Could today be the day?

Well, I am not sure...but I know that ANY day soon could be!! Here is a picture of me and baby Daniel on Christmas Eve...


I am having TONS of contractions today...so who knows maybe his appearance will be before the new year after all! We'll keep you posted...

A Dream Come True

Yesterday, I would have only thought it to be a dream. You know, I am positive that the person who wrote, "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas", lived in a climate like the one here. I mean obviously he/she was not from the Dakota's like myself. And I as I said, yesterday it seemed to only be a dream with temperatures in the low 70's. It was an absolutely beautiful day that we spent at the little lake and park by our home.




But much to my surprise, last night before going to bed I checked the weather to see that we were in a "Winter Weather Advisery". The high being 40 overnight and steadily dropping during the day. By this morning it was upgraded to a "Winter Storm Warning" with 2-4 inches of accumulation expected. And sure enough just a couple of hours ago my kiddos dream came true. It started to snow. They have a white Christmas. I'm not sure if we will see this again, so you can be sure we are enjoying it now!



And what a great gift, to be reminded of the gift that Jesus is. The One who washed our sins as white as snow. Thank you Lord for being our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas to ya'll!!

Christmas Cookies

One tradition that we have around our home each year is to make and decorate sugar cookies! This is something that the kids love and look forward to. This year, Lizzy asked me if we could make gingerbread men, so we mixed up some of these cute little men as well.

Even though I DO NOT make my cookies from scratch and am totally NOT ashamed to admit it, it still takes a full day to complete this project. So, while the boys did their school work one morning last week, the girls and I rolled out our Pillsbury refridgerated cookie dough and started cutting out our Christmas shapes...



Abby had on all the necessary accessories for perfect cookies too! :-)


It took a couple of hours to roll, cut, mix-up the gingerbread cookies, and bake all of them. I didn't count, but I think we made around 70 cookies.

After an afternoon nap for the girls and some afternoon school lessons for the boys, the most anticipated part of the Christmas cookie adventure had arrived! It was time to decorate! There was frosting and sprinkles of all kinds, as well as M&M's and Dots. Plenty to make the eyes of any child wide with excitement!






There was plenty of taste testing too...


Abby definitely received the award for "Most Sprinkles Used". :-)


And here is the result of all of the effort...a counter full of treats to share with our friends and enjoy ourselves too!


More of our Christmas traditions to come...hopefully before Christmas! :-)

Build-A-Bear Party!

Last Friday, Lizzy had her 4 year old birthday party at Build A Bear. This was SO, SO fun! She used her own birthday money to buy each of her 5 friends that came a bear/animal of their very own. A pretty cool party favor, don't ya think? :-)

Here are some pictures of the fun that was had by all...

First, each of the girls picked out their cuddly creature of choice...


Next, they each "stuffed" their animals to just the right fullness...


Then it was time for a bath...


They all lined up after carefully dressing their new friends...


And finally an adorable group picture in front of Build A Bear!


After a fun time at the Build a Bear store, we headed upstairs to the foodcourt to have some butterfly cake and open presents...





What a fun, fun day with our friends! And we brought home a couple of new ones too! :-) Happy, happy birthday Lizzy!

It's beginning to look A LOT like Christmas!

We woke up early this morning to big white fluffy flakes falling from the sky. This was a welcome sight to my kiddos!! In fact, just the other day Drew said, "Mom I hope it snows at least once this year!" So, at 6:50am this morning my kids went outside to play in the snow! At first, they were dressed only in their PJ's...


They soon came in to gather more layers...


Then we headed from the backyard to the front and our neighbor boy joined us for awhile. The boys had a great snowball fight!



At 8:45am everyone had made their way back inside for some hot chocolate and breakfast.


What a FUN morning! As I type this it is 11:30 am and the snow has been gone for over an hour, but we sure enjoyed it while it was here.

