Aunt Abby is here!

I think these pictures sum up our excitement level about seeing Aunt Abby for the first time in nearly a year!

Yes, we literally ran across the airport as soon as we saw her!

And we pretty much have not left her side since then!

Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas Eve from England!

Birthday

I thought I would go back and show you a few pictures from Rutherford's birthday! The morning started out with Mommy and Daddy at the hospital bright and early!

They had a long day ahead of them, but the wait was worth it to see this face afterwards!

Daddy got to meet Rutherford first (Mommy was asleep for the whole ordeal). They enjoyed a few cuddles right away!

Mommy finally got to have a few cuddles as well! And while it looks like a sweet moment (and it was!), I think Mommy was still not quite awake from all of the medicine they gave her!

Check out that crazy hair our brother had!

We were excited that he was finally here, though we didn't get to meet him until the following day. We celebrated his arrival with Happy Meals!

We were very happy!

One Month

Sorry for the long blog break, but we have been super busy over here! One month ago today, we met our little brother! Isn't he adorable?! (This picture was taken on his birthday, shortly after he was born.)

The last month has flown by! We can't believe he is already a month old! And he is still super cute!

Though he was quite puzzled by the whole photo shoot.

Riley Cates wanted to join in on the picture taking fun. Mainly because they were both wearing penguins (Rutherford's is much smaller and on the pocket of his shirt, in case you missed it).

But also because she adores BDufford (as she calls him, shortened from Baby Rutherford, of course).

And just for fun, here are One Month pictures from Jackson...

And Riley Cates.

We think he looks a lot like his big brother!

Of course we have loads of pictures from the past several weeks, so we will try to be better about putting them on here!

Building a City

Mommy and I had fun building this city this week. I told her all about how I wanted it, and I think it turned out pretty good! We have a tunnel, a ramp, a road, a church, and a war memorial. What more could you need in a city?

K is for King

Two weeks ago we studied the letter K. We read some stories about kings. And what more fun is there when you read about kings than to make a crown?

I can think of nothing!

We read about King David and made tambourines so that we could make some music too.

We also decorated the number 5 with kernels. Have I ever mentioned that I hate when my fingers get sticky? This was pretty much the worst project ever.

I made up for it by dressing like a knight (which starts with a k, even though it doesn't sound like it!).

We talked about rhyming words.

And, of course, we decorated our letter K in a most royal way! (And we got to use glitter! So much fun!)

I also had to put some numbers in the correct order,

And then add the right number of kernels to each cup.

Here are a few of our finished products!

Ready to Go!

Riley Cates and I helped get ourselves ready to go this morning. I was Daddy, and Sissy was Mommy! And since I had my bowtie on, I had to take a little time to preach a sermon before going anywhere.

Aren't we cute?!

Counting Down

We are on the official countdown to the arrival of our baby brother! We even made a chain earlier this week so that we could keep track of how many days were left. It isn't a long chain, is it?! We can't wait!

Remember, Remember...

The 5th of November! We got to see some amazing fireworks last night! It was our first time getting to see fireworks in person because they are usually done past our bedtime in the States! Since it is dark here by 5:00, you can see some cool fireworks at 6:00 and still be home in time for bed!

And by cool, I do mean that it was quite chilly. We aren't in Mississippi anymore, that's for sure! Time to pull out all of the gloves and hats! We were very thankful for the warm bonfire!

R is for Rocks

Last week we talked about the letter R, which is a particularly fun letter since that's what our last name begins with!

Our Bible story for the week was about David and Goliath (and the five Rocks he had). The first thing we did was make a Goliath face and then take it outside to hang it up 9 feet high. Goliath was a tall guy!

Of course, we had to collect some rocks while we were out there. We brought them back inside and had a little fun with them. First we put them in order by size.

Then we practiced a few math problems with them.

We needed somewhere to keep our rocks, so we sewed a little pouch to carry them in.

Ta da! Not bad for my first sewing attempt!

We also talked about the number 4, and we used these colourful "rocks" to decorate our number.

We also turned our R into a rain cloud to help us remember what sound it made.

I got a new magazine, so we searched for some R's in there.

We had a little hunt for the words from our Bible verse, and then I put them in the correct order.

We did a little dot-to-dot fun to make our letter for the week.

One of my favourite stories is Little Red Riding Hood, so this was the perfect week to focus on that with all of those R's in her name! We read the story and then put the parts of the story in order. That helped tell the story all by myself to Riley Cates!

We also had our "baskets" like Red Riding Hood to sort capital R's and lowercase r's. 

And a peek at our work wall...

Another fun week of school!