Yummy Christmas Treats

We had two particularly yummy Christmas treats this year. The first was Dan's tradition of making Coquito. It's an amazing Puerto Rican egg nog-ish concoction. I only wish I could drink more of it...

The other yummy treat was courtesy of Paula Dean. I had a ton of apples on hand and found this recipe for Apple Cake. It is over-the-top yummy and EASY! It will definitely go into my Fall Recipe Repertoire.

Christmas Morning

We had a wonderful (and VERY relaxing) Christmas. Dan's parents came up along with their dog, PJ, who is always a big hit with Worthy & William.

We went to Christmas Eve service at church, which was just beautiful and nostalgic. The last song is Silent Night and we all hold up candles. Worthy was able participate this year and thankfully the only battle scar was a bit of candle wax on his arm. The building is still standing. After the services were all over, the boys got to open up their Christmas stockings which consist of a pair of pajamas and an ornament (and also a toothbrush this year...).
Worthy got a soccer ball and Will got a sock ornament. I think it was created with the intent to resemble a Christmas Stocking, but to me it looked more like a sock - which is exactly what I was looking for to represent his Sock Fetish this past year.

On Christmas morning, we had some yummy Breakfast casserole,

read about the birth of Jesus from the Jesus Storybook Bible and then started on presents!

In classic 5-year old style, Worthy zipped through opening his gifts. He was inundated with Legos and thrilled! Worthy enjoyed Building & Playing ALL DAY on Christmas
and Will was still obsessed with the Tree...
Hope you had a Merry Christmas and enjoyed the wonderful love of our Savior, Immanuel!

Our Nephew

This Christmas Season has been a real joy. One of those joys came in the form of our 9 year old nephew, Henry, really embracing the true meaning of Christmas. Here is an article from the Akron Beacon Journal that mentions his great gift. It's about halfway down the page under the subtitle Warm Tidings.

Henry is the one in the cast in this picture.

Will's TWO

Today William turned 2! He didn't quite get the whole birthday concept, but he seemed to enjoy the new toys and the cupcakes. He was a bit tentative about unwrapping presents, but I think he's prepped for Christmas now.

He also got some great cardboard bricks from Uncle Peter & Aunt Bunny.

And he loved the cupcakes.

Christmas Program

Worthy had his Christmas Program this past week. He dressed up as a Shepherd. Yep - that's a baby blanket on his head :) Gotta love improvising.

Some other kids were dressed as angels or animals. It was really cute. This is a clip of them singing "Jesus, Name Above All Names". The first bit is Will fussing in my (limited) lap.

Afterwards, we enjoyed (seemingly) limitless cookies & juice boxes.

Last Day of School

Worthy is in preschool at Seven Rivers Christian School. We really love his teacher, Miss Jann, and his class. He goes 5 days a week for half the day. He has loved his time at school (and so have I). They did Happy Birthday Jesus party for their last day of school this year.

They each got to frost and decorate cakes - a big hit :)

Then there was a pizza party (which Will enjoyed too). Followed by a book exchange...

All the while, Will was obsessed with one of his 3 passions - flags. He loves Socks, Balloons & Flags - not sure what that leads to in the future.

Tis the Season

We put up our tree the Friday after Thanksgiving. Dan is a "real" tree guy and I must say that I have grown to really enjoy not "assembling" the tree. We decorated it after Will went to bed and Worthy had a ball going through the ornaments and putting them on the tree.
You may be able to tell that we're still in that phase where we put most of the ornaments towards the top of the tree, because this tends to happen otherwise...

Boy Trouble

Over the last 3-4 months the boys have really started to play together. It's been such an immense joy to watch them wrestle, race around the house and argue. It's making me excited to add a 3rd crazy boy into this crazy mix. Worthy has really blossomed into a great older brother that helps (and tattles) on Will. It's been a real delight to see his character develop in this manner and Will just adores him.

It's ironic that these two are playing "Trouble".

