One of my Dad's many masterpieces (and a bonus pic of Frank)

My dad has been turning wood on a lathe for years now. He has won ribbons in the state fair, been offered money for his work and been admired by many. It's his latest piece of work however that has really put a smile on my face!! For Christmas he made Josh and I a set of salt and pepper shakers that were made from pinecones that had been turned on the lathe. If you think that sounds crazy you should take a look at them, they're amazing!! The part that has the darker coloring is also "fuzzy" to the touch which makes them even cooler! He also made us a set of salt and pepper grinders that were turned on the lathe. He always finds the prettiest pieces of wood to use that add soo much character to the finished piece! Thanks dad for the AWESOME gift, it is one of the neatest things I have ever gotten!!

p.s. here is a picture of Frankie too, just because he is soo darn cute!!

Merry Christmas!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Thanks Jessica!!

We finally got around to putting together our gingerbread train, Jessica brought it for us at Thanksgiving and we just did it yesterday. It was a lot of fun, Thanks Jess!! We have never put together a gingerbread anything before and it was a lot easier than I was expecting. The girls of course wanted to eat all of the candy (and the gingerbread a little too), luckily it wasn't the greatest tasting candy so most of it made it on the train. Frank has the Christmas spirit too : )

Soccer Season is over... for now.

Playing goalie

Jillian's sweet new trophy

Going head to head, go Jill!

Kicking it with coach Mike on the sidelines

Jill's biggest cheerleader

Today was Jillian's last soccer game of the season. She had such a great team and a fantastic coach! We will definitely have her on the same team next season, which is only a couple of weeks away : ) Jillian was awarded a great bobblehead trophy for her hard work during the season. She played a lot of different positions this time, including goalie. Her favorite position was inside forward which was also a lot of fun to watch! Great Job Jillian!!!

Snip Day / Two Weeks Old

Frank is 2 weeks old today. It is hard to believe so much time has already past and yet when I was looking at photos today I couldn't believe how HUGE I was only 2 weeks ago!! Frank has had a great couple of weeks. He is finally figuring out the difference between night and day, Wohoo!!! He is more alert when he is awake now and he is getting a little bit stronger : )

Konked out after a long walk with daddy

This is how he works out. We are amazed at how long he can hold his legs like this! The girls tried to do it and they couldn't even get into that position : ) I don't think I could either.

Today was also "Snip Day" because he was circumcised, poor little guy. I was prepared for this to be a tough day but he has done incredibly well!! He of course screamed for a while after it was done but he calmed down and has been pretty relaxed for the rest of the day! He must have been ok with the way things worked out because he did get his revenge : ) He peed ALL OVER THE PLACE!! We had to switch rooms so they could clean up the mess. We think that was just his way of saying he was pissed off about what was going on.

This is how chilled out he was later today, it's like nothing even happened

Frank was nervous before the big snip

Gelsey's a Cheer Champion!

Today Gelsey competed in the regional cheer competition. She did FANTASTIC!! Her team came in 4th place. She had a lot of cheer and spirit, she smiled huge and did her absolute best! Great Job Goosey!!

Deck the Halls time

It is Christmas time!! This past weekend while my family was in town we decided to decorate for Christmas. This is one of my absolute favorite things to do. Each year after Christmas we always buy a couple of new decorations at about 80% off and then the next year we have so much fun remembering what we bought the year before and deciding where everything should go. This year was no different, we have a new angel on top of our tree and we got a new set of twinkling stars to hang outside. It is always a mess getting everything out but it is also like opening little presents when you unwrap each thing and reveal what's inside. Also, because this is Frank's first Christmas he doesn't have a stocking yet. Jillian felt so bad about it that she made him a stocking herself. It was the sweetest big sister gift! Last but not least we put on the new Faith Hill Christmas album, which is fabulous by the way, and got into a jolly old mood singing away!

Everybody loves Frankie

Here are a couple more pics of Frankie. He has already had a lot of visitors.

Frank's Here!

