End of the Year

What a week we have had. We have stayed home and just eaten till our stomachs are about to pop, played with game after game, taken walks, stayed up late, and had many laughs along the way. It is the first year we have just had fun as a family after Christmas. Yesterday we began the process of taking down Christmas. We always think we can take it down in one day, when it always takes many. It truly is a tradition here in the south to have Christmas down before New Years.

Now today we head off to Grandmothers for the Calk Christmas. Aunt Pam, Uncle Mark and family, Mary and her family will all be there. We will fill up with food again, open more presents, and enjoy the fellowship. We will head home to enjoy a New Years Eve celebration with a little family. We have dips, chips, chicken wings, etc. all sitting in the frig ready to warmed and set out to enjoy. Now that everyone is older staying up till midnight is a must.

We have really enjoyed this past year. Many of you have received our Christmas letter and have seen that we have traveled many miles and met great people along the way. It has been a good year of health, and we have truly enjoyed all of God's creation as we have explored the highways and byways.

We hope and pray that each one of you who read this will be truly blessed in the 2006. It is always an exciting time to be at the beginning of a new year waiting to see what the hand of the Lord will bring into our lives. We just hope at the end of the year we will see that we have drawn closer to Him and to each other, for it is the relationships that matter above all else.

Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Christmas Pictures

We have found a way to create online photo albums that will make it easier for all of our readers to view large amounts of pictures. Some albums that are ready for viewing are in the sidebar to the right under the heading "Photo Albums." We will continue to share pictures in this way. When you click on an album you will be brought to a list of photos that you can click on to enlarge. (Some albums such as "Christmas 2005" have smaller albums in them and you will see a list of those sub-albums first.) Once you enlarge a picture there are arrows at the top-right of the page to go to the next or previous picture. If you have problems feel free to contact us! Enjoy!!

Christmas at home

It has been a busy week! We're all very tired and there is still New Years to come!! Anyway, right now everyone is playing with Christmas toys and relaxing after the wonderful weekend. Christmas started Saturday afternoon when we had a Christmas Eve party at our house. We had Grandmother and Aunt Pam over for dinner. There was ham, baked beans, potato salad, garlic bread, pineapple slices and more. For dessert there was rum cake, hot apple cider and lots of cookies! After the party we went to bed all excited. It took a while for some of us to get to sleep! In the morning everyone was up early to open the gifts. After that we had hot cinnamon rolls and egg casserole. Aunt Pam came over again for a while and we had a quiet morning. After breakfast we went to Grandmothers house and spent some wonderful time with her. From there we went to our friends the Hienss' house, were we had a potluck supper, sang carols and watched the Chicago Bears football team win their Christmas game! It was a wonderful Christmas!

Updates coming soon

Just thought we tell you that the blog will be updated soon with lots of Christmas stuff. We're still getting the pictures ready.
Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Getting ready for Christmas

Sorry that we haven't updated this in a while.
We have been doing all the before Christmas traditions. We do the weekly advent and I always make some fresh cookies, but this week the stove broke and needed a new part. As we waited for the part to be ordered we had to grill pizza, lasagna, bread, cookies anything that should be baked was grilled! We got the new part on Saturday and Daddy and Jesse fixed the stove. You don't know how great something is until you lose it!
We have been enjoying our break from school. We do a few weeks of school during the summer so that we have December off! We are counting down the days until Christmas and lots of whispering and present wrapping has been going on!
On Sunday we went to a friends house to watch a Chicago Bears football game. The Bears lost, but the party was fun!

Decorating the tree

We got the Christmas tree this morning and this evening we decorated it. It is a tradition of ours to get the tree and decorate it the day after Thanksgiving. Here are a few pictures of us decorating.

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Getting the Christmas Tree!

Thanksgiving is over, so today is the big day: we get the Christmas tree!!! We go to a farm that grows the trees, as well as cotton, pumpkins, corn, and animals. We've gone there for many years and we always have a good time. We went this morning and we'll spend the afternoon decorating the tree. Here's a few pictures of us getting it.

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Our Thanksgiving

Well, we hope everyone else has had as great a Thanksgiving as we've had, because it has been a great day at our home!! God has given us so much to be thankful for. We would like to share some of our day.

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Every meal starts with the cooks, and we had the best, including:

Mama, Abigail, Grandmother Calk, Aunt Pam, and Mary.

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Mmmmm!!! Smells good!.

These look good too!

Hey!! Looks like someone is caught red-handed trying to steal the pies!

The guests are arriving! Here's Mary and her 2 month old daughter Evelyn Grace.

Looks like Evelyn has found her Grandmother Calk!

Finally, the food is ready! We have turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, squash casserole, rolls, and lots more!

Time to dig in!

How does it taste guys?

Nathan had to go back for seconds!

Don't forget dessert! We have apple pie, pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, and apple cake.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Just want to wish everyone a happy, blessed Thanksgiving! May God give you much to be thankful for.

Kawell Family

Halloween 2005

Thought I would post some photos of the children in their Halloween costumes. The kids came up with the idea and made them all themselves. We went to a trunk&treat event at Grandmothers church. This is were people park their car in the parking lot and fill their trunk with candy and the children go from car to car. They also have hot dogs and chips and a other events going on. The children's kitchen outfit was the hit of the event.

Nathan: Microwave Oven

Christopher: Stove

Jack: Frig

Samuel: Dish Washer

Abigail: Cheif

Jesse: Counter

Trunk and Treating

First Entry

Kids at Grand Canyon

Why have we started this? Well the real reason is that a website takes too long and people keep asking us to get one set up. Some friends were in this past weekend and after looking at their blog I decided it was time for this old Computer Science professor and his family to take a jump into the the blog world.

As I mentioned we had some dear friends in over the weekend, Jessica and Joshua Erber. These are two of the older children of Roger and Maggie Erber from Harvard, IL. Joshua has a recording bussiness and he and his sister came down to record a conference here in Birmingham. It was soooo good to see them and catch up with what is going on in there lives and their family. We had many late nights, but many, many, many laughs.

Right now Becky is going crazy trying to keep everyting on track for the big meal on Thursday. We are all looking forward to Thanksgiving day and then we always kick Christmas off the day after. Off to the woods to get the tree and get the house in the season. Becky does a great job at putting a huge spread on the table for Thanksgiving. Becky's mother will make the dressing and her nice will bring some squash casserole and I am sure all who come will bring a little extra something. Hmmmmmmm!!!!! I can taste it all already. Abigail is right now over at Grandmothers helping her get stuff chopped and mixed and ready to cook Thursday morning.

Time to get the piano boys off to piano.