Trip North

We have gotten so much snow and cold so far this winter that when we took our trip north to visit family after Christmas we had plenty of opportunity to skate and then ice fish once the snow covered the good ice.  We were able to spend lots of time visiting with family and even got to visit with Great Grammy Civiello who James just got along with perfectly given both of their knacks for having random conversations that don't always follow a linear pattern;)

We ended the trip with a Bangor hotel stay for some much needed swimming and inflatable fun:)  Thanks to everyone who took the time to visit with us. We had an awesome time catching up with you all!

Christmas 2018

The weekend before Christmas was pretty exciting this year and made Christmas feel like it lasted that much longer. The children's Christmas pageant at church was really entertaining complete with adult congregant volunteer participation. James was the donkey, Ben & Audrey were shepherds, and Gabe was a very convincing angel.

Christmas Day brought some pretty happy kids!  Audrey got her Hot Wheels set and ski poles, Ben got the rest of the Dragon Masters book series and a Jedi robe, Noah got a hanging chair he had been eyeing, and James got an aircraft carrier and was thrilled that Kitty had two new kittens which he has named Caterina and Pumpkin. They may have been most excited about these portable mini microscopes they spent most of the morning searching and discovering what things look like under magnification.

After spending most of the day opening and enjoying their gifts, the Wroble family came to share Christmas dinner with us! Naturally, in that chaos we only got this one picture;) Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Preparations

Saturday we hosted our annual Christmas party and all the kids had a blast with Santa and cookie decorating.  We weren't able to skate this year because we had so much snow already, but the older kids were happy to get outside and play.

Sunday was our annual family advent party at church.  We had more cookies and this year Noah decided to be in charge of our craft and did a great job instructing and helping kids get their ornaments finished.

We have also been getting back into the swing of things with school this month and are throwing in some review of our trip as well as new material.  The kids were all eager to present one of the states from the southern part of our trip to the group.