All Things Christmas~

Trimming the tree, well, hanging carefully selected new ornaments on the decorative metal tree from crate and barrel. The kids had a lot of fun buying new ornaments, Mikayla chose penguins, Zach chose sports balls.

We had a fun event at the church we are attending. They had sledding hills with actual snow and hot cocoa and a tree lighting and we met Bob Eubanks!

We baked tons of sugar cookies!

Out of order but here is the tree all a glow.

We got to go to a gingerbread decorating party for all new families at Jeff's work. Yes, Landen wore shorts that day. It's a pretty rough life here in T.O.

And a perfect picture with Santa to culminate the Christmas fun!

Mikayla and I also got to go see the Nutcracker Ballet and it was awesome! I think despite not having all our Christmas decorations and being in a new city we still were able to do a lot of great Christmas activities.

Tubbie Time~

Landen is watching Ahbow(Elmo), Zach is playing legos, Mikayla is reading. Kind of what they all love to do right now. We should probably be at the post office or doing something Christmasy, but I am giving my attention to these sweet pictures of my baby. I still can't believe I get to be the one to see this sweet smile all day.

I guess bath toys didn't make it in to the temp housing boxes. He doesn't seem to mind.=)

Love you my sweet boy!

Ventura Beach~

These are the pictures from last month that I never blogged about. It was the perfect reprieve from the craziness of moving and house hunting.

I think we must have looked at 60 houses in 3 weeks. Our first two offers were not accepted, but last week our third one was! I am not going to hold my breath until we get through inspections this week, though.

Our house in Indy sold in 5 days! We found out while we were waiting to board our flight to CA! We feel so blessed that God has worked out everything so well and so quickly.

The move has been hard on the kids. They have really been missing their friends. This day at the beach really helped them just have fun and get excited about being in California.

On top of everything else I have been temporarily homeschooling the kids so they don't have to switch schools once we find a house. We have actually really enjoyed it!

Landen had a blast playing in the sand. Poor little guy was burning up with fever every night we were in the hotel in Indy and was just fit full on the plane ride to CA. But we survived.

Landen turned 17 months right before we moved so I guess these are his 17 month pictures.

On the plane Zach said, "We aren't Indians anymore. Indians? Indianans?" And then at our layover in Chicago the kids said we were homeless. They by the time we landed in California they said we are officially Californians and that we were "home!"

God has been so good to us through this whole process and we are very excited to get into our house and get settled. Thank you everyone for your prayers!

" Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory..."

Ephesians 3:20-21a

A Year & A Half~

So I know there are a lot of happenings that I haven't blogged about yet. Looking back at pictures from right before and after the move is just too hard right now. So I am just going to jump in here with Landen's 18 month birthday. I can't believe it. My baby is closer to 2 than to newly born. I could just cry that the baby days have gone so fast, but I am thrilled to be where we are. Having a toddler in the house/apartment/condo is one of the sweetest things in life. Landen is trying to say lots of words now and runs through the house trying to keep up with the big kids. I don't have a very sunny window for right now, so this just had to do. He is the most smoochable 1.5 year old I know!

And just for my memory he was 24lbs. 5oz. at his Dr.'s appt. a couple of weeks ago.