Christmas Toys

Okay, so its just Mommy's toy. But it is still fun! Jordan thoughtfully gave me a new sewing machine. Nothing fancy, but perfect. Here is hopefully a hint of whats to come. (Although the only reason I was able to finish this project in a timely fashion is because Jordan has been home all week. And has graciously taken care of the kids while I hum away at the sewing machine.)

A Carnahan Family Tradition

So the most notable Carnahan Family Tradition here in Albuquerque is the making of a gingerbread house. Since Titus is much more active this year, he was excited to participate in the festivities this year.



It's not Arbor Day yet, but Titus did want to plant the tree in the front yard of our gingerbread property.


Decorating tips from Mommy are always welcomed.


Showing off the finished product.

We had a lot of fun building the house this year and it was fun listening to Titus squeal with excitement and say "Decorate house!" with surprising clarity. We are still working off the sugar high!


Also here is a slideshow to enjoy of Christmas morning and opening presents!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas morning. Enjoy some cute pictures, and look forward to more fun Christmas adventures

Happy Thanksgiving!

So it's Thanksgiving morning at the Carnahan house and we woke to a small surprise this morning...SNOW! It's officially cold and officially "winter" in my mind, regardless if the actual declaration isn't until late December.




But have no fear, the kids are nice and warm and were happy on the couch this morning. I think Titus takes after his Mommy and Elsa after her Daddy on their morning moods. Titus needs that morning milk (and Mommy needs her coffee) to be pleasant. Elsa is usually pretty happy in the mornings until she gets hungry (same as Daddy) which is usually about an hour or two after she wakes...AKA here in about 15 minutes. Guess I should get some coffee on soon and wake Mommy up to feed Elsa while I get started on breakfast. Everybody's happy then!



We are having Thanksgiving dinner at a good friend's home today. It's been an annual tradition for all our friends without family in town to get together. We are very blessed and thankful to have such wonderful friends here in Albuquerque. We are also very thankful for our family in Kentucky (and elsewhere). We miss you and hope you have a wonderful day. (Funny to think that both sides of our family will be having dinner within 3 miles of one another today.) Most of all, we are thankful for Christ's finished work and even though it's not yet Heaven, Christ's Kingdom is already here...Already and Not Yet.

Finally, please continue to pray for our adoption as we are completing the final paperwork for our dossier to submit to Ethiopia. We are especially thankful for our growing family. In all likelihood, this time next year; the Carnahan family will be even bigger.

Trick or Treaters!

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did. We went out for our first trick or treat adventure tonight. We had Ravioli for dinner, got our costumes on, and headed out. We cashed in on the candy, whoo hooo. One of our neighbors even thought of us personally and got the kids each a Halloween rubber ducky! You can see the kids really enjoyed those. Titus got to eat a tootsie pop and some M & M's, but that's all mommy would allow. Poor Elsa just got some puffs, even though she had a death grip on some bite size chocolate bars, one for each hand. We sat out front and passed out candy for a while, then came inside and watched a movie. And we ended the night with some hot chocolate, and chocolate milk. yum. enjoy more photo's









These are the pumpkins Titus decorated with the stickers at pumpkin carving night. I hadn't gotten photos before. He says as he points, eyes, nose, mouf. :)

Pumpkin Carving

We have enjoyed making our own traditions here in New Mexico. And for Halloween we carve pumpkins at a friends house. We have some yummy homemade chili and good conversation, then dive into the pumpkin fun. The kids dress up in their costumes, which is nice to be able to wear the costume more than once! Usually we all gather around the pumpkins and join our efforts for carving, but this year we had a few more little ones to run after! So the menfolk carved the pumpkins and the women kept the kids entertained. Titus even got to decorate a pumpkin with stickers. Thanks Leah! That was a great idea, and T-man loved it!

Enjoy the photos

Sara is the pumpkin, Elsa is the LadyBug and Titus is the construction worker.

New Family Photo

So it was time for an updated family photo. The infinitely resourceful Tiffany found a great online coupon for a high-end photography studio in-town. We figured we'd go, take a session's worth of shots, then buy several to update the photos in our home.

Boy were we in for a surprise! WOW these things are EXPENSIVE! The coupon (which we paid $30 for) got us one outfit, one pose in an 8x10, 5x7 and some wallet size. After the session was over they had us pick out our favorite pose and then offered to let us upgrade to a "package" with several other poses and more prints. Well, the so called "entry level package" they offered cost $699. SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. That's more than our DSLR camera cost! I have NO idea how these places stay in business charging that kind of money.

Anyway, we've decided to make a pact with some of our other rational (or cheapskate if you wanna call us that) friends and take each other's family photos throughout the year. God has made plenty of beautiful places to take photos and I'm sure you all have been impressed with the photos of the kids that Tiffany has taken up to now.

Fallen

We apologize for falling off the blogging wagon. There have many events these past weeks and we are gonna date the post when it happened. This means you might have to scroll down to see a new post. We will try to post them in order, but no guarantees!

Balloon Fiesta 2010

This year for Balloon Fiesta we had visitors. Granny and Papaw came to the Fiesta with their friends Charlie and Sharon. They came over and visited the babies and us, and took us out to dinner. We truly enjoyed their visit, and I think they enjoyed their visit too! Granny and Papaw got Titus a hot air balloon shaped blow-up balloon. He had a blast! He took the basket part with both hands lifted it over his head, threw it to the ground and watched it bounce. He was entertained for a long while, and Elsa loved to watch it and laughed along with everyone.







