These past few months

As you can see by the lapse in pictures, we have not posted anything in quite some time. It has certainly not been for lack of pictures but rather lack of time to get them on here. I will try to briefly describe what has taken place over the last couple of months. We enjoyed a quiet Christmas at our house. After opening presents, we decided to go sledding as there was just enough snow to make it down the hill. Being Christmas morning, there were not many people there so we enjoyed the hill to ourselves (for the most part). It was Ryan's first time sledding. He wasn't as excited about it as the rest of us were. During the holiday break we enjoyed getting to meet Mike's friends, the Springfields, from Minnesota. They spent a couple of evenings with us playing games and visiting. A few weeks ago we had Brandon's friend Sara and her niece, Emma to stay with us for the weekend. Emma is a year younger than Kaitlyn. We all enjoyed having them for the weekend! Ryan is continuing to try out new things. He finally started crawling and is now all over the house! We have to keep a close eye on him as he is very curious to check everything out. One evening, we were all cleaning up in the kitchen and Ryan was playing with the magnets on the fridge. No one noticed that he had wandered off. The next thing we heard was bump, bump, bump, bump and him crying. Seeing the stairway door open, I raced over there and sure enough he was laying at the bottom of the stairs. We don't think there was enough bumps for him to have rolled all the way down so the only thing we can think that happend is he may have crawled part way down the stairs and then rolled the rest of the way. Since we have an open sided stairway most of the way down, we are very thankful that he didn't fall off the side of the stairs. He ended up only having a bruise on his cheekbone and some rug burns on his head. Praise the Lord! The other night, we had a candle light Valentines dinner. We all got dressed up, had our pictures taken, and enjoyed the meal. Deann and Amanda are on their way to Bentley so we had our Valentines day celebration a few days early. We hope everyone enjoys the pictures.


We all enjoyed going sledding on Christmas morning.



This was Ryan's first time down the hill. He was not all that impressed with the ride.


Mommy and Meghan preparing for a ride down.


Amanda and Kaitlyn making their way back up the hill.


The kids enjoyed making a pyramid with the Springfields.


Meghan put 2 of her dolls in Ryan's lap and called them his nieces. After all, they are her "daughters".


Ryan likes to put balls in his mouth like a puppy.


Meghan and Kaitlyn enjoying some coloring with their friend Madison.


Ryan is eyeing the fun...


...and now he is joining in on the fun!


Ryan is able to walk as long as he holds on to something or someone.


Meghan dressed up Ryan with a shawl.


Brandon (aka horse) giving the girls a ride.


The girls enjoyed their visit with Emma.


Ryan's battle scars from his fall. It actually doesn't look that bad. It could have been much worse!







We all enjoyed dressing up for Valentines day. Daddy enjoyed getting to have his picture taken with all the "ladies" of the house!


After pictures, we enjoyed a candle light Valentine's dinner.

Winter Wonderland

This past week we had our first real snow storm of the season. It was beautiful getting to watch it come down and getting to be out playing in it. The girls and Amanda enjoyed making snow castles and then when Daddy came out the real fun began with a snow ball fight. Unfortunately the snow storm came too early in the day and the roads were all clear the following day, meaning no school cancellations.

Ryan enjoying watching the fun from the picture window in the living room.

Kaitlyn having fun with her umbrella.

It's hard to keep all that hair inside the stocking cap.

Amanda is ready for the snow ball fight.

Look out Amanda! This one's coming for you!

This snow ball was heading straight for Ryan and Mommy (who was taking the picture) but was stopped short by the window.

Kaitlyn and Amanda sharing ammunition.

Meghan found a good snow fort.

Bowling

We took the kids for their first time bowling Friday evening. We all had a great time. We didn't do very good but had a good time anyway. Some good friends in our church invited us to go. We had such a good time we hope to go again sometime.


Modeling the stylish bowling shoes.


Ryan and Davney looking on.




Meghan's technique was not too bad for a first timer.



Kaitlyn getting a little help from daddy.


Amanda and her good friend Jean.


Kaitlyn watching her ball roll very slowly down the lane. Sometimes we wondered if it would ever get to the end.


Meghan's technique took a turn for the worse as she adopted the "pitching" style of bowling.

Our past week

We have been busy in the past week and haven' t taken many pictures. We got our carpet stretched and cleaned in the living room. We have wanted to do that for a long time but kept putting it off knowing that we were going to be working in the kitchen and that the construction zone would likely spill into the living room. It is nice to finally have the house back to normal! In fact, Deann has had a surge of cleaning and organizing. Our house is looking better than it has in a LONG time. It's perfect timing as we are looking forward to family gatherings at our house for the holidays!

Ryan looking silly with his backwards winter cap.

Meghan and Kaitlyn showing off their new matching slippers.

Having fun in the bathtub!

Finished kitchen

We finished our kitchen and we are finally getting some pictures taken. We still have some minor detail work to finish but as you can see the kitchen is fully functional. We love it! We are so thankful for how it turned out. We can't wait for Thanksgiving and Christmas to host meals in our new kitchen! Thank you to everyone who helped with manual labor and with creative ideas in decorating!!!




We went from 65 watts in our old kitchen to a total of 705 watts when you count all the recessed lights and the under counter "puck" lights.




We weren't too sure about the sink at first but it was too good of a deal to pass up and now we love it!


We love the openness between the kitchen and dining room now. We don't have to worry about bumping our heads now on the old cabinet above the bar. :)



This picture doesn't show it real well but the pantry is VERY spacious. It has been nice not having to store stuff on the countertop.


Deann's creativity.



Our bar overhangs into the dining room making it a perfect breakfast and lunch bar. We just need a few more bar stools now.