our new toy...

we got a new camera with our christmas money and i'm really excited about it. i know absolutely nothing about photography but plan to learn a few of the basics from my friend, sarah (sarahmica.com). she's for real, i'd be happy if i learn a tenth of what she knows. anyways, here are some pictures of the kids... i have no idea what buttons i was pressing, but i like what i got.









luke was sad in this picture and that is mary's attempt to comfort him. cute.



I like this one because of the way that luke is looking at mary... he is starting to smile at her and "interact" with her, though she doesn't realize it yet. it's really cute! i can't wait for him to love his big sister like she loves him! and, yes that is his tupperware bed. :)


i hope to get some cute pictures of mary, but it's much harder. she's all over the place and just wants to hold the camera when she sees it. luke is so easy and compliant. he will be my subject for now... at least until we can do this picture-taking thing outside. florida, here we come!

he's a happy one

luke has started to really smile lately and it's so fun! it's really rewarding after quite a few weeks of late nights and long efforts of soothing him. he's worth it... even if he never smiled at me... but i'm thankful he does! :)

...and here is the look alike picture of mary. they are starting to look a little different, but there are still many times when we're amazed at how similar their expressions are.

the little things...

a few random things...

First of all, Tuesday we tried to potty train Mary. I told myself I would give it three days and see if she caught on, but wasn't worried if she didn't. We'll just try again in a few months. Well, after a mere 7 waking hours... I quit. Why you ask? Well, because she peed 23 times in 7 hours and only THREE were in the potty!!! That's right. She would be sitting on the potty for five minutes, reading and what not, get up and 30 seconds later pee all over the floor 6 inches from the potty she was just sitting on. Anyways, we'll try again later. Glad that's over! :)

Secondly, I have a little story of God's kindness. It has been kind of a rough few days for me, and Danny, I think. Just really busy, haven't had ANY time to connect or enjoy one another, every night is filled with some task that just has to be done, and I have just been overwhelmed and feeling like a bit of a failure. I'm okay, I'm just being honest. God really encouraged me yesterday through scripture and other people... and this random situation. I was pulling into Trader Joes and there were about 6 cars in line to get into the parking lot. I had a quick thought to God "please give me a parking spot in here." Not a big deal and I never really pray for things like that. Right away the parking attendent waved me in the exit (bypassing the six cars waiting for spots in the parking lot) and gave me the closest spot to the entrance. The parking spot wasn't really a big deal... but it was just the simple kindness of God. He was reminding me that He is present, knows me and cares deeply about the little things in my life. He has promised me over and over again that He will give me all that I need during this time... and He continues to be faithful.

Lastly, here's a little video of Mary "reading." She is so fun and funny these days! Here's a bit of her personality. My favorite part is when she falls at the end... I'ver rewinded it many times to see her funny, annoyed face! Cracks me up!

All is well with the kids... Mary is always so kind to Luke and he started smiling at her last night. It was SO sweet! He had a big, goofy grin staring right at her. I love them!

snow!!!

welcome to our house. this is taken from our front door and in front of me are the 4 stairs and walkway out of our house. what? you can't tell that's a walk way? :)

here is mary touching snow for the first time... before the blizzard. she thought it was pretty cool and wanted to stick her finger in it every time we walked to the car.

ready to go play in the blizzard! yeah, those are plastic bags taped around her legs. we decided not to purchase the snow suit and boots since we're moving to indonesia in a few months.... which was a good decision since she wanted to come inside after all of 7 minutes in the snow.

she wasn't that excited about not being able to move her legs because the snow was up to her little thunder thighs.

...but she loved the snow balls i made for her!

poor danny had to shovel for a LONG time! not sure if you can tell, but it's up to his waist here!

all the while, luke was staying all warm and swaddled in doors.

so much fun!

Mary is so fun these days! This post will be all about her. After wondering what in the world I do with this newborn, I realized that I don't do a great job at recording what my kids are doing at different ages. I wish I had written down how much Mary slept, when/how much I fed her, etc. Anyways, I'm going to make a record of what this fun big kid is doing these days.

