Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We didn't get around to sending any Christmas Cards this year. So this will have to do.

We are so excited for Christmas at our house this year. The hustle and bustle that some people experience has not entered our house. We have been calm and are trying to enjoy every minute of it. Santa is bringing a homemade train table set and wooden blocks. Santa has been working VERY hard!!

To look back at this year, it has been a year that God has taken care of all of us. We are truly a blessed family. God has especially looked out for us medically. It has been the year of medical surgeries. I was hoping we were done after Jerrod had recovered from breaking his elbow, but God had other plans. In February, Emma had her adenoids removed. In April, Jacob had ear tubes. And in November, I had my gallbladder removed. Please Lord, let us be done! Each one of our family members has had major surgery within the last 2 years. On top of the gallbladder being removed, we found out that I also have a hiated hernia that causes major acid reflux. So I am learning how to live with that and what foods I can and cannot eat. I've lost 20 pounds in the last 2 months because of it, yay for me, but I would have rather not had the medical problems to go along with it. I feel like an old person just going on and on about my health problems!

Jerrod went back to school, and has been going strong all year long attending Huntington University. He will graduate in the summer with an associates in Business Management. We're not sure what is next school wise, but Jerrod does plan to continue....

Work has been good for both of us. We are so very grateful for our jobs and the people that we work with. The flexibility has been awesome, and after having the year we have had, flexibility is a must.

Emma is still learning lots and lots at her school. She knows all of her letter sounds and is now starting to read. Jacob enjoys his time at home with Grandma and Grandma likes it too. He is a very smart boy, just chooses to not speak real words much yet.

God bless each one of you during this Christmas Season. Remember to slow down and enjoy your family. Jesus is the real reason why we celebrate Christmas, please remember this and enjoy every minute!

Emma and Daddy's creation


Jacob at Breakfast with Santa

Emma and Santa

Jacob gave Santa a hug! A much better reaction this year from last year!

Emma and I making a snowman, this was the first significant snowfall and it was snowman snow

Emma was so proud of her snowman

Fall Pictures

Here's some pictures from this fall

They love eachother!

If you look on Jacob's forehead you can see where he got in a fight with a bathroom stall and the stall won!

Jacob loves to tackle!

Emma walking on the ceiling

Riding out to the Pumpkin patch

They both found a perfect place to sit at the same time!

Cutie pie

Our family

Jacob trying to pull Emma

Smile!

Emma loved playing in the leaves

Jacob loved raking the leaves

This is the one picture of Jacob actually smiling in the leaves, he didn't really like sitting in them so much.

Jacob and the pumpkins

Emma loves the flowers

Tigger!!!

Dinosaur!!

Jacob is 18 months

I cannot believe it! I'm wondering where the time went and where my little baby went? Jacob is a full blown toddler now. He loves running, playing chase and wrestling with anyone, including Emma. He is communicating really well with pointing and grunts, but not very many words yet. Like everything else, I am confident that it will come later than I expect it to and Jacob will suddenly start talking really well. He does really well saying hi and bye and waving, hopefully more words will come soon.

He went to his 18 month checkup yesterday. He was 26 lbs, which is the 50th percentile for boys and he was 33 inches tall, which is the 70th percentile.

Jacob still loves to go outside and gets very upset whenever he doesn't get to. He is a very sweet, happy, calm boy most of the time. However, he is our little pincher, when I pick him up from potential trouble, he usually gets upset and pinches. So, I have learned to pick him up from behind so he will only pinch my arm instead of my face! He is becoming a little bully to Emma when he doesn't get his way, he hits, pushes, and pinches. Not sure where he got this behavior, but I think it's partly because he's a boy? We are working hard on correcting it though!

He loves his little stuffed monkey and gets so excited when he finds it around the house. He absolutely loves to give hugs and kisses to everyone. He surprises me everyday with how much he understands. He can do simple things asked of him, like putting his shoes away in the closet or finding the ball. And he loves cleaning and picking up, if only it could stay that way forever!

