It's Starting to Look A Lot Like...

Christmas. Everywhere I go. O'How I love this time of the year. I was on my way to work this morning and everywhere I looked houses had some lights up, garland hanging on their front porch railings, and Christmas wreaths hanging on the front door. I better get on the ball and get mine up, too. But I think I will wait until Saturday to try to get all of my decorations out. I can smell the cinnamon and pine cones, now. :0)



Like I said, I love this time of year, but I really don't care for the cold air, but being with family & being Thankful for our blessings makes the cold air alot more bearable (don'tcha think) I can't complain, I have a warm house, loving family, and footie pajamas to boot (just kidding on the p.j.s but they do sound comfy, don't they?).

This week is an exciting week, Wednesday is Grandparent's Day at Grace's School. She is really excited for them to come and see her at school. I am sure she will be talking non-stop and showing them EVERYTHING in her classroom. Did I mention that Izabelle and I went and ate lunch with her this past Friday. She was really excited, so was her friends. They were swarming us (well Izabelle), they couldn't get enough of her. We had a really good time and I am so glad that Grace is surrounded around such wonderful friends.

Wednesday is also the first game of the Varsity/JV boys basketball team at the Hatchet House. We usually go each year to watch and see people we haven't seen in a while, well I usually go to watch their dance team perform and chat. Gotta watch them, even though they are the 'other' team (Good Luck, girls), but I will still be oohing and awwing over their performance.

Then of course Thursday is THANKSGIVING day. We asked Grace the other day what time of the year it is and she said "Giving Thanks". She is one smart cookie:) We have been talking to her and Izabelle about giving to others, just as God gave us Christ. We did Operation Christmas Child at our church which we loaded up a shoebox full of goodies for a little girl. We also did 2 (one girl and one boy) for our Sunday School class, they really enjoyed that. I put some suckers and bubble gum in each one and one little girl saw a pink sucker in the boy box and said "he has a pink sucker, he's a boy". I told her that maybe he could give it to his mom or his sister so that they all can enjoy the gift. She really liked that idea and she started to show me how she can dance (How I adore this lil ones) The other day we got a 'Gift Catalog' from the organization Samaritan's Purse that puts the Operation Christmas Child and we were showing Grace and Izabelle the pictures of the kids and telling them that there are ALOT of kids out there that need help. It was really sad to see that only $6 can give someone just a blanket to keep warm. I think we all realized that we needed to give up something for Christmas, so that we can send them something too.

In the midst of this busy, exciting, tummy filling, and full of blessings week, is BLACK FRIDAY!!! Why do they call it Black Friday, anyway? I never got that. Anyway, my sister and I went last year to WalMart and got the majority of our Christmas completed, so we are going to do it again this year. I LOVE Christmas, but I don't like the present thing. I never know what to get other people, what do they need/want? It's even harder when NO ONE tells you want they want, Grace didn't even know what she wanted and this girl usually has a least something that she has been begging for...Stresses me out way too much!!!

I will have to post later about Izabelle and her lil baby, purse, accessories that she carries around with her, everywhere. We had to bring it with us everywhere over the weekend...She is such a lil mommy:)

Until Next Time...Have a Wonderful Thanksgiving. Give Thanks:)

God Bless

Jess

Photos & PlayStation 2 For Sale

We haven't done much in that last couple of days, but I wanted to get some pictures up. Grace had her friend, Ava, come over after Sunday School.Grace really enjoyed her day with Ava. They played dress up, painted, and played with some stickers. Before I knew it they had their faces covered in them.

Funny Girls!!!!

Here are some photos that we took tonight after we came back from Grace's dance class.

Super Woman

My Sweet Lil Izabelle

Her "GIVE ME THAT" Look

Grace playing on the PlayStation

Matt and Grace racing

So I gave in and let Izabelle have the camera so she can take some pictures, too. Didn't do to bad, but Mommy did have to help raise the camera up just a bit (notice the hair) SUPER DAD!!!!
Grace and Me (bangs or no bangs, that is the question?)

