Pictures!

The tree making it's way into our house at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend

After we got some lights on her

The boys playing together while we string up the tree with lights

J trying to pose next to his latest Lincoln Log cabin, but instead he got in front of it.

Built this one all by himself. He's getting so good at it

J at his pre-school Christmas program at the beggining of Dec. His class sang Feliz Navidad and they all held guitars

Just hanging out. They sit together a lot. C will either crawl over to J or J will come in the room and sit down next too his baby brother. I'm so thankful for a bond that has already started

I find them doing a lot of things together. I heard J telling C "when you get a little bigger brother, I will take you for a ride out there in my dump truck. OK?" I came around the corner and found them both staring out the window. It was so cute

C wanted to leave J's room but J wanted him to stay. So how do you keep your crawling baby brother playing in your room? You baracade him with every toy you can find!

T-rav told J that he was going to change the oil in the truck after church, so that morning J was in his room playing with his trucks and I presume "changing the oil" so funny!

And later that day....daddy's truck and the dump truck got the oil changed.

Eating breakfast. C started eating table food on Dec 15th. It's like a switch flipped in him and all of sudden he didn't gag anymore when he ate. He's just like J was and refuses to eat anything pureed, so his 1st food was Cheerios and loves to eat veggies put they have to be softened chunks that he can mash with his gums. Still no teeth, but at least I'm not nursing him every 2 hours anymore....whew! (I kind of wonder if it was related to the ears at all? huh)

Making Christmas cookies for the neighbors....another high for J. That boy loves to cook! His wife will thank me one day. He can cook, helps out really well and already knows how to waltz

Playing around with their cowboy hats

My little firey red head!

I had posted at least 10 nudey boy shots of J's bottom by the time he was this age, so for fairness here's one for C

Playing under the table with big brother and knawing on the chairs too

We got a ton of rain here on Christmas Eve and as usual J wanted to go out play in the rain. It was FREEZING, but you could see the grin on his face from the back door.

Baby M loved Mr Travis and followed him around all evening saying "hold you?" It melted my heart to see a little girl clinging to Travis, BUT not enough to even consider "trying" for a girl. We'll just borrow this cutie once and awhile

The kids watching The Wiggles.

Christmas with the Kinley's! These are our Christmas morn pics.......

C sitting by the back door under our stockings hung with care, waiting for big brother to wake up

Finally big bro got up! The boys heading off to open the gifts

J discovering a little something hanging on the back door.

Helping C go through his stocking stuff

J checking out the new Veggie Tale movie that daddy got in his stocking. T-rav actually wanted to see this one

J opening up his favorite gift this year....his garbage truck from Meme

trying to show C how it works

C got a giggly wiggly ball from T-rav's cousin. He loved it!

dragging C's present over so he can open it

C checking out his new walking lion

J excited about his new airplane and airport mommy and daddy got him

J was even excited about the clothes and books he got this year. such a grateful kid, he kept telling us "thank you" after each present he opened.

later that day. he gets C to come to his room and play with him by getting down on his level and crawling to the room. If J gets down and crawls, C will follow him every time

And tonight was another 1st. C signed "all done" tonight after he was done eating his dinner. Course he was mimicking what I was doing, but hey we are the right path to having some other form of communication besides wailing and screaming. this mommy's not a fan of that form

A rant about something that really bothers me

T-rav and I went through some very stressful events this year of Twenty-Ten and despite all that, we've come to the end of the year with our marriage stronger than it's ever been. We went through a job change of sorts (ExxonMobil bought out XTO very un-expectantly), moved twice, had a baby and then remodeled our kitchen. These things are huge trigger points, in what "experts" and "surveys" say can and will break a marriage. While in each event, which all were blessings to us, there too were stressful points within. Examples...

T-rav never wanted to work for a major oil company BUT the blessing was he still had a job in an economy where lots of people were struggling.

Moving is very stressful and tiring, especially when you add a very pregnant wife into the mix that can literally help with next to nothing, BUT what a huge blessing our home is and how God provided it at the right time.

A new baby can be very tiring, confusing and nerve racking BUT we were able to bring our little Calvin home in perfect condition to a loving home.

Remodeling a kitchen is a disaster that your willing bring into your home, BUT what a huge blessing that we were able to do that with no debt and create a beautiful kitchen to compliment the home we've been blessed with.

