Happy Halloween!

Halloween was great this year.  We were reunited with our trick or treat buddies, the Schmidts and all the kids did great.  Christine got the hang of the whole concept at our last few houses and actually pushed past Kaitlyn and Ethan to knock on the door herself.  She was so funny!

Kaitlyn was Ariel this year.  It sure helps to have a dress up bin of princess dresses to choose from!  Christine didn't care for costumes, but she loves the witch's hat Sean found at Target.  So we found a Halloween skirt and just made her look cute.  She was pretty happy.  Sean made me a jack o lantern shirt for my baby bump, which was awesome.  Sean went as his charming self :-)

Our friend Erik also dressed up.  Can you guess who he is????

The professors who know them well got a big kick out of it. 

Kaitlyn designed her own pumpkin this year.  She didn't understand when Sean asked her to draw a face.



Not so conducive to carving, but very cute smiley face.  So with a little more explanation, she tried again.  Sean drew Christine's pumpkin to mimic her front teeth, and Kaitlyn's pumpkin is on the right.

MMM Candy!



Baby McCoy #3

Today I had my 12 week appointment, and was not expecting an ultrasound - I don't think we did one with Christine since I had an 8 week one with her too.  Unfortunately Sean chose to stay home with the girls instead of joining me, so he missed it.  When we schedule the 18 to 20 week sonogram all of us will be there in the tiny little room to see if Kaitlyn is right and "Peanut" is a boy.

The head is the large circle at the bottom, and the feet are the two little dots on the top, and the spot in the middle of the feet is the umbilical cord.

Been a while!

I realized it's been a while since my last entry.  Since moving back to St Louis we've been pretty busy.  I'm working at a middle school that is considered urban.  I've never encountered this kind of lifestyle - foster families, boys and girls homes, homeless students, severe emotional disorders ... this school has it all.  It's a challenge to say the least, and many times I come home baffled and exhausted.  My prayer is that God will use me to make even the slightest difference for these students in the short time I'm there.

Shortly after the school year began, we learned that God has blessed us with another baby.  I've taken to calling the baby Peanut, and Kaitlyn is convinced the baby is a boy ... only because she already has a baby sister, so she needs a baby brother now.  We'll see if God agrees with her in another month or so.  Peanut's due date is May 10th. 

It was a difficult transition to go back to the school lifestyle.  We so enjoyed serving the church during our year of vicarage and are really looking forward to getting back in the parish.  But after a couple rough weeks of balancing his school work and web development, Sean seems to have gotten the hang of things again.  We have our placement interviews beginning next week, then we get to wait and see what happens.

The girls are both doing great.  Kaitlyn is in an in home preschool with a great teacher and really seems to love it.  The girls have a babysitter who we're all very happy with.  They get to play with another little girl and 2 baby boys all day.  Christine has adjusted well to being away from us too.   Christine is starting to use more words and is getting better at communicating.  Kaitlyn continues to figure out the world around her connecting new concepts with familiar ones.  It's really fun to have conversations with her to see how those wheels are turning.  She's also trying to grasp the concept of rhyming words - she almost has it. 

Now back to uploading all of those pictures I'm behind on ...

Back in "The Lou"

We unloaded our truck about a week and a half ago, and I have to say we're doing pretty well.  The move couldn't have gone smoother - the wonderful people of Fishers of Men in Sugar Land were absolutely amazing in their help both physically and financially.  God has blessed us through them well beyond any expectations we had a year ago.  Leaving them was just about as hard as leaving California.  I never thought we would be so loved for who we are, and how we live our lives.  I wish I had the words to express how amazing that feeling is ... but I'm just not sure I can explain it.  You'll just have to take my word for it!
Now we're back in St Louis, living on campus.  We are right next door to our very good friends the Schmidts and we've shared enough meals to joke about living in our own little commune.  Kaitlyn and Ethan (5) are figuring out how to get along, but boy are they demonstrating forgiveness!  They'll figure it out soon enough, and in the mean time they are giving us adults plenty of practice mediating.  Daniel (3) is excited to be around all the kids playing and is so much fun now and Katy (19mo) and Christine are getting along really well.  Christine has now added her to the very short list of people she will hug and kiss without being asked.  Kaitlyn is the only other one on that list.  Mommy and Daddy didn't even make the cut!  We're excited to spend lots of time with them this year.  Our other friends are scheduled to move in during the next two weeks which will provide several more little girls running around here.  It's an odd feeling - kind of going backwards - but we're going to make it a special year that we can remember as a time spent with lifelong friends who are really more like family.
I start work in one week and have two weeks of before school meetings before the students return.  I'm excited that the commute is only 5 miles, and my new boss sounds nice.  I've been so blessed with wonderful administrators, I hope the trend continues.
Christine is in a time of transition, which is exciting.  A couple days ago she decided to remove her diaper during naptime which resulted in a soaked pack n play mattress.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put a waterproof pad under the sheet although I'm not sure that would have helped much.  Since the mattress didn't dry in time for bed (I had to use the hose)  I had to put the crib mattress on the floor barricaded with Kaitlyn's bed.  The girls decided they like this arrangement.  What a blessing to have sisters that love each other so much!  So right now we're seeing how it goes to have her sleep uncontained.  I have the pack n play set up just in case Christine decides to play instead of sleep, but that's only happened once so far.  Soon we'll have to figure out a more functional set up for their room.
Well, I think that's enough rambling for now.  I'll save how brilliant I think they are for the next post :-)

Prayer Time

We pray with the girls every night before putting them to bed.  Kaitlyn's prayers range from thanking God for everything and everyone in her world by name, to the common table prayer (come Lord Jesus be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed).  Recently she's become a fan of this one sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques"
     God our Father, God our Father
     We thank You, we thank You
     For our many blessings, for our many blessings
     Amen, amen


Christine has become more and more interested in prayer time, especially now that Kaitlyn has been singing her prayers.  Tonight I said, "OK, it's prayer time" and Christine folded her little hands and sang her adorable version of the bedtime prayer.  How awesome is that???