And the Christmas fun continues!

Like every year, I didn't get near as many pics as I wanted to, but here are some quick pics of Christmas with our families for 2009:

This was the best picture I could get of all 5 grand kids on the Werley/Blevins side. E for effort. :)

We love our cousin Peyton!

Audrey and Grandpa Werley playing with the nativity. (Audrey carried the baby Jesus around with her all day. Too cute!)

Graham and Alisha (Andrew's sis:)

Great-Grandmother Werley and Austin having a chat about his school.

Sweet girl is so excited. This was such a fun Christmas for her.

LOVE that sweater on my cute boy! (Thanks Grandma Werley!:)

Kind of a weird angle, but such a precious face!

Just love this pic with the excitement on his face! Priceless!

Austin fell in love with all things Rudolf this year and was VERY excited to get him as a present. (Thanks JG and Big T! This was also the toy that helped him get through our 1st ER visit later that night with Austin - will blog about that crazy experience later...)

There is no one like our Aunt Zuzu!

Mauritzen Christmas = a messy and fun time!

Papa was such a good sport to open ALL of Audrey's toys. (She didn't want anyone else to! Lucky Papa! Gotta love those toy packaging jobs! :)

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and Happy new year! Our family sure did! We are so blessed!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We enjoyed a wonderful and low key Christmas this year. It was a very fun weekend filled with memories that will last forever! Here is our Christmas day in pictures. Enjoy!

THIS is what we woke up to Christmas morning! Just doesn't get much better than a white Christmas!

The trees and the manger with baby Jesus on Christmas morning.

The kids waiting to go and open gifts. (Ainsley slept until 9 that morning!)

Look! There's baby Jesus!

Funny story: Baby Jesus was actually Audrey's baby Abby swaddled in a blue blanket. We didn't fool this girl! She is explaining to me here that this was her baby Abby. It was a cute moment.



Opening presents time! Oh the excitement!

Austin is way into Spiderman this year.

And Audrey got a dollhouse and princess dolls.

Both have spent much time playing with this fun dollhouse. (Notice that spiderman is "saving" the princesses as A-town usually tells us. Daddy is fine with the dollhouse thing as long as Spidey is involved. :)

Austin also got a Zippity play thingy that he loves. I love how interactive it is for him when he plays while learning. We call it the toddler wii. :)

Singing happy birthday to Jesus.

This girl doesn't ever waste time getting icing all over her sweet little face.

Ainsley finally woke up and of course both of her siblings had to open and "show" her the gift she got by demonstrating. :)

She LOVES her new toy! What a wonderful day!

Christmas Week

The week leading up to Christmas this year was a busy one full of lots of A-Team family time, shopping, cooking and just good old fashion fun! We tried to keep this year as simple as possible and as much about Jesus as we could. Yes, we still watched all the "Santa" movies along with Veggie Tales and Rudolph (Austin was WAY into reindeer this year:), but we just decided that the focus in our home was on Jesus and His birth, and not the "big guy in the red suit." We did advent and the kids loved counting down to Christmas and talking about all the details of Jesus' birth day. It gave us so many wonderful opportunities to talk about the gift of Jesus and answer any questions that Austin had since he is starting to "get" so many things about our Savior. Here are some pics from the week:

How cute is this pic?! I just love cute Christmas apparel! We took this after Church on Sunday.

LOVE these kiddos!


Ainsley in her "Jolly" dress from JG. :)

Okay, not the best pic, but Daddy just looks so handsome! I am one lucky girl!


Now on to our Gingerbread house decorating!

A sweet family in our Church brought over an already made gingerbread house with all the yummy treats to decorate it! That was great for us b/c the hardest part is putting the house together! (Thanks, Seagos! :) Here is Andrew icing away and being such a great Daddy!

The kiddos loved decorating (and eating!) with all the candy and treats.

Here is our finished project and the sugar high. So fun!


Christmas Eve

Nana came on Christmas Eve and brought a whole bunch of presents. This is such a cute pic of how excited the kids were. I think this picture pretty much sums up Christmas this year. Isn't it amazing how much excitement is involved in the anticipation of Christmas Day? One of the many reasons why I love this time of year!

We have a little tradition on Christmas Eve where we open up "red gifts". It has to be a red gift wrapped in red paper and it usually is pj's and cute slippers. Here are the kiddos in their new pajamas right before we left for the Christmas Eve service at out Church. (Also love that all the children go to the service in their pj's! Fun tradition!)

It was completely snowing outside and very weathery as we drove to Church, but we were all loving it! It just doesn't get much better than a white Christmas here in Texas! The service was wonderful and then we came home, tuck the kids in bed and Andrew got to work putting together a doll house. It was a great night! More pics to come...

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas celebrating our Savior's birth!

Our Baby Girl is 18 Months Old!

