Our little Angels.

Morgan loves to help out and take care of Caden. And of course he loves it as well. Here she is reading to Caden and invitation to a birthday party that she was really excited to go to.

How could I pass up a photo op like this?

And like most of us...Caden has fallen asleep :) Morgan sure does a good job reading to us all. We are so grateful for the both of them. They are such great blessings to us.

Christmas in Korea....

On December 3rd they had a tree lighting on base. So I convinced Nate to get off work early and we bundled up the kids and piled into the car. Parking of course is limited but we just happened to be walking up to the tree just as the countdown started and so were able to see the tree light up. They have lights all down the main street that runs through the base and some side ones as well. It sure has brought the holiday spirit. It's been rough to not have "Christmas" here since Koreans don't make it as big of a celebration as they do in the states. So to walk out of our house and down the street you wouldn't even know Christmas was coming. So I was glad to see all the lights go up on base.

At the tree lighting. Santa did make an appearance. He stopped by in Korea so we were lucky. Although, Morgan was still weary of him from last year so we didn't get in line to see him. She was even hesitant next to this Santa display :)

By the next week though Morgan was fine with Santa. He came by the library for story time. I think seeing all the other kids around him made her aware that Santa is indeed a nice guy.

Like I said...getting very comfortable around him. She was even helping him call out kids names to hand out presents. Quite the event at the library. We've become good friends with one of the librarians there (she is very fond of Morgan and loves to come talk to her) and she did a fantastic job of getting Santa to come and visit. He sure is a busy guy! But we got him all to ourselves.


Not a tear from either of them! As Santa walked out Morgan ran to the door (most kids had left by then) "Bye Santa!" and to me she says "I love Santa."
So Morgan is getting very excited. We recently went to the Dragon Hotel (which is on base where usually everyone stays when they first get to Korea we just happened to be lucky to skip that experience) and ate dinner at one of the restaurants inside. The lobby was decorated with trees and several different displays of Santa and elves all over. One Santa was checking a list twice, another climbing a wall, another pointing to the restaurant we should go to, another playing in some snow, and there were elves playing in snow and making cookies or tangled up in lights. So festive and so fun and cute. Morgan ran to each one jumping up and down pulling our hands to go this way and that. "I'm so cited! I'm so cited!" "I love Santa!" It was so cute to see her get so "cited" :) It really brings in the magic of Christmas when you see your kids eyes light up and smile at the different things they see. What a wonderful time of year! (of course she can't wait to go on the airplane too :)

Shake that Booty!!

YEA!!! Morgan finally got into the dance class. We had been on the waiting list for 2 months! Unfortunately, on base they only have one place for dance classes. I guess we could have gone off post and try to find a dance studio there but...figured it would be easier if Morgan could understand her teacher. Plus her friend, Avary, is in the dance class with her.

So being the first day we didn't have the specific outfit that you need to wear. We actually had a black leotard that we had gotten cause she was also on the waiting list for gymnastics. But we were told to just wear comfortable clothes. Little did I know that her instructor would put a leotard OVER her clothes. (we should have just worn the black one!) But Morgan didn't care. She had the time of her life!



So lesson learned from the first class :) the second one I put her in the black leotard. The instructor is still in the process of ordering all the stuff for us. But at this class...no one was wearing the "specific" outfit that the instructor prefers...but for performances I guess we'll need it. But Morgan is loving it. Has a hard time paying attention and is distracted really easily...but what 3 year old isn't? Isn't she the cutest ballerina? I didn't even need to ask.

