Birthday

Well, Jaylyn was very excited about her birthday. A couple of funny things she said while anticipating the special day are: "First Baby Jesus's Birthday, then MY BIRTHDAY!" and "I have to eat my supper fast so I won't be late for my birthday tomorrow!"

We asked her what she wanted to do on her birthday and she picked Chuck E. Cheese. We tried to suggest other options, but that was the one. Unfortunately, Chuck E. did make a big appearance. In fact he hung out right by our table for a loooong time. He sat across from us at a table with some lady being silly. There weren't even kids there. The lady rolled her eyes after he got up. Then he hung out in the game area for quite a while. And of course, that was when we were finished eating and ready for games. But, Jaylyn stayed glued to the seat attached to me until he was gone. Funny, funny, funny. She had a great time playing and eating and then she went to Toys'R Us to pick out a game to go with her new V-Smile Pocket we gave her. She saw many other things she begged us to buy her (hee hee) but we stuck with the game. As if she didn't get a gazillion of presents for Christmas or something! We ended with a sparkly ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. What a great day. :)

Roller Coaster

V-Smile Pocket Fun

Battling Dad at Air Hockey

Blowing out the Candles

"I'm Four!"

Happy 4th Birthday, Jaylyn!

Update

Well, the computer virus is MOSTLY taken care of. It has been just plain annoying! I think I have been working on this post for a couple weeks now.

So, what have we been up to? Here are some of the interesting and not so interesting things that have been happening:

*We enjoyed reading “Christmas” books each night before bed along with the advent calendar count-down to baby Jesus’s birthday

*We finally purchased a nativity set that the girls could play with. Jaylyn was very excited all the way through the store and on the way home, “I can’t wait to play with Baby Jesus!” Adley has been picking up baby Jesus and putting Him in the manger, holding and rocking Him. Too cute.

Here is Adley rocking Baby Jesus

*We had some snow that Jaylyn enjoyed playing in.

*Plenty of parties and goodies

*Girls and T.J. enjoyed the annual fun night at Great Grandma and Grandpa Geist’s house eating supper, decorating their tree, and eating Christmas tree cookies! YUM!

*Visit to Grandma and Grandpa Foster’s to have Christmas with them – You should hear the screams when you tell Jaylyn about that trip. (Good screams of course!)

Fun with Uncle Scott

*Christmas activities here with T.J’s family this year. (More good screams!)

Cousins!

Uncles playing twister! How sweet!

*Shrine Lights

*making cookies

*Jaylyn enjoyed getting some of her own Christmas cards in the mail. A favorite was a musical card that played "Holly Jolly Christmas". Both of the girls had fun with that one.

*a couple fun white elephant exchanges (we are now without a set of 2 bronze cupid wall hangings from my parents house, amazing mugs that change pictures when temperature of beverage changes, and an extra electric breast pump. J We are now owners of a hanging organizer, contact solution and a baby picture album. I think the items we received were nicer than those given. J T.J. did have a real stuffed chicken but that was stolen!)

*we now have 3 new cousins coming. . .My cousin Angela is expecting baby Mylee in March, my cousin Amanda is right behind her expecting baby Elijah in April (we have known about those for awhile) then recently T.J.'s cousin Shannon announced they are adopting again from China. Little Maevry will be coming home hopefully this summer. She is 20 days older than Sage. Be sure to check out her blog to read their whole story and know how to pray for this sweet girl. www.herewegrowagain.blogspot.com

* Yes, Adley still refuses to walk on her own. She walks all around holding on to stuff, but will not let go. She LOVES to walk around with the walker. Funny girl. Of course talking is another story. As many of you have heard, she has a pretty good vocabulary for a 13 month old. Here is a basic list of her common words: mama, da da, night-night, Calliou (she sings along to the opening song), yogurt (go-ga), stinky, jay jay, sissy, nana, poppy, papa, sometimes Grandma, Brett, Scott, Amber, I know, yeah, wow, oh my, whoa, pizza, cookie, yucky, noooo!, ducky, Jesus, church, Sag-ee, happy, Hi, bye-bye, hello, pretty, She will say and point to teeth/eye/belly/hair/toes/nose, elmo, doggy, woof woof, Amen, roar, spider (Itsy-bitsy spider), ow, neigh, oink oink, “elephant sound”, baaaa, mooo, bawk-bawk, choo choo, meow, ball, tickle tickle, shoe, sock, bath time, diap-y, poo poo, zebra, bear, wipe, ho-ho-ho, santa, chicken, cheese, num-num (means I want food or drink), E-I-E-I-O, Dora (do-da) and pretty much anything else you want to say, she will repeat!