Frank Rodney Murphy was born at 11:16am on November 26th. He weighed 8lbs 1oz and measured 20 3/4". He has dark hair covering his entire head. Mom is doing very well, but also very tired. Frank is healthy in every way and we couldn't be happier. He does not cry much, he only gets a little fussy when he's hungry. I hope you enjoy the first batch of pictures, there will be many more to follow.

The wait continues

Well the contingency that I mentioned in my last post came into play last week. We waited around for 2 days for an opening at the hospital but as fate would have it they never ended up having a spot for us. So here I am, still pregnant! The new plan is that I will go in tonight for the induction, but after such a heartbreak last week I haven't really let myself get too excited. If there is room for us tonight then I am sure I will be overwhelmed by emotion (not hard considering I am a VERY pregnant woman!) So even though throughout the last several months I thought the odds of me actually being in the hospital on Thanksgiving were slim, it appears that this is what is going to happen. My Dr. said if all goes well (and according to his schedule, which so far not a great track record) we should be released mid day Thursday and home in time for turkey, thanks for cooking mom!! We'll see! If that is the case then I will put picks up of our little turkey on Thursday. Hope everyone is well! Have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving, Amber

Today is THE day : )

Well I have been slacking considerably on this posting! I really have no excuse I have been on maternity leave for almost two weeks now and STILL no baby so I have nothing occupying my time other than waiting for my little man! Today I am happy to say is the last day I have of just "me time" as Dr. Hu has had mercy on me and my poor aching body and is inducing me TONIGHT!!! Wohoo! (This is of course contingent on the fact that they are not swamped with women who have actually gone into labor on their own). Either way little Frankie should have a birthday of November 20, 2008 if all goes according to plan. As excited as I am it has been absolutely wonderful having soo much time with just the girls. Josh and I have been reflecting back on all that we have done in the last several years and it has been soo amazing having two precious daughters who are so close to each other to spend our time with. I had always thought that I would want to have all of my children close together but in retrospect am glad that I got to have soo much time with just my girls. I am soo looking forward to the future but I also know our lives will never be the same and in a way I will certainly miss this time and look back fondly on the time it was just the four of us. Thanks Jill and Gels for being such amazing, considerate, sweet, fun and overwhelmingly wonderful daughters, Frank is absolutely blessed to have such incredible big sisters!!
Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with the rest of my day: ) First just praise God that he always takes care of us. A few weeks ago I joked that the ice maker in our old fridge was broken and therefore we NEEDED all new appliances. Oh am I glad we went ahead and bought them because we woke up to our old fridge (which had been transformed into a drink fridge and pizza freezer in the garage) that had died during the night. I can't imagine if we had to deal with that on a day like today! Once again the Lord shows that he is taking care of us even before we know we are in need : ) All I had to do was fit two freezers worth of food into one freezer, impossible you say, but I am amazing I will let you know and with the exception of one 1/2 gallon of ice cream it is all in the freezer!!! WOW, I didn't even realize the capacity of the french drawer freezer until I needed it to be the size of two : ) This was especially tricky because of course I just went grocery shopping yesterday and in preperation for having a brand new baby and no motivation to cook and I bought 5 frozen pizza's, a frozen lasagna, super pretzels, a box of quiches, and a large box of lean pockets all of which is now in what I thought was a full freezer in my kitchen!
As for the rest of the day I suppose I will just finish my Christmas wrapping, address all of my Christmas cards and make some gingerbread cookies. If I don't keep busy the day will surely just drag on endlessly! Hope everyone is well!! We will put baby pictures up as soon as we can. XOXO, Amber

HAPPY VETERANS DAY!!!

Today was the Anthem veterans day parade. It was the best one yet, it was almost 2 hours!! We had a really fun time watching all of the floats and then afterwards there was a big picnic in the park. I have to say the neatest thing in my opinion was, after the parade, the girls got to get into a blackhawk helicopter and check it out!!! AWESOME!!! I don't have any pictures of that because our batteries had run out from all of the parade pics we took : ( Anywho, we had a great time, Josh took 239 pictures! Here are just a few hope you enjoy them. (p.s. I love the 70 yr. old cheerleaders, I'd never really seen anything like that till we moved here, ha ha)