What a whirlwind of fun December was! We did not attempt going to see Santa again (second year in a row we've sat that one out), as Sus has always been enraptured with the idea of Santa and terrified of the actual Santa. John would react however Susannah reacted, as he does with any and everything, so it would have been ugly. While scared-kids-with-Santa pics are hilarious, we have 2 of those of Sus already, and I think that's probably enough, lest we send her to counseling later in life. I'm actually the worst at this Santa game anyway. For starters, Pete and I don't want an imaginary man getting credit for all the good gifts, so Santa only brings stocking stuff (toothbrushes, underwear, oranges, and candy -- exciting, but not big ticket items if you know what I'm saying). So we don't play him up that big in the first place. (We have limited funds, y'all, don't hate.) However, Susannah still wanted to write Santa a letter this year describing the things she wanted, so she wrote a page chock-full of scribbles and told me, "It says, 'Dear Santa, I want anything that you give me.'" In my grown-up mind, I didn't think it was that big of a deal to "mail" it since there were (a) no specific requests and (b) stocking stuffers already purchased. So, like a careless, unimaginative person, I laid the list on the top of the trash one night after the kids went to bed. You know where this is going. The next day, Susannah opened the trash (for reasons still unknown... I think sometimes she just likes to keep tabs of what we're tossing out) and immediately exclaimed, "MOMMY! Why is my letter to Santa in the trash?!" Oh boy. I don't even know how I weaseled my way out of that one. Lots of blubbering about confusion and that I'd put it in the mail ASAP. She'll talk about that in counseling one day, I'm sure. John is in a stage that Susannah never entered: he only speaks in questions. Not literally, but that's what it feels like. "Mommy, what's this?" "When we gonna go to PopPop and Dizzy's house again?" "Did ThanMan give me this shirt?" "Can I have a snack, please?" "Can you help me, please?" "Can I help you cook dinner?" "When we gonna go swimming again?" "Does Hudson wear basketball pants?" "Does it take 78 days to go to Aunt KK and Uncle Bear's house?" "Where's Daddy?" "Remember the man cave at Pop and Figgy's house?" and on and on and on and on and on AND ON. Yesterday before church, I promise you he asked me 20 questions in under 10 minutes. He's our curious little buddy, and it's really cute thinking about it later on, but I want to pull my hair out by question 10 in the midst. His vocabulary is impressive, though, and he is so funny. The other day he needed me for something and was saying, "Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy...." Pete said, "What do you need, John?" And John said, "MOMMY TO LISTEN TO ME!" Now that's hilarious! Mary is crawling like a crazy girl! She's all over the place now, and it's so fun. She's most proud of herself when she finds someone in another room. The squeals of delight are so precious. She's also eating us out of house and home along with her siblings. I'd been having to cut her off so that she wouldn't overeat! At her 9 month checkup, however, we noticed that her weight percentile had surprisingly taken a bit of a plunge, so the doctor basically told me to fatten her up. So Mary's dreams have come true: she can basically eat until her heart's content every meal, and even get a snack time now. I'm sure in her little baby mind she's thinking she has absolutely arrived. And now for a cluster of pictures from various points of December and this first half of January:
Mary loves having a "Mary's turn!" now. She's in the daddy-fun rotation, and gets PUMPED when she hears S&J say, "MARY'S TURN!"
This is a MEME waiting to happen. Hand on her hip telling me like it is!
Such a fun season we're in now with Sus: board games!
"Daddy, Daddy, come in, Daddy!"
Sus has been on this scientist kick, saying she wants to be a scientist when she grows up, so I absolutely jumped on that for Christmas and got her a microscope!
Figgy knows how to accessorize some babies with THE CUTEST things! Don't you just want to eat her?
At the airport, heading to Memphis!
Even if you get in at 10pm, you still have storytime with Dizzy before bed.
Indoor winter games! Courtesy of Aunt Lauren.
An Elf snack. John wanted to eat it just how Buddy the Elf did.
Sus was a little more dainty.
The whole Ware gang at the Christmas Eve service
Matching cousins!
John and Hudson helping Aunt KK and Uncle Bear make sugar cookies to decorate
Decorating cookies
An early-morning flight from Memphis back home makes for one of the sweetest moments for me as a mom. Sus and Mary were both sweetly sleeping on me, and John was asleep behind us on Pete's arm (see next pic). The flight attendant was sweet enough to capture this moment.
Love that he fell asleep like this
Acker Family Christmas came just a few days after we returned from Memphis!
All fancy for NYE
Our annual NYE party / anniversary pic! Love my man somethin fierce.
These are my best friends, and they are the most beautiful souls.
These friends are 2 months apart and love each other so much!
Our annual NYE 7:30pm Ball(oon) Drop!
Bottom to Top: 2015, 2016, 2017. John and his two best buddies.
The Christmas gift that has given me the most free time to date.
Warming bellies by the wood stove!
Mary finally gets to bathe with the big kids!
