This week has been super fun, super full, and super LONG. I thought the best way to share would be to show you in pictures. Here goes (and stay tuned to the end for the ultimate incident to top it all off)!

The week started out pretty slow – normal school stuff, the last few days on campus, and so forth. Then, we had our Queens student Christmas party at our apartment…it was fun to have the students and one of our faculty advisors over to fellowship with and to say thank you. Rich, one of our students at Queens College, picked up Brynn and we were shocked when she didn’t cry (she is dealing with major stranger anxiety right now) and even liked him!

This little one turned 10 months old this week!  She is crawling, pulling up, cruising, eating everything she can get her hands on (food and non-food), and loves to follow me around and hang on to me. You know that comment about eating everything? One evening, she got into the fridge while I was fixing dinner. I was happy that she wasn’t hanging on to me and was distracted, so I just let her be. When I came around the corner, this is what I found. She pulled out the cheese, dumped it out, and started chowing down. I guess this is what has to happen when you are the fourth kid 🙂

She has also taken a few steps and now she is doing this – CLIMBING. She has climbed up on the stool quite a few times and tried to reach things. If she survives without killing herself, it will be a miracle.

On Thursday nights, we lead a small group at our house with others from our church. We are loving our group and loving having community with others from our church. This past week, Ed had sound practice so I had to tackle the kids by myself and get them to bed during small group. So, I let them watch a little TV. I love sweet moments when I see them doing this.

Friday night, Ed and I went on a date night thanks to our super sweet friend, Marie, who offered to love on our kiddos for the weekend. Not only were we so grateful to get a break and get to catch up on life, but she didn’t disown our family when Kinsley threw a major tantrum because she was exhausted and wasn’t getting her way. Bless Marie’s sweet heart.

What did we do for our date? A carriage ride through Central Park (courtesy of the women in my family who graciously gave us money for a date night when they were here back in May), shopping at the Columbus Circle Christmas market, dessert at Schmakerys, and dinner at Five Napkin burger. The carriage ride was a bucket list item for me and it did not disappoint. We decided to wait until the winter when we could wear winter hats, curl up under the blanket, and enjoy the Christmas lights. We learned that over 1000 movies have been filmed in Central Park – I learn new things about how influential and important this city is every.single.day. We bought Christmas cookie mixes for teachers’ gifts (because even on dates we can’t stop being parents 🙂 ), and had some delicious food.

Saturday, we spent the day enjoying our first snow of the season – including walking back almost a mile back from the grocery store in the snow! The kids LOVED getting to sled and make snow angels and, in Blake’s case, eat the snow. While we loved watching the snow, walking to church today and trying not to slip on the ice was not so fun.

This picture was taken after it just started snowing, but pretty isn’t it?

This picture was taken near our grocery store. They were doing pictures with Santa, complete with Mrs. Claus making balloon animals, an elf on roller skates, and an elf on stilts. You just never know what you will see here. Just sayin’.

And the big drama this week is brought to you by Emerson. Ed was running the sound today at our church which means he is gone from about 7:30 until 3:30 (our church has three services). I took the kids to the first service and after arriving home, we played for a while before I went to fix lunch. While fixing lunch, Emerson hops into the kitchen screaming that her toe was hurt and that it was bleeding. Man, it was bleeding!!  After getting the bleeding to calm down a little, I saw that is was pretty deeply cut in between two of her toes.

While I am not a medical professional, I had a feeling it was deep enough that it would need stitches, especially being in between her toes where it would keep splitting open. So, I called out an SOS to Ed and asked if he could come home early. I knew that Emerson couldn’t walk to Urgent Care and that there is no way I could take all the kids during lunch time and nap time to Urgent Care to sit while she got stitches. Long story short, while Ed didn’t think he would be able to come home early, he was able to and she ended up having to get 3 stitches.

I was pretty sad that she had to get stitches but pretty proud of the fact that of the 3 times I have ever called an SOS to Ed to leave what he was doing for an emergency, it has turned out to be a true emergency – Kinsley ended up in the hospital for breathing, Emerson broke her arm, and Emerson had to get stitches. Yes, hubby, I do know what emergency means 🙂

Can you pray for her? It was hurting her pretty bad tonight and not only does she have to go and walk around school on it tomorrow, but she will have to walk/ride on the train to get to a dermatologist appointment tomorrow for them to look at this spot on her head that needs treatment? I tell ya, don’t ever say we don’t add variety in our lives 🙂