So I realize now that I'm always behind Morgan so I don't have her face in any of my pictures...I should have at least been in front of the mirror to get her reflection eh? Although they do ballet most of the time...the end of the class they do jazz...and yes...she does shake her booty :)

American Gladiators

In the military there is an organization that provides tours and entertainment for the military personnel over seas. One of these celebrity tours was with the American Gladiators. For the entertainment they had people get in groups and compete against each other in different events like tug of war and dodge-ball. The Gladiators sometimes participated in the event and sometimes just helped get them started, while also going around and talking with the people that came to watch. We were able to talk to some of them and get pictures with others. It was pretty neat to see these people of close...they were huge!! However, we seem to remember the women being larger and more muscle toned then what they were in person. I guess the camera does add a few pounds :)

Us and Wolf. This WAS going to be our Christmas card. Merry Christmas from Nate, Debbie, Morgan, Caden and WOLF :) as you can see Morgan wasn't too sure of him but at least her and Caden were on his team (red team).

This is "Phoenix".

These were all of the Gladiators that came on the tour. Titan, Timinator, Venom, Wolf, Phoenix.

Wolf and his trademark howl. They split up and helped each side of the tug of war. It was really neat to see them in action. Pretty strong guys. (and girls). We tried to get Nate and the other couples to go up and participate...but they didn't want to show the Gladiators up and make them look bad when they were trying to do something nice. :)
We also ended up in the paper from this event:
http://yongsan.korea.army.mil/pdf/communityconnection.pdf
page 36

Cheung-Ju

In November Nate took us down to a town where he lived during his mission called Cheong-Ju. It's about 2 hours south of Seoul, but traffic was bad that day so it took us about 3 hours. To make it worse Nate couldn't remember how to get to his section of the city, so it took an extra hour once we got to the city.

We visted a family that Nate knew on his mission and had dinner together.


There were only two members of the family there that night (Soon-Jin Oh the mother and Pada Oh her daughter) because the father was on a hiking retreat and the oldest son is currently studying in the US. But it was a good trip and fun to see where Nate served his mission.


Nate took us to the church (above) and his old missionary home (below) when he lived in Cheong-Ju for 6 months. As you can see the church is not there any more and has been replaced by an after school study place and the missionaries have moved from the house, to another section of the city.

Thanksgiving

Nate doesn't get American holidays off...but managed to take a half day. We had a bunch of friends over which was great!

"Little" Morgan and Morgan.

Clint and Katie wanted to deep fry the turkey. We went up on our roof and stood back :) we did film it JUST in case something "cool" happened...but it was uneventful (which was good). And it tasted great!


Even Morgan got to have her friends over and have their own Thanksgiving dinner. They had fun.

There were a total of 10 adults, 4 kids, and 4 babies. You can't tell by this picture...but we all really had a good time.

Blackhawk

Being surrounded by military has been quite interesting. Some really good friends of ours (Clint and Katie) live on the air base about 30 minutes from the Yongson base which is the base we live by. Clint is a Black-hawk pilot and was able to show us around. Unfortuanatly, they are not allowed to take civilians up in the air...so we could only get inside. But it was really neat.



They have a daughter named Morgan as well. So here is Morgan with "Little" Morgan as we call her.


We got to watch some of the blackhawks take off right next to us. They were pretty loud and created a lot of wind :)

Caden Our growing boy!

Caden is growing so fast!! And is getting cuter every minute! He's about 16 lbs and 25 inches long (we think). He's already learned from his big sister to kick Nate and I out of bed.




At Thanksgiving Caden also had a feast :) he had his first taste of cereal. And of course Morgan wanted to help feed him. She does a great job and cares so much for her baby brother.

Caden has many emotions as does any baby. But he definitely has "the lip" as does Morgan.

His smile is contagious. And his laugh as well. He doesn't cry much at all. Even in the morning he is all smiles and talking up a storm.

One of Cade's favorite things to do is blow bubbles. He has rightly earned the nickname "bubble boy!"