Will is our "little" bulldozer

Thanksgiving program

Worthy had a Thanksgiving program this year.

For Thanksgiving, they dressed as Pilgrims & Indians and did some cute tunes. Here's a little excerpt:

Belatedly Thankful

So I have a lot of blogging to catch up on and I'm trying not to be daunted by the library of pictures I've amassed over the last couple months. We've had a house full of sickness which is FINALLY seemed to be going away. My cough is almost over and I'm hoping to be completely rid of it in the next couple of days.

We had a great thanksgiving despite Dan spraining his ankle. He had gone running at dusk and wasn't watching where he was going and stepped into a hole. The result was a sprained ankle that is still isn't completely healed yet. He was on crutches for 2-3 days during the Thanksgiving festivities. I think he secretly conjured up the story to stay in front of the TV all day :)

Jon & Sarah came up from Naples, FL and my dad was able to come down from Ohio. Unfortunately, my mom had to work. One of our traditions is to go around the table and alphabetically say what we're thank for that starts with that letter. This year Worthy was thankful for elephants and a whole host of other animals. I forget what letters he got, but he had an animal prepared for each one.

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. Dad & Jon took over turkey duty and a host of other entrees. All-in-all it was a delightful day.

Will loved the mashed potatoes. That's Mama's boy!

De-quarantining

We've had a rough week here in the Beilman household. Here's a run down of our sick week:

• 4 Boxes of tissues (and still counting)
• 3 trips to the doctor
• 4 perscriptions
• 21 Nebulizer treatments
• Countless hours spent cuddling in front of Nick Jr.
• 7 nights of someone waking up in the middle of the night coughing
• 3 frozen pizzas
• 5 Nights of Dan having work obligations (Tis the season...)
• 1 Tired, pregnant mom (trying to prepare for new baby & Christmas) that's ready for everyone to be healthy again (including me)

We're on the mend :)

Sheepshead at Burke's

Last night I got to go see Sheepshead, the Irish Band that Dan's in, play at Burke's. Here's a pic and a video of a new song they tried out last night. Fun stuff.
Video of Sheepshead singing "The Body of an American" by the Pogues

Trunk or Treat

Last night at the church we had an event called Trunk or Treat. Church volunteers decorated the trunk of their car and passed out candy. Here are some of our friends with their 70's themed trunk.

There was a great turnout of volunteers. We didn't even make it to all the cars.

Worthy dressed up as a T-Rex and William dressed up as Captain William Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

One of the trunks was Star Trek themed and we got a shot of Will at the helm... he was VERY distracted by the balloon hanging nearby...

Annapolis Recap

So we had a WONDERFUL visit in Annapolis. It went beyond our wildest expectations. First off, we stayed for 2 whole weeks with some dear friends, The Millis', and Praise God - they still like us! I knew they were kind & hospitable, but I anticipated that after 2 weeks with anyone we'd be glad to be heading home. That was so NOT the case. As much time as we got to spend with them, it just wasn't enough - isn't it amazing how God works that out?!

Some highlights:

• Weather - The fall weather was such a cool, refreshing change for us. It was fun to drag out the pants and long sleeves. I wasn't even sure that the kids had coats - thank God for hand-me-downs that were packed away! The leaves were just beautiful and it was a great opportunity to have a cup of warm tea or hot chocolate. During our second night there, Worthy said "I want to go back to the Warm World." I think he's a Florida Boy at heart.
• Friends - It was such a joyful couple weeks getting to see dear friends. My only complaint is that we couldn't spend more time with each of them. It just felt like a small foretaste of the Kingdom to me. Someday we'll be in great fellowship with no time constraints.
• Answered Prayers - We had so many answered prayers while we were there. It was wonderful to see the Holy Spirit paving our way. We had wonderful meetings, a full schedule and people available to watch the kids. (My parents came over for about 1/2 the time we were there - which was invaluable!)
  

Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures. I forgot where I packed my camera until near the end of our trip. But we did end up taking the boys out to Quiet Waters Park one rainy afternoon.

