Lots of randomness

They are always finding sticks and using them as swords.

Getting so old!

Seth, complete with chocolate milk under the
nose and the much-loved Nike headband, with
the swoosh upside down. Almost every day, either
Seth or Josie is wearing this thing. Thanks, Aunt Sarah!!

Not sure why the sad face...

Our friends Stephen and Britteny come over every Thursday night

to play with the kids/hang out with us and then we watch the Office

together (not the kids!). It's our only show of the week, and we love it

and love hanging out with them. The kids are always asking if it's Thursday

because theycan't wait to see them. This past Thursday, they helped

with a gingerbread house and sugar cookies.

When I was visiting my mom and step-dad over

Thanksgiving, I went through some old high school/

college boxes and threw out a bunch of stuff. I think mom

was appalled at how unsentimental I am about that stuff:)

But I found a goldmine for Seth. As soon as I saw all my old medals

and sports stuff, I knew Seth would love them. On this day,

he was in his room for a while, and came out with these pinned

to his pajamas. He has found all kinds of uses for them.

Words You Don't Want to Hear

So, Josie usually goes number two (sorry for the gross factor) by herself..."I need some privacy, mom"...and then calls me to help her wipe. I am fine with this because I am not certain she could get the job done well enough at this point. The other day, however, I was folding clothes in my bedroom and she said, "Mom, I went number two!" To which I replied, "Okay, I'll be right there." Then she said, "It's okay, mom. I wiped myself". I expressed some concern about whether she had done it well, and told her to stay put for a second, then quickly finished up what I was doing. Then she said, "Don't worry mom! I used, like, 40 miles of toilet paper!" She was trying to reassure me that she got the job done well, and I was running to the bathroom just praying she wouldn't clog up the stool. She had already flushed, though, and thankfully there were no problems.

Happy Birthday, Jer! And Happy Half-birthday, Josie!

Just wanted to wish my awesome brother a happy birthday! I had fun looking for old pics to show him with each of the kids-as you can see, he is an awesome uncle who loves my kids and has always been a special part of their lives. Now I get to watch him be a daddy to his own sweet daughter, which has been so fun. We love you so much, Jer! Hope you have a great birthday. Oh, and today is Josie's half-birthday:) She has been saying, "I'm three and a half now" all day and thinking she is so old!

Jerod and I about 4 1/2 years ago

Thanksgiving Photos

We had lots of fun over Thanksgiving break, once we finally got there. We took a route we will never take again, and it was long! To make matters worse, the GPS was still set to Seattle time (two hours earlier than us), so we thought we would be arriving in Marshalltown at 5:30, only to find out halfway into the trip that we would instead be arriving at 7:30. Disheartening, indeed! We got to see both sets of my parents, and Nile's, as well. So sorry I didn't take any pics of the Heefner side! It was leg three of our journey and we were all shot by that point:( I told them we would hit them first next time so they didn't get the grumpy leftovers. It was awesome to get to attend Parkview while we were back and see many of our great friends! Hope to catch the rest of you when we are back over Christmas break. Nile has finals this week, which will be a stressful time for him, so we would love and appreciate your prayers. We are so thankful for each of you and we love you all!


These first few pics are from Chuck E. Cheese, where we went
with my mom and step-dad.

Some fun game-Josie was so tired after a few days with no nap,
I think she could have fallen asleep here.

My mom is competetive (must be where I get it-come to think
of it, so is my dad...guess it was bound to hit me) so Gabe really had to
be on his game:) I don't want winning to come too easy all the time
or always be expected, so I appreciate her playing decently against
him, though I think she still let him win.

Grammies (only Josie calls her that) and Josie

Josie doing her very favorite thing...holding Cayla

Carrie, Taree, and Britt (my cousins and sister)-such pretty

little things.

My wonderful step-mom, Nancy (in the silver sweater) with her parents

(Tom and Opal) and one of her sisters.

My dad (Grandpa Pat) with the kids. They LOVE wrestling

with him and he is such a good sport to oblige!

Gabe spent some time creating this battle scene. I love his

legs in the pic below...believe it or not, I once had those same
skinny little legs and Nile still had them when we first met:)

A little mid-day nap for someone:) Gabe and Grandpa Tim

(my step-dad) watching football/snoozing.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Nile had his work cut out for him, as our Christmas tree was way in the back of our storage unit and he had to take almost everything out to get to it. The kids love doing the tree, though, and appreciated daddy's hard work. We always have hot chocolate and candy canes and read the story of Jesus' birth on the day we put up the tree. This year we are doing an Advent Calendar countdown, too, which has mini-booklets to read for each day until Christmas, that double as ornaments when you have read that days' story. I used to care about my tree being pretty (before having children), but now just accept that it is a different kind of pretty:) and much more precious to me with their homemade little decorations taking up more space each year. I am sure it will look gaudy by the end of the mini-booklet countdown, but as long as they are learning more about Jesus' birth and the true reason we celebrate Christmas, I will go with it!

After the initial set-up of a tree that had been in a

box for a year, Seth looked at it and said, "You
call that a tree?!" He is funny without even trying to be.

Jos trying to fluff it up a bit

I only took this to show Gabe's attire...not sure
what he had going on here

Goofing around-I promise she was having a
blast, but you'd never know by this shot.

