Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

From our family to yours!

I celebrated my New Year's Eve by catching up on blog posts!  Scroll down to see several new posts (may even need to click "older posts" to see it all).  2013 promises to be an exciting year for our family and we can't wait to ring it in!!!  We anticipate traveling to bring home sweet Lottie this Spring, transitioning to a family of five, welcoming a new niece, and wrapping up Chad's doctoral degree.  Whew! Looking forward to how God will work in and through our family.  We pray God's blessings for you all.  Happy New Year!

Christmas Coach Camp 2012

Abigail and her cousin Joshua were invited to Christmas Coach Camp again this year!  This much anticipated event was held a few days before Christmas and it was made very clear that "no parents are allowed!" Abigail checked in at camp around 3:00pm one afternoon and by pick up time at noon the next day, they had accomplished a crazy amount of activities and had immeasurable fun!  Here is a quick list of things they did at camp all within less than 24 hours:

Rolled/cut/baked/iced/decorated cookies

Made/baked/iced/decorated cupcakes

Decorated sticker gingerbread houses

Ate dinner

Iced/decorated ice cream cone Christmas trees

Ate popcorn and watched some of a movie

Got a good night's sleep

Had breakfast at Waffle House

Visited the museum to see the dinosaurs

Made reindeer hats

Made clay nativity scenes to take home

Ate lunch

Packed a bag FULL of goodies to take home with them

Wow! Can you see why they love it so much!  Coach and Nana survived too!  Here are some pictures of their camp fun:

Coach & Nana better rest up now for next year's camp because rumor is Luke and Lottie will be old enough to attend in 2013!

Christmas Season 2012

December was full of fun and activity for our family.  There were Christmas parties, school programs, family Christmas celebrations and then the big day itself.  Abigail could truly understand the reason we were celebrating Christmas this year and it was so fun to see her excitement about it all.  Luke just liked all the sweets and wrapping paper. 

We kicked the Christmas season off with our Sunday school class party.  It is a tacky Christmas sweater party, but some of the husbands took it a little too far this year as evidenced below!  I am a little scared to think about how they will top this next year!

 Abigail and Luke loved having our tree decorated and Abigail especially would ask about particular ornaments throughout the season.  Luke was very well behaved around the tree and actually never pulled a single ornament off.

Abigail's preschool choir at sang three songs in an evening service at church.  She sang maybe 1/8 of the words but looked super cute standing up there with her friends.  After the service, she proceeded to give my parents a full concert singing every single word of the songs she had barely sung during the service.

 The K3 students at PPCA got to lead the Christmas chapel service and Abigail did much better singing with her school buds. They were most excited about the class Christmas parties they got to go to straight from chapel.

 The next pictures (apologetically out of order) are from various Christmas celebrations with family.  Our kiddos had a ball opening presents and were spoiled rotten by Santa and all of their family!

Polka Dots & Lollipops - Abigail turns 4!

Abigail got to have a "friend" birthday party this year for her fourth birthday.  She had been anticipating this party for literally 11 1/2 months.  It was seriously last December when she told me she wanted to have a polka dot party for her "4 birthday."  I assumed she would change her preference several times before her birthday rolled around, but she never veered from polka dots.  Easy enough theme to roll with!  In addition to the polka dots, we incorporated Abigail's greatest love...candy!  We held the party on a beautiful (quite windy) afternoon at Winner's Circle Park.  I think it may have been the easiest party ever!  Just serve some cake and let the kids go crazy on the playground.  Abigail loved having all of her friends from school and church to play with and soaked up every second of her party! Here are some pictures of her fun day:

Icing on the Cake in Brandon did a great job with the cake! It was chocolate on the inside of course!

Thank you Pinterest - there were two of these on one table.

Thanks again Pinterest - two of these were on the other table.

She loved wearing her "4" shirt to the party.

Luke enjoyed the playground just as much as the big kids!