Christmas in MI

We had a fun week in MI, but it was SO nice to get home after our 9 hour car ride back to Kentucky.

Here's a bit of our Christmas:

Ana's 1st Christmas

Isabel dumping out her stocking

A great toy that helped with our long car ride homePapa and AnaFamily Tradition. Every year my mom gets a puzzle for our family to do on Christmas. Isabel doing her new puzzle while grandma works on the adult puzzle.

Caleb James Harold Carlson - my new nephew

Celebrating all week

I feel like it's been Christmas everyday this week. We've been having a great time with family. Wednesday we had our "Christmas" with Lee's family (grandma and brother, Will). Will in November visited Lee and his sister, Mart, who is currently in Amsterdam...many of the gifts he gave us were from Amsterdam which was cool. Isabel got this really cute European scarf (yea she's fashionable I tell you). The funny part was, the scarf was wrapped in this foam and at first she thought the foam was her gift, and she was completely happy with that. Isabel ADORES her Uncle Will and really loves when we get to see him. Ana enjoyed meeting him for the first time too.

The foam!:)

Ana enjoyed opening (eating) her first Christmas presents.We had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve this year, which was a first for us. I think it will be good though. Tomorrow we can just relax and hangout. And Santa made an appearance at our house. Family don't look too close, he might look familiar.:) Isabel doesn't really know who Santa is, so she was slightly confused, but enjoyed getting a present from him. My dad made some bunk beds for all the grandkids (I intend to steal them from my parents at some point):). Last time we visited he only had one bed done...this time they were both done. Isabel LOVES the top bunk. We have been letting her sleep on the top for naps, but not night time. Although I think she'd be ok all night, cause she's not one to climb out of bed, I'd rather be safe than sorry. We don't need anymore falls in our family.

My dad's church here has a really nice Christmas Eve program every year. It's always nice when we can visit and go. The church is beautifully decorated! Family Christmas picture! We got word after the Christmas Eve program that Will was in a car accident driving back home to Kalamazoo (not his fault, another car hit him). Thankfully he is okay, but unfortunately his car is not. Isabel was SO concerned about him she wanted to pray for him over and over and kept telling me all about how his car got smashed. If you think of him you can pray for him. It's not easy getting around, dealing with insurance, and getting a replacement car the night before Christmas.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Thank Lord for sending your Son, Jesus Christ and the Hope that we can find in Him!

Born on Christmas Eve

My newest nephew was born today, Christmas Eve.

Caleb James Harold Carlson
6lb. 9oz., 19 in. long at 9:33 am (CA time)

What a great Christmas present for my brother, Dave, Cyrill, and brother Joshua.

Love you guys! Congratulations!!!

(hope to have pictures soon)

Christmas Songs

Did anyone else have their children come home from church singing Christmas songs? Isabel was singing in the car on the way home "Joy to the world" and..."No way...in a crib." Her rendition of "Away in a Manger.":) She actually does pretty good for this being her first year to really be able to learn and sing Christmas songs. She does a great "Jingle Bells" too that just goes over and over and over again.

Christmas Happenings - trying to play catch up

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. We've been celebrating Christmas with some of our closest friends, our "family" away from family and have been having a great time.

I'm not going to write much, but just some captions with pictures.

COOKIES

Our friend, Cydney, graciously invited us over to make a mess of her kitchen and get sprinkles pretty much EVERYWHERE while we enjoyed making gingerbread cookies and decorating them. I don't know that we'd win any awards for our decorations, but they sure tasted yummy and we had fun in the process. Friends
We celebrated Christmas with our good friends, the Pie's. We had a great night of just hanging out, eating yummy Chili, cornbread, etc. The kids were fighting over presents. Fun times! I love the picture of Ana getting a cup of tea from Cydney. Oh, and Isabel got her first Barbie ever.The Farm

One of my closest friends from work, Jim (aka Grandpa Stiles to the girls), invited us over for dinner. Their family who lives next door to them has cows, horses, and chickens which we got to see. We had SO much fun and ate some incredible food Grammie Stiles made!! I still feel full! Thank you for having us over!!! You are SO dear to us!

The Boss
We also celebrated with my boss, Carl and his wife (Masami). Carl is more than my boss he is one of our closest friends. We appreciate them so much. Lee's cousin got the girls these adorable matching jumpers they wore to their house. With Masami being Japanese we always have an awesome cultural experience with them. We grilled Korean style on a grill...it was SO yummy!


Buddies
Four little kids in a photo shoot...tricky, but not impossible. Up Yonder
We're enjoying MI and seeing family. Isabel gets to wear Papa's socks, ride on daddy, and go play in the snow. She's pretty much in heaven on earth.

Fire
Ana meeting her Great-Grandma for the first time. Great-Grandma had some excitement yesterday as there was a fire in her apartment building. Thankfully, she was okay and she didn't have any damage.
So I told you I had to catch up...that's all for now!:)

Live Nativity

Some of you have asked me about the Creation Museum's free Live Nativity, so here are the details:

• What: Bethlehem’s Blessings: FREE Live Nativity & Garden of Lights
• When: December 11, 12, 18, 19, 26, 28, 29; January 1, 2; 6–8 PM
• Where: Creation Museum, 2800 Bullittsburg Church Road, Petersburg, KY 41080
  
• More Info: Call (888) 582-4253

Our little trooper

Thanks to everyone who prayed for Isabel and her surgery this morning. It went very well. Once they got her in it was so fast, just about 5-10 minutes. The worst part was when she came to. I guess she woke up pretty fast so they called us in sooner than they usually call parents in and she was crying so hard and just kind of out of it for awhile. I guess that is normal thing though. I mean they warned us ahead of time too. For the next 30 min. I never wanted to have her go through such a thing again. It took her awhile to calm down. The office was really nice though and kid friendly. They had cartoons on in every room we were in (waiting room, pre-op, post-op, etc.). They gave her a princess book and stickers. They are definitely prepared for kids. We left the office after about 30 min. after she came to and by the time we got to Cydney's house, where we dropped off Ana, she was doing a lot better. She is just supposed to take it easy for about 24 hours, but then should be back to her normal self. She is mostly already, but is just saying she is tired every now and then.

