Its almost Christmas and 2009 is almost over. December has been a busy month for us like it probably has for everybody. Ronda has been a little busier at school since she is teaching a new unit that requires more grading. She is doing a phenomenal job teaching while pregnant. I know I couldn't do it. I just finished my second to last semester at Moody and will be graduating in May (Lord willing). This Christmas we are staying home and will miss seeing our families. One of the fun things we did this month was go to a NFL game in Indianapolis. The Colts were playing my favorite team the Broncos. We have been wanting to see the Broncos play for a while now and we have some good friends who are Colts so it seemed like perfect timing. Thanks to Caleb trading us for telephoto lens we were able to zoom in and get some fun pics.

ConLai is ever growing and is growing up fast. She is talking a lot more and trying to count. She usually starts at 6 and goes through 8 repeating 7 and 8 a lot. She can usually repeat any word we say so now we have to choose our words carefully. It also helps us find out what words we repeat a lot. For instance, I found out I must say "nasty" a lot because ConLai uses it quite frequently. She has fairly good manners and usually says "Bless you" after anyone sneezes or coughs and even says "excuse me" when she burps and toots. One morning ConLai woke up early (before 6) so Ronda got up with her and rocked her for a while. After a while she said "ni-night". Then she said "ni-night please" so Ronda put her back to bed and she fell back asleep for a while. It was a surprise to us since she usually does not fall back to sleep once she wakes up in the morning no matter how early it is. She is also quite a girly girl. She loves to paint her fingernails and toenails. We put a fancy dress on her for a Christmas program last Friday and she twirled in front of the mirror while we got ready. And she has been a big helper helping Ronda wrap Christmas presents. She has showed amazing restraint in not touching or opening the presents under the tree. And we just took a few minutes to set up her new bed. Someone from our church just gave us a used kids bed yesterday for free and it is really nice. Now she can get used to sleeping in a bed and we can use the crib for our new baby girl when she arrives.

ConLai and her friend Isaiah copying eachother.

ConLai taking a picture using an old broken cell phone.

ConLai and Mr. Southern (Becca's Dad) playing over Thanksgiving. He was teaching her to follow which cup had the cheerio underneath it.

The flag for the Star Spangled Banner at the Bronco's game.

Our friends Andy and Lindsey Sherrod

Brandon Marshall with the stiff arm. It was really fun to try and take pics with our new lens. Thanks Caleb.

ConLai likes to play in this section of the shelves. She closes the door and then says "knock knock" and then kicks it open.Our Pastor and his family. We love our church even though its not perfect. We had a huge turnout last Sunday because we were giving out winter coats that someone donated. When he gave the altar call about 15-20 people got saved. They live right next door to us and asked us to come take their Christmas picture.

November gone??

We were blessed with my two brothers and their families visiting us the weekend before Thanksgiving. We all were super excited to spend some time with them. Thank you so much for making the effort to come, dear brothers and sisters! It happened to be Hadden's 1st birthday over the weekend, so we even got to share in that! We also got to visit Caleb's wife's family for thanksgiving in Michigan. (Try and have pics to come.) The Southerns were so gracious and hospitable. It was truly a celebration! It was nice to have a bit more time to be with Caleb and Becca and for ConLai to become comfortable around them.


ConLai's cute new outfit from Gram-O and A. Dhana - thank you!
Amidst the fun, Anthony has been working super hard on the bathroom. He finally finished all the tile (not shown in pic) and just has grouting left. He has done such a great job, taking time to make sure he does things right. I think he's a great handy-man. Completely unlike our cleany ConLai, Hadden dug right into the cake. He had no problem getting his hands dirty to complete the job. ConLai was quite disturbed when Hadden would reach over and get frosting on her chair. He's a great lil' brother/cousin. :)
Hadden was incredibly smart in figuring out how to open presents.

For the first time since being here, we made the climb to the top of the Sears Tower. It was fun to see the city from above and to venture onto "the Ledge"....a window box that sticks out from the building. The kids had no fear in going right up to the window.
The newlyweds.... :)
And you wonder where Diek gets his expressions from?? :) We love you Alicia.

