Happy Birthday, Mead!

Mead turned 8 on inauguration day - while others had inauguration parties, we had a birthday party!

Mead started the day with our traditional cinnamon rolls and opened one present before school.

Then after school she had 4 friends over, and they played games and decorated cupcakes.

They made a giant mess with the sprinkles and icing, but everyone had a good time.

Such a fun group of girls - I'm so encouraged that Mead is making connections at church and school and building some new friendships.

Happy birthday, Mead!  We love you!!

Fun in the Snow

We got our first "big" snow storm over the weekend - it was about 5 inches or so.  The kids were so excited!

Before we started sledding I got a few pictures of the kids in their gear in front of our house.

Then we hit the street.  Since we moved in this summer the kids have been talking about how much fun it would be to sled down our street.  I didn't think it would ever happen because I figured the road would be cleared.  Well, apparently that doesn't really happen here in Roanoke.

So we, and our neighbors, all enjoyed several hours outside going down the street, over and over again.

We had a great time, and the kids had so much fun - they even worked together to bring the sleds back up the hill again and again!

It continued snowing all morning while we were playing outside, but no one seemed to mind.

The second day the street was completely iced over, so we stuck to our yard, sledding in the grass and building a snow fort in front on our house.  We've got at least one more day at home - they cancelled school for Monday because of the icy streets, but hopefully they'll start melting and get cleared tomorrow.

New Years Eve

New Year's Eve we got to spend time with both family and friends.

First we went to my half-brother Todd's house and enjoyed lunch with his family and him.  The kids had a great time exploring their new house and playing hide and seek with Todd's big girls.

Then New Year's Eve night we went to a friend's house to have dinner, hang out, and celebrate early before we were all too exhausted :-)

Christmas activities

The kids had two weeks off from school for the Christmas break, and we enjoyed doing various activities to fill our time.

They decorated a gingerbread house - not the fanciest one I've ever seen, but each year it gets a little more kid-made with less help from me.

We also made Christmas sugar cookies - again, this year they virtually did all the cookie cutting and decorating themselves!

Christmas morning was a fun mixture of stockings, cinnamon rolls, presents, and church.  It was nice to be with our new church family on both Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

My mom and Alex came to visit for a few days after Christmas.  We enjoyed going to the science museum, going for a long hike, eating at The Mellow Mushroom, and playing lots of games together.

And one morning we even got some snow - it melted away quickly but it was pretty to wake up to a white lawn.

Peaks of Otter Hike

A Penny took the week off after Christmas, so we got to do a few things together as a family.

My mom and Alex came to visit for three days, so we went for a hike with them to Peaks of Otter.  We got some great pictures of the view along with way.

It was one of the longer hikes we've done as a family (3 miles round trip, with some fairly steep stairs), but the kids did great!

The view of the top was beautiful - and bright!

The kids loved climbing on the rocks - I'm happy to be adventuresome with them.

AHG awards and other activities

A couple weeks ago Laine had her American Heritage Girls award ceremony.

She earned two merit badges for work done during her meetings and at home.  And she earned a service star (for 10 hours of service this fall) and a few other badges for participating in troop events.

I'm so proud of her hard work and her willingness to try new things!

We also went to Dickens of a Christmas, which is an event in downtown Roanoke on Fridays in December.  We checked out lots of lights, looked at crafts, and even watched a short ballet presentation on a street stage.

As we were heading back to the car we bumped into Frosty!  It was a fun, first-Christmas-in-Roanoke outing.

Seeing more cousins

This past weekend the kids and I went to Charlotte, NC to see my brother and his family.  The nephews were being baptized, so we joined them for their special weekend.

After church we went to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch.

It was a short visit with everyone, but we had a good time and are glad we live closer to be able to make these kinds of trips to see one another.