The Ornaments are painted...

Abby Ruth's game was trying to get Andrew's paper towel....she won...

check out the blue upper lip!

Messy, Messy!

Yum!! Yum!!

The Christmas Train

What a neat night! Last night we went to Dry Gulch, U.S.A for The Christmas Train. It is about 1 hour away from Tulsa (close to Pryor, OK) but totally worth the drive! Sooo neat! It was built as as a movie set for a western movie and then the Church on the Move here in Tulsa bought it and made it into a wonderful Christmas Family Adventure with the most wonderful story of the gospel on a very unique Christmas Train Ride! The boys loved it but so did Mom and Dad! They had really too much there to do in one night. We got to see Santa at Santa's palace. They had a carousel, playground, wagon rides, carriage rides, music shows, mechantile stores, bakeries, restraunts....and much more. We hope to go every year from now on. What a wonderful reminder of the true reason that we celebrate Christmas! You can visit their website and find out more at www.christmastrain.com.

Andrew Maddox 3

Our "big" Andrew is the funny one. It is hard to believe that he is only three. He has been talking and cracking us up for so long now that we forget he is still a wee one! Andrew. He loves to go full speed all day long. If he had it his way he would not take naps, however he really needs them! This is a picture of him after our thanksgiving meal this year.....a great representation of him.....he runs and runs and runs and as long as he keeps going he doesn't know how tired he is but as soon as he slows down he is out! Out for the count, for sure. What fun he is! And what mischief he can get into! He still loves his trains. We are unsure as to if he will ever outgrow them. He has decided he doesn't want to kiss his Mommy anymore which is a little sad. The other day he was playing at a little girls house (Mackenzie) and she was trying to talk him into being her Prince and dancing with her. He kept telling her "Boys don't dance"...she proceeded to ask him if he wanted to give her Eskimo kisses and he of course was not going to play that game either. He insists that his name has a three in it. We have tried to explain that he is three years old....but his name does not have a three in it, however he is not convinced. He makes his Sunday School Teacher put "Andrew 3" on all of his papers! :) He loves football. We are not completely sure where that came from. He tells us that he is going to play for the Cushing Tigers, number A3 and he is going to knock those boys down.....I guess we will just have to wait and see what wonderful plans the Lord has in store for this little bundle of dynamite! Oh how we love Andrew Maddox!!

Carson's World

Carson's World. Our sensitive spirited little boy is growing and learning and exploring more and more everyday. One new thing that he loves to do is read! Yes, read. He is doing such a wonderful job at learning to read and he loves it. It has given him such a wonderful confidence in himself as he enjoys exploring and finding new books that he can read all by himself! Now before bed we are no longer just reading to the boys, Carson is reading to us! How exciting! We are so very proud that our prayers have been answered in that he is trying a few more foods every week. We have been praying about this for a very long time with Carson, he really has no desire to try anything new. He always is more confident in what he knows he likes or knows how to do already. What an accomplishment for him to try new things and find out that sometimes the different foods can be good and the new things can be fun! We are so proud of him and love the little man that he is becoming as he continues to grow! Oh how we love Carson Wayne!

The Little Girl

Our little Abby Ruth is growing leaps and bounds! She is such a joy! She will be 8 months old in 11 days! Crazy! She is such a cute little one. She is now sitting up really well. She loves to play with her brothers and slobber on anything she can get her hands on. She does not however like to lay on her belly still, in fact she rolls onto her back as soon as you put her on her belly, so we are unsure as to how long it will take her to figure out how to crawl if she spends absolutely no time on her belly :) She is a little one weighing in at 17 lbs 7 oz.....kind of strange since she started out at 8 lb 15oz...go figure! She loves her Daddy and has eyes all for him these days. She doesn't babble much during the day but when he comes home all she says is "dadadadadada"...she loves to catch his eye and melt his heart! What a sweet little blessing from the Lord. Oh how we love little Abby Ruth.

Christmas is coming!!!

