Merry CHRISTmas!

Merry CHRISTmas to everyone! He truly is the REASON for the SEASON! I can not stand it when someone tells me "Happy Holidays"! I make sure to reply back "Merry Christmas"! If we as christians do not stand up for what we believe then "they" will get their way and it will turn into "Happy Holidays" and "Winter Break" and any other words that have nothing to do with Christmas! So...let your words ring out loud and clear...MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Our Christmas has indeed been merry! We have enjoyed time together with family and friends and eaten WAY more sweets than we needed to! Christmas only comes once a year and there are just certain sweets that only taste good during Christmas time! Right?! ;o) If I posted all the pics I have taken in the last few days it would take me literally hours! So, I will pick my favs and highlight our Christmas for you. Our Christmas Eve was spent at my parents making homemade pizza, opening presents and playing games. Christmas morning we spent at home. We finished our Advent story with our main character ending up at the manger to witness Christ's birth. And then with much anticipation, our kids opened their gifts! We 'played' with new toys all day long and then went back out to my parents for sloppy joes and spent time with some more friends that they invited over. We played Chicken Tracks, ate laughed, ate and had a fun time! My dad recieved the game Imagine if.. and boy, is it fun! We had some good laughs playing it! Our family was given a Nintendo Gamecube for Christmas as a family present and we have been enjoying playing it together as a family.

An update on our move: We found out that the couple interested were not able to get financed. We did have another lady call who is interested so we will see... please keep us in your prayers that God will send Danny a job or move us soon!

Our little elf....Caleb James 1st Christmas!

Ben, Abby, Caleb and Becca ready for Christmas!

A family pic taken Christmas Eve

A sweet pic of Caleb and Presley!

Matt and Ben ready to tear into presents!

Mark and Rachel were told to "look cute'!

Abby was thrilled with her Princess Art Set!

Ben was excited with his Magic Show Kit....and

yes, he has been putting on shows for us!

The new Barbie movie surprised Becca!

This year our gifts to our family were homemade personality snowmen ornaments! We all worked together in stitching,designing and decorating them. We had fun making them and they were a big hit! ;o)

Matt and Presley holding up theirs.

A close-up view

Mark and Rachel's. Mark loves Elvis and works

out all the time and Rachel loves green and wears

her hair in cute styles...we designed their snowmen

accordingly.

A close-up of their personality snowmen.

G-pa and G-ma with theirs.

Mom's has a bun hairdo and dad has his crossword

puzzle book. And they are both modeling wire glasses.

Caleb got a phone and a BIG bottle!

A greedy game of Disney Monopoly!

Christmas Morning:

Presents waiting to be torn into!

Bright-eyed Christmas Baby! Aww!

Ben digging the loot out of his stocking!

Caleb working on his new laptop!

Ben's Hotwheels Stunt Racetrack was one of

his favorite gifts!

Abby opened up a new baby that she has named

Hannah.

Becca recieved a sewing machine!

Ben modeling his new cowboy boots and toy gun.

Becca opened up a pair of pink cowgirl boots.

and so did Abby! We got a good deal on them!

There are many more pics but I am tired and you probably are too! I will post pics of them playing with their new stuff later. Enjoy HIS season!

An Icestorm,Piano Recital and Quakenbushes visit!

Warning: Long post ahead! Grab a cup of Coffee and enjoy!

As my title states, a LOT has been going on around here since my last post! I will start with Rebecca's very first piano recital! She is doing very well with her lessons and seems to possess a natural talent for playing the piano that she obviously gets from her grandma Hirschy. Becca played 2 songs at her recital, the first song was titled `Bells` and is a song that she composed herself! The 2nd song was `We Wish you a Merry Christmas`. She played quite well and we were very proud of her! God has blessed her with a natural graceful playing style. If we can get her to keep practicing she will be a great piano player someday!

Here she is with the other girls waiting for their

recital to start. They were all nervous!

Playing her songs.... Her teacher, Mrs. Biberstein,

is beside her. Becca had the music there but did not

need it since she had her songs memorized.

Becca and her teacher, who has done a great job

teaching her piano! Thanks, Mrs. Biberstein!

Next, was the icestorm! We recieved around an inch thick of ice over everything! Ice was everywhere and several limbs and even trees cracked under the weight of the ice. We lost our whole tree in our front yard! A big limb fell and almost blocked our front door! Danny was busy all day cutting it down with the chainsaw. Our front yard looks really different now!

A sideview of the damage.

A front view of how it almost blocked our door.

Our poor deceased tree! ;o)

Even though the ice destroyed trees, it WAS pretty!

Huge tree covered with pretty ice...

The next days mail brought Christmas cards with $ in them from Grandparents in Florida!

As you can see the kids were thrilled and already have Big plans how they will spend their money! Thank-you G-pa and G-ma Dunn and Great G-pa George and Irene! We love you all!

They are RICH now!

Caleb immediately tried to eat his! LOL!

Here he is looking sweet for Mama!

Another sweet grin looking up from playing.

We were so excited and happy to have our best friends visit from Florida! Greg joked that instead of them now being Floridians that they were Flor-idiots for coming to IN. on the coldest days of the year! Yesterday our high was around 8 degrees with a windchill of minus 25! By the evening, temps were at 0 degrees and the wind was bitter! The Quakenbushes arrived yesterday morning and spent the day and night and left after lunch today to head to relatives homes for Christmas. Danny and I knew they were coming and we kept it a secret from the kids! We came home and they had used the key we had hidden for them and had came in and were hiding in the girls room. When the kids came in the door, the whole family came out and Becca and Ben started screaming with excitement and Abby just stared at Elli letting it sink in that she was actually here! ;o) They went with us last night to watch the kids in the Church christmas play. Ben was Joseph and the girls were angels. They all had pieces to say and did very well saying them. The program was cute and all the kids did very good performing. We all enjoyed it! Then we came back here and had Papa Murphy's pizzas. They do not have a Papa Murphy's in Florida, so the Quakenbushes enjoyed the food as it is some of their favorite pizza. Today we dressed most of the kids in camouflages and grays and took pics..what fun! Here they are..

Here is everyone except Caleb who was snug in his carseat.

Tanner holding Wes, Ben,Becca,Cory,Skyler and Elli and Abby

in the front. They all looked soo nice!

Ben as Joseph..

Here are the Angels. Mary Jones(the kids 2nd cousin),Abby,

Emily Hirschy(Another 2nd cousin),Nina Schaefer and Becca.

Abby and Elli playing Strawberry Shortcake game.

Tasha cooked chilli....... (She even has a cute camo skirt!)

Wesley, who is now 11 months old and toddling

around, played with toys and whatever else he could

get his hands into! LOL!

The girls watched My Little Pony movie.

While I REFEREED a rowdy game of Monopoly!

Our 9 silly monkeys!

The two littlest guys..Wes and Caleb.

Do you know how hard it is to get 9 kids to pose?!

The 3 girls....

are majorly outnumbered by the 6 boys!

Testosterone rules in this group! No wonder it is

sooo noisy when we are all together! LOL!

And they left and we had to say goodbye again! Hope you all have a fantastic time visiting family and a SAFE trip back to Florida! And ....we HOPE to see you all again soon!