hat with a tassel on top.

Snow Bunnies!

Superbowl Sunday we went to Sam's to look at a tent because we had to throw our old one away after the last campout due to excessive throw up, diarrhea, and tornadic winds. We came home with a 40" LCD or LED (I don't have a clue) TV. It was two hours until game time and we had a new TV in a box with nowhere to put it. It wouldn't fit in our armoire so I ran to Target and grabbed the cheapest acceptable TV stand and we tried to get it all together in time for the big game. We got the furniture moved and the TV plugged in but Josh worked through the game to get it all together. Then we found out that it can't connect to our computer to play HULU and ESPN 3 (80% of the reason we got it) because we have a MAC. Oh brother. Anyway, we are figuring out the details and I am enjoying it more than I ever thought I would. Of course Josh is in heaven and can't wait for football season to start.

These videos were taken while we were watching the Grammy's. James and Kinley have been big time dancers and now Mallory is joining the club. Check out her moves!

These videos are poor quality because they are from Josh's phone and the first one is sideways, sorry!

Malloy is walking!

She has been taking 2 or 3 steps on her own for a while but Thursday during physical therapy she just took off. She walked all around the house and even pulled her pull toy behind her.

We also went to the dentist last week and Mallory figured out how to say "no". James and Kinley were trying to take her raisins and she was saying "NOOOOOO!" "NOOOOO!" Now she will walk around saying no in all different voices. It is so weird that she seems grown up so much in two days.

We have been outside and at the park more in January than we were in all of the fall. Last year on January 24 there were 14 inches of snow on the ground and this year the same day it was 65 and Kinley was running around in the sand barefoot.

James is still enjoying school but since Christmas has been a little bored and very annoyed with the immaturity of kindergarteners. Mrs. Orizal and Josh and I are working on some ideas to keep him engaged and challenged. We'll see how the next few weeks go.

Mallory drilling her gums.

Kinley in her cool shades at the dentist.

Last week we told Kinley it was time to get ready for bed and she freaked out. Josh told her she needed to go to the bathroom right then or she would get a spanking so she walked in the bathroom saw my pone on the counter looked at Josh then picked my phone up and threw it in the toilet! Josh of course ran and fished it out. When Kinley tells the story she says "I got mad and frew mommys phone in the potty but daddy wan and gabbed it out before it fwushed down!" Needless to say she had some major consequences. We ended up having to pay $100 to fix my phone. That girl is a loose cannon. She is really good most of the time but she can whip out the craziness in a moments notice.

We had a very different Christmas than normal but it was still great. The whole month of December we tried to stay as unbusy as possible. I'd say we succeeded. We were home together most nights other than the occasional Christmas themed night out. We did our advent box and updated it with a few new activities and Bible stories. One night we went to the Christmas Train which is a little theme park about 1 hour away from Tulsa. A local church owns and runs it. The park is a town set in the early 1900's and they have restaurants, a playground, pony and carriage rides, a puppet show, Santa, and two real steam engines that take you around the park passing signs and live scenes that tell the story of creation and Christ. We enjoyed it but definitely don't need to do it again anytime soon. Before we left I set out all our coats, hats, and gloves then went out the door without them. It was in the 40's. Go mom of the year!

One morning we blacked out the window in the bathroom, had a candlelight bubble bath, and listened to Josh Groban holiday on Pandora. They stayed in the bath for over an hour. They were total prunes when I drug them out against their will. The spiritual principle we talked about during our bath was how God is our comforter. Which prepared us all for the month of January. We feel that God has called us to fast for the month of January from all carbs (other than fruit and vegetables) and sweets. Everything edible/drinkable that is comforting. We are having the kids do it too and it has been a good time of learning self denial and how to let God comfort us even in the tiniest moment. The kids have done really well not complaining , begging or cheating. Kinley did ask the other day if when we're done with our meat fast can we have a sugar fast. The thing we are working on now is when it ends that we aren't going to go sugar crazy just because we "can". Mallory saw the video below that has cinnamon muffins in it and started reaching for them and crying. It is definitely worth knowing God on a deeper more personal level and seeking His will. One thing we are praying for this month if for God to tell us if He wants us to stay in our house for a while longer and fix it up a little or if He wants us to move and if so where and when.

The kids and I made 120 Christmas cards for elderly shut in's in Broken Arrow. It was a little too big of a task for us in the end but hopefully it put a smile on their faces.

