Long time no post!

Hi all! Wow, it's been a super long time since I've blogged...no real good excuses..just busy I guess. Let's see if I can catch up...

So, I think the date on my last entry was November 13. Since then, here are some things that have gone on, with pictures where possible. :)

* I attended a scrapbooking retreat the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was lots of fun. I'm not sure I got as much done as sometimes, but I did get quite a bit done, and had a great time doing it. The theme was Pajama Party, by the way, that's why we're all in our jammies. :)

* We went to western Iowa for a few days at Thanksgiving. We stayed with Tim's brother's family, and all had a fantastic time playing with in-laws and cousins. I even rode a horse!!! Craziness...I haven't probably ridden a horse for somewhere between 25 and 30 years I think! The boys rode too....Miss Windy (the horse) is a patient beast...

This is a picture of all the grandkids on the hubby's side of the family. What a great bunch of kids!!

*Okay, so I think it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we put up our tree. The boys had a great time...although, G. was pretty sure that the tree going up = PRESENT TIME!!! and was pretty much devastated to learn otherwise. It didn't help that he was super tired from all the fun with the cousins the previous few days. He recovered, but has continued to ask nearly every day if it's time for presents yet...one day he came downstairs from 'rest time' asking if it was another day now. Poor kid...

*I did a lot of baking/candymaking this year, which is REALLY odd for me. I normally make the cut-outs and decorate with the kids and call it good, but a friend invited me over to bake with her while our boys played one Sunday afternoon and, well, it lit some weird fire under me, and within a couple days I'd done the cut-outs AND 7 other kids of things!!! I'm not really sure what to say I'll do next year. It was kind of nice to have all those goodies to share with Sunday School teachers and such. We'll see...

The kids and I did decorate the cut-outs...I think most if not all of you that read this will have already received our Christmas card, which includes pictures of the cookie-making, so I won't post those here.

*Today, the kids sang up front at church. We were seated much closer to where G was standing, so you can't see E as well in the group pics, but I did zoom in on him. Our church put on a fantastic Christmas production on Friday and Saturday night called Imagine Christmas that our kids weren't involved in, so this was just a few songs that they sang at the beginning of our regular worship service.

*Well, let's see....I have the shopping done - waiting for a thing or two to come in the mail. The wrapping is done except for the horse barn and corral that I just finished painting last night and the thing or two I'm hoping for in the mail. Cards are out except for the few that have come back for an address update, etc. Only one more thing to assemble -- a mini trampoline we bought as a joint gift for the boys, and well, let's face it, for ourselves and our sanity. Oh, we just got a good deal on a used commercial grade recumbent exercise bike that we're hoping to use a lot and get back working on our physical health and fitness. E likes riding it too, so maybe between that and the tramp, we'll be able to keep the pent up energy from being too, well, pent up. :) We signed E up for basketball yesterday with the Upward organization which I have heard only good things about, so hopefully that will be a good experience this winter for him.

We've successfully completed our first semester of homeschool and still really liking it. E is reading at I'm thinking at an upper 2nd grade level, and we're working on place value notation and multiple digit addition in math, and last week talked about Adoniram and Ann Judson and George Muller in history. Know who those people are? Neither did I...LOL Honestly, I've NEVER enjoyed history, and I'm loving learning about 'heroes' of Christian history with my Kindergartner.

Guess I'll wrap up with a few pics from a little mini-photo shoot we did after church today since the boys were all dressed up for church...goofy boys...hard to get just a REAL nice smile right now, esp. from E...it's either fake, or totally cracking up due to our efforts to get a real one...

Anyway..there's the update!! Merry Christmas all!!