God's Sense of Humor

In my last post I mentioned that Mom and Dad had to trek through the snow in order for them to get to their house. This is not an exaggeration. This whole year scientists were saying that the winter was going to be light. God thought it would be funny to show them how little they knew. My parents ended up with 10 foot drifts. Major interstates were closed. God has some awesome power, sometimes we just forget that. So here are the pictures of the "light" winter that my parents are experiencing. =)

Christmas

Mom and Dad did make it down for Christmas, though they did have a tough time making it home. It snowed so much at their house. I will show pictures of it later. Anyway, Ryan, Leann, and the kiddos came over and we opened presents. We also played Band Hero which is where you play interments with a video game. We also sang with the video game. It was a lot of fun. So here are several pictures of our festivities. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Early Stockings

As many of you know, our household likes to celebrate Christmas all week long. Sometimes it is two weeks long. This is because we love to open presents, so why just do it on the day that is designated? In true family traditions, we opened our stockings Monday. These are pictures from that and then tomorrow we are opening the presents from our family. Mom and Dad should be coming down this weekend (if the weather gets better) and then Leann and Ryan will come over here with the kids and we will have a good ol fashioned Christmas. Oh and I took a picture of our pathetic Christmas tree. The cat and dog have redecorated it for me so that it has ended up looking like this. Merry Christmas! =)

Santa Claus

Santa Claus came to church last night. Of course, Santa did not make an appearance until after the potluck, very convenient timing =). I once again had forgotten my camera so we had to take pictures with the phone. They are a little blurry. Alyssa didn't go up there. She wanted to talk to him, but apparently Santa is scary! =) Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

American English

Last night Richard and I went to go see American English. They are impersonators of the Beatles. They were soooooo amazing! They even had the same mannerisms and everything. It was for Richards birthday and since he loves the Beatles it was perfect. The website is www.americanenglishbeatles.com and it is worth it to see them. I really would like to see them again and it was amazing at the age variety of people that were there. It was super fun! Thanks Leann for watching the kids, it was a late night.

Thank You for Thanksgiving

Ok, well I realize that it is almost Christmas, but better late than never (you know who ever coined that phrase was probably a procrastinator). =) Anyway, we had Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad's house. Andrae (a friend from church) came over and we all had a great time. We played Uno and Chicken Trail. Now my kids are old enough to play chicken trail. It was so awesome, the torch has been passed! =) Aaron was with Dad almost constantly helping him. Mom and I baked for 2 days (Actually she started even before I got up there). I think that we could have fed a small army. It was a lot of work and I am still tired, but I loved it. The christmas tree was a crazy problem. Mom and I tried 3 times to get these stupid lights to work, which was really hilarious, but we could not do it. We finally had to break down and go get some more at walmart. But before we left I had to take a picture of the tree in all of its "glory" so that we could have fond memories. =)So fun! It was really relaxing to go up there. Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us go up there.This is a shmorgas board of our festivities. There are 45 pictures of the awsomeness! Have a wonderful week!

Halloween Fun

Here are some pictures that mom took of our Halloween.Doesn't Rebekah look so much older? It makes me sad. But those are her friends Emily and Megan from Westlink Church of Christ that are holding the balloons. It was a lot of fun. If you cannot tell from the pictures Rebekah was a sailor, Alyssa was Cleopatra, Aaron was a ghostbuster, and Jacob was spiderman. Hope you all had a great Halloween.

Wicked

Richard took me to go see Wicked on Halloween. My parents were gracious enough to babysit the kids while we were gone. They also got the kids ready for Halloween so that when we came back we could just leave. The play was absolutely incredible. If you haven't seen it, it would definitely recommend it. Thank you Leann for letting me borrow your dress. It was just a great time!!

Adventures in Pumpkin Carving

Carving four pumpkins can get very time consuming and a tad dangerous. I broke down and bought one of those pumpkin carving kits in order to be safer while carving. However, Richard broke one of the knives in the first pumpkin he started. So he tried to make it work and ended up cutting himself. So that was the end of that knife. I really didn't want to use a big butcher knife, but that is exactly what ended up happening. I got cut with a knife, but did not bleed. So we all ended up keeping all of our fingers. I thought that worked out well! =) Jacob has a bat on his pumpkin, Aaron has a vampire, Alyssa's says "boo" and is supposed to look like a mummy, and Rebekah made a kind of Animae character. Oh, Aaron also has a white pumpkin that is "captain underpants". It is from school for his book report. I thought that they all turned out really well. I will be taking more pictures of the kids in their costumes. Enjoy your day everyone!

