A wordy post.

I realize that this post is entirely too wordy and probably contains more information than anyone cares to read. But, hey, I'm lonely and want to talk to someone and I figure that now that this blog is private, the only people who read it probably actually care about our family's strange anecdotes and quirks.

We found a church today thanks to an acquaintance (a good friend of our sister-in-law, Carissa) who actually lives in Virginia but has a friend who lives here in the Cities. Long story, but thank you Cindy A.! I just wish that we could go again next weekend and meet a few more people, but we'll be in Nebraska, which we are very excited about. Christmas will be celebrated in Faribault with Joel's family and then we leave on the 26th for a visit with my side.

Marie is becoming a big girl. She's almost potty-trained for naps/bedtime. She has been potty-trained during the day since May, but relies on her diaper during sleep. We made a sticker chart and each time she woke up dry she would get another sticker. Five stickers meant that she would get a reward, which she decided would be My Little Ponies. After she earned her first pony, she woke up wet from her nap. I asked her why she had wet her diaper and she said, "Because I already got my pony and I don't want any more ponies." Stinker! So now we've made her reward movie-watching. We'll print off a photo of a character or scene from a movie of her choice (one that we already own) and make a sticker chart out of it. When she gets four stickers for dry diapers, she gets to watch that movie. We'll see how this goes....

An interesting fact about Joel: He loathes unicorns. Marie's pony is a unicorn and it annoys him terribly :-) He always asks Marie if she is going to burst into song when she's playing with it. Apparently ponies remind him of rainbows and fairy dust and bursting into song while running through a field of flowers - all of which are very uncool. This afternoon Marie gave him the unicorn to play with and he said, "Tomorrow morning, instead of reading my Bible, I think I'll just bask in the beauty of this unicorn and rely on that strength to get me through the day." Yea, he's really sarcastic about the unicorn! It's hilarious, though, and all in good fun.

A few photos. Yes, a couple of them are practically the same photo, but I like them all and I know you do, too. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.


Our Christmas books on display.





Marie being a ham.





She's so big!





Renee is warming up to Marie ... a little. Marie adores her baby sister, but the feeling hasn't always been mutual!





Playing house with a moving box.





Ditto.





Renee's crazy hair. It was always in her eyes until...





I cut her bangs! Her hair is in a ponytail and wet in this photo, so it looks kind of strange, and I've since given her a few more bangs. But it is SO nice to be able to see her pretty little face, and I can tell she's much happier. Bangs are all the range right now, too!