As Christmas nears we are getting so excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus once again! The boys and I have started a Christmas Countdown this morning....only 21 more days!! We have done very little to actually decorate for Christmas this year in our rental home. We decided to just put up the boys' small tree...it is going to be a Charlie Brown Christmas for us this year :) Just this last week a lot happened that I feel like I need to write down so that I will remember so here goes. Last Sunday we were still waiting on word back from our builder on costs and we decided to call our friend Mike and take him to Cushing to see the land that we liked. We decided to load up and go to church there in Cushing too before taking him around town. We got there in time for the service and upon entering the building we saw our friend, Angela Hobson's, Uncle Doug (the Pharmacist in town)...we got to talk with him and then he showed us to the nursery for the wee ones and then we went to church. It was a sweet service...very country, very traditional, but solid in the word and a wonderful message was shared about being in the fire and being molded by God through the different circumstances that we go through in life. After the service ended we saw and talked with Dr. Pyles, whose clinic Dustin will be working in when we start in August. It was neat to see them and catch up with them. We also met a very sweet young couple that has small children like us that morning. After the service we went to eat at the Steer Inn....sounds yummy, huh? Doug was there also with his family. We joked around with him and decided to share with him and ask his opinion about the land we were interested in. He was very hesitant and told us that it was too far in his opinion and that there was land available in Cushing (the land we found was actually Yale, about 7 miles north of Cushing) it just wasn't listed on the MLS. He told us to finish our lunch and come and pick him up at his home and he would make some calls and then take us around town.....awesome!! We were so blessed by him! We finished lunch and went looking at land and some homes with him that afternoon. We really liked the land in town but it was about 3 times more expensive than the farmland in Yale. He was so honest with us about so many things in Cushing and really opened our eyes to a whole new way of thinking when it came to purchasing a home in Cushing. When I think of Doug, I just think what a blessing he is. He didn't have to do that. Give up his Sunday afternoon nap to take us all around town and call people to come out on Sunday afternoon and meet with us and show us homes and land. What a servant...I thank the Lord for him seeing a need and helping us that afternoon...truly what a blessing he was. So we came back a little confused to be honest. We really liked the land in town but knew that it just might not work financially to build right now. We came back and started praying again about the plans the Lord had for our home in Cushing. Tuesday, we decided maybe we should just buy something smaller and live in it for 3-5 years and then we could build where we wanted and what we wanted. Our builder called on Tuesday and told us that the figures were not going to be in our budget. We were not surprised. Although we would have loved to be able to build a home right at the beginning, we really didn't want to be able to spend that much money on it right now. So we thought maybe we could buy the foreclosure home that was listed and fix it up. They only wanted 89K for it, but it looked like it needed about 100K worth of work. We had some time so we thought we would have our realtor call and check it out. Wednesday the realtor called and told us that it was closing that day. Weird. No go on the foreclosure. So for now, we feel like we will just wait until the middle of February and go and look at what is available and purchase something that we can close on in late May. We are so at peace with this decision. We will be able to buy something smaller on our current salary and then be able to pay off almost all of our medical student loans by the time we decided to buy something larger or build. We are very excited about that! We are looking forward to being in Cushing for Carson's Birthday! That is our goal, June 16, 2010...our first baby will be 6! Oh, my!...and just a side note...We have only 93 days until our mission trip to Honduras! Yay! I hope that you enjoy the Christmas picture...I adore it...I was unsure as to if it was going to get done this year but my friend Candace helped me pick out the outfits for the munchkins at Target yesterday (which of course my husband does not like....he thinks they look like a throwback to the 80's...what? I love them....maybe because I love the little munchkins that are in them soooo much!).....which reminds me, I saw this sign yesterday that I loved: Are you including Christ in your Christmas? I sure hope and pray you are for He truly is the reason for the season! Thank you Lord for sending your son, born to die, whose blood covers our sins and redeems us as your own if only we will choose to make you Lord and Savior of our lives and walk in your ways!! Truly a season to celebrate him and the gift of Jesus!