We are working on getting rid of the pacifier. He is not as attached to it now as he was at the beginning of the summer, we are making progress! He only has it for his afternoon nap now. He is pacifier free for the rest of the day most of the time, even at night.

Unfortunately we have lost our camera charger, so no pictures have been taken lately. Hopefully we will be able to buy another one soon.

The zoo

We went with Emma and her classmates to the Potowatomi Zoo yesterday. It is in South Bend and it is the smallest zoo I have ever been to, but it was great for a field trip. We saw several different kinds of animals. I was happy that they had Zebras since that is Emma's favorite, but no Elephants or Giraffes. It had a little petting zoo that the kids could pet and brush goats. It also had an albino alligator on loan. Very cool. Afterwards, we had a picnic in the park and the kids played on the huge playset. Then a few of us went back in after the official fieldtrip was over and road the train and Emma had to ride the pony. I was a great time!

The fair

We went to the Elkhart County Fair this week. We went on Sr. Citizen day. I highly recommend it, it was not busy at all! We had a great time looking at all the animals. Emma pet a pig, a llama, and a sheep. She was surprised how prickly the pig was. Emma got to ride on all kinds of kiddie rides including a roller coaster. She loved it! Jacob wanted to ride on all the rides, but the only one he was allowed to go on was the merry go round. He had fun on it. We walked through the commercial halls and Grandma got Emma a cool barrette. Emma got a Dora blow up toy and cotton candy. This made her very happy! Jerrod and I enjoyed corn dogs and elephant ears. It was a great time to be had by all!

Happy Birthday, Emma!

Emma was 4 years old on July 18th. We had a super fun day at the indoor waterpark in Shipshewana. We went to the Blue Gate for lunch and Grandma Kass surprised Emma with a princess birthday cake. It was really cool looking--crown, magic wand, and a sash that said Princess Emma on it. The Blue Gate was having an ice cream social and pony rides later in the day and we were able to get a pony ride early on our way out. We headed back to the water park and swam some more. It was a perfect day and Emma was a perfect little girl.

Emma really enjoys girly stuff now. She got a tinker bell purse for her birthday that she had to put "purse stuff" in. So I had to come up with a wallet for her and some other "purse stuff". She loves to be

pretty and anything that makes her pretty she loves. We made her a jewelry box for her birthday that she can put all her little jewelry items that make her pretty in. It was fun to make it rather than buy one. She loves anything princess, but she still likes trains and cars too. She's doing really well riding her bike. They have bike days at school, which has given her lots of practice riding her bike this summer. She loves "school" and she has had lots of fun activities going on this summer at school. Last week, it was dress like a clown day and a couple of weeks ago she had a whole week of camping in a tent in the

classroom. She's doing really well with her letters and numbers. She can recognize all the letters and write most of them too. She can count to 100. We will work soon on letter sounds and starting to read. She loves to draw and color. Her favorite colors are pink and purple of course, but she says she likes any color that is in the rainbow. The other day she asked me if yellow was in the rainbow and when I said yes, then she said "ok, then I like it"! One of her most favorite things to do are puzzles. She is really good at puzzles. She got a Little Einstein puzzle for her birthday and had to together in no time.

Emma's behavior is improving, but of course she does have her days. Timeouts are not over in the Furlong house for Emma yet, but they are getting fewer. She's getting better at voicing when she's mad and frustrated, however I'm not sure if I like this either! But we have been telling her to use her words and don't whine, so I guess that is what we get!

Busy summer

We have been super busy this summer just going and doing. A couple weeks ago we got to visit the Zile's in Columbus and had a super great time. It's really great to be able to feel like it is ok to let your children be children. We had such a great time visiting with them and the kids love eachother! Emma, Kate, and Micah are all best of friends. And Jacob absolutely adores Ella, probably too much for Ella's taste! He would not stop hugging her!

Here's another super cute picture of Emma and Jacob, a rare time that they get along. Although, Emma is starting to play more and more with Jacob and of course Jacob LOVES it!

Happy 10 year anniversary!

