Happy New Year!

We had a crazy evening with a slightly earlier ending celebration than normal since we had church the next morning.  Still- tons of fun!

Samuel's friend Ty joined us for the night.

Family Portrait

By Lucas

The week for play dates!

THERE

At Jonah & Ellie's house

And HERE

Gina & Emma

A Very Pet-ty Christmas

Our pets enjoyed ever bit of Christmas!  It was fun to watch them explore and experience different aspects of the holiday.  We were relieved that no one tired to climb or knock down the trees!

Gracie and Wes bonded for sure!

Growth

On Christmas day we took a picture that illustrates just how much Nathan has grown this year.  As the one who buys him clothes, this is no surprise to me but it has been to others!

Christmas

We were all so happy to be celebrating our first Christmas in our new house!

The thank you hugs got a little out of hand!

We spent the evening at Grandma's with lots of family.

Christmas Eve

We spent our Christmas Eve at home just being together.  We had our special fancy dinner in the evening and then went to the service at our church.

Emma prepared some dishes to go with our steak:

Emma also made the cake for our Happy Birthday Jesus party!

Lucas made these and left them on my desk

Nathan reading the Night Before Christmas before bed:

New mantel

We got a new mantel up for Christmas.  This fireplace didn't have one when we moved in.  Brian bought a piece of wood for it, and got it all ready to install on Christmas Eve!  We love it!

I recently painted the fireplace in preparation for the mantel.
We have more going on in this room soon so I will share before and after pictures later.

Cookie making

 

Gingerbread dog houses