New Food for the New Year!

In case you don't know yet what you are going to have for your New Years breakfast/brunch....
I decided to share my families traditional New Years Orange Rolls. You will be very happy if you make these! I promise!
Happy New Years! I hope you are all well and happy and ready to start a brand new year!!!!

Christmas!!!!!

On Christmas Eve we had a super yummy dinner! My Grandparents were there and both brothers and their families (although Derek's family is currently cozy and warm in Bethi's belly and was nice and quite, unlike Jeremy's and mine)

After dinner we had a beautiful nativity! Emma was thrilled to be Mary and Weston was Joseph!

Oh how I wish having the baby was this easy!
So, now they have a baby and Mary is still smiling!

Along comes the shephard and his little pink sheep that was in the way of the rest of the pictures...

Oh that precious, blessed little sheep!

And Hayden was our wiseman! And he really wanted that present!

After pie the kids got their pajamas for this year! Poor Hannah was so tired so excuse her grumpy face!

On Christmas morning we had no camera so we have to settle for the pictures Emma got with her new Disney digital camera!

AWWWW!

Emma really wanted me to put this one on!

Sweet little princess Hannah! I love that you can put on all these images if you want to! They are FOREVER on the pic... .but it is fun!

And King Daddy!

Russell got a lot of Trucks and was sooo thrilled!

Emma got her long sought after camera and disney mix stick so she was happy!

Poor lil Hannah! She just had a b-day and got very few presents - luckily she did not know or care! She had a blast playing with the wrapping paper and the toys the big kids had received! She did get some books which she LOVES!!! And a Lil people Barn!

Doing a little dance!

Here we are at Brunch with my family! YUM!

The kids got fun stuff here too (these are the only "opening" pictures I have from Christmas)

Emma and Hannah got the cutest matching dresses! Oh they are precious in them - I will get those pics on here ASAP!

Everyone had a great time snowmobiling Christmas afternoon! Here is Russ with Grandpa!

We had such a fabulous Christmas! It was great to spend so much time together! I m so grateful for my amazing husband and precious children! I love them all soooo much!

Santa Baby

I tried to get a better picture than this, but she just wasn't too excited about pics this particular day. Oh well, you get the idea, she is adorable;)

Playing catch-up!

I believe this was Christmas eve day! Jonathan took the kids sledding ( I got to stay home with the sick baby!) They had such a great time!!!!

My little snow angels!

Pretty hilll hu! Love it!

This is Russell, freaking out about the snow - he loves it!

I love this picture - it makes me feel cozy in my house!

Hay Ya'll! Guess what I did? I FINALLY made a food blog! Yay! I plan on adding pictures and eventually turning it into a cookbook filled with the best recipes I have found! I would LOVE for any of you to contribute to it - if you would like! Please just let me know! Meanwhile here is the Oh Glorious Food blog I hope that you like it and can find some family favorites from our family to yours!
Keep in mind that I just started this so there aren't a lot of recipe's yet...:) I will try to get more on ASAP:)

I can't say that the family being sick is my first choice just before Christmas, but when Jonathan woke up Sat a.m. with the flu it was the beginning of a very relaxing weekend. We layed around and watched movies and read books all day Sat. Sun a.m. we still had sicky's so we had singing and sharing time at home and lots of stories and lots of magic eye 3-D books. It may not sound too exciting but for us it was wonderful. We spent so much time together as a family not rushing around or doing all the things we had planned on. It was wonderful to lay on the floor with the light of the Christmas tree just reading Christmas stories and singings Christmas songs. I hope everyone will be better for the big day, but am glad for the wonderful weekend we did have! (minus the trips to the bathroom and extra laundry!)

Thank you!

I was checking out a friends photography blog and this post touched my heart! Be sure to click on the link to read the birth mothers story also! There are so many of us who have had our lives touched by adoption. I was lucky enough to have a birth mother who loved me enough to give me a better life than the one she could give at that time. My older brother is adopted also and I have had friends who I have watched give up their precious children. I have marveled at their strength and wisdom.
I just want to give a shout out to say thank you to the women who give their babies the gift of life! Thank you for not taking the "easy road", but going though the tough pregnancy and then placing that child in the arms of a woman who has longed for a child for years! I cannot imagine the strength that would take, but I am so grateful for you!

First Snow Day! Home from school!!!

We all had mixed feelings about the snow day today... We are super happy about getting snow, and thrilled to have Emma home - of course. However, Emma was supposed to have her Kindergarten Christmas musical program today.... We were all excited about it and Emma has been practicing all of her songs so she is pretty bummed that she doesn't get to perform them.
She has been having a great day so far drinking hot chocolate and playing in the snow, so hopefully we can take her mind off of it!
Do you LOVE her snowsuit? Good think the child likes vintage, this is from 1985 (mine!)I believe:) CUTE!!!!
Russ LOVES having someone to play with outside!

You have to love the drifts! 5 feet in some places and bare in others... That is Doney Park for ya!