SNOW! LOTS and LOTS of SNOW!
I caught Mary smiling in the snow one time. After this one grin, she was pretty much over it.
Dream land for Sus
Smiling because it was only Day 1 of our 5 days of being snowed in...
Happy girl!
When the snow doesn't stay out of your snow clothes, Daddy knows how to improvise.
The boy LOVES snow.
Meet Packowee, our redneck snowman, who's actually a girl.
Susannah writes her name now! This was a week ago, and she's written it so many times since then that her handwriting has already gotten better. The girl has a love of learning.
I could stare at that sweet face all day. And some days I do.
My life was made yesterday, as Sus and I were twins for church! I told Pete if we had the money, I'd create an entire wardrobe of matching outfits for me and my girls.
Reading time
And here are some fun videos:
Mary's favorite word:
Mary loves affirmation:
Susannah sends a video message to Figgy:
I'd just told John I was going to come in the room when he was wrapping my Christmas presents:
I know if I don't go ahead and post again before Christmas, I won't get to it until like March because the amount of pictures between Acker Thanksgiving and Ware Christmas will be too much for me to sift through. So here we are again, a mere 2 weeks later. YOU ARE WELCOME. Mary has tooth #2 and is still on the verge of crawling. We've said almost everyday for the past 2 1/2 weeks, "Today's the day. Today she crawls." But no, she's holding out. And I'm okay with that! Another Mary milestone (forced milestone, really) is that I've decided that this is the week for her to give up her Magic Sleepsuit. It's been wonderful, but I don't want to have to pack it for our trip to Collierville in a couple weeks. So yeah, I'm being a little selfish. But it's time for her to grow up and sleep like a big baby, darnit! ;) John repeated his first bad word this week, so that's cool. I won't tell you whom in our household he repeated, but I will tell you that it was not his mother. Ahem. John also decided he no longer needs a booster seat at the dinner table. Normally, Pete and I would be the ones to decide when it was time for a seat upgrade, but seeing as we've had John sitting in his sister's pink booster seat for a year because who has room in their house for TWO small booster seats, I think it's okay for us to follow his lead there. I can't blame the boy! Susannah has in the last 2 weeks begun many conversations with, "When the baby boy comes out of your belly..." 😳 SLOW DOWN THERE, GIRLIE. I'm telling you, though, when God wired Susannah, he wired her to be a big sister. There's no one better at it. She's ready for me to have another baby, and then she'd be asking for another one a month later. She loves her siblings so much. (And in case you're wondering: I do not have a baby boy or girl in by belly, so CHILL.) The other night when Pete was putting Sus and John to bed, he was talking to them about how God is always with us. He told them that even when it feels or looks like we're alone, God is there. And Susannah said, "And John. John's always there, too." I pray that the safety they feel with each other lasts a lifetime. PICS!
Early morning roadtrip to Harrisonburg means stopping at Daddy's office in our PJs! (Just the kids in PJs fyi)
Auntie Beth! She became a team favorite immediately.
Watching Sing and just take a look at John and Charis. THE SWEETEST.
Playing in the leaves!
Pop took the leave blower to the yard to get a HUGE pile for the kids to play in.
Somebody teach that pup how to smile for the camera!
In case you all out there were wondering how I'm managing as a SAHM these days and not going completely loopy, these ladies are the reason I"m still a sane human. This is the Bible study groups of all Bible study groups -- I love these gals with my whole heart!
MARY BABY STOP IT RIGHT NOW YOU'RE TOO CUTE.
Susannah is ready for gymnastics next month!
Mary's new trick is getting up on all fours.
We had some warm weather last week, so of course we picnicked outside!
FIRST FAT LIP! There were tears, but once we discovered the blood and how silly we looked, we decided fat lips were the coolest.
I take 8 million pictures a day of my 3rd child. I was told I'd take like 2 pics of my 3rd kid annually. This has not proven to be true because she is just SO pretty!
STOP HERE unless you want to hear about my random thoughts on things. ____________________________ I've been reading in Acts for about a month now, and I got to Acts 17 recently where Paul and Silas are in Thessalonica telling everyone how Jesus is Christ. Some of the Jews didn't like what they had to say, so they formed a mob and took their arguments against Paul and Silas to the city authorities saying, "These men who have turned the world upside down...saying that there is another king, Jesus" (17:6-7). These verses are stirring something in my being. Man, I want this to be what the world today says about Christians. I want the accusations to be about true Christ-followers declaring with our lives that we serve a greater King Jesus and the world is being turned UPSIDE DOWN (read: the world is coming to see Jesus) because of our love for and devotion to Him. The lines are getting too blurred. I almost started typing my thoughts on this whole Roy Moore debacle because that's what's got me so down these days about Christian representation in the world, but I'll refrain. Let's just settle on the fact that Christians need a better name than Roy Moore and his evangelical followers. Christians need a better name than Sally Acker, too, actually. In all this mess--in all my mess--I'm thankful for Jesus and His redeeming blood; and I'm thankful that through Him we have the power to turn the world upside down by the way we love, serve, and pray. Did that make any sense to you 5 readers out there? That last paragraph was out of left field, I know. I can ramble sometimes -- ask my husband! Nonetheless, I don't keep a prayer journal diligently anymore, so y'all are now subjected periodically to my random thoughts about what I'm reading.