We made a homemade ginger bread house for the 5 year in a row. I don't have a finished picture of it! Like I said weird year. I got sick the weekend we were supposed to make it so it got put off and I had to do it by myself with the kids and it wasn't as good as usual or done as early as usual.

One of my favorite advent activities is washing each others feet like Jesus washed the disciples feet. When we're done washing we say one thing we love about the person whose feet we just washed. James said he loves that Kinley is generous and Mallory is funny. Kinley said that James is nice to her and that Mallory is sometimes kind. Mallory thoroughly enjoyed getting her feet washed.

Mallory has been assigned a physical therapist through Sooner Start who is coming every two weeks to work with her on walking. She has given me some good ideas on how to motivate her to walk and strengthen her muscles. I am trying to do exercises with her a few minutes each day. She is a little resistant unless I make it really fun and exciting which is getting harder and harder because I'm running out of ideas. Today she got a pair of ankle braces "orthodics" that she is supposed to wear all day everyday until her bones straighten out. She and Kinley have an appointment with the ENT to look at getting tubes. Kinley's first set she got at 18 months fell out at the end of November and she had a double ear infection right before Christmas which could mean that she needs a second set. Mallory has been holding fluid on her ears constantly since birth and the Sooner Start team thinks that getting tubes could help with her balance and walking. Josh is really excited about the medical spending we are already looking at and it's only January!

Work is going well for Josh. He and Debbie (his new administrator) are getting along well and learning to work together. The little amount of training he is having to do is such a blessing. His office was profitable again this last trimester which is a really big accomplishment. It is really fun watching him hit his stride and get more comfortable with his job. We are really excited to go to Rome in 43 days!

Two days before Christmas we made french breakfast puffs for Jesus' birthday.

So I said Christmas was weird. Josh got sick in November, then me, then James, then Kinley, then Mallory then me and Josh again, then James again then Kinley again then Mallory. So we literally have been sick since November. Christmas Eve we woke up and were scheduled to leave for OKC that morning and be gone for a week visiting family. Well, Mallory had a fever and bad cough so we took her to urgent care to make sure it wasn't viral but it was so we call our families and told them we were all sick but Mallory was definitley contagious. They all said the didn't want us...can you believe that! (Just teasing you family) So, we stayed home! For the first Christmas in my entire life I got to stay in one place all day and not just for one day but for three in a row. I did miss the food, fun family time, and presents but being with my sweet family during a special time was really nice. Since we had planned to be gone we had NO food and no presents because we had already given the kids their presents from us and Josh and I don't do presents. I went to walmart and picked up some shrimp and pineapple for Christmas Eve and green bean casserole, house shoes and a Wii game for Christmas. We pulled a ham out of the freezer that Josh got from Edward Jones and called it good. I would have liked to have had better food but it was so nice not to cook and clean the whole time. We played a lot of Wii, went to the park on Christmas day, and made cookies for Santa. I have gone shopping with my mom early in the morning the day after Christmas every year for a long time and this year we couldn't be together so I took Kinley with me and it was so fun and cute. She was really into it. She kept saying "beat those ladies to the sale!" We went to OKC two days after Christmas and were able to spend time with my family for 3 days then we went to Duncan for 3 days. Even though we never really had a real holiday meal or family gathering we still had fun and feel totally blessed. We are excited for 2012. We want to know God and reflect His glory and we can't wait to see how He shows Himself!

I am way behind on this thing!

Mallory is 17.5 months and still not walking so she had a developmental assessment with Sooner Start today. They are a state run agency that works with children under 3 that have developmental delays. She qualified for their services because she was found to be "significantly delayed" in the gross motor area. That means they will set us up with a physical therapist that will come to our house and work with her. There is still no speculation on why Mallory is having this delay. She tested wonderfully in every other area.

These are some cute pics of the kids when we went camping in Ocotober.

Kinley has been talking with her hands a lot lately. She hold them palm up with her fingers all close together and raises them up and down for emphasis. It is hilarious. Tonight she said excuse me and Josh has just told her not to get up from the table and she said "I mean excuse me because I burped, not excuse be because I need to leave". She is so smart! Her imagination is going wild too. Everyday we are different animals or movie characters. This month I have had to be Ginch (the grinch) a lot and she is either Max (his dog), Joyce (a cat from Milo and Otis), or a fire breathing iguana. I must address her properly and I must ALWAYS talk in the appropriate voice for my character. (Of course she doesn't always get her way) It makes for a very entertaining home.