Birthday Pictures

ConLai really enjoyed opening her b-day presents this year. It is especially fun to watch her open gifts of clothes and hear her say "wow" at every new piece of clothing. She is definitely a little girl who likes clothes and shoes and I (Anthony) don't know what I'm going to do being outnumbered 3-1 here in a few months. Thank you so much for sending gifts to make ConLai's b-day special.

Bathroom Remodel

We are in the process of remodeling the bathroom so I thought I'd share a few pictures. These were taken at the end of the demolition stage. Thankfully we now have walls and don't have to look at cobwebs anymore. I was toying with the idea of re plumbing the toilet into the living room but Ronda didn't like that idea. A friend was helping me remodel and was kind enough to pose for the one picture. We are getting closer to tiling the tub surround. We will be grateful to take showers again as we have been limited to baths for a few months now. It is a good experience for us getting a taste of what remodeling a home would actually be like. Although I enjoy the work and learning new things I am tired of the mess and the in between stage.

Thank you Great Grandma for this cute little apron.

ConLai is quite girly and enjoys trying to put her clothes on. Well, she found a pair of Daddy's that looked like they might fit on her head. (Don't worry they were freshly washed.)

You would think the beach would be fun....but that sand is scary.

Cousin Kenan and ConLai riding bike.

Cousin Diek doin' the pushin'.

Cousin Diek being a sweetheart and holding ConLai's hand.

Terribly Sorry.

For those two people who actually look at this I want to apologize for not updating this for months. We moved into a new apartment in April and have not had access to this webpage since then. We have internet but it is on our landlords server and they have a filter program that blocks access to blogs and other such things. I'm not complaining just explaining the facts. Web filters are great things in order to keep us pure before God and each-other. We will hopefully get things figured out soon and be able to post more pictures throughout the school year. It also didn't help that our camera broke and we were without a camera for a couple months of this time as well. Thank you Caleb for providing us with a great camera to take more pictures.

ConLai is growing up fast and enjoying being a toddler. Her latest favorite thing is to play outside(thats the farm blood in her coming out). In fact "outside" is probably her favorite word to say. She says it so perfectly and with a little bit of pity in her voice that her Daddy has trouble resisting her demands to go out and play. Her second favorite word to say is "hot". Unfortunatly she considers almost everything in the world "hot" and this causes some problems with her behavior, especially when trying to get her to eat food. Despite the sinful nature we see coming out sometimes we love her very much and she brings much joy into our lives with her smile and laugh.

Hope all is well with whoever is choosing to read this. We will be in Montana soon (Aug. 5-18) and hope to see a lot of our families while we are there.

Chicago Auto Show

Last Saturday some friends invited us to go to the Chicago Auto Show with them. It was fun to spend time with them and see all the new cars. Their son Isaiah is 22 months and loved seeing all the cars and trucks. I (Anthony) enjoyed seeing all the new cars too, especially the new 4-door Jeeps. ConLai and I sat inside a new Mustang just to see what it would feel like. I was wishing the motorcycle was really mine as well. The new Stingray Corvette also looked very sweet with the massive quadruple exhaust.

Tonight ConLai went and grabbed a pillow for Ronda since she was laying on the floor. Then she grabbed the other pillow and laid down next to her mom. She is definitly understanding a lot more these days.

Also, if you could remember to pray for us this next month that would be great. I am going on a Spring break trip through Moody to Oklahoma and will be gone for almost two weeks in March. I have a lot to prepare before then and it will not be easy for us to be apart for so long. Ronda's Mom will be here with Ronda for part of the time so that is a big help. On the trip will be ministering to smaller Native American churches during the week and doing a youth camp over the weekend. It should be a lot of fun and a chance to do a lot of challenging things. I will probably be teaching Sunday School as well as preaching a couple times and sharing my testimony. We would really appreciate your prayers during this time.