Christmas blessings!

Our family was blessed in so many ways this Christmas season.  I am thankful for time with friends and family, being able to hold my new niece, time spent relaxing with Dave, baking cookies with my kids (and all the neighbor kids) and successfully making it through the Children's Christmas program at church!  

Christmas Eve

New baby cousin, Sophia (born Dec. 27th).

5 days old!

All I want for Christmas...but actually...

On Friday, Faith finally lost her other front tooth, just in time to show off her new smile to her friends at school before being let out for Christmas break.  Her tooth had been hanging crooked in her mouth for weeks, begging to come out!!  At her school Christmas party on Friday, her teacher pulled me aside and said that during their sharing time earlier that morning, she raised to her to share something.  When Mrs. Haan called on her, she jumped up in front of the class and started belting out the Chipmunks classic, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth..."  She said, immediately the other kids joined in.

Later that day, when we asked her about it, she sang the song for us, too.  However, the song was quickly followed by a bit of clarification (and to avoid any confusion). She explained that even though she enjoyed singing the song, she really would like some other things from Christmas, too.  :)

Halloween!

Heading to the "trunk or treat" kid's carnival and then off to trick-or-treat with cousins, Colton (the ninja) and Cody (the skeleton).  They say parents should dress their kids in bright, light-colored costumes...apparently, we forgot about that!

Trick-or-treating. 

This year, pumpkin carving meant we all got excited while looking through a carving book we checked out at the library.  After deciding on the perfect carvings, we traced templates on paper and the kids cut them out and helped trace them onto the pumpkins.  Then Dave and I cut open the tops and we all started the "gutting" process.  After about 3 minutes, the kids disappeared upstairs.  After about 10 minutes, Dave disappeared into the living room.  After about 60 minutes, the pumpkins were finished!

One year later...

We ditched the "flesh-colored" paint, decided on a roof that didn't leak, invested in a riding lawn tractor, and got busy with some serious elbow grease!  This year went by really fast...

Then

Now

Then

Now