Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Last night we finished putting up our tree. Isabella really enjoyed it. It's taken us all week to finish because we can only work on it after Zach goes to bed and before Belle needs to go down. So, Sunday we put on the lights, Monday we did the garland and Wednesday we did the ornaments. Isabella got to put a bunch on and had a great time. We did discover, however, that when we were done there were about 10 ornaments in a very small space at about eye level.


Every time she would pick up an ornament, she would say, "Where it go?" and then, "Oh, right there." The finished tree. She was quite proud of herself. When we were done, she decided to have some hot chocolate with mommy.

I'm pretty sure she got more on her than in her. :-)

Fun on the farm

On the way back from Houston after Thanksgiving, we stopped to visit some freinds and supporters at their farm in Brenham. Isabella and I went out with the kids to take hay to the cows.

Isabella gives the 6 wheeler a try...

Isabella and I in the back of the 6 wheeler.

Isabella and Mommy go and pet the hoarse. He was very friendly.

In other news, Zach has started pulling up on things like our new dishwasher. On Monday he pulled up on the coffee table and thought he was cool. Then promptly smacked his forehead against it. He didn't think that was so cool. :-)

Don't say it

Tonight when I got home from work we sat down to eat supper. Belle started to tell me about something and got a little flustered with her words.... then she looks at Liza in mid-sentence, puts up her hand in a "talk to the hand" sort of way and says, "Don't say it!" then continues on with her story. I couldn't help but laugh.

If you'd like to see a little commercial that our team just produced, you can click here to watch it. This is a new commercial for the CM2007 conference that will be held in Korea next summer. While I was gone to Spain and Turkey, half the team stayed behind to produce this commercial. They did a great job. There is also a little short "behind the scenes" video that they made in Spain while we were doing our interviews there that you can see by clicking here.

making up songs

As we were driving to Rudy's for lunch after church today, Isabella was singing in the background. I listened to her and realized she was saying "Dog hair, dog hair, we eat dog hair." I asked her why she ate dog hair and she said because she loves it. Most of her songs follow the same tune. It will be interesting to see how her musical talent develops.--Liza

Why?

Today was a big day and the start of a new era with Isabella. When she got up from her nap, Liza told her I was gone to Wal-mart (to get her a bigger car seat because her old one was hurting her) and she said, "Why daddy gone to wal-mart?" Later she asked "Why are we at Ni-ni's house?" We really hoped the "why" stage would wait a few more months, but now that she's asking, she knows what it means when we ask her the same thing. :-)

Fun at Nonnie's

Chris' mom got a new pool and we enjoyed it over our visit. Here is a picture of the pool. You can see the fire pit just to the right, and there is a hottub to the far left.


Here Belle was sitting with her feet in the VERY cold water while looking at the bubbler.

Zach enjoys his thanksgiving feast. All in all it was a great time and we all had fun. Tomorrow we will head back to Austin for the rest of the weekend. We'll be putting the lights on the tree and getting the house ready for Christmas!

Sayings

Isabella has a few new sayings that I don't want to forget, so here they are.

If you hurt yourself, or if she hurts her self, she says that we need to "put a rubber band on the boo boo."

Last night she was calling out to her Nonny. She was saying, "Nonny! Nonny! Non! Come here!"

In the car on the way back from Pine Cove, she started singing, "Tired, Tired, Zach is tired. Won't that be fun."

She was also singing, "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, I need my blanky now."

She also tells Zach in the car, "It's ok Zach. Don't worry. It will be ok." When he's crying.

When she goes to the bathroom, she is fond of saying, "Please go away!" so she can "do it myself."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Houston. We are here for the holiday with Chris' family. We'll be eating around 1 and it all looks so good! Liza and Isabella have been watching the Macy's parade on TV and Vince has been working on the new arbor in the back yard. Their pool is in now and last night we all got in the got tub and took turns jumping in to the very very cold water. Even Isabella got in the big pool before running back to the hot tub.

Back from Pine Cove

We are back now from Pine Cove and our regional staff conference. We had a great time and so did the kids. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Liza and Zach on the front porch of our cabin.

Isabella and Chris went to the free coffee house and had a fun time together.
Here is Isabella drinking a "steamer" with chocolate and whipped cream on top.

This is Isabella after her coffee- a lovely milk mustache.

Isabella and Daddy went on a boat ride. Isabella really liked it. Daddy had fun with her too.

Zach and Isabella back in our cabin.

Tomorrow we head out for Thanksgiving in Houston.

Pine Cove Today!

Today we are heading off to Pine Cove, a camp up in the East Texas pine forest for our annual staff conference. I am not usually super excited about this conference because I've been so many times, but this year Isabella is very excited. She's been talking about it for days and today as soon as she got up, said, "Pine Cove today!" We'll be heading off in a couple of hours.

Chris

When I old

This morning we were sitting at the breakfast table- Liza, Isabella and I. We heard a train in the distance blowing its whistle, and Isabella stops, listens and says, "Choo Choo train!" Then she stops and thinks for a second and says in a very serious voice, "Someday I think it would be nice to ride on a choo choo train. Maybe someday when I old." We just laughed and agreed.

Halloween Pictures

I'm back at home now. I got home on Tuesday night. Our last day in Turkey was amazing- we found a production company that can help us with everything we need to do a film in that country. It was really great. We flew out the next morning and had a very long trip home. I was very glad to be back and Liza and the kids were very happy to have me back!

I wanted to put up a few pictures from Halloween since we missed it on the blog while I was gone.

