Decorating for Christmas

The house is finally decorated for Christmas!  The kids had a great time doing the tree.  They love unwrapping the ornaments and rediscovering them each year.  They remember each one, and love retelling the stories.  I enjoyed watching them this year...they're finally old enough to not put EVERY ornament on the bottom branch!  I admit I did a little rearranging after they went to bed!  It was hard to not to think of our sweet Russian, and how she won't be with us this year.  There should be 5 stockings hung.  But on the positive side...for one more year my fireplace is symmetrical.  Which side do you hang an extra stocking on???  On a totally different note, I've tried everything and I can't rotate pictures on this blog.  So annoying!!!!

Can't wait to see 5 stockings next year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving filled with friends and family!  We had the usual turkey dinner, cooked by your's truly, and I must say it was really good:)  We celebrated 4 birthdays(Emily 32, Adrienne 12, Grandma Jackie 87, and Steve 36) with an array of desserts thanks to Mom and Emily!  After all that we went over to Anne and Rick's house to mingle with their crowd.  LOVE seeing Anne with all that family!  Friday consisted of shopping, a movie, and MEGA 80's!!!  So much fun!  Huge thanks to Emily for being such a good sport!  Pregnant, sober and driving a full sixteen passenger van at 2:30am...can't say I would have been as accommodating!  Before the family left on Saturday we went to Hallmark for our annual Christmas ornament shopping.  Grandma buys each Great Grandkid an ornament every Christmas.  That way when they are grown and leave the house some day(God willing) they will have enough ormaments to start their own tree.  This year Adrienne picked a cell phone(fitting!), Alexa and Olivia picked the same Nutcracker ornament(because it plays music and dances), and Kaitlyn picked Ironman!  So funny!  Now it's time to get the Christmas decorations out.  So happy there's no school Monday!

Adrienne, Olivia, Alexa, and Kaitlyn

Mark and I

Steve and Emily

Mom and Dad

Grandma Jackie

Covert-Mark's Dad

The Birthday Crowd



Here's the ornaments!



Santa Already???

Lexi had a Brownie Field trip to Aunt Annie's pretzels in the mall, so while we were there she wanted to see Santa.  My first instinct was you're not wearing the right clothes, and it's too early anyway!  Then I saw that the line consisted of 2 people and reconsidered.  Check that off the "To Do" list:)

                                 Lexi and her friend Bree in their Aunt Annie's Chef's hats!

                        We got lots of time with Santa because there was no one behind us!

I'm giving in and doing a blog...

I have resisted for a long time because I just can't imagine who would be interested in following our life...then again there is always something happening!  We so enjoyed following Steph and Brian's journey in China though, and I can see we can't update everyone separately.  So, here we are!  A family of four, waiting for a travel date to Russia to become a family of five.