She loves to tickle her toes and belly, she wants to eat all of the time and mostly requests PIZZA!!!!!!, she loves to sing along and dance to music and usually joins in with a "La-la". She is super silly! She loves to sit and look at books. Here is a picture of her escaping the scene of the crime. Her new favorite thing to do is empty the bookcase. She will sit and look at the books also.

*We also had a couple neat opportunities that were a blessing to us that you should try if you get an opportunity. Our Sunday School class helped out with Restore St. Louis, a ministry reaching those in need in St. Louis. They do a variety of outreaches, but T.J. and the group helped with their “free” store moving furniture and other items to the store. I had the opportunity to go with about 10 of our MOPS moms to the Veteran’s Hospital and carol to the patients in the spinal cord injury wing. There were 26 patients in that night and they were very appreciative of a visit. We also brought them some goody bags. One of them even requested an extra song, Amazing Grace. One of them was teasing us and asked if he was dead because he thought he was in heaven with us in the room! We sang him an extra song. Hee hee!

*Even as I am working on this post Jaylyn has asked, “What are we doing when we wake up?” (“I don’t know.”), Where are we going when we wake up?” (“I don’t know.”), “who’s coming when we wake up?” (“I don’t know.”) “MOMMMM! You know EVERYTHING!!!!”)

*Jaylyn had a birthday! Birthday post coming.

*Happy New Year!

I get to sing on Stage!

(Here is the update I wrote earlier about Jaylyn's preschool program.)


The performance Jaylyn has been waiting for since the first day of preschool finally came. It is definitely funny how excited she gets about performing on stage when she normally doesn't want anyone to look at her. She just loves the stage! It was an adorable program. It included wonderful scripture about the birth of Jesus. Also they sang the songs "Away in the Manger", "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night" and "We wish you a Merry Christmas!". Very cute with actions and everything. Some kids more dramatic than others. Jaylyn was a little more reserved than her past stage performances, but loved it just the same. They also had an opportunity to speak in the microphone and share their favorite thing about Christmas. Jaylyn's was, "putting up the star". (Funny since she freaked out on us this year because she decided at that moment that she didn't want to be lifted so high.) And, she didn't even use her shy voice! Then, all of the kids had a special surprise visitor - Santa Claus. And, as many of you know, Jaylyn can also freak out in these kinds of situations. She hasn't been as bad with Santa, but she was totally fine. They each had a chance to sit in his lap and get a present. She RAN to his lap when it was her turn. She talked to him and smiled. Then when he came over to all of the kids to shake their hand, she smiled so big and told him, "You ate the cookies I left for you yesterday!" (Meaning last year.) Of course, after the program, they let the little siblings come up for pictures. Adley has quickly learned, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and has also said, "Santa". She was excited. So they sat on his lap. She looked up at him and smiled, looked at me and smiled, looked back at him and them suddenly almost started to cry. Funny. Then, it was time for cookies downstairs! I'm sure Jaylyn will be wondering when she gets to perform next.

If you wonder which one is Jaylyn, look for the one for the big cheesy grin that is not looking where everyone else is looking.
Ho, ho, ho!

This is when Adley was checking one more time and is about to decide that she might not like him!

Sorry

Christmas chaos and a major battle with a computer virus has prevented me from updating. Hope to be back soon.

I like to party

Yes, I know Adley's birthday was a month ago, but we just finally finished her parties! Since we had to cancel her party when she was sick, it has been a little difficult scheduling another time during this wonderful Christmas season. So, we had to split it up. We had a party with my side of the family while we were down visiting them on Thanksgiving. Then, we just had a party with T.J.'s side of the family this past Sunday. Nothing like spreading out the birthday celebrations!