As usual, Seth looked normal until after I pushed the button.

Our little tree-I console myself with the fact
that we don't have space for a bigger one anyway:)
This year, I especially appreciate Noel Piper's

Christmas decorating theme-that it should focus as much or
more on the nativity scene/story of Jesus' birth than
on the tree itself. I've always agreed with that, but now have
an extra reason to love that idea!

Nile reading more stories about the birth of Jesus. As the
kids grow up and understand more things, it has been so fun

to hear how the level of their questions about the birth of Jesus

has changed. And I'm so thankful they have a daddy who loves

to answer all their questions.

Seth's Program, Part II

My favorite song from Seth's program..."I Don't Like Thanksgiving", sung from a turkey's perspective. The funniest part comes at 1:41 seconds, so feel free to skip to that if you don't want to waste two minutes:) Seth loved it when the audience laughed at his part-again, couldn't believe it. I feel bad there are no videos of Gabe, so I need to get him doing something. We have one from school, but it breaks my heart to watch it, so I can't post it. His whole class, individually, had to memorize a (long) story they had written, and then orally tell it to the entire class, and the parents in attendance. He had practiced with me the night before and knew it fairly well, but when he got up in front of people, he got super nervous. He has this look where he kind of squints and almost smiles, but it means he is trying not to cry...well, he did it throughout this telling of the story and it still makes me sad to see it...lots of awkward pauses and that pitiful face...I'll have to video him doing something else.

Seth's Kindergarten Thanksgiving Program

Oh.my.word. I NEVER thought I would see the day when Seth would sing AND do the actions during a program! His class sang 8 songs and did a little play which involved memorizing lines. Seth sang every word of every song and did almost all of the actions, too. After sitting painfully through his previous 4 preschool programs (where he didn't sing at all and did absolutely no actions..."they are ridiculous, mom"...and after bribing him to no avail to encourage the singing), I had come to expect nothing and just be thankful if he was able to stand up there quietly and not disturb others. It really was a small victory just to get him up there-pure torture for him to be in front of people and cause for a lot of anxiety. Anyway, we couldn't believe the change and were praising God! Not because I particularly care if he sings/dances or not, but because of how far the Lord has brought him. Simply amazing.
I will try to post my very favorite song they did later, but this one was shorter and took less time to upload:) On the way home from the program, Josie said, "You did a really great job, Sethy!" I don't think Gabe believed us until he saw all the videos for himself, because he has seen what we go through to try to prepare Seth to even go up on the stage at all, let alone sing! He was quite impressed.

Leavenworth

What a whirlwind trip...lots of fun, though! Our friend, Stephen, was kind enough to take us to the airport and pick us up so we didn't have to pay for parking. This is the first airplane ride for any of our kids, and they were really excited. I wish I had taken a picture of them in the airport. We took five carry-ons so that we wouldn't have to pay to check our bags. Each kid had a backpack on, and was pulling their own luggage. And they were full! Josie, especially, was such a trooper. She pulled her luggage the whole time, through each airport and onto each plane. We were getting a lot of smiles from people, probably because of the sight of three kids looking like pack mules as they followed their Daddy through the airport with me bringing up the rear. They couldn't have been any better in the airports or on the flights. They didn't sleep one bit, but were excellent, praise God. Poor Seth had trouble with his ears on the second flight there. Even after we had been off the plane for an hour, he told me it felt like he had two ear infections. On the way home, after we landed, I said, "Seth, that is so awesome that your ears didn't bother you this time!" He said, "I have to tell you something but I'm embarrassed to say it outloud." Then he whispered in my ear, "I prayed about it, mom." So sweet. We were supposed to get home Sunday evening, but our flight to Denver was delayed and then our flight from Denver to St. Louis was canceled. Thankfully, they thought that might be the case and didn't want us stranded at the airport in Denver with no available hotels due to all the cancellations, so Frontier put us up in a hotel with a swimming pool, gave us 45 dollars to spend for supper, AND $1000 in credit vouchers to fly anywere they fly. Maybe Nile and I will get the honeymoon we never had:) Our first night together was in married student housing at UNI...Nile has always felt really bad about this, but I didn't mind. When you get married in college and don't have any money, it's to be expected. Anyway, the boys got to miss school and loved that! We made it home Monday afternoon and are finally caught up on sleep. It was a great trip, and we are so happy that Anne has found Justin!

We landed in Seattle, got to our car rental place, and headed

out for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Leavenworth. They didn't have
the car we ordered online, so they graciously down-sized us

(sorry, did you detect the sarcasm?) to a very small vehicle.
Nile's head was touching the ceiling and the kids were crammed

into the backseat. This was at 12:30 in the morning, and was the

first time the kids had slept AT ALL! They were so tired, so they

slept like this for the next few hours until we arrived at 3:30 am our

time, which is 1:30 am Washington time.

This is Snowgrass Lodge, where all of the Heefners stayed. Justin's

(Anne's husband now!!) family generously let us all stay in this gorgeous

lodge that they co-manage. It is beautiful!! One night, Nile and I were

able to hot tub with Dan & Liz and Joe & Sarah.

The boys coloring in the main lodge