We are now a Wii family

Thanks to the kind generosity of my mother-in-law and brothers-in-law, my children received a wonderful package in the mail the other day.


By the look on her face you tell she is saying, "A Wii!!!!!"




A totally stink at taking action shots and there was much action going on at that moment. I sort of captured it...










What a fun, fun gift. They were totally surprised and are thrilled to have a Wii. They have been enjoying themselves immensely the last couple of days. Thank you, mom, Jer, Seth, & Shawn!!

Another View

Here you go, Dad H. You requested a shot of the view of the new lr into the kitchen.

Fun Christmas Stuff

I am so grateful when we are able to do fun things as a family. Those were some of my best memories when I was a kid.

Our kind senior pastor plans a fun family event every year. This year it was broken into 2 nights b/c of the weather. The first evening was spent at the church offices playing games and eating. My hubby cooked an amazing Mexican feast (I was shocked. What was funny was that the guys were surprised that I was shocked. Apparently he cooks like that all the time at the office but not at home. Hmmm...?) Anyway, my camera battery died shortly into the evening so I hardly got any pics.

Here are my children looking quite competitive in a game of dancing musical chairs.


The second half of our fun night was spent at Longwood Gardens watching an ice skating show. It is a beautiful place. It's about an hour from our home and as we pulled into the parking lot, Aaron says, "I think I'm going to throw up" and proceeds to do so all over himself in the car seat. He has this funky thing where he throws up when he is overly tired and I was pretty sure that was the case. Thankfully, there was a Walmart very close so Aaron got new clothes that night!
He spent most of the night right with daddy.


Buddies




The ice skating rink


The girls and their friends and the skaters. They were prior Olympic skaters, I didn't recognize their names.




This was how Barbara's baby spent part of the evening. It was so cute!


We were watching some professional carolers and they gave a group of our kids some bells to jingle. It was quite cute.




This was my attempt at being a bit crafy this year


A local theater (the Fulton) does a family show every year and we like to take the girls if we can. This year it was "Annie" and a girl from our church was in it so we really wanted to go! Steve met us there that's why he's not in the pic, but it was a fun day out with the 2 older girls. We had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and then watched show.

Christmas '09

Yesterday was a wonderful day together as a family. I was hoping that my kids would sleep in after having a number of late nights... but alas, the older 2 were up at 5:30 making all kinds of noise "trying not" to wake us up.
It's so fun to watch the kids unwrap their gifts, they're grateful for every little thing. Also fun to see my older girls excitement in giving their gifts.


At lunch we went to my parents and had a nice afternoon & evening with them.

Greta at bird identification class


We spent the evening playing games, that was really fun, something we should do more of!!

Greta was obsessed with these banagrams. She was concentrating very hard to get them all in the cup.


It's really hard to tell from the pic, but if you look close you can see poor Greta spilling her whole cup of tiles. She couldn't understand that when she bent over they would all fall out!!


A very competitive game of Monopoly unfolded between Morgan and grandpa


The honest banker


Grandpa begging for mercy from a very rich Morgan


Good 'ol marble game

Merry Christmas!!

My New Room

I have finally gotten around to taking a shot of my new room! This is taken from standing in my kitchen. This is where you used to park your car when you came to visit me.


This is the view when you come in the door.


View from the opposite side. Look who popped their head in just as I was taking the pic.

"It's beginning to look alot like Christmas..."

Today was an amazing day. Well, it actually started yesterday. Due to the massive snowstorm our church was canceled so Steve spent the entire day laying the floor in the new living room (yeah, no day of rest around here!!). Then today, my parents both had off work and came and we all slaved away. Dad and Steve put trim and baseboard up, Mom did random touch up painting and by late afternoon the living room was completely done!! (except for painting the patio door, but that needs to wait to spring so we can remove it.) Mom and I had so much fun dragging all my furniture and decor from the basement and finding a new home for it.

The was a shot intended to check the setting on my camera early this morning, but I thought it provided a nice "before" shot of the room.




Aaron got a few more b-day gifts today. Mom and dad and my brother's family gave him tractor stuff.




This cracks me up... I was laying on the floor trying to get a shot of Aaron with his tractor and 2 little polka dot legs were trying to steal the show!!


My older girls have been loving playing in the snow. Today they sledded across the street with a neighbor Amish boy. The joys of living in the country!!


I couldn't pick my favorite from the following series of photos. Disclaimer: my mother does not normally wear purple pants, only when painting.








Tonight, the moment my girls have been dying for, we were able to put up the Christmas tree in our completely finished living room. I got "mean mother of the year" award tonight. I was so exhausted by the time the tree was up and lights were on, I told the girls we would do the ornaments tomorrow. They were both crying, they were so excited to do it. Thankfully, I caved.












I can hardly believe that we are this far in our addition process. It was just a little under 3 months ago that this started and here we are. We still have a long way to go on the inside, lots of little details plus an upstairs bedroom to finish. And I don't even want to think about spring and all the outside work... But anyway, I am overwhelmed at the kindness of God to allow us to do this. I know it's just a house and someday it will all burn, but it is going to serve our family in such a great way to have this extra space.
More "after" photos when I have a chance to take some!!