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!