the426s

Ellie came out of Grandma's room with her "boots" on....

they are actually the Christmas stockings for
her baby sister and baby cousin....

whoops...

we haven't made it through ALL the Christmas traditions YET.

No, Tim isn't using our second child to point at pictures,
but he did spend some time sharing Africa stories with the Larsens...

Ellie's obsession this weekend was Auntie Steph.
She had to do EVERYTHING with her,
show EVERYTHING to her
and eat EVERY meal next to her...

Our topless Mary and Baby Jesus wearing pink....
I guess we have a LOT to teach her this year!

Me at week 31 and Steph at 36

Ellie got to hold her little buddy at church today....
two peas in a cute-but-snotty-cold-filled-pod.

for cousins...

for silliness...

for pigtails...

for learning new things...

for fellowship...

for food....

for little girls...

and for wonderful families....

God is so GOOD to us.

We had a rather relaxing evening adding some Christmas inside
the house to add to the Christmas outside the house.
Fergus had decorated the downtown with
the small-town-stuff-on-the-light-posts decorations
and there was snow this morning!
(The pic is my nativity scene from my birthday!)

Ellie helped decorate the $20 steal of a tree
we got at Walmart this afternoon.

I helped her try to process the ornament
of her hand print from her first Christmas.
She didn't get it at all.

Tim was here as well.
Ellie was actually pushing some hair out of her eye,
but it looks like she's sick of pictures.

Bite.

Unroll.

Reroll.

Bite.

Yup.
Almost home.

I got to talk to Tim this morning again. :)
This picture of him was from September,
but again it felt fitting.
I feel like he's so far away,
yet when we're on the phone...
he's as close as the other side of the "tunnel."

His first thing to say was, "I'm TOTALLY RELAXED."
Everyone's healthy and (for the most part) rested.
They spent today in the market buying stuff and looking around.
They're staying at a Baptist mission tonight
and then taking a bus tomorrow to somewhere that I can't spell.
Then late Friday night they'll get to Paris
where they also get to spend Saturday wondering around
and then fly to Seattle and Fargo on Sunday.
He said that the last couple days were AMAZING.
He's going to get video from some others that are on the trip,
and they're going to get a photo website
to share pictures between everyone on the trip.

Again we only talked a few minutes because of the cost,
so he didn't tell any specific stories....

But he's happy, healthy, and starting his trip home.

What more can I ask for??

This is an old picture.
But it kind of fits because it's only kind of a message from Tim...
as I am the messenger.
Tim called today - many thanks to Kari for letting him use her phone!
So we got to chat.

This is what I will say on his behalf:
He's having a BLAST
and is having quite the emotional experience
being WITH the African people
and not just seeing them on TV and in articles.
The traveling went smoothly and he is safely in Cameroon.
His camera broke after ONE role of film.
So as many of you would guess, he's bummed.
But, his hotel roomie is a photography student
and is taking great pics.
He also asked for the Viking/Packer score.

I will get to talk to him again on Wednesday...Kari, you rock.

Oh, and he's probably hairier than the above picture right about now.
If anyone wants to place bets on how far
his beard will hang from his chin when he get's home,
the winner will get a prize...
maybe the shaved beard in a baggie...
I'm not sure yet.

We took Ellie to the Mall of America to ride the carousel today.
I had intended to take her but then found out that pregnant women are not allowed to ride the carousel....so Grandpa graciously took her.

And she LOVED it.

This year we tried to think something she could be for Halloween
that she would MAYBE understand.
Grandma Mathiesen has this book that Ellie loves called,

So we thought that she would LOVE to be Homer the Pest from the book.
Grandma Larsen knit her a hat just like Homer's...

We got her all dressed up (didn't take much)
and had her practice at Grandma and Grandpa Larsen's house...

When she was a pro, we took her to a couple houses to get her "stash."

These lovely folks were Ellie's first stop...

When we were done we posed next to her pumpkin.

This is where funny-at-first-but-not-so-funny-later part begins. When we finished outside with her pictures, Tim and I left for a friend's Halloween party and my parents began to answer the door. Well, Ellie answered the door...the first time. The doorbell rang and she ran and said "I'll get it!" Which was promptly followed by a shriek.

Because of a skeleton waiting for her at the door,
she spent most of the rest of the evening in Grandpa's lap.

They did get her up a couple times. But in the end, we had to come home from our party and I had to "sleep" in her bed ALL NIGHT LONG. When I say sleep, I mean doze in between being slapped and kicked and snored at ALL NIGHT LONG.