He loves to make noises too. I'm sure you can imagine the noise
he is making as he is doing this :)

As in all families...we have are special and memorable moments. Elder Bednar in his recent conference talk mentioned being consistant with our children. Everything we teach is like adding a "brushstroke on the canvas of our souls." We may not remember a certain family Home Evening but the consistancy is what we need to remember to do. I know when growing up I don't remember everything that my parents said. I do know that we always had family prayer. I don't remember anything that was ever said but I do remember one particular night where my mother was praying. In the middle of the prayer she sneezed. It was such a powerful sneeze that the force leaned her forward and throwing her hands to the floor. Of course all of us took a peak as to what all happened and after that there was laughter from all of us. I think it was actually quite the task to finish the prayer. Sometimes those are also the precious memories that we will take with us forever. We had such an event recently.

We teach Morgan to be reverent during prayers and she is learning to keep her eyes closed through the whole prayer. And she does do a very good job. Well...one evening as it was my turn to pray I was doing so...and then all of a sudden we hear giggling. Not from Morgan. So of course we open our eyes to see what was causing Caden to laugh. Morgan was folding her arms and even had her eyes closed but was just wiggling as most 3 year olds do. But for some reason Caden thought this was the FUNNIEST thing and was laughing! Not just the little giggles he usually does but laughing pretty hard! Well...any type of reverence was gone now and Nate even jumped up to get the video camera. However, in the process of getting the camera which didn't have a battery in it at the time...Morgan leaned back and bonked her head. However, we were still able to get a little of the laughing with some help. Precious moments for sure.

Morgan's Latest

Morgan has been busy! She is enjoying school with her friends and loves to learn new things. She loves writing and working on each letter. She is getting their sounds down now...and I'm sure reading will be coming just around the corner! She is getting so big I keep telling her to stop growing :)

Although Morgan loves to work on her letters...Caden finds it a little tiring. :)

This is a long time ago, unfortunately I've been a little slow in my posting. But this was the first time she spelled her name all by herself. We are so proud of you Morgan!!

We found some window crayons at the store...and heck if you have a large window like we do you might as well take advantage of it! We sure have fun drawing especially Morgan.

Yep...we figured it was time for the first hair cut. Can you believe she was over 3 years old! I was so sad to see it go! She had this natural curl at the end of her hair and it was so pretty! But Nate and I finally agreed that it was getting too long for her. When looking straight ahead her hair came to my finger!
We had thought about taking her to a professional...but didn't know if she'd freak out. So I took on the challenge. I figured I used to cut my companions hair on my mission...I can do Morgan.


I was told watching a movie was the best way to get them to sit still. She did very well.

At least it turned out decent. I still miss the curl at the end. I think we ended up cutting over 3 inches off!

Halloween 09

Koreans don't celebrate a Halloween over here so most things were done at home or on base. We got this great idea for some hard salt figurines from Megan (S) and our friend Shay. I don't think ours turned out as good as theirs but it sure was fun trying. Here Morgan is painting her ghost and witch.

Our completed figurines. I helped Morgan a little on one of the witches :) But most of it was her. She could paint all day.

We were able to get some pumpkins and carve them. We missed going to the pumpkin patch and the hay ride but at least we were in a nice warm house. We cooked the pumpkin seeds this year. They were really good. Morgan was pretty disgusted with the stringy stuff inside but she would reach in and get the seeds out.

As I mentioned before, we had to go on base for all of the Halloween activities. We met up with our friends and went trick or treating in their little neighborhood. It was fun to see people going all out for the occasion. This year Morgan went as Little Red Riding Hood. I'm a little biased but I sure think she was the cutest Little Red Riding Hood I've ever seen :)

The whole gang. Caden did join us for some trick or treating at the very end. He was our little Bumblebee. Sam was a dragon and Avary I think was a beautiful fairy. (not pretty or cute...beautiful).

Adorable right?

Cutest Bumblebee ever too, right?

It was a little dark but we were able to record a little of Morgan trick or treating if you listen carefully you can hear her say it.

A couple in the ward threw a Halloween party and it was required that we dress up. We ordered our costumes online but mine never made it for some reason. So I went as Nate's "victim". It was a fun yet interesting party. We left Morgan and Caden with some friends of ours and since we were dressing up she wanted to as well.