Free Movie Rentals!

Since it's Christmas and I know a lot of you watch movies during this time, here's a way to get a free movie rental or rentals from Amazon Videos on Demand! I just did this and got my credit - now we have to decide what to watch! Go here to see how to sign up.

Hannah vs. the Croc

Well, this must be a record - posts two days in a row! Just consider this an early Christmas present! This one is just a video of Hannah that I forgot about. This was taken at my parents' house at Thanksgiving. She is one determined little girl! I eventually had to take the croc away, because she got too frustrated that she couldn't get it on. :)

A Brief Update

Oh my word! Life is busy, busy, busy! I promised a family update, so here it is, though brief:

James's job is going great! He is loving it and is feeling much more comfortable there these days, which is a huge praise! He is looking forward to going to my parents' house for Christmas, so he can read and eat at the Mecca. :)

I had a wonderful time this afternoon, catching up with some friends from college whom I hadn't seen for a couple years. They came over for lunch and our entertainment, of course, was Hannah. She is such a ham and she loved having a new audience.

Which leads me to the main subject of this post - Hannah. :) She is 15-months now and has a great little personality. She LOVES to play games like peek-a-boo and do songs with hand motions, like "The Itsy, Bitsy Spider" and "Pat-a-cake."

Her language development is coming along and she's gradually adding words and signs to her vocabulary. She said her first two-word sentence last week (besides "what's that?"). When James came in the door, she looked at him and said, "Hi, Da-ee!" It was very cute and made James's day!

Last week, she also discovered that there's water in the toilet and that she can splash in it. She's a smart cookie and knows how to open the lid, so I'm afraid our bathroom door is going to have to be kept closed from now on.

And here's the best part of our updates: the pictures and videos. Enjoy!

We went to look at Christmas lights, which Hannah LOVED, but some houses are just a little overkill, don't you think?

Such a little sweetie! Giving her big cousin, Lukas, a hug! :)

Hannah found this box and decided to collect toys in it.

Uncle Paul came to visit all the way from Seattle!

Uncle Andrew came to visit, too!

Who needs Chuck E. Cheese's when you've got your own personal ball pit?!

Playing peek-a-boo with Mommy after church!

Cracker Crazy!

Would you believe that I got all of this stuff for just $1.90?! Actually, I paid $11.90, but will be sending in a $10 rebate form for the crackers. Here's the breakdown:

The crackers are on sale at Safeway stores (I went to Vons) for $1.49 each, if you buy 5. I bought 10, for a total of $14.90. I had a coupon for $1 off 2 Nabisco crackers from yesterday's newspaper (there was also a coupon on Nov. 8, but I had already used that one), and then I got two more printable coupons here. So after the $3 in coupons, the total for the crackers came to $11.90. There's a $10 mail-in rebate if you buy 10 boxes of Nabisco crackers here, bringing the total to $1.90!

The pasta and pasta sauce I got free, using coupons I had received by signing up here. I also had a coupon for free eggs, but they were out of eggs. :( Oh well, these coupons don't expire until March, so I'll still be able to use them, I'm sure! Even if you don't have any of the coupons, but use the rebate, you'll still be able to get 10 boxes of crackers for $4.90, which is still a really good deal! The sale at Safeway and Safeway affiliates ends tomorrow, so there's still a little bit of time to take advantage of this great deal!

On a different note, I've been wanting to update everyone on our lives lately, but haven't been able to get to that. Hopefully soon!

Great Find at Target!

If you have a baby, little kids, know anyone who has a baby or little kids, or is pregnant, or might possibly have a baby, you should check out this deal at Target! Our Target had their blanket sleepers on clearance for 75% off!! I'm not sure if all of the Targets have them on clearance, but it's definitely worth checking! They are Just One Year, which is made by Carter's, so the quality is good. They come in sets of 2, and at 75% off cost only $3.98!!! That's less than $2 per sleeper! They have some really cute designs, too, but they're going FAST, so if this is something you're interested in, you may want to head out soon! I was there a couple of days ago and they had 2 full racks of them at 50% off. Today, they're down to 75% and there was only 1 rack left!

My Dad's Going to Need Another Pumpkin

As I said before, my dad carves a pumpkin of each of his grandkids every year. Next year, he's going to need one more! BUT before you get too excited, it's not us (don't worry, family, I don't think we'd choose to announce a pregnancy over a public blog...or would we???). :P My sister is pregnant with her 4th baby and is due sometime in July!!! We're so excited to have another niecephew on the way. This little blessing brings Hannah's cousin count up to ELEVEN! And I'm guessing that the number will just continue to rise in the coming years. :) Yay! We're praying that God will keep this little one safe until my sister's appointment on the 23rd, when she'll be able to start her blood thinners. We are so excited and can't wait to have another little one in the family! Maybe this one will take on the characteristics of the Fujita side of the family, but judging by the four that are already here, the chances of that are slim to none. :)

The Lessons Our 13-Month-Old Doesn't Even Know She's Teaching Us

Hannah has taught us so many spiritual lessons over the last year; however, the way this one played out made it pretty funny. James has been really excited about Tim Keller's new book, Counterfeit Gods. It basically deals with the idolatry of our hearts. The things that we worship aren't usually bad things. In fact, they're often good things - marriage, children, church - but when they become more important to us than Christ, they have become our idol. I think we often try to simply get rid of our idols, without replacing them with Christ. What we often forget is that we were created to worship. Therefore, we will always be worshiping something. If Christ doesn't become the focus of our worship, we will just find something else - some other "good" thing - to worship in His place. Well, Hannah gave us a nice visual of this the other day.

As you probably know, James loves candy! He has worked to make it so that it isn't an idol in his life, but we were laughing because we looked in his candy jar, and all the candy had been pulled out and in its place was a little New Testament. I knew Hannah was carrying the Bible around that day, but I had no idea what she had done with it! We both laughed as we thought about the lesson she was trying to teach her daddy! :)

On a side note, Hannah apparently missed the memo about the time change and was up at 6:30 this morning and James has come down with the flu. :( I've been loading him up with Chicken Noodle Soup today and he's just been resting. Praying for a quick recovery so that he can get back to being himself!