Leaving the Dirty Jers...

Well, we got home late last night (130am, and no, Whitney did not sleep on the plane!).  I have been packing all day.  We are leaving here tommorrow.  Flight to Ohio at 540pm.  We'll be in Chilli for a week, then finally, finally, back to Georgia!  Yippee!  (Ben is pretty much foaming at the mouth to get on his dirt bike.)

 

Good bye Residence Inn...you served your purpose well.

Whitney's been a big help packing today...Tee Hee!

A Tough Loss

Well, Peyton Manning got the best of us.  As Ben says, "He is like a ninja!"  The guys held their own and actually led the game at halftime, but Peyton figured something out and the Colts just came alive.  Our guys did great even though it ended a wonderful season.  They have much to be proud of.  Whitney and I had a fun time together, just the two of us.  We had our first slumber party in the hotel room and breakfast in bed in the morning.  We were so happy to have dinner with some great friends, Hunter and Jen Smith and Bryan Fletcher.  Ben played with Hunter and Bryan in Indianapolis.  A lot of our family and some of our close friends were able to come to the game too.  I was so blessed to have Abby sitting with me to entertain Whitney the ENTIRE game.  I don't think she got to watch a single down of football, but I am so grateful for her being there.  It was a fun day, somewhere we didn't think we'd be this year, if ever.  So few people get this opportunity.  We are so blessed for the things God has allowed us to be a part of.  For now life moves on and we'll be anxiously waiting to see where we'll be heading next season.  Hmmmm....

Jets at San Diego...Victory!

Amazing!  We seriously beat the Chargers.  What an awesome game.  What an awesome experience for my hubby.  He's been fortunate to be in the playoffs 5 of his 6 years in the league.  This was only his second time to be part of a divisional game.  This weekend will be his first time to be in a championship game.  Wow.  I know in the big scheme of life, this is just football and it doesn't compare to the "real" things of life, like relationships, tragities, etc., but this is part of our life, not our complete life, but part of it and wow, for him to get to be part of this is just amazing.  He/we have been so blessed by this journey.  He has shown great perserverance through injuries, coaching changes, team changes, the list is endless.  I am so proud of him and his diligence.  What a wonderful example for our family!  God's hand is truely on this team and the journey they are on, whether it ends this weekend or not.  They have overcome the odds and silenced the nay-sayers.  I am just so proud of all of them!

Thanks to my parents that rock, I was able to go out to the game. They came to New Jersey to stay with the girls while I enjoyed a few days of down time.  I was so grateful to be there.  The game was so exciting.  The first half was scary, but they came out fired up the second half and just consumed the Chargers!  After the game was pure excitement, it was a silent excitement though, like people were just in amazement.  Not that we didn't believe it could happen, because we all know they have it in them, but people were still in awe.  Onto Indianapolis this weekend.  Oh, and after the game as we were heading down the ramp to meet Ben, there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky.  Can you say "sign from God'?  I love how He works!

Big Stuff

Today we tried the sippy cup and eating some puffs.  Neither were entirely successful, but it's a start.  I mean, it was only her first day!  But while I was watching her all I could keep thinking was, "she's never going to get this."  But then I remembered I thought the same thing with Whitney, so I guess I'll just have to be patient.

9 Months Old!

Lindsey turned 9 months old yesterday.  So hard to believe.  I've been thinking alot about how its weird that she is growing up.  For some reason I just feel like Lindsey is always going to be a baby and that Whitney is the only one that is going to keep growing.  I guess maybe its because Whitney is so busy that I'm just not realizing that Lindsey is growing too.  At any rate, I'm not a big fan of it, but I guess she'll always be my baby, no matter what size she is...At the doctor yesterday she weighed 19 lbs 11 oz and was 28 inches.  That puts her in the 75 percentile for both.  She's now walking holding onto our fingers or anything else that's around.  She still only has her two bottom teeth, but she is chewing on everything, so the others shouldn't be too far behind.  Last night she tried some banana for the first time. She didn't seem to be a big fan, she kept spitting it out, which Whitney thought was hysterical for some reason.  It's getting more and more fun to watch them interact.

Thinking it over...

Got it!

