Catching up on Christmas

My parents, my brother Dave and sister Katherine came for 10 days over Christmas. We had such a wonderful time together. It's so fun to have a house of our own to host everyone! Between two cameras, I literally had hundreds of pictures to choose from so I tried to just pick a few but it still ended up a lot. Enjoy! :) Christmas Eve dinner: spaghetti and homemade meatballs
We continued our tradition of new PJs on Christmas Eve. Stripes this year.

"Daddy is reading Away in the Manger story to us. We know that Christmas is Jesus' birthday." (Natalie dictated that.)

Christmas morning.... lots of presents!!

Natalie with Candy Land and her light-up toothbrush.

Look at all that yummy food for our Christmas meal.

"Katherine and Natalie and Blake and Evan are smiling for the camera." (Natalie's narration)

My whole family helped with the meals and cooking. Thank you!

Lots and lots of football in the basement.

Auntie Katherine made this Gingerbread House with the kids. Thanks for all your help sista!

We went to the Garden of the Gods one day.

LOVE this one.

Can't believe there's about to be one more kid in our family...

Mom, Dad and Dave

We had such a great time exploring the rock formations.

It's not Christmas with my family without a project. My dad fixed lots of things around the house for us but the big thing was our laundry room. It's a really long room with a lot of wasted space so Brian, Dave and my dad sanded, stained and installed beautiful new cabinets. He also put in new outlets and additional lighting. It looks great!

I should have a taken another picture with all the tools put away but you get the idea. The storage is great and it's awesome for sorting and folding all our clothes. I love it! Thanks so much!

My aunt and uncle and cousins were in CO skiing so they came over to spend New Year's with us. So fun to get to see you guys! We had 15 people in the house for 3 days= lots of fun!

Dave and George working on Pulled Pork BBQ.

Maggie helping get our New Year's Eve snacks ready.

We played games and had a great time together even though it was a short visit.

My dad gave the boys much needed haircuts.

Look at that face.

Uncle George and Aunt Judy and my parents.

And all the cousins... plus our kids!

Thanks so much for coming to visit us! It was such a wonderful time with great memories!

Everyone else...you're invited to visit too! :)

Natalie's 5th Birthday!

Can't believe our little girl is now FIVE! Her birthday was on Sunday and we did special things all day. We always let the kids pick the meals for the day and use a special "Celebrate" plate. She chose cinnamon rolls and eggs for breakfast. After church, we went to McDonald's for lunch. We decided to do cake and presents after that so she didn't have to wait all day.

She really wanted a Pillow Pet for her birthday this year. Here's my attempt at a Pillow Pet unicorn cake. She loved it even though it wasn't perfect. :) She was SOOO excited that we actually got her one.
Blake was an eager helper.

Love this look! Beauty and the Beast movie.

Natalie: "Everyone make a silly face!"

She got some Hello Kitty stationery and when we were all done she sat at the table to use it. The first thing she wrote was:

and brought it over to me. I am so proud that God is growing her heart to be so thankful. It's such a blessing to watch her grow.

She received cards from both sets of Grandparents with 5 dollar bills each and also 10 dimes from her great-grandmother. (Thank you!) We usually go to the dollar store and let them pick what they want with their dollars. For her birthday, she also got a kids devotional and when I was reading it with her that night, we talked about how it makes God happy when we share what we have with other people. Lately, Blake and Natalie have been putting coins in the Salvation Army buckets whenever we see them and so she said, "Mom, I have a lot of dollars, what if I put some of my dollars in the red bucket next time for the people who don't have very much?"

Makes this Mom's heart so happy.

She chose pizza for dinner and Mr. Adam came over for dinner (and Sunday Night Football) and even brought Natalie a present. I think he's part of the family now--he's happened to be with us for Blake's, Brian's and now Nat's birthdays! I had lots of kitchen helpers--look at all that pepperoni... and yes, we did take a lot of it off before baking! :)

Happy Birthday Natalie, we're so glad you're in our family!

Happy Birthday

Our New House!!

Not sure why this first picture is so small but this is our new house!! I don't want to post our new address on here but if you need/want it, just email me! :) We "camped" for several days before our household goods arrived.
Many meals "on the floor"--it's much better now!

We have a fenced backyard, which the kids love and I love because they can go out and I don't have to watch them every second. It's great.

Our friend Adam is here now--he went to Penn State with Brian and was in Armor School right behind him. (He was over a few times in KY.) The kids totally love him and he's great about wrestling and playing with them.

They are definitely fans of "Mr. Adam"!

OUR STUFF IS HERE:

Brian had the master checklist to make sure everything arrived. So far we aren't missing anything except for some parts to put a few pieces of furniture back together.

Woah, what a mess!

Ahh, much better--straightened up enough to have a yummy pancake breakfast. (Although that was several days ago and things are looking even better now. :) Our Christmas Tree:

Unfortunately, decorating for Christmas is the last thing on our minds but decided we did need a tree. We got a real one this year (believe it or not, the first real one since before we were married!)

Brian put the lights on over the weekend and the kids and I put on the ornaments together the next day. Quite the experience, they were so excited. As I'm sure everyone with little kids knows, breakable on the top half, unbreakable on the bottom. :)

We pulled out our kid nativities... kids are loving them.

.... and of course the Veggie Tales one. :)

It's been so warm here-- 62 degrees today and so it doesn't feel like Christmas yet. I'm wishing we could have some of the midwest/east coast snow... but for now we get beautiful sunsets! :)

We are so blessed to be in our new house... Come visit if you can!!