From the title you can tell that a PlayStation 2 is for sale. What a GREAT Christmas gift, uh? It comes with two controllers (one of the them is wireless), memory card, & 6 games. If you are interested you can leave a comment on here or email me at jessgingerich@hotmail.com.

Here is a picture of the whole set.

Until Next Time...Stay Warm:)

God Bless

Jess

Quick Update

We are slowing down a bit these days, just enough to catch our breath and speed back up again. Last week Matt and I celebrated our 28th birthday, yup 2 more years and Matt & I will be th-th-th- THIRTY. Right now I am okay with that, but ask me in 2 years, how I feel:0l We didn't do much for our birthday, which we seldomly do, but we did go out for supper on Friday for then hitting up WalMart (by ourselves I might add). We continued our Birthday celebration Sunday at Matt's Aunt's house for our birthdays and her son's birthday, ate a mouthwatering, belly filling lunch before heading to my parent's house for visits, pizza and more CAKE!!! Whew!!! I am feeling about 10 lbs heavier just writing this.

Grace News:
Friday night Grace spent the night at a friend's house. She was supper excited to tell me all about what her and Hailey did. Hailey's mom did tell me that Grace missed me and she asked Grace if she wanted to call me and if she wanted to still stay the night (something like that), Grace said "I don't miss her that much". Gotta love the honesty;) She was really worn out Saturday, which means she had WAY TO MUCH FUN!!!! She said that they slept down stairs in a tent and she couldn't stop talking about staying at Hailey's house.

We (my mom and I) took Grace with us for a day of shopping, but we didn't get to far before Matt called and said the local C0-op had a break down and he needed to go take care of business (there went Iz's day with Daddy, they were going to go to the park) so we meant him and Izabelle in town and Izabelle came along with us big girls. It was a fun day, tiring day of shopping but fun.

Grace's class room has been hit with the ickies, don't really know the details, but alot of the kids in her class as well as her school have been out. They called me on Tuesday to come and pick Grace up because she had a fever. Luckily when we got home she was running one, but we stayed home and rested. I didn call the school on Wednesday to make sure she can come back that day or not and since she hadn't ran a fever for 24 hrs with no meds, she was safe to come back. I hope this is the only thing that happens to her. But we are keeping her friends and other students in our prayers to regain and keep their health in check.

Izabelle News:

Miss Izabelle is doing a little better in church on Sundays. She finally knows that we don't get our snacks until after they sing, this way they are quieter while the sermon is going on.
Sunday afternoon she started to develop an eye infection of some sort. I don't know if it was actually pink eye, but to be on the safe side we didn't have anyone over on Monday. Got some eye ointment and was much better after a couple doses.
Izabelle is in AWE over babies, whether they are real babies, play babies, or our dog. She is cooing and awing over them. I caught her in Grace's room the other day, playing with her 2 babies. Each one had a bottle, a blanket and Izabelle's 2 snuggies. She quickly made sure I knew to be quiet when I entered the room.

Other News:
I am loving Sunday School. The kids are wonderful, not only are we seeing the kids learning the Word of God first hand, but I feel like I am learning right along with them too. Our lesson Sunday was of a man that could not walk and his friends wanted to help him, so they heard that Jesus was at a house, so they picked up their friend and carried him to the place, but it was too crowded to be seen by Jesus. The friends carried their friend to the roof and dug a hole in the roof, lowered the friend down, and Jesus saw that the friends had a great faith and healed their friend. So, we had each kid be the man that couldn't walk and the rest were the friends. It was fun to see them working together and watching their friend get up and room around the room after Jesus healed them. The kids are fun, loving and truly love Jesus Christ and I am happy that I am able to teach them. It's also fun that Greta is doing this with me and we get to see our girls learning the songs that we sing. I have noticed at different times Izabelle singing some of the songs we sing. I believe Greta has heard B singing those songs too. Gotta love 'em.