We had a 50th birthday party / costume party for Vince, my step dad. Liza dressed as a 50's girl and Isabella was dressed as Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz.

Isabella helps with carving a pumpkin. She was not crazy about the guts.

Daddy, Isabella and Zach dressed as a dinosaur.

Isabella was excited about the "kitty pumpkin" that we made.

Zach had a great time with his grandparents.

This was not Halloween, but Zach looked very cute in his deer antlers. We told him he'd have to stay away from Uncle Nate dressed this way... :-)

Location search day 2

Today we went to a bazaar so we could get an idea of what one looks like for our film. We discovered a lot of great stuff and found that many of the vendors there would actually be open to setting up a fake bazaar just for our film. We didn't know if we could even find one, but the first place we went was the perfect place. It was great. Here I am with the biggest cabbage I've ever seen.


We then went back to a city called "Shilay" that is about 50km from where we are staying. We went looking for a hotel and the first one we went to ended up being perfect. Once again, we saw that God is really involved in this whole process. We went to eat in the town, which is right on the black see. It was really beautiful.

This is Brendan (the director) and I by the Black See.

Afterwards we went back to the first village we visited yesterday. We took more pictures and then were invited in to a home to have tea and talk about using their house for the film. They served us tea and fresh roasted chestnuts. We came to an agreement on how much it would cost to use their house and then we headed back in to town.

A goat in the little village.
We sat inside the only warm room in the house and had tea.
Chestnuts cooking on the wood stove.

Our host talking about what it would take for us to use his house. It was all in Turkish, so we really had no idea what was going on until later.

All in all it was an incredible day. Tomorrow we meet with production companies to talk about everything from permits to casting to equipment rentals. Once again we look forward to how God will show His hand in the process.

Searching for locations

Today we went out in to the mountains to look for locations for our village in the short film. We drove about an hour and a half in to the mountains and it started snowing on us. We nearly got stuck a couple of times, but with much prayer we were able to get going again. I have some pictures from the day:

Justin, Chris and Rocky in the Turkish mountains.

The first village we visited. This may end up being the site of the movie.

Another village we visited as a possible site.

We had lots of snow this morning as we were driving. We stopped here to ask for directions and almost didn't get going again. Thankfully we had a Turkish driver who knew what he was doing. :-)

Tomorrow we will go to several bizarrs to look for a good one for the film and the following day we'll be meeting with production companies, film processing houses, and rental places. We also hope to find some casting agencies and other key items. Should be fun. It's all been a great experience so far, but very tiring. I'll be happy to get home to Liza and the kids!

Chris

Just have coffee

This time I'm writing from Istanbul. We left early this morning from Barcelona and headed to Germany where we changed planes and went on to Turkey. Our second day of filming went very well and I think we will have everything we need to make the DVD.

Yesterday I talked with Belle on the phone at Kim's house. She said "Hi Daddy! Last day I went trick-or-treat!" That was about all she had to say, but it was fun to talk with her. Kim told me that she had a great time. At first she was shy about going up to the doors, but when she figured out that they were giving her candy, then she was bold. At each house, they would put candy in her bag and she would say, "Want more! Want go next one." Which meant that she wanted to go to the next house, but they thought she wanted more candy and were happy to oblige. :-)

On the way home, she asked for candy, so Kim gave her some. When she was done, she asked for more. Kim told her no, they were going home and she said, "But I only have 1 and mommy said I could have 2!" Kim had not told her this, but had told Kelli earlier that evening that Liza said she could only have 2 that night and she overheard it. Smart girl.

Finally, Kim said that she and Isabella were out running errands and she said, "I want Daddy." Kim replied, "I'm sorry honey, but Daddy is gone on the plane, remember?" To which she replied, "Yeah. Well, can we just go get some coffee?" That about broke my heart that she would want to do something she loves to do with me. I can't wait to get back to her, Zach and Liza too. It's been fun, but I'm ready to go home and I still have 4 more days. Oh well.

Chris

Greetings from Spain

I've been in Spain for the last 3 days. We got here on Tuesday at 11:30am. I hadn't slept on the whole flight over, so by the time we went to bed that night, I was totally dead. The next day we had to be up at 6:30 to get to the studio to start a full day of filming. We are working on interviews of actors and the director of the film we did in Spain a year and a half ago. We'll take what we filmed here and create a dvd package that will be used all over the world by the Global Short Film Network, which is a part of our ministry. It's been fun so far, but very tiring as well. We just wrapped up the last interview and now we'll take the all the lights back to the rental house.

Tomorrow we get on the plane at 8am and fly to Istanbul. We'll be searching for locations and other stuff for our next film. Should be fun, but lots of work too. I miss Liza and the kids. Can't wait to get back.

Chris

We're still alive

Just so you know, we haven't dropped off the face of the planet. Last week Chris was busy taking care of Isabella while Zach and I were at a conference.
Then Friday we went over to Houston for Papasito's surprise 50th birthday party. Very fun.
Isabella is staying in Houston for the week while Chris travels to Spain and Turkey. She had lots of fun trick-or-treating last night with her cousins as Dorothy.
Zach and I are enjoying our hang time as well. He got to swing on the porch yesterday for the first time and took a bath all by himself in the big tub. One friend commented he wasn't going to want that girl to come back.
I had forgotten how much one could get done with four hours of naps during the day. But I miss our daddy and sissy and will be glad when they come home. And of course while Chris is gone, you will get no pictures. I do need to get him to teach me how to do that...