My 33rd Birthday

Today is my birthday!! Richard got me the best birthday present. He got me and him tickets to "Wicked" on Halloween! For those of you who don't know, this is a musical that is about the witches from Oz before Dorothy. It is going to be so much fun. So now I think that I need to get a new outfit too! =) We will go in the afternoon and then be back so that we can take the kids trick or treating. Also today for my birthday we are going to go out to eat. I am not sure where we are going yet. I also had to throw a picture in of my diploma from graduating college. I just got it in the mail yesterday. Have a wonderful day!

Chestnut

Yep, we got a new baby. His name is Chestnut and he is 7 weeks old. He is so fun. He is not to impressed with Jasmine, but he tolerates her. Chestnut loves people and is always wanting to be by us. Of course it is not so fun when it is the middle of the night and he wakes us up by playing with our hair! =) However, he is potty trained so we don't have to worry about that issue. He is so precious.

Fall Festival

Saturday was Fall Festival in Goddard. Which means that there is a parade and little booths that you can go and buy stuff at. Leslie came with me and her son Jerod and daughter Megan. Then we also had another of Rebekah's friend go, Emily. Leann and Ryan also came with the kids. I think that we had a perfect spot this year because we got a ton of candy and there were not too many people who were around us. The kids had a great time. Then afterward the kids played a few games. Alyssa and Aaron got some awesome baloon things made for them. Of course Jacob was pouting becaue he wouldn't stay in line so I made him go in the back of Aaron. That just made it worse so he pouted some more and wouldn't stay in line. So then he was upset we were leaving and he didn't get a balloon. However, everything before then was going very well. I bought some strawberry jalepeno jelly!! MMMMMMMM! It is so good and spicy!! The boys rode on this little train that went around a few blocks of Goddard. I saw quite a few people there that I knew. Richard was not able to go because he had too much homework. Devin was gone at a NASCAR thing. So Ryan was the only husband that went. Poor Ryan! Hope your weekend was as fun.

Jacob's 7th Birthday

Jacob's 7th birthday was this past Wednesday. So instead of trying to do something for him on his birthday, we had a birthday party for him on Saturday. He had so much fun. It was the first time that he ever had a birthday party. We had cake, ice cream, presents, and.....a pinata!! It was fun. He had friends over from church. Quentin and his brother Gabe, Jerod (Leslie, Devin, and Megan came too), and the cousins Isabelle, Gideon, and Sydney (Leann stayed for the party too, who can pass up cake and ice cream? YUM!).Mostly there was a lot of running around and screaming for joy. Here are a few pictures so you can enjoy it too!

Quick Visit

Mom and Dad came down last weekend just because they wanted to. It had been a while since we had seen them. Mom and Dad pretty much just went with us to all of our appointments. Mom came with me to Alyssa's first trombone lesson at Senseny Music. Alyssa complained that she was bored, but when they learned "Hot Cross Buns" she was on cloud 9. Isabelle ended up getting sick so Mom and Dad were over here most of the time. Poor Isa! Anyway, here is a montage of our weekend.

Trombone

Alyssa has started playing in the band this year. She wanted to play the trombone. She is the only one in the 5th grade that plays the trombone. She loves it and is really quite good at it. It was funny because when we first opened the case we couldn't figure out how to put it together. I didn't even know where the mouth piece was until Richard found a compartment for it. Despite my incompetence, my daughter is succeeding. Here are a few pictures of her practicing. Enjoy!

School Pictures

Here are our first day of school pictures. Actually, we took the pictures the night before so that I wouldn't have to worry about it in the morning. It was all I could do to keep Jacob from not jumping all around like a maniac while the picture was being taken! =)

All the kids got to pick one new outfit for school. They were very excited about it. Of course the shirts that the boys picked came with toys, so I don't know if they really liked the shirts or the toys better. However, the toys have already broken. Oh the woes of life.

This outfit of Alyssa's was so perfect for her. She always wants to accessorize her clothing. So this was great that the shirt already came with a cute scarf.

Rebekah has been loving to draw animae characters and now I think that her hair is starting to reflect this. I think it is really cute. She was horrified that she didn't know she bought a Miley Sirus shirt until we had already had it home. I hope that she wears it again now that she knows.

School has went pretty smoothly. Much better than last year. The kids all made it onto their buses and even got home! =) The boys go to latchkey every morning at their school and they love it. I have been having a good year and have some very interesting kids that I work with (Mom you know who I am taking about =)). Richard has been super busy with doing his masters and work. However, he is getting it all done. Tonight we go to have a movie night at church. Maybe I will take pictures. Have a wonderful week everyone!