Playoffs BABY!

We did it!  Well, they did it!  The Jets made it to the playoffs!  They beat the Bengals on Sunday Night Football in the bitter cold.  I had four or five layers on and toe and hand warmers, so I was pretty set.  Now off to Cincinnati on Saturday to take them on again.  Go Jets!!!

Me and Christa bundled up

Welcome 2010!

We are old...we did nothing for New Year's.  We never usually do anything crazy, but would at least get together with friends or something...this year I had to work to even get Ben to stay up to watch the ball drop.  We laughed at ourselves when, the night before New Year's Eve we realized we hadn't even discussed that we weren't doing anything for New Year's Eve.  It was just like, a given that we weren't, so there was no need to even discuss it.  Guess it's good we were on the same page.  Tee Hee!

We did however spend New Year's Day/Night with our friends from Georgia, Barry and Christa.  We picked them up at their hotel in the city and then Ben drove us around some of the sites before landing at our dinner reservations at the much hyped-up, Peter Lugar's Steakhouse in Brooklyn.  Unfortunately, even after pretty much everyone in the NY Jet organization highly recommended it, it was in all of our opinions, a BUST!  To start things off, we caught the girl behind the front desk digging for gold a couple times, with full examination.  The waiter seemed less than pleased to be our server, and we were told to get the bacon and out comes a 1/4 inch thick slab of fat with a couple bites of pork...the weirdest thing we have ever seen.  The steak was sub-par, along with the sides.  Dessert was the best part, but still nothing to write home about.  However, we all still had a great time!  Great company + good laughs = great time!

Sweet Visit

Whitney's friend Kallie Henderson came for a quick visit today.  She came up to New Jersey with her grandparents to visit her great-grandma.  We had breakfast and then took a quick swim in the pool.  The girls were very excited to see each other.  We can't wait to get back down to Georgia so they can play some more!

Jesus' Birthday!

What a blessed day we had to celebrate the birth of our Savior!  We are so grateful for His love and salvation.  I pray that our girls will come to experience it as they grow as well.  What an awesome gift we all can have!

Ben didn't have to be into work until 1:00 so we had a great morning with the girls opening presents and playing.  We were fortunate that Santa found us here in New Jersey!  Whitney was so much fun this year and really got into the whole Santa thing.  When she came out of her room and saw the presents she just said "Wow!"  Lindsey, of course, was to young to understand anything, but she loved all the new toys that were around.  She just crawled around from toy to toy.  So much fun...so much love.  We are blessed.

All the loot

Gotta love a camera with a timer

Reading our letter from Santa

Digging into the stocking

Whitney had chocolate for breakfast, Lindsey was trying to

Time to open

Lindsey too

A hopping ball!

Mommy and Lindsey

Whitney and Mommy with the snow globe that she picked out

Ben in his new riding pants...yes, it's getting serious

THE sparkly bouncy ball that she asked Santa for...Yea!

"I want chocolate for breakfast too"

Playing with all the new stuff

Cookies!

Ok, so I cheated this year and just bought store sugar cookie dough, but it was still good.  Whitney had fun rolling out the dough, cutting the shapes and decorating.  Her favorite thing by far was continually licking the knife we were spreading the icing with though.  Can't blame her I guess...

Rolling out the dough

Cutting it out

Sprinkles

Icing

Love my girl

Cookies and milk...can't beat it!

Fun in the Snow!

Yesterday we went out and played in the snow!  It was Whitney's first time to really play in it.  There were probably about 8 inches.  Ben and I both thought she wouldn't last very long at all, but turns out she's quite the snow bunny.  She absolutely loved it!  When we asked her what she wanted to play in the snow, she said that she wanted to make snow angels, so that's what we did.  And a lot of running, crawling, eating and throwing snow.  It had been a long time since I had played in the snow.  I forgot how much fun it was...nothing like your own kid to make you feel like a kid again.  Such a fun time!

Getting all bundled up

Making snow angels...I think this was right before she kicked snow in my face

Throwing snowballs at daddy

Getting buried in the snow

Crawling (like Lindsey) in the snow

Eating the snow...don't worry it wasn't yellow

Other cute shots from the day