We have adjusted to having a school age child. James is still loving school and thriving in his environment. He did however get in trouble last week for being too rowdy and not listening when the teacher was talking. That was sad but we dealt with it and he is showing much more restraint and respect. He can count to 100 and is reading entire books.

Josh and I went backpacking just the two of us in Arkansas the first weekend of November. Everyone thought we were crazy for taking a weekend away from the kids and doing something that involved so much work and dirt but we loved it. We hiked 4.7 miles in then about 4 (we took a shortcut) out. We camped two night right beside the Buffalo River. We ate Raman noodles, oatmeal, and peanut butter tortillas. Josh went fishing in the river, I read two novels, we laid in a field under the sun, we talked a TON (yea for Josh!). It was wonderful and we will probably make it a yearly tradition.

This was the blazing fire Josh made the second night. He is such a MAN he can make a fire Bear Gryles style (well almost).

The field we took a nap in.

Mallory can eat an entire ice cream cone faster than James or Kinley!

We did feet washing for Advent yesterday and I had each kid wash the other ones feet and say something they love about each other. James said he loves that Kinley sometimes shares. Kinley said the she loves that James is her friend. James said that he loves how funny Mallory is and Kinley said the she loves that Mallory is usually kind. It was such a sweet time.

This is her I want your ice cream face.

She loves jewlery!

We celebrated Josh's 30th birthday November 20th. I surprised him with tickets to the Dallas Cowboys/New York Giants game at Cowboys Stadium December 10. He loved it and was totally surprised and I couldn't believe he was surprised and didn't kill me for spending the money. We had a great time at the game other than when the Cowboys lost.

We went to Duncan for Thanksgiving and Josh fished in the pond out back a couple of times and wasn't very successful then the morning we were leaving to come home he went out and caught 4 fish in the first 7 cast and ended up with 10 all together. Below is the biggest. Can you tell he's proud! He can't wait to get back at Christmas.

Some friends of ours gave us tickets and ride passes for the Tulsa fair, so against our better judgement, we went. We got out of the car and were getting the stroller together and Kinley threw up in the parking lot out of nowhere. She wasn't coughing, she didn't end up having a stomach bug, she just threw up her whole breakfast for fun. After debate we went ahead and went in. We told the kids they could have one thing to eat but it could be whatever they wanted. Kinley chose pink cotton candy, and James chose a cinnamon roll.

Mallory LOVES animals so she went crazy in the petting zoo.

I don't know if you remember, but I posted a year or so ago about James getting a Texas Longhorn hat and refusing to wear it in public because he didn't want to get made fun of; well, he wore it for the first time in public to the fair. He didn't even get made fun of. One guy commented on how much he liked it.

Mallory chose a corn dog and ate the whole thing herself!

We were all going to ride the farris wheel but it would have cost us $25 in tickets for the whole family to ride. That is beyond crazy in my opinion. So we settled for the carousel then James and Kinley rode the few they could agree on.

Last week we had our annual fall camping trip. We normally go to Beaver's Bend but because of the burn ban we had to look for a new place. We ended up at Lake Murray just south of Ardmore which ended up being plan E, yes that is right, 5th choice. Josh, the kids and I actually went to Chickasaw National Recreation Area near Sulphur and set up our camp the first night but had to move in the morning because the burn ban wasn't lifted there like we thought it would be. That was a big pain but we all handled it with a pretty good attitude. We went down the road to Lake Murray and the best campsite we could find was right on the lake but you had to walk about 1/4 mile from the car to the campsite so we got a LOT of exercise unloading the massive amount of stuff we take to go camping. Jason, Emily and Kate joined us that afternoon and we enjoyed campfire time alone with them once we got the kids to sleep. We actually smoked cigars together which was fun until the end. I couldn't keep mine lit so once I was puffing on it a lot to try to light it back up and I inhaled too much smoke and got so sick I threw up. Needless to say, cigars aren't really my thing.

Doesn't she look right out of a magazine! I think she looks like a famous person's kid walking through the city after a play date.

Joe, Caren, Jennifer, Kathy, Steve, Kelly, Tristan and Cade got there on Friday afternoon and the party started.

At the marina there were huge carpe and a few geese hanging around that you could feed. The kids had a great time with that. They even got to tough a couple of them.