June 12th was our 10 year anniversary. We celebrated by taking a weekend to ourselves (the first since Emma has been born). We traveled down to southern Indiana on Friday night and went to the horse races at Indiana Downs. It was very cool and very fun. We were able to check out the horses before they raced, which we went and looked at them for 2 different races. They had a restaurant that overlooked the track, we were able to get a window table right on the track. Very cool! Then on Saturday, we traveled further into Southern Indiana and stayed at the West Baden Springs hotel near French Lick, Indiana. Such a BEAUTIFUL 5 star hotel! We highly suggest it to anyone who wants a relaxing weekend away. They had a rose in our

room when we arrived wishing us a happy anniversary. The turn down service was very impressive with chocolates and everything! We sat, we swam, we rocked on the porch, we walked around the gardens, we had a horse drawn carriage ride, we at at nice restaurants. The hotel is just gorgeous! It has a circular dome, the largest free standing dome in the world, with an atrium

under it. The hotel has a very cool history, it used to be the place to go for hollywood stars in the early 1900's. Then it was a seminary for the Jesuits, and then a college, a

nd then it sat empty until it was restored to its granduer. It is gorgeous at night too. We sat for a very long time watching the lights change colors in the dome on Saturday night. The West Baden has a sister property called The French Lick Hotel. It was beautiful too. Sunday, we ate a really nice breakfast buffet and swam a little and then headed back up north.

Where were our children? Jacob stayed home with Grandma and had a great time with her. They visited Emma at c

amp and went to Chilis! He did wonderful away from Mom and Dad. Emma went to Grand camp with my parents and her two cousins. They had a super terrific time. Her favorite part was the parachute that they played with launching balls up into the air. She also learned archery. Wow! She's not even 4 yet and shooting a bow and arrow! And she hit the target! We met my parents and brother's family on the north side of Indy for dinner on Sunday night and picked up Emma too. We got to hear all the cool stories from everyone.

California and Disneyland trip

The last of May / first of June we took a trip to California and Disneyland. We had tons of fun! My first fear of going to California, was getting the kiddos used to the time change. Well, it ended up being super easy! We had a late flight into San Diego on Saturday and didn't get in until 10:30 pm pacific time. Emma and Jacob both woke up when we landed and stayed awake until we got settled into our hotel at 1:30 am. Then they both slept until 7:30 am. After that, they were on California time. Pieceof cake! On Sunday, we took the fairy across the bay to Coronado. We ate at anItalian place on the beach and played

in the sand. We had a blast in the sand and wished we would have had more time there. That night we ate with friends at the California Pizza kitchen. It was so nice to see people we hadn't seen it a long time. On Monday we went to Oceanside beach and pier with an old friend, Becca. It was so nice to spend some time with just her. Then on Monday night, we headed to the Iwasaki's for food and fun. Jacob and Emma loved playing outside in their backyard. It was also a nice break for us to have someone else be able to play with the kiddos.

We headed to Disneyland on Tuesday morning. We checked into the Disneyland Hotel and we were off to Disneyland. W

e got to see almost all of the

characters over a 5 day period. Emma had an autograph book for them to sign. We had breakfast with the characters twice, lunch with the princesses, and dinner with Goofy and friends. One morning we got to get into Mickey's Toontown early, so we got to see all the

characters there too. Emma's favorite ride was the huge ferris wheel at California Adventure. She was very brave and went down splash

mountain. I had forgot how enjoyable a ride it is until you go down the drop! She loved it though and she ended the ride lauging instead of crying. And we didn't get too wet since we were sitting in the back! Other fun rides for Emma were the tea cups, Dumbo, It's a Small World, and the carousels. Jacob also got to enjoy a lot the rides too. He had a lot of fun watching the characters, he pointed a lot! He was a little freaked out by the

characters at first if they got too close, but after a while he thought they were pretty cool.

Of course, what would our trip be without a medical

emergency? Jacob ended up getting Pink Eye while we were at Disney. We ended up going to Urgent care on Sunday, thank goodness for Urgent cares that are open on Sundays! They gave him eye drops that cleared it right up. Unfortunately, our plans for Sunday had to change because we didn't want to give anyone pink eye. So we didn't get to spend any time with friends on Sunday like we had planned. Instead, we had a great family day, checked into a wonderful hotel with an ocean view in Carlsbad, and ate at the Macaroni Grille.