With the snow outside and our Christmas tree up inside it IS feeling like Christmas! We are so excited to have our tree up once again. My parents brought this and our ornaments when they visited 2 weeks ago. For the last 2 years we have had small "Charlie Brown" trees as our apartment did not have room for anything larger. While we enjoyed this too, it really has been wonderful to have our ornaments and the "Big" tree back that the kids remember. Here it is all decorated...


I just LOVE this time of year!!

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord "Though your sins are like scarlet , they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson they shall be like wool." Isaiah 1:18

Lizzy's FOUR!!

Wow! Really? Lizzy is FOUR? Yes, it is true and we had a FUN time celebrating her birthday!!

Once again, here is our tradition of presents by the door...


She really wanted a "treasure box" and a new bible "like the boys'" and she carried them around with her the entire day!


She also received a bike from grandma and grandpa. Here she is riding it with her new birthday vest on...


For supper she wanted pepperoni pizza, olives, gummy worms and root beer. So that is exactly what we had.


We also had some cake and ice cream. She has a butterfly cake that we will be eating at her birthday party. She is having it at Build A Bear and is REALLY looking forward to it!!



Happy, happy birthday Lizzy Joy. We love you so very much and cannot believe how fast your are growing up!!

Sam's SEVEN!!

It really is hard to believe, but our Sam is SEVEN! He had a great birthday. Grandma and Grandpa were even here for part of the day with us!

His morning started with our tradition of presents by the door...




He really wanted the Galactic Enforcer Lego set and was SUPER excited to open this!


Of course he loved everything else too, but this was a highlight! We will have to post a picture of it completed soon!

Then we were off to Gatti Town for lunch. This is an indoor arcade, movie, and buffet place, and everyone had a blast!



Unfortunately my camera broke while we were here...so that is all of the "digital" pictures I have from the day. We had a great group picture with grandma and grandpa, but it is on my mom's camera.

Sam wanted a Coldstone Ice Cream treat instead of a cake, so he devoured his coffee/vanilla/Kit Kat/chocolate chip concoction in the evening. And the rest of us had a small piece of ice cream cake from Cold Stone too. This was after having one of his favorite dinners, beef stroganoff!

Grandma and Grandpa gave Sam a new bike for his birthday! So here he is showing it off!


Happy, happy birthday Sam...we all LOVE you so very much!!

Halloween costume pictures...just a little late

What can I say? With packing, moving, unpacking and teaching, I haven't had much time to post anything here on our blog! I thought this morning I should at least sit down quick and put some costume pictures on here for those who are eager to see the kiddos (sorry mom!!).






We had a very fun night! This year we did not have any festivities to attend on Halloween evening, SO the kids were able to trick-or-treat every floor in the Swiss Tower! The boys were extremely excited about this...and as you can see from the display below...the 4 kiddos made quite a haul. 455 pieces of candy this year!!



It's a good thing we have 2 birthday's coming up and potentially 2 pinatas to fill! :-)

Pictures of Fall

Time sure has been flying by!! Our move is just around the corner and our little apartment is beginning to be overtaken by boxes! Brent has many papers he is working on and so I am "computerless" most of the time. That is why it has been so long between posts. The following pictures are a glimpse of what our October has looked like, OUTSIDE of our apartment...

Well, I guess this first one is IN our apartment, but I wanted to include it in some pictures of the girlies with their friends...




The next few pictures are from Fall Fest 2009. This is a fun campus wide party with bounce houses, face painting, games, BBQ and friends! They added a pumpkin carving contest this year, our pumpkin is the first picture on this post. I am happy to say we took 3rd prize!! Great job Brent!






This is pictures of the boys jousting...Drew did end up winning 2-1...


And finally, last Sunday we took the kiddos to the arboretum for the day. It was a beautiful afternoon with the temperature in the mid 70's. We had a great afternoon enjoying the weather and the beautiful surroundings...






Hope ya'll are enjoying your fall!!