And Here's January

Okay, let's think all the way back New Year's. I did have high aspirations to blog sooner, but you know...life happens. We flew to Denver and drove to Frisco to stay a week with my family in a condo. Nellie loved the snow! And it was FREEZING. 20 below our first night there. Thankfully it warmed up a couple days later. Frisco is a cute little town near Breckenridge, Copper and Vail ski areas.
Nellie got bored putting the pieces in Mr. Potato Head so she started using Papi as a replacement.
Julien's face is a good indicator of how he feels about Nell's constant cuddles and "Julien, Julien HI Julien! I love you Julien!" It's very very sweet but a little overwhelming sometimes. :)
The girls went for an afternoon out of inter-tubing. Later that week we did some night inter-tubing on a different slope and it was super fun too.
Here's Julien's 3 month photos. Yes, I know. He is only 3 months. And yes, he's huge!
Sweet face I just can't get enough of!
Pulling Nellie up the hill on the kiddie slope.
"WEEEEEEE!"
Then we went on a sleigh ride. It. Was. Freezing. But a fun experience and Nel loved the big horses.
Cody trying to keep Julien warm.
We ended up at a tent where a lady played some music for us and we made s'mores and had hot chocolate.
All of us with the horses.

Since I don't have pictures of us skiing I will go ahead and tell you how I ended up in the Copper Mountain ER. The first day we skied and did great so the second day we both decided to snowboard. I have snowboarded a lot in the past so I picked it up pretty quick. Unfortunately that didn't keep me from face planting and hitting my head really hard and cutting my eye on my sunglasses. I couldn't move for a bit and then i started acting really weird. Well i calmed down and started to head down the mountain and fell AGAIN on my head. then I started feeling really strange and just wanted to make it down the mountain.

When we got to the bottom I told cody we better go to first-aid just to ask what symptoms I should be looking for if I have a concussion. Well I was sitting there telling the guy what happened and all of the sudden I started having a panic attack (WHAT?) and arching my back and couldn't breathe and I was choking on my saliva and spitting it out (WHAT?!) Cody said it looked like i was being exorcised and he was really freaked out. They put an oxygen mask on me and strapped me to a board and taped my head down and put one of those neck braces on. Then they put me in the back of a trailer and took me to the ER in the clinic on the mountain. My arms were all tingly because I wasn't getting enough oxygen.

After a couple hours of observation and insuring nothing was broken I was released with some muscle relaxers and serious whiplash from the fall. Head trauma does weird stuff to ya folks. I was extremely sore for several days but now I am as good as new! Unless I act crazy, then I can blame it on the fall ;)
This picture is funny because Nellie looks like she's Italian with her hand up like that.
Smiles from sweet boy.
Nell put these goggles on and left them on until her face was sweating so bad i made her take them off. Same with the her winter mittens. As soon as I gave them to her for the first time she put them on and refused to take them off. Even napping in them. Weirdo.
Ready for church.
Julien got this silver rattle for Christmas and he loves it. He is putting toys in his mouth and exploring more.


"Mama, I play Julien" or she'll say "I talk Julien" She can make him laugh now and it's the sweetest thing.
Julien getting his hair did by dada. This a jojoba oil treatment.
And finally I celebrated my 29th birthday this month. We went out to dinner while our friends watched the kids. Here we are...an old married couple with kids. :)

Blood of the Innocent

As you all know, I am very passionate about abortion. Even more so since bringing home my sweet, perfect son. Praise God that the state did not allow his birth mother to have a late-term abortion. Praise God for sparing his life, but the tragedy and reality is %22 of unborn babies don't make it in America. Over one million babies are aborted every year. Disgusting. As I look at my precious little boy, that I love more than life itself, I can't fathom all those other precious babies that were murdered and will never feel the love and kisses of a mama to take care of them. Praise God Julien's birth mother was unaware of her pregnancy so that he could join our family and bring us more joy than we ever thought possible. Here is an article written today by Albert Mohler:

Chilling Almost Beyond Belief

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Americans generally know that abortions happen, but the reality of abortion is kept out of sight and, for most, largely out of mind. To acknowledge that abortions do occur does not require any actual knowledge of the numbers of abortions performed and the scale of the catastrophe. News reports that emerged in recent days will make that evasion harder to justify.

The New York Times reported January 6, 2011 that the abortion rate in New York City is about 40 percent of all pregnancies. That means that no less than four out of every ten pregnancies in that city are terminated by abortion. That statistic is horrific, leading a group of New York religious leaders to describe the abortion rate as “chilling.”

Of even greater magnitude is the abortion rate among African-Americans in New York City — a rate of almost 60 percent. This means, of course, that far more black babies are aborted than are born. How is it that black church leaders are so silent on this murderous assault on unborn African-American babies?

The Guttmacher Institute recently reported that the national abortion rate is 22 percent. Two out of every ten pregnancies in America end in abortion.

The enormity of the abortion rate in America underlines the fact that abortion is anything but rare. Over 1.2 million abortions were performed in the United States in 2008, the last year with full numbers reported.

This means that abortion is taking place in your neighborhood, and in mine. The abortion rate in New York City staggers the moral imagination, but the abortion rate nationwide is itself “chilling.”

We are a murderous people, and the blood of the innocent cries out for justice.

Christmas 2010!

DONE! The holidays are over and I have lots of catching up to do. We fly to Alabama in two weeks to finalize Julien's adoption so I need to get my life in order and back to normal before then. A few days before we left for Clovis for Christmas we went to annual River of Lights at the botanical gardens. Nel was much more impressed this year. Julien...not so much :)

We went with our friends the Jensen's. Woah, that's a lot of kids! When the heck did we grow and have FAMILIES! weird. (Gelaine came to my 10th birthday party, ya know)

Speaking of growing up. I am reveling in my last year of my 20's. Today I am 29, so i have exactly 364 days of youth left ;) After I turn 30, things will have to change. I will have start dressing more grown up and doing other adult things people in their 30's do. HA!
Visiting with some old friends in Clo-vise.
We saw Will and Alyssa and their sweet baby boy, Liam.
Jeff and Ali got an Xbox Kinect for Christmas so that was loads of fun to try out!
Opening our Christmas pj's.
this is the first time Nellie actually got to assist in opening her own gifts. She loved it!
Dave and his family are huge Eagles fans. Fortunately for us, so is Cody. Julien got some Eagles paci's and Nel got a cheerleader outfit from Dave and Lauren.

back to the Christmas pj's. Jeff got confused and thought the penguin pj's were for him.
the fam!
the kids!
us!
Us after the Christmas Eve service.
The kids's Christmas pj's. Julien's had santa's on the feet and said "baby's first Christmas". sooo cute!
Nellie's favorite activity this trip was playing the piano.
When she got too tired to sit up and play, she would lay on the bench and play with her feet.
Nellie's princess get-up from Jeff and Ali.
I cannot stress to you how difficult it is to get a good photo of the kids together. I still have yet to accomplish this task.
Sweet baby boy.
Christmas day outfit.
And just as an added bonus...Julien in his "suit."
LOVE him!
Our handsome man is now wearing 6 month clothes. He. Is. Huge. Thankfully he has plenty of weight on him to sleep 10 hours at night. He is super loud when cooing and talking and smiles all the time.

Coming up in my next post is our new year's trip to Colorado with my fam. Don't worry it included a trip to the ER on the ski slopes...