Celebrating Christmas

We're ready to go to Grandma & Grandpa's to celebrate Christmas Eve with Daddy's family.

We filled our bellies with ham, macaroni and cheese, Mommy's "special" rolls, and fruit salad. Then we had our own Christmas Eve service: A member from each family took turns reading part of the Christmas story from the book of Luke - and after each scripture passage we talked about it's meaning and sang a Christmas carol. I think the kids really enjoyed taking part in this time of learning about the true meaning of Christmas.

Afterwards we opened presents - with lots of young kids in the room, this time can get pretty crazy!

We spent Christmas morning at our house. The kids opened their presents from us and my Dad and Stepmom (sent from Washington State).

Caleb tried out the gift that Abby received from Scott's parents. I don't think Caleb will appreciate that I have preserved this particular memory!

Later in the day we headed to Grandma and Papa's to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. We are definitely blessed to have so much of our family near enough to celebrate with them and not have to travel hours to do so!

Christmas Cookies

I believe this is the 8th year of our cookie decorating tradition. It's hard to believe that when we began eight years ago, we had no babies of our own.

This year Abby was prepared. She donned her apron and had her dough roller ready - and she would not take "no" as an answer. Both she and Ryan had a blast rolling out the dough and using the cookie cutters.

Once the cookies were baked and cooled, the decorating began...
Here is one of Ryan's favorite creations.

As always, Abby finds a way to get some of the decorations on her face - even before she actually eats a cookie!

Three generations of bakers - and their favorite aprons: My mom, Me, and Abby.

This little guy napped during the decorating, but he did get to taste the fruit of our labors.

This is one of Abby's creations...

And here's a pair of Daddy and Son cookies.

Snowy Day

Here's a picture of our first snow of the season. Granted, it's not measurable snow - but it is snow!

The kids couldn't wait to get bundled up and check it out for themselves. The first time he went out, Ryan took a magnifying glass along so he could study the snowflakes more closely :)

I let them play on the back deck for a little while - Abby was disappointed that this wasn't "snow angel" snow - but if her constant squeals of delight were any indication - I'd say she enjoyed herself.

And of course, Caleb had to join his big brother and sister. At first he wasn't sure about the cold, white stuff swirling in the air, but he soon decided it was was okay.

Oh, and this is what happens when I ask all three kids to pose for a picture - Ryan and Abby usually pose while Caleb turns his head just enough to prevent me from getting a good picture - and he does do this on purpose. I know this because as soon as I put the camera down he turns back to me and smiles!

Idlewild Fun

One of the most anticipated days of our summer is our day-trip to an amusement park. This year we returned to Idlewild. Last time we went, I was very pregnant with Caleb...It's hard to believe he's now riding the rides!

Ryan's at a special age - he's now old enough to enjoy some of the bigger rides...


but not too big yet for the kiddie rides.


Abby's favorite ride by far is the carousel.
She is quite particular about choosing which horse to ride.


I think this picture speaks for itself!

More zoo pics

In addition to taking lots of pictures of the animals at the zoo, I was also able to get some pics of the kids...

Summer Zoo Trip

We have a small local zoo that we have been wanting to check out for the past few years - but hadn't - so when Grandma & Papa told me that they wanted to take the two older kids - I asked if Caleb and I could tag along.

This is what greeted my mom and I (and Caleb in the stroller) as we entered the venomous reptiles building. They were cleaning one of the cages and I guess this snake wanted to explore outside the cage - and they let him! Needless to say, Mom and I turned around and left the building shortly afterwards - when the snake came out even farther!

I thought this alligator exhibit was pretty cool.

This picture was taken by my 11-year old niece - I love the perspective. When my hands were full with the almost 2-year old, she grabbed my camera - and she actually took a lot of really good pictures.

Another one of her pics - this one of the mountain goat.

This one I did take - I was determined to get a good one of this kangaroo.

The kids absolutely loved this zoo. This particular zoo didn't have many of the traditional zoo animals, but they had a number of exotic animals that we might not be able to see at the larger zoos. Plus it was only ten minutes from our house - and we had buy one-get one free coupons -and Grandma & Papa treated!

Rewind to summer rain

Okay, so this blog is missing some holes - actually its got a huge gap from March through October! So I'm going to try to fill in some of the gaps...

One of the things I've been trying to do is get us out-of-doors more often. I must be very intentional about it 'cause it's so easy to get busy inside and before you know it another day has gone by and we didn't make it outside.

These pictures were taken after a summer rain. The kids really wanted to play in the rain - well, we didn't actually go out when it was raining - but we did make it out just after it rained. Ryan and Abby did manage to find some puddles and get wet - which was their ultimate goal.

Here's Caleb - rain boots on, he also grabbed his helmet - not sure why 'cause the rain had stopped...

Abby found a puddle in no time - and she took her puddle-jumping very seriously.

Ryan was so excited that Mom FINALLY agreed to an excursion that required his cool rain boots!

I love this picture of the three kids: youngest to oldest.