Happy New Year!

In honor of the start of 2010, I have a few last pictures from 2009 for you!


Even Abby has been enjoying the Wii :)


The girls helped make orange juice with our new juicer - mmmm!


Give a man some tools and.....


he can build a bunkbed!



We've really been enjoying the snow this week.


The girls have also enjoyed their cocoa and cookie times after playing in the snow. :)

I hope you've enjoyed visiting our blog this past year and keeping up with our family. From ours to yours, may you have a blessed new year!

Fun

Here are some pictures from Allison's kid party last week. Only a couple girls were able to stay for the whole thing, but they had a lot of fun and overall it was a success!





Allison wanted a garden party so we had lots of fun with bugs and flowers!




The girls played "pin the bee on the flower."



I used green soda bottles and colored foam to make "flowers" for a ring toss game.




The highlight of the party was when the girls made "dirt" out of pudding, cookies and gummi bugs, worms and mushrooms - yum!



They had a lot of fun playing together.



Allison's big gift from dad and mom this year was a doll, Katie, complete with matching nightgowns for her and her new doll - it was a big hit! :)



It finally warmed up enough to snow!

Holidays

Things have been busy with the holidays. We celebrated a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends. There were thankful hearts, turkey, caramel corn and sledding! A week later, we enjoyed a festive St. Nicholas Day with family. This week is Allison's birthday - she's turning seven...already! Tomorrow, she'll be having a party with some of her friends and I'll try to post some pictures next week. Then we'll move on to baking, sledding, visits and Christmas! Here are some pictures of our most recent activities:



Allison enjoyed helping decorate gingerbread cookies.


Abby enjoys playing with her little people toys.



The girls had fun decorating wood ornaments the day we put up our Christmas tree.


Abby likes wearing mommy's shoes :)

Sick

Hi all! We're still around, just struggling through bouts of flu and cold symptoms.

The girls continue to enjoy time spent with friends and family. We had a fun time with cousins, a few weeks ago, visiting an apple orchard. We had brat(wurst)s with strudel and cider for lunch (yum!) and brought home a lot of apples and pears.

The girls have finished their fall co-op session with the local home school group. We should be starting the next session in January.

Other than all that, we've been working our way through colds and school work. The girls have begun working on a couple of new Christmas songs for the upcoming season. Allison is beginning to plan her 7th birthday party! This will be her first "kids party" and she is very excited. Abby's vocabulary is booming again. She's quite an articulate little girl, at 2 and 1/2 years!

I'll try to get some new pictures up in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for staying posted with our family's goings on!

Fall Fun

Here are some of the things we've been doing this month... (I apologize for some of the pictures being a bit blurry. My camera has not been doing great at capturing motion.)


The girls decorated sugar cookies.


Abby caught on quick...


but decided she'd rather eat the cookies than decorate them!


Allison with a few of the girls in her PE class.


Allison skipped rope for her first time this week! (Not her first try, just the first successful try.)


Abby enjoys her co-op class too.


My dad came out this week for a visit and joined us for story time at the library. We had a lot of fun!


The girls enjoy riding bikes whenever there's finally a break in the rain.


Abby is getting the hang of peddling her tricycle.

Pumpkins and Snow

We've been enjoying a rather cold October! Yesterday, Chris called me on his way to work to excitedly announce that he was driving through snow flurries. I practically ran to the window and, sure enough, a few minutes later we had snow at home also.



Allison has been sick for the last five days, so she was thrilled to be a part of something exciting (she got rather bored in her bedroom). Abby wanted me to turn the rocking chair around so we could "nuggle" in it together and watch the snow come down. It did come down - for two hours! What a fun (and rather bizarre) morning.



We've been enjoying all of our typical Autumn activities: pumpkin carving, pumpkin bread, pumpkin crafts - just about anything having to do with pumpkins!


Here's Allison reading to Abby, who looooves to have another person to read her stories. :)


Abby at Library Story Time - she really is happy, just contemplating how to untangle her ribbons.


The woman who does Story Time is just great with the kids. Here she is holding up a story book.

That's us in a nutshell! Enjoy the pics.

The Pumpkin Patch

This past Saturday, we spent the day as a family - enjoying the pumpkin patch! We were blessed to have the only sunshine within a 50 mile radius. The girls loved visiting the barn animals. Next, we rode behind a tractor on a hay ride (Abby's favorite part) to a field of pumpkins. Everyone picked out a pumpkin before we headed back to the farm on another hay ride. After depositing our pumpkins in the car, we headed back for a look at all the fresh fruit, vegetables and cheese being sold. After a satisfying snack of elephant ears, we headed on home. What a delightful day!