When we went to church that Sunday, there were balloons everywhere! I mean everywhere. In the parking lot of the church, in the dirt lot behind the church and the big open space across from church.

Titus turns 2!

Titus turned 2 years old today!!! We enjoyed a nice Wednesday starting with a special breakfast, a donut! (you can see on our face in the above photo, it had chocolate icing) We attended Bible study where we got to play with our friends. Then we went to lunch with some of our friends. We got balloons and played in the play area.







After our nap we opened some wonderful cards and gifts from grandparents. Thank YOU so much! And this evening we were allowed to stay up late and watch a movie! All in all a great day to turn 2.

Dr. Appt

Elsa is a "picture of health" says the pediatrician. She now registers in at:
Weight: 14 pounds
Height: 27 inches

She is tall, 75th percentile for height. This is why we have to wear some 9 month clothes. She just is too tall for some of the 6 monthers. Jordan took her in for this check-up, since I double booked myself. (oops!) I had told Jordan that I thought Elsa looked pale, so he mentioned this to the doc. The doc says, "Tiffany actually noticed this?" Apparently breastmilk's iron levels drop around now, and that is why we start rice cereal (iron-fortified). As a result of the drop in iron levels, the child can be paler. How funny! I just thought she might be under the weather. They will check her iron levels at her 9month appointment, but it is completely normal and expected for kids to be pale.

A Healthy Elsa is a blessing.

Nellie & Titus (AKA Bonnie & Clyde)

So Titus' best friend is a little girl named Nellie. They play together so well and often get each other into trouble. If Titus can't find Nellie, he'll run around and yell "Nel-ne!" until he finds her. Nellie will often point and Titus and say "Tie-us, Come!" and Titus will happily trot to her as they run off on an adventure.

Here is a cute video of them playing in a toy helicopter.



(I've been made aware that perhaps Nellie thinks Titus is her boyfriend. Check out the bottom of this post on Nellie's blog for the scoop.)

6 Months Old

Elsa is now 6 months old. When Titus was 6 months, he got his photo's taken at the BioPark, and now so has Elsa! I hope you enjoy them, not professionally done, but we had fun taking them :)

New Background

As you can see, our background has changed. Our old one disappeared, so we needed to find a new one, and this is what we decided on. Why a world map you ask?



Well we thought it was fitting since we have officially applied to our international adoption agency. Soon we will be starting a whole new set of paper and information gathering. But this is the first step of many towards our future children. We have chosen for our children to come from Ethiopia. After that it is completely in God's hands to hand pick our next children. We are excited to continue on this crazy journey. God's grace is sufficient for any struggle we encounter. We are excited. I hope you will join us in our excitement and journey!

Another Hair Donation

I got bored, or just ready for a change, and cut my hair! I cut a whole 10 inches off, and sent it to Locks of Love. I have done this for other people before, but never for myself. Its kinda fun, and gives a good feeling. Now I have a cute short trendy haircut, that I really like. Its easy and fun, just what a mommy of two little ones needs.

*Before*

*10 Inches!!*



*All Gone!*
I mean,
*After*

Elsa~ "mommy, did you cut your hair to match mine?"

Elsa's first meal

It's that time again. Time to start introducing food to our little one. Rice cereal, mmmm. right? well let's take a look.

Looks like we are ready



What's That? looks good!



Titus is joining us and trying to teach us how this whole eating thing works best.



yumm



Maybe?



Daddy feeding us



Elsa really liked the spoon, still not sure about what was on the spoon, but progress is good



Titus likes Elsa joining him for lunch



Still not sure about this stuff mom



And then we played in it, and then as you could imagine, we needed a bath. All in all we enjoyed ourselves. Learning new things everyday!!

Playtime Craziness

Here we are running amuck before bedtime. We love being chased and being "scared" by Mommy and Daddy. Even Elsa can get in on the fun. I can't wait until she is crawling and can chase Titus too!

The Aquarium and Botanical Gardens

If you've been around Titus recently you'd know that Finding Nemo is his FAVORITE movie, or "show" as he would call it. He loves fish and asks to feed the fish we have in our pond probably 5 times a day. (We won't disclose how many times he asks to watch Nemo on an average day.) With this extreme interest in "fishies", we decided a trip to the aquarium was in order.

We saw lots of fish,


and stingrays,


and shiny fish,


and lumpy fish,


and scary fish,


(maybe a little too scary)


But all in all, we liked the aquarium.


(Elsa liked the "fishies" too!)


We had lots of fun watching the "fishies" swim by and even learned a new word or two listening to the other kids talk. We saw "sharks" and "turtles" and quickly learned how to say their names too.


After the aquarium, we walked through the botanical gardens and saw lots of pretty plants, trees and flowers.



There was so much to see. There is even a "historic" farm to walk around. Titus found one chicken prowling around and chased her for a while. The chicken was not amused.








They had a couple of "bug" exhibits and Titus and I went down to explore. Mommy told Elsa what the boys were up to and she was not happy. Was she scared of the giant hissing cockroaches or upset that Daddy didn't take her down to pet the scorpions and tarantulas? I guess we'll have to wait a few more months for her to tell us.




Such a fun day!!