Dance has been gradually taking shape. I went from 22 girls to 7, so for a while I didn't know where the team was heading, but these 7 girls have given me some great ideas and they are very excited to dance this year. I can't ask for anything better.

On another bit of news: I got my hair colored. I am no longer light brown but a brunette. The color name was Mocha, but I think it has a bit of red in it, which my hair tends to have a reddish or cooper tint when I color it. At first I didn't know what to think. I went from liking it, to what did I do, and now I am liking it again. I asked Matt and he said "You changed it", "You look the same", "I don't really notice the things you do". I think he was digging a hole on that one. But he did say "It's what's on the inside that counts"...NICE!!! I will have to get a photo to post of the new hair.

Until Next Time...

God Bless

Jess

Halloween, Missing Daddy, and Birthday

WHEW!!!! What a crazy, fun, and lonely couple of days the girls and I have had. Last tie I left off was we were getting the girls' costumes ready and that I would probably be STRESSED OUT the next time you heard from me. Well I think I spoke to soon on the stressed part, it wasn't that bad at all. You probably are thinking "what are you talking about". I have been a playing the mommy and daddy role the last 5 1/2 days while Matt went on a HUNTING TRIP!!!! Yup, he went hunting, not that it was a bad thing, he deserves his 'man' time:0) This is going to be a long post, I wanted to record this for the girls.

I am going to start with Thursday the night before he left. We headed to the school for the H1N1 clinic they were hosting. Yup the girls got thier nasal vaccine, I don't think they really knew what that was all about and were alittle worried about something going up their noses, but they did it and I am relieved that we got it. I knew the girls would miss their daddy terribly, so Grace roped Daddy to play Barbies with her. It was soo cute, that I had to capture the moment. Although Matt hid the Barbie when I came into the room with my camera. Grace thought it was funny that Daddy was playing Barbies and that Daddy was playing with a 'girl' Barbie and a boy one. O' the things they get their daddy to do.

Waiting in line to get their vaccines

Caught'cha

She is already missing her daddy

Day 1: Matt left about 3 am on Friday morning, so he was gone by time they got up. But to them it was just an ordinary day. Started off with getting Grace ready for school and making sure she had everything she needed for her school's Halloween activities. Her class, along with the primary and intermediate took part in a Halloween parade to show parents and other students their costumes. Izabelle talked Memaw in joining us, so we went up to the school and watched her in her Dorothy costume. I just wished I brought my camera.

After school the girls and I got everything ready to head down to my parents' house to do some Trick or Treating. To bad we picked the wrong night because it was RAINING!!! The girls got on their Angel costumes (which I loved) and we headed out in the rain. I don't think the girls minded at all. They had fun just going to the doors and getting CANDY.

After Trick or Treating we headed back to the grandparents' house we stayed awhile and then headed back home.

At Uncle Grant's House...He jumped out and screamed us...Well Me!

In the van waiting to Trick or Treating

My Lil Angels

Day 2: Saturday, we really didn't do much. We were suppose to go to Lake Rudolph for the annual Gingerich Halloween camping trip, but the trip was cancel due to the weather. We didn't let it stop us girls we enjoyed staying in our jammies until about 10am, then I got the idea that maybe we could go shopping...Nothing like shopping while Daddy is away. But after getting in the van and seeing that I needed to get gas, I decided maybe that wasn't the best idea to go shopping. I mean come on, I think trying to tackle shopping with 2 lil girls, I don't think we would have gotten nothing accomplished except for a splitting headache. So instead we decided that visiting Brynnlee would be WAY MORE FUN!!! We only stayed for a little while, just enought to get our B fix (we all need a B fix, she is way too cute). Then it was off to town to get gas and some McDonalds, then back home for naps. After naps we had a little DANCE PARTY and then went back out to my parent's house to visit and see their new dog. My dad...O' my dear ole dad, he went in to Pamida to get one item, the Humane Society was there and he saw this dog (pomerian, sp??), named Duke, (we had a really good boxer named Duke, thought it was a sign) and got it without saying anything to my mom, he just did it. He came home and told my mom he got something, she had NO IDEA, but glad that dad made this purchase. He is soo adorable. Grace and Izabelle adore him.
After playing with the dog, some take out Chinese it was time to head back home to our jammies off to my bed we went for movie and popcorn. The girls enjoyed watching the New Adventures of Pipi Longstocking. Does anyone remember watching this growing up? One of my favorite movies.

