How lovely are your branches

I LOVE this time of year!
I love the decorations and lights,
I love the weather,
I love seeing strangers find acts of kindness to do for each other,
I love cheesy Christmas movies,
I love all the cookies,
I love Christmas music, and
I love the smell of our real tree!


Technically, it was Jenna's turn to pick out our tree this year, but she was more interested in running around chopping all the trees with her "special stick". So Paul and I took over and found the most perfectly shaped tree! Jenna has named it Thirsty, because it drinks a ton of water!

I know it doesn't have a lot of ornaments now, but we each get to pick out our own every year. So, give us a couple more years, a couple more kids, and we'll have that tree full in no time! And it'll be so fun remembering the old ornaments we picked as we decorate each year! For instance, Jenna picked out a Little Einsteins ornament, and Paul (I'm sure) will remind us every year for the rest of our lives how it sounds like she is saying "little wise guys". He thinks it's soo funny.
Looking at the tree now, though, I'm thinking I probably should add some ribbon or something...

Tree #2: I recently got on to Pinterest, and I love it! I'm finding so many cute decorating tips and activity ideas, like this gem that we put up for our FHE activity:

A felt Christmas Tree Jenna can decorate over and over again! So cute.

Tree #3: Tonight we started our nightly devotionals about Christ! It is so important to keep our thoughts centered on Him, especially during this season when we can easily be distracted by so many other things!
Jenna certainly didn't forget the routine from last year! She was ringing the bells with gusto and waited patiently to put the ornament on the little tree.

The red ornaments represent the blood of Christ and remind us how much He loves us!

I love my mother because...

Tonight Jenna is sick. :(
She fell asleep at her normal time, but just as I was about to get into bed myself I heard a pitiful little sick-cry coming from her bedroom:

"I need you" she says.
"I'm right here" I whisper. I sing Silent Night as I rub her sweet little head and she falls back asleep. But every time I take away my hand, her eyes pop open, to make sure I'm still there.
The poor girl had a really hard time falling asleep, so this lasted for a while.

It was during this time that I thought of elementary school, and writing the "I love my mother because..." essays for Mother's Day. Do you remember doing those? What I remember about them most is that almost every kid would write that they love their moms because they take care of them when they are sick (or something to that effect). This bothered me back then, because I thought "that's a silly thing to write; they HAVE to do it"

Well, tonight I learned that isn't true.

I didn't have to sit with her until she could finally sleep. I wanted to. I could have gone to bed, let her cry herself back to sleep, and she would have survived the night. But I WANT to stay by her side, to give what comfort I can, and try to ease her pain. Even though I have to be awake in 4 hours to get ready to teach 19 other nursery children, I WANT to be there for my little girl.

Now I kinda feel bad for not acknowledging in my essays the acts of kindness my mom showed me when I was young.
So, Mommy, I love you because you always took care of me and made me feel better when I was sick! If I am a good mom today, it is because you first showed me the way.

That's MY man!

 Jenna has informed me that when she gets bigger, she's going to marry daddy.
But don't worry, I can still come... to take pictures! Gee, thanks!

She says she definitely does not want to marry a prince, because they are scary. Cinderella was running away from him, wasn't she!?
I love this kid! She's so funny.

I love Fall

A couple of our favorite Fall activities:

Trees + kids = hours of pure joy!

Halloween

 We decided this year to go simple for Halloween. We had just moved, after all! Here's Jenna's very last minute, but darling, Minnie costume:

All I got was this pic from my phone. That's an orange pumpkin basket, not her skirt! :)

 The dress is actually one of my shirts that I safety-pinned.  :)

She had a good time trick or treating with some of her friends and their older siblings. All she had to do was mozy on up to the door after they had knocked and screamed "trick or treat!", and collect her candy. She didn't even have to say anything; what a little cheat! (and we had even practiced a bunch...)
On our way home I asked Jenna "Are you gonna go home and eat it all up?" She looked at me like I was crazy and said "No, we're going to share it!"
And the best part is, she did. Whether I wanted it or not.  
One bite for me, one for you... One lick for me, one for you...

we've moved!

Yep, we've moved AGAIN! This is our 5th home since we got married! Paul thinks its funny that we've had all of Jenna's birthdays (including her birth day) in different places, and says we need to continue the trend. Hmm... we'll see!

I do like change, though! Even when we were in an apartment for less than a year, I changed the furniture around in at least one of the rooms every once in a while.

Why we LOVE our new apartment:

It's nicer and roomier!

It's still quiet, shady, and right next to a park (we do miss being next to the library, though!)

We eat out here at least twice a week! Loving this fall weather!

Two Bathrooms!

We are three entire minutes closer to Paul's work  ;)

We're finally getting away from the loudest upstairs neighbors ever!

We'll be in the same complex as Jenna's best bud!

Two words: Laundry Service! That's right: they pick up, wash, fold, and deliver our laundry - for free! (of course you can use the facilities yourself, too. For more personal items...)

I'm amazed at how many weird-shaped things we have (won't fit in a box)

 We had to move on a Tuesday, while I had Kyle, so I was fully prepared for a day of whiny, bored children. I seriously underestimated how much help they would be, and how much fun they would have doing it! Oh boy, they were so excited to carry little boxes to the truck. After every trip they said "What can I carry now?!" While we were unpacking the truck, they finally got bored of carrying things and entertained each other by pretending to be pets. And Kyle ran around saying "this place is so awesome!" at least 100 times!

They're so cute, I could just die!

So, the new living room is quite a bit bigger than our last one and our puny love seat looked pretty pitiful by itself. I've got this thing where I don't want to buy nice furniture until I know for sure that I won't have to move it around with us to who-knows-how-many different places, so we were deciding if we should look on Craigslist for a cheap couch. Well, The very next day I got an email from a friend in my ward: they're remodeling, so would anyone like a 2 yr old leather couch... for FREE?! Yes, please! Another family lent us their truck, and voila! No more lonely love seat! I sure love my ward! And not just for the free stuff!

nice, eh?

Folk Festival

We took a last minute trip to play with Jenna's Grandma and Grandpa King a couple weeks ago. They live in South Carolina, so we met up at a Folk Festival going on along the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway in Virginia. It was literally halfway between us: We both left at the same time and they pulled onto our road right behind us! Crazy! It was a beautiful drive and a fun time!

Even though we didn't bring a stroller, Jenna had to bring her animals. Guess who ended up carrying them most of the day?!

These women asked us to take their picture. They said "This is the original blender!" I think they were a on a serious sugar-high!

Jenna really got in to the children's games:

She wasn't sure what to do in the hay at first, but once she found some candy she was all about it! She came out with pockets full and ready to share!

There was no stopping her! She ran up and took her place on the tug-of-war rope!

I'm just glad she didn't get trampled on!

Then we saw the potato sack race!

I wanted to just race Paul, but when we started a bunch of other people came over, so they put us in teams of two for a real race! Paul totally smoked everyone giving me a huge lead, so he was really disappointed when I let the boys next to us win. Come on, they're kids!

I mean look at this guy; He was trying so hard that he fell over at least twice! I couldn't let him lose to a girl in front of his family! It was still fun.

Thanks for playing with us! It was a good day!

Momentous!

Jenna just ate spinach!!!
And said "yum yum yum!"

Wahoo!

So, putting it front of her over and over actually works!
...or she just thinks it's funny to be eating "leaves"... Either way, I'm overjoyed for my little picky eater!