Bethlehem

On Jonathan's last travels he went to Bethlehem and took some pretty amazing pictures. He brought home some Olive Tree carved nativities and other beautiful things. The picture above is the exact spot where Jesus was born. The pictures below are entrances to the Church of the Nativity.


This week we went to Austin's preschool Halloween trunk-or treat. There Austin won his first cake in a cake walk! We made donuts, went trunk-or-treating and engaged ourselves in so many fun activities. As with most things, I don't know who had more fun, Jonathan and I or the kids.

Austin does this thing where if he gets hurt or falls or any type of accident he'll slap his rear and yell, "Yee-Haw". I don't know where it came from but it cracks me up because its so random. He'll also come up with Tiny Tim statements like, "Mother, I'm hungry because I've been fast asleep all night. Why of course I'd like some cereal." Who is this kid? Austin has an "art" set that he takes with him everywhere. He puts stickers on papers with crayon, paint and marker drawings on it. His collages are lovely! He colors things in pink and purple and gives me about 5 drawings a day and says, "For you. Your favorite mommy colors."
Austin had his church primary program today where he marched proud down the aisle with the other kids while he held his picture of Jesus high above his head with a huge Austin smile. He also loves to talk at the pulpit. Ashley was clapping in the back the whole time yelling, "Yeah Au-tee!"

Ashley will now mimic people. Me as I'm singing, Austin as he makes noises, she loves to boogie whenever she hears any type of music. She still says "No way" at inopportune times. She's a month shy of 2 years old and still won't let me put any type of bow in her hair. (As soon as I found out I was having a girl I had about 10 hair bows ready for her....) Ash does the most endearing thing-she loves grabbing our cheecks and kissing us. She snuggles so well and we just can't get enough of her. She and Austin love bath time together and Austin still loves being the enforcer. He tells her what's allowed and what's not. As you could imagine she really loves that.

This week is Halloween and it's finally FALL here in DC! Much love and happy treating!
Angie

Hershey Park

First, we want to apologize to Uncle Chris, because we went to Hershey Park his nemesis! (he works for Mars-M&M co). But, we don't feel too bad because we had a great time!



The kids dressed up as Pirates (as did we with our bandanas) and we went to Hershey Park After Dark. They went trick-or-treating, saw reptiles at the zoo there including a live reptile show with alligators and snakes. They of course rode all the kiddie rides and had a ball. The next day we went to Lancaster, PA and ate at the Good and Plenty Restaurant. (Yummy fried chicken and butter noodles!) We enjoyed seeing the Amish land and handicraft. Before we came home we had to do a little shopping in at the outlets up there! Hershey was great. The street lights had Hershey kisses on them, the Chocolate factory ride and the chocolates themselves were yummy. You could buy chocolates that they don't sell in the stores (candy cane choc kisses, hot cocoa kisses, mmmmm).



We also had Back to School Night at Haymarket Baptist Church Preschool and they had a bookfair there and of course we bought books (pirate books-surprise). Austin's teachers Mrs. Burch and Mrs. Davis are phenomenal as he's learning science projects, things electricity does and now has a desire to write anything and everything. Over the summer I couldn't get him to write his name at all. Now, the desire and excitment they put into the kids has given Austin a great drive for learning! They also work up to 10 stickers means they get a trip to the "Treasure Box"--any kind of reward for good behavior ending in going to a treasure box like a pirate is GREAT for Austin!

Austinisms this week: He was picking his nose and we asked him what he was doing and he quickly replied, "Playing with my toys."
He tells us, "You're the best Mommy/Daddy I've ever had!"

Ashleyisms: "Poo-Poo" is a distraction technique...she knows if she says it we either look or put her on the potty to try. She'll normally say it right before nap or bedtime or before we need to go somewhere.


Hallloween is around the corner!
Love,
Angie

Pop and Grandma Visit

Last Thursday Oct 4 my mom came to visit from Florida! We got our hair done by my friend Erin and went to our favorite Whole Foods Store. We also had yummy lunches while Duane watched the kiddos including the Corner Bakery and lots of shopping! It was so wonderful being with her. Mom also got to go to Enrichment night with me! Which meant a lot because I'm enrichment co-leader and we did a "Home Away from the Range" meeting outside in the woods around a campfire, sang camp songs and roasted hot dogs, made s'mores and really felt the spirit with the testimony's and thoughts shared from sisters in our ward about gratitude. It really kicked fall off for me.