We're basically at home most of the time.... since it's winter and I have a newborn. But, now that we're back in town and I've mastered being a parent of two :) I have big plans to get Mary out of the house. Anyways...

This is Mary's puckering up face. She loves to give kisses, especially to her baby brother! She kisses him all day long! She is very into Luke these days and has been nothing but sweet to him. When he has milk on his face after eating she says "uhh oh" and finds the burp cloth to wipe it off. She is also into giving him his pacifier the moment he starts crying. She loves him.

Mary loves to be outside ALL THE TIME! Unfortunately we live in Boston and it's too cold to be outside for long right now. But, she knows that... every time we go outside now she says "burr," which she learned from Mimi when it dropped to 50 in FL (hence the hat in the pictures from Florida below).

She is also still very into animals... I think she knows as many animal sounds as she does words.... though the words are catching up quickly. You can see the cows in the background of this picture, we took a little visit to my uncles "farm" while in Sarasota.

"Can you be done taking pictures of me, mama!"

That's my girl. Hope she learns to play and love basketball even though she'll be growing up in Indonesia! And I like that she has a cute little dress on while playing basketball.

A few more Mary stats:

**She is very fickle about what she eats, but she usually loves rice chex, avocado, pomegranate seeds, frozen blueberries, she will eat anything if i put it in plain yogurt and anything with peanut butter.

**She loves to read books. She will often sit by herself and "read" for 20 minutes. Yesterday she brought her stack of books next to the potty... she learned that from daddy.

**She loves to run (usually moving her arms really fast but not increasing her speed), jump (which means she lifts one leg up), and throw balls.

**She loves to look at pictures and videos on the computer. Pictures of RyRy, other cousins and her little friends. Videos of herself, animals on youtube (she does that with daddy) or videos of kids singing songs.

**She usually goes to bed around 8:30 or 9 and wakes up around 9am.... and she takes a nap from 1:30-4.

**She's pretty goofy... sometimes we will just watch her and think she is so weird. She now knows when she is being funny and will do something to make you laugh. It's cute!

**She loves Granny and Mike (a good friend of ours), possibly her two favorite people on earth.

wakey wakey luke

Here is Luke's bed... yes, it is an "under the bed" tupperware. We have a really small place and are moving in a few months so we didn't want to get another real bed. He will have a real bed when we visit Mimi and Papa... and when we have our new home in Indonesia. He doesn't know a tupperware isn't normal. And, his bed is moved to the dining room when we are sleeping.... he grunts too loud to be in our room.

We have always told Mary that to wake us up (when we're pretending to sleep... it's a fun game for her) she has to give us a kiss. So, here she is waking up her baby brother.

Oh, and Luke is the top picture and Mary is the bottom in the last post... the hair line definitely gives it away!

who's who?

Leave a comment with your guess. There are a few things that really give it away... I think.

our little Luke

We are back in Boston!!! Florida was wonderful but we are happy to be back home in Boston. I think Mary really misses her Mimi and Papa (and I think this because she mentions them about 19 times a day). Danny went back to work today, leaving me home alone for the first time with two kids. It actually was a really great day! Luke napped wonderfully, Mary played independently parts of the day and was sweet to her baby brother... I am a happy mama. God has reminded me again and again that He will give me all that I need during this life changing time of transition (preparing for our move to Indonesia with two children). Today was a very peaceful day at home with my kids and I'm thankful for the presence of God that brought that peace. God gave me all that I need today.

So, about LUKE... my little mister. He is doing very well these days! He is doing the usual newborn things... eating, sleeping and getting a whole lot of kisses from his big sister. Luke is a sweet little guy; he's much more cuddly than Mary was but he also can scream much better than Mary ever did. :) He has had a fussy time almost every evening the last three weeks... but the past two nights he has actually gone to sleep in his "bed" (which will be pictured soon) from 9pm-11pm. Danny and I have had a few quiet hours together and it's been great!

He looks SO much like Mary!!! I'm pretty sure I won't be able to tell their baby pictures apart in a few years! We'll do a comparison soon.