I won't even say it. I won't even say the thing about how long it's been since my last post. You know how long it's been. You know I have 3 kids. Blogging is hard. REGARDLESS.
Susannah turned 4 at the beginning of this month! She got to have a joint birthday party with her best friend and cousin Bethany (who turned 5 in early October) a couple weeks earlier, which also included her first non-grandparent sleepover that night. She was such a big girl and stayed with her girl cousins in Richmond while Pete, Mary, John, and I took Nathanael back to our house for the night. To say my heart swelled when I picked her up the next day and she immediately said, "I'm ready to go home, Mommy. I missed you" is an understatement. Sus has never been more aware of being older than John now and LOVES pointing it out. Anytime John gets frustrated about anything, even if it's something she can't do either, she says, "JOHN. Calm down now, buddy, just wait til you're 4, and THEN you can do it easy!" And one more sweet story about Sus. She and Pete were dancing in the kitchen one night after dinner while I cleaned up. At one point, Pete dipped her and gave her a kiss, and Susannah said, "That means we're falling in love!" MY HEART. I CAN'T.
John is SO GLAD THAT SUSANNAH'S BIRTHDAY IS FINALLY OVER. Since we celebrated Susannah's birthday 2 weeks before her actual birthday, we talked about her actual birthday every single day 18 times a day until we reached her actual birthday. Poor buddy asked when it was going to be his birthday every time we brought up Susannah's birthday, and our answer of "May" might as well have been "37 years" in his mind. He is happy all the birthday talk is done and is stoked to turn 3...in May. One cute thing John does right now that I want to document just for my sake of remembering is that he uses the verb "am" in almost every sentence. "When we am going outside?" "What you am doing, Mommy?" "Something am bothering me!" These are 3 things he said to me just today. It's so cute.
And our angel MaryBaby... that child is the easiest babe! She's gotten a little more particular on the things she likes and doesn't like; but generally she likes sitting and watching her siblings be crazy. And generally she doesn't like getting tired, so that's when she wants to be held. Then she's happy as a lark once again. She's eating solid foods now and loves it all so much. (See video below.) Mary cut her first tooth last week, and the next one is sure to be in soon. And as pictured above, she's almost on the move. It really will be any day! So once the crawling starts, we'll also start a new game of "what small toy did Mary eat today?" Mary is also beautiful if the pictures haven't spoken for themselves already. She's such a good mixture of John and Susannah, and her little face is just flawless. I know I'm biased, but I just want to stare at her pretty face all day. LOTS of pics and videos in no particular order!
Pete killed a HUGE deer this season, and I'm sure this is the picture you were coming to the blog for, so I put it first.
Eating is life.
Sus as Fancy Nancy for one of our Halloween Trunk-or-Treats
Way cuter than Christopher Reeves!
CAN YOU EVEN? I CAN'T EVEN.
Sometimes we get to dress up!
My beautiful friends and I at the Crisis Pregnancy Center banquet (not pictured: husbands). If you're not involved with your local CPC, you really should look into it. They are no doubt ministiesy worth your time and financial support.
We got to go on TWO fancy dates in one week! Two nights after the CPC banquet, we went to a fancy gala and had a grand time rubbing elbows with the well-to-do around town.
ICE CREAM!
The love!
The wild animal has been captured.
A sweet friend gave Sus everything Tangled (Rapunzel) for her birthday, even the movie!
How we roll.
Nighttime routine. They'll never be this little again!
EEEEE! Look at that Mary Baby!
Already in love with babies, just like big sis.
The buddies
Painted pumpkins
Reading together
When the kids want to be outside, Pete's hunting, and I have a ton of work to do -- not too bad!
Our true Halloween costumes: Cinderella, Old McDonald (John's fav song), and Mary Had a Little Lamb!
Pete's best friend from high school and his fam came to visit for a few days, and these friends had SO much fun!
My babies with their babies
Pete's a sewing pro now, innovating the best heating options for the deer stand.
Thankful for chilly hat weather!
Sus and I have been in Bible Study together this fall, and part of her homework one week was to act out a scene from Esther. We enlisted John's help.
The best kisses!
And as for Pete and me, we're doing what we do! I just finished taking 2 online classes to ensure teacher recertification in the spring and am currently teaching Creative Writing online with 36 students. Pete's loving the ability to hunt ON OUR OWN LAND. That's right, we closed on 48 acres in Isle of Wight County (same county we're currently in) since the last time I posted. We are SO excited to build a house and a million memories out there!