Jaylyn was a big help opening the presents, but Adley did not need any help whatsoever when it came to eating the cake. Here are some pics from both parties.

Baby!!

Yea for cupcakes!

YUM!

Wheeee!

I think I like everyone singing to me!

How do I look with a beard?

Before

After

I think she enjoyed herself!

More Christmas fun

Jaylyn and I picked up a handy-dandy Gingerbread house kit at Walmart the other day, and it was near impossible getting her to wait until after supper to make it. But, we had lots of fun, she ate a lot of the candy and is still now trying to get candy off of her creation to eat. Too tempting for a soon-to-be four-year old.

Christmas season in full swing!

Christmas is definitely one of our favorite times of year. We always start off making sure the tree is up right away. Most of the time that happens the day after Thanksgiving, but sometimes we might even do it the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year, Jaylyn was excited to help us get everything out the day after Thanksgiving. It is definitely fun experiencing Christmas with a soon-to-be four-year-old. Although, suddenly this year she wasn't so keen on being lifted up to put the star on top. T.J. holds her up to the ceiling all of the time, but this was just one of those moments. (I have a picture showing her face in horror as T.J. is trying to get her to put the star up. Funny! But, I probably shouldn't post that one.)

Fun hanging ornaments

The next tradition that usually takes place a family Christmas party down in Ellington, MO. This is T.J.'s dad's side of the family. It is always the first Sunday in December and it is nice to visit with family that we don't get to see that often. You have to drive on some very curvy roads to go there. I think there are a few family members that are not always in the best shape after the ride. But, there is always a huge lunch spread! Adley definitely enjoyed that part of the event. She finished off her food and then helped Jaylyn finish her plate. Another yummy tradition is the wonderful Christmas cookie exchange. Everyone brings their cookies and then you load up your container with samples of everyone else's to take home. The kids are always anxious for the gift part. Each child their always gets a present to open! What is a Christmas party without presents? Then it is time for the Christmas card exchange. Everyone loves to go home and open up all of the cards. I also enjoying having an early bunch of cards to hang up in the house. Overall it is a lot of fun.

The family eating and visiting

Jaylyn and cousin Dalayna enjoying their presents and new
ornaments from Grandma and Grandpa Geist.

The Christmas card sorting

Look at all those cookies! Jaylyn and Dalayna enjoyed them.

Adley with cousin Brooke

Adley with cousin Dawn

Adley with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Geist

Adley with cousin Bruce

Adley certainly enjoyed visiting with all of the family. I think she likes Christmas too.

Get Away

T.J. and I had our first get-away since Adley was born. We were so blessed to win a 3-night stay and we decided on Branson since it was close and we really wanted to go at Christmas time. It was perfect. The weather cooperated so we weren't miserable at Silver Dollar City. All of the rides were running and there were no lines for those. Everything was absolutely beautiful. You could not leave there without being in the Christmas spirit. Especially with all of the Christmas sweaters and blinking santa hats. Hilarious. I have never seen so many in my life. Besides Silver Dollar City, we went to the Dixie Stampede Christmas Dinner/show and we saw the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas concert. Both were also wonderful! It was really nice that everywhere we went, the entertainers kept talking about the true meaning of Christmas being the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. At Silver Dollar City we saw their Living Nativity show and it was a perfectly straightforward message about the salvation and gift of grace we can receive from Jesus Christ. Wonderful!

The kids had a blast and did not miss us one bit. I had to wait to tell Jaylyn about it until the evening before because she would have driven me crazy. You should have heard her squeals of excitement when I told her she was staying with Grandma and Pa Pa Foster 2 nights and Nana & Poppy for 1 night. Wow, she was excited and it turned out to be as wonderful as she dreamed it would be. Thank you to our wonderful parents! I think they might have had a little fun too. So, here we are back to reality again. Sorry, we didn't really take many pictures.

Here we are sipping hot wassail just in time for the fabulous "Christmas on Mainstreet" 5-story Christmas tree lighting spectacular. Notice the santa hat in the background behind me. I was not joking, we really felt like Christmas scrooges without one. Hee hee!

So, thumbs up for Christmas Branson style!