Yay for *S*N*O*W*!

What more can we fit into one night?

These were taken with my Moms cell...

I wish I could tell you how grateful I am for my parents... oh my goodness. They are fabulous! The latest thing they did was Wed night. I needed to go drive the YW around to collect toys/canned food but can't drive. So.... Jonathan drove me, while my Dad babysat Russell and Hannah, and my Mom took Emma to the school to make "gingerbread houses"!
Here are the pics of her cute house...


I love the fence all the way around

And the "fire" in the corner on the right! See it? With tootsie roll logs and candy corn flames... so cute!

And here is Russ the next mrning when I found him eating the candy off the house.... UH OH!

Try to watch this without crying...

These are my favorite! I mentioned to my hubby that these sounded good and he went out and got enough to stock up the fridge! AND - he got a HUGE one of my total favorite, Green Machine! If you have not tried it because you are scared that is it green - let go of your fear and embrace the beauty! It is truly soooo good!
Anyhow - yesterday I ate a bottle of bread and butter pickles! MMMMMMMM! That was all that sounded good and hey, it was food! (sort of!) Later that night Jonathan and I went to the YM/YW activity (while my parents watched the kids - more on that later) and after it they served hot cocoa and cider. Cider sounded soooo good.... I got about half the cup down before we got in the car to leave and then it was soooo bad. Oh man... so bad! No more cider for me! :)
I guess it is finally safe to say that this truly has been the least sick I have ever been. I feel soooo blessed! I have not even had to go to the hospital once! When I went to the Dr the other day he said, "well, your goal was to stay out of the hospital and so far you have!" We are all so excited about it! Yay! I hope I am not speaking about it too soon! Are you all getting sick of the pregnancy talk yet? I guess I should probably stop!

Yikes!

Yesterday I had an OB appointment. Since I still can't drive (at least not safely!) Jonathan took me and the kids. I can't even tell you how grateful I was to have him there!!!!! The Dr got out the Doppler to listen to the heartbeat and tried for 4-5 minutes and there was nothing.... I was alarmed but amazingly felt calm (although I could amost feel my heart start to break). We went to the next room and got an ultrasound and the baby was moving and the heart was beating.... ****Breathe a HUGE sigh of relief with me!!!!
So, I still have not gotten to hear the heartbeat (which is kind of sad) but we are beyond thankful that everything is going good! The baby was bigger and was waving at us! Sooooo cute! Thank goodness for modern technology!

Our Christmas Card!

Make a Smilebox greeting

The Birthday week Recap

WARNING: SUPER PICTURE OVERLOAD!!!!!!

For Hannah's birthday I "held my breath" and made whole wheat pancakes and apple cider syrup. She was one super happy little lady!

Daddy was pretty happy too, this was the first morning I have gotten up - or been in the kitchen since the end of October!

Hannahs birthday dinner! Thank you a million times over Jackee! I was not doing great all day because of the previous event so it was wonderful to have this great food!
Emma and Russell sure love their sister!

I kept missing her smiles! I so need a faster camera! She LOVES rubber duckies so I got these princess and happy birthday ones! It was the easiest b-day cake ever! (thank goodness!)
I made one 9" cake and 12 cupcakes (for Friday) and some cream cheese frosting. Super duper easy!

Hannah really just wanted to eat the ducky

Grandma and Grandpa enjoying the cake

Hannah kept making funny faces at the ice cream! Too cold!

MMMMMM!

Hannah LOVED these ponies! She picked them out actually! We were walking down the toy isle and she pointed at them and started laughing. I grabbed them so she could look at them while we were browsing.... remember this?

She still had them when we got the the cash register - so there ya go;)

This is her gift from Grandma and Grandpa Thom (and Leanna)! I thought she would love it, and she does! She Loves coloring ALL over her face! ...We may have to wait another few months!

Opening a present from Grandma and Grandpa Goodman...

Pretty clothes! She is gonna look so cute in 'em!

And also a drum! (it has all kinds of cute musical instruments in it) Definitely a HIT! Hannah loves it when her bro and sis let her get a chance to play with it!

Hannah sporting her first ponytail and ready for her 2nd birthday party! Friday night with cousin Abigale and family;)

Totally random - but this pic was cute...

We had Papa Johns pizza (somehow my hubby knew I would be able to get it down - I ate 4 peices! He got chicken and Roma tomatoes... mmmmm!)

These are the cupcakes that I had made beforehand.... Ducky's in a pool!

Abigale is anxious:)

Oh goodness! Covered with frosting!

Abigale, loving the duck!

This cracks me up! We had two messy little chicks here....

Hannah opening a present from Abigale (and her parents;))

A Slinky! Everybody loves a slinky! And a tinkerbell cell phone (a BIG hit!)

Hannah had such a great birthday and we are all so truly blessed to have her in our family! She is such a joy! Thank you to all who helped to make her special first birthday truly wonderful!