These were huge trials in our marriage and I admit that during our talking on some issues that arise this year there were times that things got a little heated, leading to even a couple of yelling matches that I wish Jackson was not in ear shot to have heard. For those times though, we made sure that Jackson saw the end product of that. We apologized and forgave each other in front of him making sure that he understood that yes, mommy and daddy will not always agree and that this is true for all couples, but that we needed to have closure to the disagreement so that bitterness would not set in. Might I add that we even visited our marriage counselor from a few years ago a few times just get a check up and help us work through a hitch that was hindering us from moving beyond a particular issue.

So what am I getting at?

Really, it's all about perspective. I tell people that who look upon me with pity at the grocery store as I'm herding my little blondie up and down the isles, all the while holding my fiery red-head and trying to push a giant buggy simultanuoulsy.....it's all about perspective and how blessed I am that they are healthy and draining my energy, not too mention the fact that I can afford everything that is in my buggy. Perspective, folks!

Marriage is hard, it's a choice, not a feeling that you live out everyday. I believe that marriage between believers is especially harder because of the temptations of selfishness that satan brings your way every moment of everyday. The evil of this world would love nothing better than to destroy the institute of marriage and if you look at the divorce rate, which is higher among those who profess Christ as their Saviour, you would say that he is winning the war on marriage. Just this year I know personally of six, yes 6, couples that claim Christ but one of them filed for divorce this year. It makes me so sad, because they have no idea what it is like to work it through the power of God, the One they committed their marriage to in the first place. If they had not been duped by the one who attacks the institution of marriage then they could still stand and say that having faith in God is choosing to live as though the Bible is true REGARDLESS of circumstances, emotions or cultural trends and the Bible has a whole lot to say about marriage.

I come from a broken home to which I witnessed first hand the #1 reason folks take a slow fade of choosing to love another to eventually walking out of an attorney's office, having ended several decades of their life together. This reason is selfishness, plain and simple, whether by one or both parties involved.

Although selfishness does breed more of itself, and I can say that I truly respect and admire someone very close to me for taking some of the responsibility for their broken marriage. To an outsider she would have clearly looked like a complete victim, but because she is humble before the Lord she would tell you that she consciously made choices through her selfishness that harmed the marriage. It may have been a reaction to the selfishness breading in the home, but none-the-less she reacted back with the same nasty habit.

The opposite, Self-LESS-ness is much harder, but anything working for is worth keeping. To be completely real, it's an hourly battle for me to be self-less, which I don't always get victory over. I'm a continued work in progress, but I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I stole the following from our Sunday School class which is currently going through a marriage boot camp and it was something that T-rav and I both felt defined what we have learned the past 11 years. It's not profound, just something one or both parties in the marriage really don't choose to follow anymore:

God's Definition of Marriage:

A lifelong commitment of unconditional love towards an imperfect person

I'm not much of a crier, but every time I hear of someone considering to end their marriage, I cry. Every time I hear of the latest couple that has split, believers or not, I cry. I'm not mad, just sad. I know that God is using this in me for a bigger plan and everyday I'm asking Him to mold me into something He can use for the sake of marriage........ of course continuing with my own.

I remembered some more

Jackson wants another baby, badly, and he keeps telling us that he needs to have a baby sister. WE ARE NOT EXPECTING!, but I thought is was a little entertaining and told him that if God wanted to give us another baby then that would be fun, huh? Well since I affirmed it, he has just ran with it. He told his teachers at school that we were going to have 2 babies in our house, has told several strangers at the grocery store that he was getting a baby sister soon and then just the other morning when we were eating breakfast he told me out of the blue "mommy, my baby sister is already growing in your tummy." What the what??!!! He better not be prophesizing over me, my hands are full with these 2 and the ear problems. I guess it already feels like we have another newborn in the house, because mommy's not getting any sleep right now.

All that aside, Jackson really does love all babies. He talks about all his friends new baby siblings that have been born this year and even prays for them occasionally at night. On Thanksgiving, while we were being blessed with a full feast cooked for for us at the Liniger's, Brenda asked us all to say what we were thankful for. When we came to Jackson I was really expecting "lincoln logs" to be his, but I was melted when he looked around, saw his brother and said "Calvin." They are already so close, I know there are years ahead of fighting, but even now I don't have to get on Jackson hardly at all about sharing his toys.....he just naturally loves to include Calvin in what he's doing.

Calvin is waving at everything, loves to watch brother build his latest creation of Lincoln Logs and just generally loves to be involved. I do see the gentle side about 60% of the day, but until this fluid drains I think we'll still be seeing the irritable Calvin for awhile.