Birthday Festivities

We had a really fun day, celebrating Samantha's birthday yesterday. We started with a morning present party, opening all the "Sammie presents" that had been stacked on the bookshelf for the past week or so.

Samantha really got into the present opening, learned how to rip and tear very quickly. She got most excited about the first present -- new doll, books and candy from Grandma and Grandpa Bishop. It was hard to convince her there were other fun things in the rest of the packages.

Here she is, standing on the living room table, modeling her new presents and enjoying the audience... It was really fun to have Aunt Janice and Uncle Jay here to help celebrate. Sam loves to play for the crowd!
She got really spoiled by all grandparents... a new sweater and jeans from Grandma Eva and Grandpa Doug (sweater modeled below and above), and new dress-up hat, necklace and purse from Grandma and Grandpa Hone, and other VERY fun items that were favorites all day!
After Brian, Janice and Jay left, Samantha and I had a leisurely morning playing with her presents, then went to an impromptu lunch visit at our friend, Debbie's. We then went down to the shops and bought some BALLOONS for a special birthday girl. (Anyone looking for great gifts for two-year-olds, balloons seem to be well appreciated!)
After nap time in the evening, we met up with our group for a delicious Italian dinner at the Pizzaria right down the street from our house. Sam played to the crow, insisting on wearing her sunglasses and necklace through dinner.

Brian also wore the glasses, for a second. Very nice look, isn't it?
We came home for delicious chocolate Snowman cake. Samantha LOVES snowmen so much, I thought it would be fun to make her a little snowman cake for her birthday. It was a hit.
A close up of Mr Snowman...
Our happy birthday girl, enjoying her piece of birthday cake... she asked for the pink mittens, and enjoyed picking all the buttons off as well.
Happy Birthday, Samantha dear! We loved celebrating two years with you. Fun times to come!!

Happy Birthday Samantha!

Today is our Samantha's birthday. Yay!! It's so hard to believe she's two already. And yet, at the same time, she seems so grown up and is such a little girl instead of a baby. A quick photo tribute to show how much she's grown...

Samantha -- 2 days old:
6 months:

One year, on her birthday:

18 months:

2 years -- taken yesterday:

We're having a great day, and will put up pictures of our festivities after we get back from birthday dinner. Stay tuned....

Third Trimester -- and Blooming!

It's official -- my third trimester has begun and this baby is less than three months from his due date (March 8, for those who aren't counting along with me). Brian is actually keeping better track than I am. He's the one who informed me of this special landmark occasion. Wahoo!

I'm starting to get the friendly belly pats from friends (will hopefully be a month more before strangers start in, too). And, I'm starting to get noticed for how "big" I am. Sensitive ladies at church are kind enough to tell me I'm "blossoming," "blooming," or I am getting that "pregnancy glow." Less sensitive examples are the man who tried to make polite conversation by telling me, "I've been noticing the last few weeks that you seem to be getting fatter and fatter." -- or, the doctor who treated Samantha last week who confidently guessed, "you must be in your last month!"

Yes, I'm getting bigger, and people are noticing the change. This little baby is kicking a lot. It's easy to see and feel him from the outside -- and hard to ignore him on the inside. I've got all the familiar aches and pains that came last pregnancy, as well as some new stitches and cramps that the doctor says are perfectly normal and should just be ignored. (Easy for him to say, of course.)
We've been discussing possible names for this baby. No wait, I should rephrase that to say I've been discussing possible names. Brian has been consistently vetoing almost everything, and kindly refusing to suggest any names of his own choosing because it's still "too soon." So, I call him William or James or Nathan since those are names I like (even though all three have been vetoed twenty times over).

Here's the obligatory pregnancy picture for y'all... At 6 months and two days, here I am with sweet baby James, or whatever he happens to be called eventually:

Bishop Elf Family

Have you seen this yet? I just got it from two friends this morning and thought it'd be funny to make one for our family... Check out our new "elfy" look:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1173378785

Once there was a snowman...

We've been staying in lately, first to help Samantha get better -- and now because it's been pouring rain. We had a little bit of winter fun yesterday, making our own paper snowman. Samantha was very excited to help tape the different parts of the snowman together (we couldn't find glue, and I've now decided tape is just easier anyway). She loved the "yeyyow" buttons, "gween" shoes, and "WED" mittens most of all. Mittens are a new favorite with Sammie... she wants to wear them all the time (I keep them hidden until we're ready to leave the house). When we were done making our snowman, she insisted the snowman wanted to go for a walk. So, we put on our coats, hats and mittens, and walked the snowman down the street and back. Good fun!

Here's Samantha trying to "see" her snowman in the camera, after I took the other picture of her holding it...

Not much news to report right now. For the past three days I've tried to load some more videos from the last few months. No luck... I must have created some kind of error and now it won't let me upload anymore videos. Oh well, enjoy the few that made it through before I got shut down, I guess?

Successful Sharing Time

In church yesterday, I gave the sharing time lesson and it turned out really well (always something to feel good about)! We ended up having TONS of visitors due to a baby blessing, which caught me off guard as I walked in and saw our primary had tripled in size. But amazingly, I had felt inspired to prepare for "extras" just in case. It turned out perfectly.

We started out talking about presents we hope to get for Christmas. Then I asked them about some of the presents they were thinking of getting for their parents and other family members. After a few minutes of discussing, I uncovered a big box full of presents I had wrapped at home. All the children gasped in excitement. I explained that these presents in my box may not seem as exciting as some of the things we hope to get for Christmas this year, but they represent some of the gifts that we have received from our Heavenly Father.

I asked the children to each take a turn unwrapping a present, and we spent a few minutes talking about each gift/blessing. The gifts were items such as a picture of our family, a bag full of little toy animals, a little clock (time), a basket of plums (food), a picture book of countries to visit (the world), a gold-framed leaf (nature/plants), the scriptures, etc. I had wrapped about 15 different gifts to discuss, even though we only usually have 5 or 6 kids for our sharing time lessons (Brian had even teased me the night before, telling me I was getting a bit carried away). It turned out there were exactly enough presents for every child to open one! Talk about inspiration!

At the end, I pulled out a very large present, wrapped with lots of bows and special wrapping. I told the children that of all these gifts from Heavenly Father, there was one that is most special of all. They were each taking guesses as I unwrapped a picture of the Saviour. As they realized what it was, there was a sweet hush that came over the room. I quoted the scripture "For God so Loved the World" and talked about how special the gift of Christ is to us. I reminded them that while there are many gifts we give and receive each Christmas, the whole reason we celebrate is for Christ. We ended with a very sweet, calm spirit in the room -- a good reminder to me of the real spirit of Christmas.

Hello!! and good night.

In England, they really do say "hello" instead of the traditional American "hi" that sounds so familiar to me. Samantha took a long time to get her "hello" perfected. But I think it's the cutest thing ... thought I'd share a little video. (And yes, we bribed her to say it with her binky, as you'll see!)