Kinley, Tristan, James, Mallory, Kate, and Cade

There weren't very many things to do at the park and the kids were so desperate for a hiking trail or a canoe ride that we had to figure something out so Uncle Jason suggested that we go to this place called Elephant Rock and let the kids wade out and climb on it. Of course we don't have swim suits because it's low 40's and high 70's. We decided to let them have their fun. They all stripped to their undies (when camping you can't afford to get entire outfits wet or you won't have enough clothes to make it through) and tried to swim across the lake to a rock sticking out of the water that I guess someone thought looked like an elephant (I wasn't seeing it). The water was cold and the boys were wimping out until Jason manned up and went across with them. The girls did not want to be left behind but they were too short to cross by themselves so Jason made another trip back for them. He was not stripped to his undies in case you're wondering but he did get really wet.

On Saturday Josh started feeling really sick to his stomach and had some issues but we didn't think much about it. Saturday night around 11 some storms came through. The wind was so strong it laid our tent almost flat on top of us which caused the rain fly not to work properly so water came in. Then around 4:30 James sat up and threw up all over the tent. Then around 7 Mallory woke up in a pack n play full of diarrhea. Everyone in the group except Steve and Kinley ended up getting some version of the bug. Needless to say the camping trip started on a rough note then went downhill fast the last day. I will say that after having to get home and clean that mess up it will be a while until I'm ready to go again.

That's the "this is really cold" face.

Beautiful girls!

I gave the girls this box full of cornmeal to play in and Mallory loves to climb so of course she had to sit in the cornmeal. I went inside to get something and when I came out Mallory was standing there giggling while Kinley poured buckets of cornmeal on her back. They are becoming friends more and more. Mallory loves for Kinley to crawl and chase her around. Kinley likes to hold her Bible out for Mallory to pat while she sings the pat the Bible song from BSF.

We made sugar cookies for James' class to have on Halloween. It took 5 hours from start to finish and of course I lost the kids after about 1 but they were really fun and good.

James is still doing really well in school. He came home today with a note that says he's been chosen to receive the Hoover Award which is for kids who show academic achievement and good behavior. We also had his parent teacher conference and Mrs. Orizal said he was the smartest most well behaved kid in her class and that she can tell we are good parents and to keep up the good work. It was incredible to hear those things from someone who doesn't have to say it. I am so glad that she and James like each other and that he is thriving in that environment. I was so scared to send him.

This is Kinley with Grandma Barbara Wagner who is also her preschool teacher this year. The preschool has a costume parade every Halloween. Kinley couldn't decide on one thing she wanted to be for Halloween. She kept changing her mind and I didn't want to spend time or money on a costume that she would refuse to wear the day of because she had changed her mind. So we made her be the chicken which James was when he was 2. She woudl tell us she doesn't want to be the chicken but in the end she was happy with it.

We trick or treated with the Henslee's like we have the past four years. Above is a dog pile with James on bottom then Ezra then Kinley then Levi. They were so cute and funny trick or treating. Mallory dressed up as the bee that Kinley was last year and she rode in the stroller with her treat bag hanging off her arm while chewing on a package of whoppers. Below is her chew face.

We went to the doctor for her 15 month well visit. The doc referred us to Sooner Start for her not walking yet issue. They will come out to our house and assess her development and set us up with physical therapy if she needs it. It is looking like her hips are just really tight in the areas they need to be loose in and too loose in the areas they need to be tight. We'll see what happens. It is also looking like she will need ear tubes in January. I told the doctor about her crazy fit throwing (she is biting me, screaming, hitting, and kicking when she doesn't get what she wants) and how she climbs everything that can possibly be climbed (we walked in the kitchen to find her on top of the table last week) and she said those are 18 month - 2 year old traits. She said she thinks Mallory is really smart but fooling us with the delay and that we should watch out and be diligent to train her and not treat her like she's delayed. I was convicted about not staying on top of her attitude and behavior so it's boot camp for Mallory!

We have great news! Let me back up. I'm not sure I posted that Paula, Josh's office assistant, quit and her last day was last week. It was devastating because she was the 4th one in 7 years and the business is at a really critical state and ready to be taken to the next level but with the hiring and training process it would be really hard to push forward. Well, God answered our prayers so quickly! Josh hired Debbie on Friday and she will start on the 22nd. She has been an Edward Jones assistant for an advisor in Indiana for 8 years and is wanting to move here to be closer to her children. She is in her 50's so she won't be having babies and she is already trained!