Ainsley is now officially a year and a half and she has become a different little person in the last 6 months! At a year, she still wasn't crawling and now she is as busy as ever crawling everywhere, cruising around the furniture and trying so hard to walk by herself. We put her in an ECI (Early Childhood Intervention) program a little over a month ago. She was evaluated and qualified for physical and speech therapy for her delays in both areas. What is so amazing about this program is that the ladies working with Ains come out to our house each week to work with her in her own environment with her own toys! She loves her new friends and the attention they giver her. :)

Our sweet Ainsley is still the happiest baby ever and she is definitely making her mark/place in our family. I call her a little scrapper all the time because when she knows what she wants, she goes after it with all that she's got. We have also seen her aggressive and competitive spirit come out a little bit with her big bro and sis. (We have no idea where or who she gets these "qualities" from. ;) She has 2 lovies - her blanket and this sweet little lamb she carries everywhere. She continues to love eating, bath time and her bed which all make her Mommy and Daddy very happy. :) Ainsley is a true joy and her beautiful smile continues to melt everyone's hearts!

We went to the doctor yesterday and here are her 18 month stats: Weight: 21 lbs (10-15th percentile - about where she has leveled out) and Height: 32 in. (50-75th percentile). She is a long and thin little thing and she continues to be a little mini me of her Mommy. :) It seems she also has inherited all of my issues as well. Please be in prayer as we look into a possible vision issue, anemia and also a possible thyroid problem. Both her therapists and her pediatrician think that the reason for some of her delays is a result of her vision possibly being off. I have horrible vision and so we know this is a definite possibility. We are doing blood work to check her thyroid this week and in early January we will take Ains to an ophthalmologist to see what is going on there. Please pray for our anxieties about our sweet little girl and for us to find out as much as we can about what is going on with her.

Despite everything, we just couldn't imagine life without this precious little angel the Lord has blessed us with! Looking back over the last 6 months, no telling where we will be when Ains turns 2! We are just loving every minute we have with all 3 of our babies! Thank you, Lord for this amazing gift of family!

Thankful Thursday - We heart our Home Group!

We started home groups at our church this fall and I am telling you - I LOVE them! I think it was something our Church was missing and needing for discipleship and fellowship. We just love this group of people! We have already had to split the group and we hope that it happens again, (but not any time soon! It's a good problem to have I guess. ;) We had a Christmas party last weekend as a group and decided to do a progressive dinner. It was such a fun night of good food, hanging out, and seeing every one's homes decorated for Christmas! Did I mention that I love these people and we are so thankful the Lord has placed them in our lives and at our Church? Such wonderful people! We are so blessed!

Ken and Wanda - Thanks so much for opening up your beautiful home each week and for being the amazing couple you are! Your encouraging words and love for the Lord are so much fun to be around!

Chris and Torrie - Thanks for organizing all the yummy meals each week and for your friendship. We are so proud of both of you and so excited about baby #3!

Kent and Stacey - You both are such an answer to prayer! We are so thankful for your passion for the Lord, wisdom, and input about what the Lord has done in and through your lives.

Josh and Sarah - We love you guys so much and are so proud of you and your sweet family!

Ms. Suzie - You are so much fun and such a joy to be around!

Ms. Avonne - You are such an incredible woman! We praise God for your life and the many ways you have impacted everyone in our home group.

Kent with his sweet son and Nathan and Kristen (not pictured b/c she was already at her house preparing the desserts for us) - Again, both of you are an answer to prayer! We LOVE what you add to our Church and home group and can't wait to see how the Lord is going to use you in the future! (And congrats on baby #3! :)

Changes

Some changes are small and make a big difference. Like this one:

Boy with no haircut since September... (We knew it was bad when even he was complaining about his hair being in his eyes!)

...Same boy with a new haircut. Austin is still a cutie either way, but every time we wait so ling to get his hair cut like this, he always looks like a completely different kid to me! Love the new do, A-town!

Some changes are BIG!

Yep, we finally changed Audrey's bed into a toddler bed! I don't know why we put this change off for so much longer than we did with Austin. She has probably been ready for a while, but I guess me and Andrew weren't. (Have a feeling that is going to happen A LOT in our future as parents. :) She loves it. We love it too, but just can't believe how big our little girl is getting!


Austin was very excited for his little sis and kept telling her "how" to do things like get in and out of the bed and to come downstairs in the mornings when the sun comes up. Too cute!

Audrey has done awesome in her "big girl bed". She stays in it all night b/c she knows if she doesn't, we will have to close her door (and she will do anything for that not to happen! Very important that her door stay open while she sleeps. :) Many of you know this about me, but I am not a fan of change. I just can't avoid it as my children grow and change from week to week. Some days I just want time to stop and then some days I can't wait to end. Ever feel that way? We are so proud of our Audrey. Age 3 is right around the corner! Can't believe it!