Happy 9th Birthday Timothy!

We celebrated Timothy's 9th birthday yesterday with his party today.  Yesterday was the last day of school before break.  He got to bring in a special snack to share while his class watched a Narnia movie.  As a family we celebrated with a dinner out at Happy Joe's.  He got some new Pokemon cards and a couple of video games which made a pretty happy boy!

 A highlight of Happy Joe's is the birthday sundae which comes with everyone in the restaurant singing happy birthday!

 Today we had 4 of Timothy's friends join him for a party.  It was a Pokemon theme this year with Charmander on his cake.

 We played some fun games.  Old favorites like pin the tail of Pikachu and a balloon bop game.

 We also tried some new ones like this tangled web games which only sort of worked, but the kids had fun getting all tangled in the yarn anyway!  A highlight might have been the Pokemon battle game that involved balloon popping!

 Eventually we made it to gift time.  Timothy received some nice things many of which were Pokemon themed much to his delight!

 Timothy had three buddies from school and one from church and of course one sister!

 A pizza lunch was followed by yummy cake and eventually some sledding in the backyard.  It was a great party!  I think the birthday boy had a great time.

It is hard to believe out boy is already nine.  He has grown so quickly and is turning into such an amazing boy.  We are so proud of who he is and look forward to seeing God's work in him.  He is a blessing to our lives!

Christmas Program

Yesterday was the Christmas program at our church.  It was a pretty low key event this year, but still nicely done.  Troy was involved, but not in charge.  He helped with music and costumes.  I had less of a role as I kept having call committee meetings during Sunday school during the weeks of practicing.

Teresa got to bump up to the role of Mary this year.  In part because no other girls had strong preference for roles and Troy was in charge of assigning roles.  It helps to have connections!  Timothy stuck with his wise man role this year, but without the beard.  I think it was too itchy.

The whole crew dressed up during practice before church.

Mary was not so happy about something and thus was not into smiling for me.  The wise man has a pretty glowing smile this time!

Timothy and his church buddy Dominic.  Shepherd and Wise one happy to be there!

And what a lovely pic you can get when you use some bribery.  Want some more cookies kids???  Well smile big for the family picture then!  What a blessed family we are to have each other and a great church to be a part of!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Christmas is nearing and you can tell by what we are up too!  Troy had his students over for a Christmas gathering, so that meant the kids and I had to do some cookie making! On a Friday morning we spent some time rolling out and baking sugar cookies.  After school they helped me decorate them.  One of my favorite Christmas traditions.  I do not bake lots of cookies, but sugar ones are a fun to make and eat!

 We also got in a quick trip to see Aunt Mary.  It seems to snow every weekend this year, but last weekend it waited until Saturday late afternoon to snow.  We were able to make an overnight trip, celebrate Christmas and make it home almost before the snow.

 The kids were of course excited to open gifts, but equally excited to see all of my Aunt Mary's lighted decorations.  On Saturday morning we helped cheer on the runners in the 10k Jingle run that went right by my Aunt's house.

Thanksgiving visits

Thanksgiving means time to visit family, time to play, time to decorate and time to give thanks.  We certainly have much to be thankful for.  We are happy that we can travel to one place and see both sides of our family--twice the fun!  Here are some pictures to show a little of our weekend.

 This first pic is actually the night before our travels.  We set up our Christmas decorations and enjoyed a little melting snowman hot chocolate!

 Our first stop was Aunt Susie's house.  We were lucky enough to get in on a little of the snow that had fallen.  It was not good for sledding, but perfect for the building of snowmen.  The kids and Troy made this cute guy together.  At Susie's we enjoyed the company of Grandma Judy too, along with some cousins.  They kids like to have others to play with.  There were lots of smiles, laughter and joy among the kids and the adults.

 Grandma Judy got some cute pics with her girls and boys in matching outfits.  The girls were a bit more agreeable to the photo op!

 The next stop was Grandma Rebecca and Grandpa Ken's house.  Here too, we also had some good family time with my brothers and their families.  The kids got to help decorate Grandma's tree.  I had to get some pics since I did not get any of decorating our tree at home.

Other highlights were sleepovers with some of the cousins, crafts with grandma, playing outside.

Overall it was a fun time to be with those we love!!