Christmas is Coming.....

The season of Christmas is upon us and our home is bustling with activity. Here are a few pictures from the last few days. We were able to visit our family last weekend. We first stopped off at Toby's parent's house and then headed over to my brother's place. All 13 of my parent's grandchildren were present for a few minutes. Fun!

Decking the halls....& paws?

December is going great at our house. We had a lot of fun taking the kids up to our usual tree farm to get our tree. Eliza wore her new mud boots and walked all over looking for the perfect tree. Christmas is so much fun when you get to see it through a child's eyes. After all, a child is what it is all about.

The kids already opened one of their presents. Of course, they had to--this one needs food, water, and potty breaks. We are now the owners a very sweet little cocker spaniel named Sadie. Everyone is enjoying her--even Sisko.




Well, enjoy the pictures of our December so far. We wish you all a Merry Christmas.

We are so very thankful.......

We were very blessed to have our second Thanksgiving with Eliza. She was very helpful at counting the eggs and apples that went into the pies. She is definitely going to be a busy little cook someday. We truly enjoyed a restful week with the kids. We took the week off from school and spent some quality time building a Lego Yoda, putting together a puzzle, and playing board games. Tomorrow we start into our last three weeks of school before Christmas.

I always get on here with the intent to write so much more and then find it hard to put it all in writing once I get going. Here are a couple of pictures from the last couple of days. Enjoy!!!

Harvest Time Again

Harvest time has come and gone already. This was Eliza's second year of joining in on the fun. She was a lot of fun--as always!! She got right in on scooping out the goo from the pumpkins and, after one demo by the kids, got trick-or-treating down. She was the cutest little lady bug! It was a bittersweet year as Ethan decided that he was too old to dress up :( I understand his point but where did the time go? Emma went as Sarah Crewe from the book "The Little Princess" and Faith went as Lucy Pevensey from the Narnia series. Is it a sign of supreme nerdiness when your kids start dressing as characters from books? I thought it was great and the dresses we found at Goodwill were perfect.

Fall Fun

It's that time again. The leaves are changing, the weather is cooling off, and the pumpkin patch is calling. This is Eliza's second time at our favorite pumpkin patch. She had lots of fun picking her pumpkin, riding on the hay ride, and visiting the goats. She later informed us that her favorite part was the tractors and the goats. Such a sweet girl!




We were also able to visit our friends from China recently. It is truly a blessing to see Emily and Eliza play together. Those Yangxi sisters really know how to have fun!

Starting the School Year off Right

We have been back at school for three weeks now and are having a great time so far. The Science experiments in Ethan's curriculum are fun for all of us, Eliza has some cool Preschool toys, Faith got glasses, and we have been on a couple of very fun field trips.





















We found ourselves at Champoeg again this year for Farmstead Day. It was not disappointing at all. Emma got really involved in it all and made a nail (with the help of a blacksmith).








On another note, Eliza is potty training! She is doing very well. So well in fact that we took her to the zoo to celebrate. They have a new "big cat" exhibit there which was so cool! The cheetahs came up to the window right by the kids a few times. Eliza would laugh and say, "more, back, I happy!" It is such a blessing to see her get so into the zoo these days. So much joy in our little girl! It is bittersweet to have her growing so fast--sometimes you just want to keep them little forever.

Summer Memories

In a few days we will start our second year of home school. This summer sure has flown by. I have so many pictures of our adventures since Great Wolf but I will just post some highlights. We enjoyed our annual trip to the fair, Faith turned 9, and we were able so spend a few days at the coast. One of the big events of the summer was seeing Emma & Faith get baptized. They had both accepted Christ as their Savior a few years ago and recently decided to follow God's command to get baptized. It was a joyous day! We tried to video the event but the camera didn't cooperate--thankfully some friends loaned us their camera to take photos. Enjoy the photos.