Whew...it has been a while!

I can't believe my last post was Tye's birthday party. There has been much water under the bridge since then...many wonderful Christmas parties, teas, and exchanges. It has been a wonderful Christmas season, and I have hardly had time to even think about decorating for Christmas. I will say that we did get Christmas lights up and our stockings hung, but time with family and friends has taken priority over decorating this year, and I am happier for it. Here are a few photos from the past few weeks.

Here are the cookies that Heidi (our friend that lives in Guatemala, but stayed with us last week with her husband, Matt and little Isaac) and I made. We actually won the presentation award. Thanks Paula Deen for the decorating ideas.



I then helped put on a Christmas Tea at our church. It was a wonderful time to get to know some of the women better and able to celebrate the birth of our Saviour, as well. It was fun transforming a school cafeteria into a Christmas Tea, and it worked.



The extent of our Christmas decorations this year...please excuse the toys below the beautifully decorated mantle. :)



Here is a picture of Tye noticing our nativity this morning. It was so cute...he has loved all the nativities at my parents house, mostly because they contain animals, which he is quite interested in these days. So, he got up on his tippiest of toes and as soon as he eyed the nativity, he made the "baa" noise for the sheep and the "ho" noise for the donkey. We found it quite adorable.



Just for fun...he loves the fridge farm, can you tell?!



You remember making tents when you were little...so we decided to give it a try with Tye last night...he found it quite entertaining, especially having Dad inside.



Love to you all and Merry Christmas!
Bethany

I am ONE!

I can't believe my baby is one today! Reminiscing about where we all were last year and how far we have all come is a bit overwhelming, yet puts an incredibly big smile on my face. We had Tye's birthday party last Saturday and all of Tye's buddies came over to celebrate...yes, all 7 of them under the age of 1 1/2, except Caleb's big sis, Ellie...she is 2 1/2. They had a great time of eating, playing and more playing. The kids are still at that great age when someone takes their toy, no problem...they just get another one. It makes for quite cooperative play. We have been so blessed with such wonderful friends and family. We are thankful for all of you. Here are a few pics from that special day.

Trust me...all 9 of them are actually in the picture. You have to look closely, because Travis (2nd one from the left fell behind Caleb on the end, but you can see his legs, and Josiah is being held by Kathy on the far right), but they are all there. So here they are from left to right...Caleb, Travis, Asher, Walt, Tye, Luke, Charley, Ellie, Josiah.



Yummy CAKE! So I thought...he actually was not too interested in it, so much for the cool, cake all over the place photo...we had to actually do it ourselves.



Here is our group photo...