Bust a move

Day 3: Sunday...Church day. I was kind of dreading going to church without my tag team partner, but it went seemingly well. The girls were well mannered, as well as they could. I only took Izabelle out about 5 times, no real BIG fits. Went to Sunday school (which I am loving, these kids are WAY to cute), then off to the Gingerich's for lunch. Which was super YUMMY!!!! We did have a little tantrum coming out of Izabelle not wanting to sit in her seat and eat, so she didn't eat much lunch. I am thinking it was because of the time change, because by time we sat down and ate it would normally be her nap time, but all in all it was a good time and we really enjoyed it. Thanks Jake and Patty:)

While Izabelle was napping Grace and I picked up a little for Small Groups that we were hosting that night. Kind of scared about hosting without Matt but it went well and I enjoyed my time with the adults and the kids. Thanks to everyone, whether you brought something, picked up, or just was there to enjoy the fellowship it was greatly appreciated. I even had one of the little girls tell me Thanks (well they all did that) and told me I was pretty (I think those are her words, she may have said beautiful), and that she liked my voice. TOOO SWEET!!!! They all were sweet. They really enjoyed playing Simon Says and trying to trick each other. I pretty much was the first one out each time...My ole brain is just not what it used to be. By the time everyone left us girlies were tired, so into jammies we went and under the covers.

Day 4: Monday...Starting to realize that we are sorta, kinda missing daddy, but we are pushing through this sorta kinda ordinary day. Grace went of to school while Izabelle and I stayed home and played with the lil girl I have been watching. They day went seeminly fast. K left at noon and Izabelle had lunch together, napped, and then Grace came home from school. We played outside, ate supper, and the girls spent the evening with my mom while I went to dance practice. My mom took the girls to get her groceries, which I think she was kinda worried about how the girls would be in the store, but they did really good she said. Dance practice went really good, we had someone come and teach us techniques which helped ALOT. We really appreciated all the help we received and great advice. Thank you, Thank you!!!! Oh, I am REALLY REALLY sore today. Matt sent us a text of a 11 point buck that he just shot. Way to Go DAD!!!! So, I got Grace back out of bed to show her and Izabelle and to call Matt and leave him a GO DAD voicemail. I really think the girls were really missing him by Day 4. Grace was more vocal about saying she missed him and couldn't wait for him to get home, but Izabelle hasn't said much it was either dad was at work or at the bow shoot, until I showed her the picture of the dear and she heard Matt's voice on the voicemail. She wouldn't let go of my phone. She would fall asleep with the phone in hand, it would slip out, she would perk up and say "Phone, give me phone" and one time she said "Give me Daddy" and I would give her the phone back and she fell right back to sleep.

Day 5: Tuesday, it was work day for me, so getting the girls ready and heading out was the same ole same ole. Grace had a dentist appointment after school, then off to get Izabelle at Treva's, town, then I treated them to Happy Meals. The girls were excited to learn that they were going to stay with Memaw while I went to Bible Study. When I got back Izabelle was sitting beside Papaw half asleep and Grace and Memaw were on the couch (half asleep, I think). I think FUN was had by all.

Day 6: My BIRTHDAY & Matt IS FINALLY HOME. Grace is off to school and I am at home cleaning and watched Izabelle and K play. We played outside in this gorgeous sunny day, although the temperatures were still on the chilly side we enjoyed the fresh air. I can't wait to see what this day holds for us. Probably mommy getting a nap, nah Mom WILL get a nap and maybe some homemade birthday presents from my girls or just some kisses and hugs. Awww, got love them.

Until Next Time.

God Bless

Jess