MY LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN . . .: Where has the time gone?

It has been quite a while since I posted on this blog...or my personal blog...or on anything for that matter!! I tend to go through periods where I just simply forget :) Many months have passed since fall (although I guess I never did finish my pumpkin patch post) and winter has been showing its chilly personality. For the very first time since we moved, this past week I was able to say "I am glad we don't live in Maryland anymore!!". They got hammered with loads and loads of snow. It did snow once here but all was virtually melted in the next 2-3 days. Good old southern sun :) Anyways, the most recent events that have transpired were of course Thanksgiving, Christmas and Sophia's 3rd birthday!! I'll just put up a few pictures from each. We were able to spend Thanksgiving here at our house with my mom and Brian's brother's family. Christmas we were so blessed to be able to travel to beautiful California to spend time with Brian's sister's family (and his parents and grandmother and aunt's family and again his brother's family!!). And for Sophia's birthday we played it low key with a few days of special birthday surprises and a mini family party. As we sang to her and cut her cake I was reflecting on how much my girls have changed just in the past few months. Sophia's most commonly used phrase has become "I do it a-self, mama" (aka "I'll do it myself"). I can't believe how independent and grown-up she is becoming. Although she can still be a bit hard to understand, she has amazingly intelligent conversations with me and just LOVES to play pretend. It brings me such joy to listen to her pray at night and to hear her new found excitement over going to church to play with the other kids. She has come a long way in the social sphere so thank goodness for that!! Autumn's new favorite past time (besides eating and mimicking all that big sister does) is taking off her diaper and declaring "No no diii-paa...pee paw-ee" (aka "No no diaper...pee potty"). She loves to say it but isn't so fond of actually following through haha She'd rather play with the toilet paper and flush than be productive with the process. Anyways, they have both been sick with colds and stomach bugs for about three weeks now. Today they are finally feeling much better and back to their usual energy level. Praise God for his healing :) Enjoy the pictures I will post more specific updates later today.

I apologize for the brevity of the account and images of each of these events...once you get this far behind in posting it's hard to catch up unless you just bundle things together!! haha

Happy 3rd Birthday Sophia!!

(We went to the build-a-bear factory as a special treat...she built a birthday bunny as you can see!!)