Thanks again for everyone who prayed! We really appreciate it and felt the peace only God can give!

Here's a picture of our little trooper before her surgery

Taking it easy at home. Popcorn for lunch and watching a movie in mom and dads bed. Not to mention snuggling her little sister which is always something she likes to do. Ana's more interested in trying to eat Isabel's fingers.

Here are a few other pictures I've been meaning to post but haven't had time to:

Making paper snow flakes. I saw this on several other friends blogs so figured it was the cool thing to do with your kids and figured I better catch up with the times:) It was fun.

Isabel wearing one of Ana's hats.Ana's first snow. There wasn't much, but enough for a picture

Isabel's surgery

Isabel's surgery (getting tubes in her ears) will be tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9:15 a.m. If you happen to remember, please pray for us. Hopefully, all will go well.

Tubes

We visited the ENT (ears, nose, throat) specialist with Isabel today. Since she was 6 months old she's struggled with ear infections. She does fine in the summer, but as soon as the cold season hits she has one right after the other. This last month she's had two and we just found out that the antibiotic she has been on for this last one (for 9 days now) hasn't been working and her ears are still infected. They did a hearing test on her, and I'm not sure how accurate it was cause Isabel was supposed to follow certain directions and she just doesn't do that with strangers very well, but they did say she seems to have moderate hearing loss, mainly from having fluid in her ears.

SO...in short, the doctor did recommend us getting tubes for Isabel's ears. I feel like it's not incredibly major decision, it seems obvious that she needs them. They do have to put her out for the procedure though. I've never been "put out" so the idea of my child having to get put out is a little nerve wracking, but also know it is in her best interest. It's only a 5-10 min. procedure and they showed us the tube they would put in her ear. It's so tiny, very different than what I imagined I guess.

They are checking with our insurance and we should hear tomorrow about scheduling to have it done, possibly as soon as next week. We'd appreciate your prayers!

Hat and the unshown video

This is what happened when I told Isabel to go to the bathroom to get her pants (she forgot to put them back on after going potty).

What she said to me:

"This is a hat mommy. Isn't it cool?"
That would be her bathing suit, which was NOT in the bathroom, but in the bottom drawer of her dresser in her room. She's not that good at following instructions yet.:) And no, she still didn't have her pants on, but I took the picture above the waist.

The "unshown video" is one I was going to post of Ana. Lee saw her roll over this morning and I was trying to capture her doing it again (which she didn't). However, I realized while I was taking the video Lee was talking about our living room smelling like poop and Isabel was crying about something. Decided not to post it. Sorry Ana.

Sundays

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It always seems like such a long day. I'll be thinking it's almost bedtime and it's only 3 o'clock. Not only to we get to have awesome worship, teaching, and fellowship at church, but we get to really enjoy each other as a family. It seems like the one day we don't have to be running from here to there, and usually it includes a nap (and some football).

I really loved testimony Sunday this past week. It always makes me think of how I think about myself too much, and it's awesome to see what God is doing in so many ways, in so many people.

Here are some highlights of our past Sunday:

Ana has big shoes to fill

Puzzle with daddy, a Japanese puzzle (thanks Carl and Masami)

Ana on an important phone callChillin in the chairWii by the Christmas treeFrench vanilla hot chocolate by the Christmas tree

The Christmas tree

Thanksgiving for everyone

We had such a blessed Thanksgiving, celebrating with family and friends. We got to eat good food, fellowship, talk to family in CA on Skype (Thanks Connors)! All four of us were pretty sick prior to Thanksgiving, but everyone has started to feel better...with the help of some medicine for everyone but me (the joys of nursing). Isabel has had her second ear infection in the last month so we will see a specialist next week about possibly getting tubes in her ears. Anyway...

I can't begin to thank God for everything He has blessed us with...abundantly!!! We have seen His grace poured out on us SO much this year!

We didn't want to leave Ana out on Thanksgiving, so we started her on some cereal! She's still not quite sure about it, but will eat what I give her. Here are some pictures of her first time having it.

I'm ready...I think

Feed me mom or I will have to eat this highchairSo this isn't the most flattering picture, but it's oh so cute:)Turkey Day...Ana's first ThanksgivingIt wouldn't be a celebration at the Nordine's without donuts (I hear the laughter of everyone reading this right now)Table's all ready. It's nice to use the beautiful China.Turkey's done

Buddies. Okay, I have to tell the quick story behind this picture cause it was just too funny. We wanted to get a picture of the kids but Jacob kept saying no, no. All of a sudden he struck a pose, Cydney snapped, and here is the picture:) Maybe you had to be there, but it was funny.

We got our x-mas tree today and had SO much fun decorating it with Isabel this year! It was hilarious cause she was putting like 5 ornaments all on the same branch...and she would say, I have to match them. I snuck some off and moved them around so our tree would be a little more even. I never get over just sitting and staring at the Christmas tree...it's therapeutic I think.

Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma who came to visit and for all their help!