Fall Fun

Anna's kindergarten had a parade for Halloween

 I got to wrap up my little Anna like a mummy

Having fun with Sam at his party

We went trick-or-treating and WOW we got a lot of candy!

 On Saturday, 5 of us ran in a 5K (Tim's first one and he came in first of the his age group!)

Josh came in second for his age group!

MATEER MADNESS

What a fun celebration month March is for our family. Three birthdays in one week. PJ's night at Bruster's and a chili cook-off! Not to mention testing, school and regular activities for the children and work for Dave! It was a good month, though.

Sam celebrated his birthday on St. Patrick's Day and turned 7. What a big boy he is getting to be. It was a fun day. He had a little birthday party with some friends the day before his birthday and then celebrated with all of us on his actual birthday.

 Sam with his little friends

He wanted a leprechaun cake. I found this on the internet - it is a leprechaun "trap!" 

The cake is even rainbow on the inside. Very cute.

 St. Paddy's Day Boy

 Look who is 7! (Everyone is holding up 7 fingers!)

Skylanders are lots of fun!

What a special day for our special boy.

100th day of school

So, the last several blogs have been about celebrations. I guess we are just a PARTYING family! (Actually, the normal part of our lives are not that exciting - laundry, meals, cleaning, school, laundry, sleep, running to activities, etc. Who wants to read a blog about that?!)

Anyway, every since Josh was in preschool, we have always celebrated the 100th day of school. It seems like a fun time to acknowledge, because once we get there, we are over 1/2 way through the school year. Woo-Hoo! We always do some school that day, but we also have FUN! I have done different things through the years and this year I didn't have time to make all my decorations, so I just headed out to Target. We got the funniest glasses that had mustaches hanging from them (picture in a moment) and Skylanders plates. We got those silly Tattoos that you can get too. I also did make one thing homemade - soft pretzels in the shape of "100". We even had punch. It was a fun, silly day, but we did enjoy it.

 Here is Tim eating his 100th day pretzel in his silly glasses

Here's to the last 80 days of school!

Sarah's Birthday Celebration

Our sweet Sarah turned 11 this past year. Crazy to see how fast the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday, she was toddling around the house and now look at her. What a lovely young woman she is growing up to be.

She had 3 days of celebrations around her birthday! This was because she had a party with friends 2 days before her birthday, a party here at home with family the day before her birthday and a lunch out and a trip to the Scholastic Book Fair ON her birthday! It was quite a celebration.

Here are some pictures from the day of her party:

 Our sweet girl with her Webkinz 

(It was a Webkinz party.)

 She has made some sweet friends up here (just like she did in FL!)

 Sarah with her ice cream cake!

With the sweet girls and their Webkinz.

Sarah was so funny and planned her whole party! She planned the games (with help from Josh). She decorated the house, knew what she wanted for her cake, and even planned the theme! It was a very fun party. She even had a raffle where one of the girls won a small Webkinz. 

It was a very special day for a very special girl.

Happy Anniversary! Happpeee Anniversary!

When I was a little girl, my sister and I used to sing this silly song for Anniversaries. "Happy Anniversary! Happy Anniversary! Happpeee Anniversary!!!!!!!! Happy Anniversary!" (Somehow it loses some if you aren't actually singing it, but that's OK.)

Dave and I celebrated our 15th anniversary this year. That seems like quite a milestone to me. We had talked about it for a while and we really wanted to go away for our anniversary. So, we got Dave's parents to watch the little ones and found friend's for J and S to spend the night with (for the first night anyway) and then drove out to Ohio for a small getaway.

It was just lovely.

We ate out every meal for 2 days and spent two nights in a hotel. We hiked and saw some great waterfalls and just had a lovely time. We were so grateful to be able to get away for the time.

Here are some pics of the Anniversary getaway:

 Dave and I at one of the waterfalls - 

it was COLD!

... and icy too!

 Here's one of the trails at the Ridges,

and Dave and I at the top

 Dave and I hiking below the ridges

Happy Anniversary to us!

Christmas and all things in December

Christmas is such a special time for our family. We love it and it is so fun to celebrate with our sweet children. They look forward to it for a long time! We have some special traditions like the advent wreath, advent devotionals (our church even did a music advent CD this year! It was wonderful!), Christmas Eve services, and so many other things. It was a joyful season all around. It is such a special time to enjoy the time when we celebrate the birth of Christ.

We do some fun things during the season as well. We did gingerbread houses and gingerbread men. That was lots of fun!

 OK, so we are holding them backwards, but it was still fun!

 the children showing off their gingerbread men

All of us by the Christmas tree one morning before church

our snowman one December morning

Anna was in the cutest little preschool pageant in the world. 

(OK,I MIGHT be a little biased.)

She was Mary.

 We were all a bunch of sickies when G'pa and G'ma arrived to celebrate Christmas. Anna and Sam both fell asleep on the couch the first afternoon the grandparents arrived.

Later they woke up to enjoy a book with Grandma.

Then, all the sudden it was Christmas morning!

We do like to torture our children and make sure that we get a picture on the stairs before they come down to open their stockings!

 Stocking fun!

Samuel really wanted an umbrella hat for Christmas! He was so thrilled!

Christmas was full of joys this year, as we had both sets of grandparents here to celebrate and rejoice with us. (Bob and I were taking the pictures, so he is not in this one.)

Sarah was so thrilled to get a scooter from her Pop-Pop and Mom-Mom.

It was a wonderful Christmas and we thank God for these special times!

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays. And, yes, I do admit that I listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. As my cousin said, "I think that you can listen to Christmas music in all the brrr months - like SeptemBER, OctoBER, NovemBER, and DecemBER." I don't actually start listening in September, but I do enjoy it in November and December - kind of getting ready for the whole season kind of thing.

We were able to go and spend Thanksgiving with my parents. It was such a lovely time. We were all healthy and we just had a nice time together.

It is a long car drive

We love to stop at the rest area at New River Gorge in W. Virginia

Flat Stanley came along with us on our trip too!

Once we got to Grandpa's and Grandma's, we like going to the park with them! Grandpa spins the children so fast!

 We had a special time with them and are so thankful for them on this Thanksgiving and always!

When we got home, we were able to spend Thanksgiving day with Dave's parents. What a joy to have 2 sets of wonderful parents!

History Fair

Timothy and Sarah participated in a History Fair way back in November and I am finally sitting down to blog about it. It was such a fun little thing. They got to pick their own project, research it and then present it at the fair. They both did a great job. Timothy and I had read a book about Abraham Lincoln and this sparked his interest about this great President. Sarah decided to do hers on the Taj Mahal and she also did a great job. (She even made a paper mache Taj Mahal for her display! It was great!)

Here are a few pictures of their fun projects at the History Fair:

Tim even dressed up like Abraham Lincoln for his presentation

He did the whole display by himself.

 Sarah did a wonderful job on her paper and display also!

 Look at that Taj Majal!

What a fun night!