Worthy running some energy off

They had an amazing playground, but the boys were most enthralled with the wall ledge

Not a great shot, but we've had some Prego Belly Photo requests :)

Little Will

We sure do adore our sweet Will. He's growing up so fast. This was snapped when he was laying down watching BBC news... seriously.

Book Dress-up

Last week Worthy's class dressed up as their favorite book character. He chose the book Minosaur, mainly because he had a dinosaur hat that he wanted to wear. It was fun to see all the other pre-schoolers dressed up and makes me all the more eager for Halloween.

At the end, they all lined up for the parents to take pictures, video, make a documentary, etc.
It was cute.

Real Citrus County

Worthy had his first soccer practice and match on Monday night. We were all quite unsure what to expect, but he ended up having a GREAT time and really enjoying it! He had a great time - despite looking all serious here.
They split up into the orange and blue teams and did some skill learning. After the skill learning they played a scrimmage. Personally, the blue team seemed a little stacked to me :)
Here's a clip from the scrimmage:

DC United v. Real Madrid

Wow - I'm not sure how I missed blogging about this!! When we were in Akron, Dan & I got to head up to DC for a mini-vacation from the kiddos. Unfortunately, Dan was sick, so we had to shorten it to one night instead of two. We had gotten tickets to go see DC United v. Real Madrid. (Dan should really be blogging about this... he's the soccer guru). Anyway, we (yes, both of us) were really looking forward to it. We met up with some of our Annapolis buddies, The VanderWalls, that also have a passion for the sport.

First off - the traffic! Oh, how easily I forget about it. It was Sunday at 2pm and we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Beltway - gotta love DC! We met up with our friends got to FedEx field and the amazing heat. It was super-toasty.

I have never seen a live soccer match - so this was really exciting for me. The energy in the stadium was just fantastic. This was as the game was starting. This was the start of the game and it seemed like most of the 75,000 attendees were still caught in traffic.
DC did a phenomenal job in the first half. They were able to hang with Real and held them to 0-0 at the end of the half.
However, that soon changed... and Madrid ended up winning 2-0. It was still super fun to watch.

We had a GREAT time - blazing heat and all!

It's a 3rd Boy

Boy, were we surpised! We were sort of hoping for a girl, but the best news of all is that it's a healthy baby. Worthy is a bit heartbroken. He really wanted a little sister and he wanted to name her Pinky Rose. We are delighted at the practical implications - same boy clothes, toys, etc. Praise God for this little guy!

Cedar Point visit

We spent this past week in Ohio visiting family. One of our favorite things to do is to go to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. I was a little bummed because it's no fun going to the Roller Coaster Capital of the World when you're pregnant :) Anyway, I was really looking forward to kiddie land with the boys, being with family and seeing my nephews experience some great roller coaster adventures. However, all of my wonderful dreaming did not anticipate Dan and Worthy getting sick. Dan woke up feeling rather poor and by the end of the night, he retreated back to the van to sleep. Worthy (and Will) ended up leaving early with my parents because Worthy was not feeling good. So the best laid plans of mice & men....

Early in the morning with their cousin, Holden

Can't go wrong with Dodgems

Worthy enjoying a blue slushie after a serious spinning ride
that we believe accelerated his upset tummy.

Will - exhausted, despite the smile

A family pic before everyone melted down :)

Worthy turns 5

A couple weeks ago, we got to celebrate Worthy turning 5! We had to put off his birthday party a couple of days, because he came down with a rotten cold. He had a great time at his party and we enjoyed having his friends come over and swim. It was just a lovely day.

Pool Time Fun

I'm no Julia Child, but I can make a Betty Crocker cake and thief decorating ideas. In retrospect, I wish I had brought the rest of the Good-n-Plenties to Ohio for Charlotte. I had no idea they were yummy. I'm still not enticed...

Reading his birthday cards

And... an actual picture of me with Will... he really liked the cake.

And lastly - giving the gifts a trial run