On Monday, we got to go to the Wild Animal Park with Nichole, Jeremiah, Sarah, and all of the Martas. It was a great time. My favorite part was the spitting dinosaur that spit at Jacob Marta and he just took it, didn't even move! We of course loved riding on the tram and seeing all of the animals. Monday night was a terrific night of hanging out with friends at our condo. It was perfect for families, since it had a great playground and grills to grille on. It was great to see everyone and hang out with them.

Then on Tuesday we headed back

home and flew back to Chicago. We had parked at a hotel and planned to stay Tuesday night as part of the park, sleep, fly program. Our hotel there was really awesome! Since we were still on California time, we ended up eating at 10:00 at night, I think the server in the hotel restaurant thought we were crazy eating with kids that late at night! The next morning, we got some breakfast and swimming in and then finally headed back home. We had a super fun vacation!

Jacob is 16 months

I am so far behind! Jacob turned 16 months this month. He started walking around 14 months. And like everything else, when he decided to actually do it, he did it well. He is a pro walker and is actually starting to run some too. Last monthhe started to get up from a sitting position without holding onto anything. He loves to play "get you". He falls far less than Emma did when she started walking, I guess it is because he is older. Although he does have lots of scrapes on his knees, that seems to be where he falls the most. He has not hit his head near as much as Emma did. He loves playing with his sister when she will let him. He will mimic everything she does, which can be good and bad. He is also starting to mimic her bad behavior too. He loves eating all sorts of food, especially fruits and veggies. I think he is finallyable to take one nap a day now. Some days he gets more tiredthan others though. When we went for his checkup at the Dr.'s, he was 25lbs, in the 70th percentile for weight and 31 inches, 75th percentile for height. So not as

super tall and big as I had thought. He is doing really well with

signing. We have only taught him more please and all done. But

I think he would catch on quickly if we taught him more signs. He loves to climb, he is our little monkey. He has finally gotten tall enough to climb onto the couch. He scares me though, a couple of times he's just went head first onto the floor and fortunately someone has been there to catch him each time. He is very bull headed and when he gets something he is going to do on his mind he

doesn't forget it. And he gets very upset if it is something that Mommy and Daddy tell him not to do. Let's just say he has a lot of temper tantrums that are usually short lived, thank goodness. He especially gets upset whenever he can't go outside or he has to come inside.

He LOVES to be outdoors.

Jacob is a year +

On March 1st Jacob turned 1 year old. We had a great party with family. Jacob hated the little cake that I baked him. He took a handful of icing and then couldn't get it off his hand. He didn't like that too well. Then I gave him a taste of icing, he really didn't like the taste and tried to take it out of his mouth with his icing caked hand. Then he ended up with more icing in his mouth, which he REALLY didn't like. So then I thought, hmmm...maybe he would like cake (which it looks like I shoved in his mouth on the video). Nope, he REALLY didn't like the cake either. Poor guy, he ended up crying and had to wait to get wiped off before I could pick him up. He got lots of cool toys and books for his birthday.

Jacob is still not walking. He cruises around everything that he can, but he's pretty safe and gets down on the floor to crawl if there's nothing to hold on to. Even when he's holding my hand and walking, if I let go, he's instantly on his knees crawling. I can't hardly get him to stand for even a second. I know he can, but he's learned that if he's not holding on, then he should crawl. I've seen him take some accidental steps a couple of times though. He loves anything that is a ball or a car. Funny, that he can play with anything, including babies, but he likes the balls and cars best. He also loves taking things in and out of a container and puting the lid on. He of course also likes anything new to play with. He's definately a boy. He loves to bang things and throw things and he has a temper! The cutest thing that he has lately been doing is clapping his hands together after doing something, like a yay! clap. He can say a few words: Da da, Ma ma, ba ba (bottle). I also think he's said Emma a few times, even though it sounds a bit like Ma ma. He also likes to call his pacifier Ma ma.

