Terrific Two's Here we Come!

Sierra turned 2 years old on Saturday. It hardly seems possible that just two years ago she made her tumultuous entrance into this world. She was very excited for the big day and would do a little dance and pronounce "Happy!" (she can't quite say birthday yet). It was great to be able to celebrate her birthday with both our families and our Thunderbird friends the Svetz's. She is such a fun girl to be around as she finds excitement and joy in the littlest things. It is truly wonderful to have a toddler around with fresh eyes of this world. She can also be a handful at times as she is pretty strong willed. Last night for dinner she insisted on eating out of a yellow bowl with an ice cream scoop as her utensil. She did eat all her dinner though so-whatever works.

Here's our two year old-complete with outta control hair and a messy, though happy face.Opening presents with Daddy.

Our Little Man

Playing in the Snow

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I love this holiday and the chance it provides to reflect on the abundance in life- wow we are blessed!! We were able to have two feasts- one with my family and another with Craig's. (yeah I need to start running tomorrow). I love being close to family and sharing the holidays with them. Gideon will be two months tomorrow! I can hardly believe how fast time has raced by and how much has happened in such a short amount of time. He is growing big very quickly! He weighs around 12 pounds now and seems to get chubbier by the day. He slept through the night last week- yippee! Sierra was down and out with teething and a cold but finally recovered and is back to her spirited self. She went shopping with me and my mom and two sisters after Thanksgiving and loved it all. She was mesmerized by the holiday decorations and couldn't get enough of them. My in-laws are big time Christmas aficionados so it's a lot of fun for her here. We are still on the job hunt and are praying the right job for Craig and our family comes sooner rather than later. But as we have learned many times in life- the Lord is in control and as long as we put our trust in Him we will be taken care of in His own way and in His own time.

Sierra loves being outside and though it is colder than we are used to, she still insists on spending part of her day roaming around outside. We are living with Craig's parents who just built a home on five acres so there is plenty of wide open space for her to explore. Craig has been earning our keep by helping to clean up post-construction messes. Yesterday he spent most of the day breaking apart concrete with a sledge hammer and today he has hauled old metal fencing. I just watch in awe at his strength and stamina and try to keep Sierra out of the way.

Goodbye Arizona

So long Arizona- we have now made our sixth move (in just six years of marriage) and are in Nevada living in Craig's parents home. Craig spent the last two weeks or so interviewing out of state so I got to be a single mom and pack our house up. I have the most profound respect for single mothers out there who do it day in and day out- way to go!! We finally got the last of the boxes in storage and loaded the car and truck and headed north. The children were great travelers but I think we were all relieved to reach our destination. We are getting settled in and working on adjusting to a new living arrangement that we hope is temporary until Craig lands a job. Meanwhile it has been fun to visit with both our families as they live just a few miles from each other, though we are already missing our Thunderbird Family.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is such a fun holiday! I love the creativity of the costumes and the excuse to eat lots of candy and treats (as I polish off the last bit of pumpkin cheesecake). We had a great time trick-or-treating around the campus of Thunderbird and got lots of loot. I promptly confiscated 90% of the sweet stuff and then let Sierra eat the rest this afternoon. I was surprised that she actually threw away most of the candy after a bite or two- except the smarties. Tonight we attended a festive party at Greg and Amy Giauque's home. Sierra decided that for the evening party she needed to be a ballerina dancer so we forewent the panda bear she wore earlier. Gideon was our little pumpkin- a cute one at that. It's so fun to gather together with friends to celebrate these fun holidays.

Party Time?

So I don't know what most of you were doing at 2:30 am this morning but you missed the party! I was up with Gideon (who goes from 0 to starving in 2.4 seconds) which woke up Sierra. While I was busy feeding the little guy, Sierra found my church shoes and was prancing around the kitchen in them proclaiming that she wanted pizza. I just sat there laughing and watching her in amazement at her ability to take advantage of ever opportunity to live life to the fullest. I have so much to learn from my children!

It's Fall

It's finally fall here in Arizona. Today there was a cool breeze that rustled the leaves and made it seem like it's actually October. After such a hot summer the cool air feels heavenly and we try to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Friday we went to a pumpkin patch with some friends and had a great time.

Our New Arrival!

Gideon Jay Forbush joined our family on September 26th. He was 6 pounds 9 oz and 19 inches long. We are so excited to have this new little guy in our home.

Sierra LOVES being a big sister!

The time has come to join the blogging community! We love browsing through other's blogs and hope you enjoy ours as well. Pictures and more postings will come soon, but for now at least it is set up. Tomorrow morning (9 hours or so to go- yeah!) we will welcome baby #2 into our family. I can hardly wait to meet this new little one!