Ash got her stitches out last Saturday and again did not like to be tied down. She's a trooper. She calls Austin "Au-Tee". She loves her big brother and in the mornings before we get the kids out of bed, we hear them call to each other. Austin is supposed to wait for his alarm to ring at 7:15, but Ashley gets up at about 6:45. So she'll yell to him, "Au-tee!" And he'll respond, "Good morning Ashley!" They'll talk for a good half hour in the mornings before they can get out of their rooms for the day. Austin reads books and Ash throws stuffed animals from her bed. We've also made the conversion of binki's only during naptime and bedtime.

My dad came later in the week and we went to a pumpkin patch at Buckland Market Farm. We all had so much fun! "Pop" was woken up each morning by Ashley coming downstairs yelling, "Poppy" and he was a trooper by making eggs, waffles, pancakes for the kids every morning. We also played football each day, went to the park, and he danced with Ashley many times a day, read stories, put the kids to bed each night and helped out with baths. It was so nice! Nice to have the help but mostly nice that the kids are getting older and remembering Pop and Grandma and things they all do together and building even stronger relationships with their grandparents.


We also enjoyed ourselves at Stribling Orchard picking apples and Cox Farm amazing pumpkin patch/slides/rope swings. I don't know who had more fun between myself or the kids...with my parents being there I felt like a kid myself! My dad and I went down the giant slide and we raced with the kiddos in our laps. I cheated half-way down by pushing him and Austin and I won. Dad's a trouper.

Duane has been in Russia, Jerusalem, Egypt and is still on the go. I get calls here and there and he's doing fine. He was so sweet and called me since he was near the Dead Sea and got me refills on my favorite dead sea body lotions, creams, etc. Ashley misses Dada because at the gym nursery they said that she's been on the phone with dada the entire time-as she's holding a plastic cell phone walking around.



The weather is slowly cooling off here and we're enjoying fall!
Angie

E.R.

Happy Birthday Duane! October 3rd Duane turned 32. On his special day, something else special happened too! As I'm just about to take Austin to preschool, Ashley tripped and fell on the coffee table downstairs and split her bottom lip open. The gross part is that her teeth went all the way through below her lip line above her chin. Ugh. So I dropped off Austin to school a little early (thank goodness his teachers are so sweet) and took Ash to the Prince William ER. Not fun. After 3 hours of waiting with the dredges of the earth and who knows what airborn illnesses (I stood in the doorway the entire time for fresh air) we finally got called back. Duane was so sweet too-he was actually in the country for this calamity so he took off from the White House (where Condoleezza was) and met me at the hospital. Afterall, this is HIS little princess. After holding her down, sceaming and flailing and sweating, the Dr. got the stitches in and poor Duane couldn't look. He held her body down, but I held her head. They said a numbing shot would be worse than the stitches themselves. They put a topical numbing on her lip, but poor Ash was in pain. So this was the first time one of our children needed stiches. I have a feeling that if there is a next time that one of them will need stitches, it'll probably be Ashley again.

Also this week, we've had tile workmen in our home the entire week re-tiling our kitchen. The tile keeps cracking (2nd time). So I've brought food down for the kids and we have picnics in the basement out of paper bowls and food I have in a box down here. At first the picnics were fun, but now after 4 days, I need my kitchen back. Thank goodness we have a fridge in our garage. They should be done tomorrow.
My mom also came to visit She's coming in for a couple of weeks. Initially to watch the kids while we ran the half marathon, but since I'm still not able to run on my hip, we'll just visit insted. It's so fun having her here!

I forgot to mention last week that Ashley got her ears pierced! We wanted to wait until she was 8, but it was a spur of the moment decision when we were walking by Claire's at the mall! The ladies pierced her ears at the same time and Ash didn't even know what happened. She didn't whimper, not a cry, nothing. She's a tough little cookie. She looks adorable.

Austin started Tae Kwon Doe this week! Oh yeah, and he ended Tae Kwon Doe this week too. He liked the outfit and punching around like a power ranger at home, but once he was in the studio and all of the yelling and "yes sir!" and kids counting in Korean...I think he was a bit intimidated. It was not for him. At least not at age 4. We might try it again in a year.

