I feel like we’ve been going non-stop all week. Josh continued intense work on his dissertation while the kiddos and I are in the midst of Christmas celebrations. Thursday morning we delivered Christmas cookies to our doctors. Thursday evening I decided to take the kids up to Plano to see Gordon Lights. The traffic turned a 45 minute drive into a 1.5 hour drive…Isaiah made a huge messy diaper and wailed through the first few minutes of the show. Becca loved it – so it was worth it.

Friday Becca and Isaiah had check-ups. Both got glowing reports. Becca told Dr. Raine that she didn’t want to hear Isaiah cry when he got his shots, so Dr. Raine took Becca to his office to play while Isaiah had his shots. Dr. Raine has framed the card Becca (and I) made for him to thank him for helping find her tumor – it’s a hand-print painting and photo of Becca. Becca weighs 27.5lbs (17th percentile for her age) and is 35.75 inches tall (19th percentile). The doctor predicts that she will be 5’2″. Isaiah weighs 17 lbs 11 oz (47th percentile for his age) and his height is 26.5 in (33rd percentile for his age).

Friday evening we had dinner with the Rylands. We enjoyed singing Christmas carols with them after our meal. Saturday we went to the children’s Christmas party at our church. Sunday evening our pastor had a open house. Monday we went to Anna’s for lunch and then I surprised Josh with an evening out – thank you Meridith for watching our kids. (Picture on the left is Becca’s gift from my piano students. Pictures to the right show Becca climbing “The Daddy Mountain.”)

In other exciting news, Isaiah has had 4 successful potty experiences. It’s been nice, since it saves me from having to clean a very messy diaper.

I’ll close with two pictures of one of my favorite activities…. I have the most wonderful husband in the world!

About a week before we traveled for Thanksgiving Josh found out that in order to graduate this May he has to have a full draft of his dissertation in by January 20 (so the committee can read it by January 30 and decide whether to let him enroll in “dissertation defense” credits for the semester). The pressure is now on to have a full draft . . . not the best time of year to have this kind of deadline. After we arrived back from SC, we decided to buckle down for the deadline, and Josh started going back to school in the evenings, as well as working all day Saturdays on his dissertation and on his other school responsibilities (which also got busier!). It doesn’t make for a very festive Christmas season, but we’re doing what we need to do to make the deadline. Presently, Josh is about 50% sure he can make the deadline. We appreciate your prayers as he works on his analysis. (Picture on the left is of our garden last week when it still felt like late summer…not sure what it looks like since we had some snow on Monday.)

Sunday evening we had the Pawley Family over for dinner. Eric and Mee-Sun are missionaries in Cambodia and are working with the same language group (Jarai) that we hope to work with. There is a possibility that we would join the Pawleys’ translation project.

Monday afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting up most of the Bixby family during their layover at the DFW airport – I think it has been the highlight of my month. We were really glad to be able to see Tim and Ruth, since they are on furlough, and depending on how long our deputation takes, we’re not sure when we’ll be in the came country again. The last time we saw Tim and Ruth we had just found out I was pregnant with Becca – a lot has happened since then. We enjoyed our time with the family. Becca immediately hit it off with Zach. They were crawling, running, jumping, and shouting HALLELUJAH all over the little area we camped out in. On our way to the bathroom, Becca told me she was going back to play with Zachary: “I call him Zachary,” she told me.

Isaiah is enjoying eating sweet potatoes. I had hoped to delay solids until after Christmas, but this little man just couldn’t wait! Wow – the way he eats you might think I’ve been starving him for the past 6 months. He loves sweet potatoes, but is not so sure about squash or green beans yet – actually I’m pretty sure he dislikes them, but this perhaps has something to do with the fact that the sweet potatoes are homemade and the other foods were from the jar. The picture below shows my first batch of sweet potatoes. I thought the blue-lidded container would last a few days . . . he ate half the container in one meal!

Becca is now sleeping in underwear. She’s been wearing underwear during the day for about a year and is potty-trained, except for in the nights. We ran out of size 4 diapers, so I told Becca that I wasn’t going to buy any more. Becca didn’t like wearing big fat cloth diapers to bed, so we tried underwear and she’s done pretty good, with a few accidents here and there. She LOVES being able to get up any time she wants to use the potty . . . like 10 times in a row! The amazing thing to me is that she wakes up in the middle of the night (somewhere around 3am) and goes potty all by herself.

Becca really enjoys acting out the Nativity with her animals and the Little People Nativity set. This week she realized that she could be a character too . . . then she ended up calling me Joseph for the rest of the evening!

What with traveling to visit family during the holidays, Christmas has been a tricky as far as starting our own family traditions. This year we’re putting our focus on celebrating Advent. We’re reading John Piper’s Good News of Great Joy (free pdf) each evening after dinner. During that time Becca also gets to pull and put one more Little People on her new advent calendar. Becca really looks forward to taking a new piece out of its pocket each night. We’re also using the Advent calendar and readings Christmas Opened Up. My plan is to also have a special meal each Sunday night – it worked this past week, but we’ll see what happens the next few.

Of course, we’re also doing all the other “fun” Christmas stuff. We put up our tree last Friday (thanks Aunt Rita!). Saturday night we went to Arlington’s Christmas parade (in shorts!). Becca loves singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Notice in the picture below that even the dinos have been included in the Christmas celebration!

Sunday afternoon we celebrated Chikoo’s 3rd birthday. Chickoo’s parents live on UTA campus and we met them while walking outside one evening. The party was informal and very enjoyable for both parents and children. I think the highlight was playing in the dirt!

Becca and I made playdough this week (h.t. to my good friend Johanna at myhometableau.com). This was my second attempt at making playdough – the first was a disaster (one of those loser-mommy moments)! Becca enjoyed making it and playing with it. I made snowman and she made snakes!

Our happy boy is 6 months today! He continues to be a sweet, smiley little man. He’s now rolling over both directions and enjoying his new found freedom. He also has a fixation with tags.

Now that Isaiah is 6 months, we’re discontinuing his week birthday blog post and will just do special posts for his month birthdays.