He started daycare the day after his birthday. He is adjusting well and has already formed an attachment to one of the teachers. He is suppose to go 3 days a week, so far he's been there 4.5 days total. He's been sick for the rest of the days! Daycare has given him some major germs and has made me second guess whether he should be going there or not. We see an ENT on Monday for his ears, this last cold gave him a huge ear infection that is having trouble even starting to go away.

Emma is doing super great after her adenoid surgery. She recovered very quickly. She's had a couple of colds since then. They seem like they are going to get bad, and then they just disappear. Way awesome! Emma is learning a lot at school still. She knows all of her letters now and can identify a lot of the times what a word starts with. She's still working on writing her letters. We are at a crossroads in her education, next year she could go anywhere for pre-school, so we are weighing our options right now. We are trying to figure out if she will learn more somewhere else or if she will learn just as much where she is at right now.

We are really enjoying the Church that we have been attending since December. It's called Waypoint, it is a church plant that meats at the Boys and Girls Club in Middlebury. We love the music, the teaching, the people, the children's ministry...it's what we have been searching for. We joined a small group, we are enjoying it a lot. Emma gets to come with us and play with the other kids, so that is a huge bonus. Jacob stays home with Grandma for the night. We are so very thankful to have Grandma around :)

So what are adenoids anyway?

Wikipedia has this definition: "a mass of lymphoid tissue situated at the very back of the nose, in the roof of the nasopharynx, where the nose blends into the mouth." We had no idea what Adenoids were 6 months ago. Today Emma had them removed. She has fought sinus infections for the last 6 months with a trip to the ER a couple of weeks ago. By taking the adenoids out, hopefully she will be infection free. The Dr. said they were enlarged, but not overly huge. Emma did great today. The closest pediatric ENT is in Indianapolis. So we found ourselves staying at the "Ducky Hotel" once again, but this time for Emma instead of Jerrod. We've been down to Indy twice before the surgery today for appointments. Emma loves staying at the hotel and going swimming! Today we arrived at St. Vincent's prepared as best we could. Emma freaks out pretty easily, so we were very careful to make everything fun for her today. Grandpa and Grandma met us in the Lobby. She got a cute, fluffy pink bunny from Grandma that she carried with her the whole time. It even took favor over Tigger! When we walked into the check-in area there was a fun place for Emma to play. When the nurse took us back to her room, there was a dog, Lily, for Emma to pet. Emma really liked this. There were fun toys to play with and she got to take home a coloring book, a book, and a bear pillow. There was a special nurse to play with Emma. She was still a little anxious the whole time, but for the most part she was relaxed as much as could be expected. We got dressed in our special hospital jammies. And off she went in a kids car that she drove into the operating room. She was asleep before I could even get back into our room and sit down from following her as far as I could go. The Dr. was done in about 15 minutes and she was back in the room in about 40 minutes. They wheeled her in on a bed. I picked her up and held her in my lap in the reclining chair. She was super thirsty. She ended up eating 2 popsickles and 1 glass of water before we left. She recovered for about 45 minutes and off we were out of the hospital. We had read a book beforehand to her. In the book it had the little girl leaving the hospital in a wagon with balloons attached to it, so we had to find something similar. She got an Ariel balloon from Daddy and Mommy, so the baloon was covered. Then the nurse brought by a push car. So off we went down the hall in a push car with a balloon attached to it. We met up with Grandma and Grandpa and Jacob in the Lobby. Before, during, and after Emma never freaked out. Praise Jesus! Thanks to all of the prayers that were said, everything went so smoothly. We headed home, she slept the whole way home. When we got home she wanted to play a little and she acted like she felt pretty well. A little clingy, but that is understandable. She ate a total of 5 popsickles today. She also wanted some cereal and rice tonight, so I let her have some. She didn't get sick, so I guess her stomach is ok. So that's our adventure, we're hoping it helps and her tonsils will not get attacked next. Thanks so much for all the prayers that were said!!!!