Austin's "Aqua Dots' came in this week and I don't think a child has ever been more excited to get something in the mail than him--(other than the boy getting the Red Rider bee bee gun for the boy on Christmas Story). It's this cheap toy with lots of parts that's advertised on a commercial during a kids tv channel. Austin has seen it for weeks and had worked up to buying it. It took 6 weeks to come in the mail from the "As Seen On TV" place. 6 weeks of checking the mailbox for the beloved Aqua Dots. Thank goodness he does absolutely love them and plays with them a lot.

Not only has Ash gotten stitches this week, but she also has gotten poked and prodded with the flu shot but also with completing her State Dept Medical clearance physical.

We got the bid list and there are lots of good places overseas. We put in our bids next week as to where we'll be going this summer-July. But we feel strongly that we should stay within the United States for our next assignment until Austin's acid reflux is more under control. With all the follow-up procedures and hospitalizations he'll need, we need to be in the U.S. So...on the list we narrowed it down to: Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Greenville S.C. , Honolulu, Washington DC. So we should find out at the lastest in January. I personally would love to return to TEXAS!!

Austin's medical update: We got the results back from his endoscopy and ph probe a couple weeks ago. The ph probe was abnormal. Meaning, out of 24 hours Austin refluxed 23 times. Of those 23 times, 13 of them went all the way up to the top of his esophagus and lasted more than 5 minutes. (Makes sense why 90% of his esphagus had burns and erosions all over it). And that's while he's ON acid relux medication. The biopsy also showed he has severe gastritis. It's amazing...he never complains about pain in his stomach or throat. But his severe relux is the cause of his bronchial spasms-the acid goes into his lungs, it irritates his asthma and makes it so his tracheomalacia can't heal. So they've put him on yet another medication to rid everything out of his stomach so that there's no food or acid at all in there. We're giving this a try for the next 8 weeks and go back to see what progress he's made.
Thanks again for all the prayers for Austin. We're slowly getting to the bottom of this issue! We feel very blessed to have such great family, friends and excellent Dr.'s in this area.

Happy Fall!
Angie

New Jersey

So the Billy Joel song "Allentown" is what I always think of for some reason when I head up north to visit friends in PA or Jersey. So I was listening to the song as we made our trek up to Hackettstown, New Jersey to visit my big brother Christian and his sweet wife Jodi and their new home. Christian works in the regional corporate office for Mars Co. (the candy company-makers of M&M's) and we got LOTS of free candy. Perfect for Halloween time. Their home was beautiful, lots of land, and they're expecting their first baby boy in November!


We visited the shoreline and Austin and Ash loved putting their toes into the freezing cold water and running back up. Until they spotted a few jellyfish washed up on shore. Not so fun anymore. The weather was so perfect and so nice to be around the water again.


We walked up and down the boardwalk and ate fun boardwalk food. The next day we visited a pumpkin patch and had so much fun picking out pumpkins with them! Of course since it was my brother, I had many moldy pumpkins thrown at the back of my legs. So some got slung back to him too. My kids were watching and Austin was shocked. I reverted back to brother/sister times and rememberd I couldn't act that way around the kiddos. Austin was so excited to see mom cut loose that he started picking up pumpkins and anything else he could find and started throwing too. Ashley was just squealing in delight. Duane as just shaking his head. That' s the fun of having 3 brothers!!!!

We then made it home Sunday night. The trek takes about 5 hours. It was so great seeing them and where they live. I'm also so thankful for a wonderful tight family.

Quotes of the week:
Austin: "You're the best mom/dad I've ever had. Ever!"
Austin: "I'm not going to be your BFF (Best friend forever) anymore!" When he's upset at something...
Austin's started to tell some "stories". Sometimes he'll just make something up and I have to ask if that really happened, or he imagined that it would happen. Like, at the gym nursery Austin said that "a boy had a magic wand and he turned a toy into a frog!"
Austin: "I want to be a real pirate. Eat meat and sweets and no vegetables. They're lucky."

Ashley: "No way"
Ashley: "Ewwwww" when she spots a bug
Ashley: "Mommy" the word gets louder and louder now when she wants something-a change of radio, to get her up after a nap. Before she would just whine until I would do something. But now she's getting her point across!
Ashley: She's dancing more now than ever. She'll hear a song or see me and she'll boogie and shake her little toosh! It's so fun having a girl! I just went to a dancing store and got her a couple leotards for her class and it was so adorable!!!