This Last Month - A busy one it has been!

  The last 31 days have been very full. It has been super fun and I have loved it. Here is part of what has been going on around here.

-We hosted a Cast Party for "Annie" at our house. Over 40 people came. It was super fun to reconnect with the friends that we have made in Theater. We did a potluck supper - Great Depression style (to go along with "Annie").

-Ken and I celebrated our 21st Anniversary. No big trip this year but we did enjoy an evening out.

-I had a fun lunch with my friend Lyndi whom I hadn't been able to spend as much visiting time with lately as I like. :-)

-We Sang at the Nursing Home.

-Jonathan recorded Aaron and I doing the song "Matterhorn.

-Mara and Thomas arrived on the 19th and stayed until yesterday, the 11th. We loved having them here! Thomas had a long break from the University and that included from his tutoring job as well.

-We went sledding out at my parents with a lot of family (after eating a yummy lunch there).

-We went ice skating.

-We enjoyed supper at Keren and Benjamin's and participated in a White Elephant gift exchange. It was rather fun.

-We celebrated Christmas. The morning was just our family but for lunch we were joined by some family and friends. I think we had a total of 18.

Megan made Mara, herself and I some dresses of her own design. They are rather clever.

Thomas made me a notebook and Mara made me these pretty mittens.
I was blessed with many sweet gifts and a very notable one was a lovely new camera from Ken. I have been enjoying that.

Thomas and Mara

Ephraim and Matthias enjoyed getting on Thomas.

Hosting a big dinner is never to hard with the sort of family and friends that I have. I get so much help!

Christmas day was a lovely time for a walk.

Ken and I enjoying a laugh during a game.

Mathias loves Jonathan too.

- We dealt with some sickness. I was super thankful not to get it myself but my boys had some times of not feeling good.

 I tried out babysitting again. My family and Keren and Benjamin (Keren is my sister and Benjamin and Thomas (who is my son-in-law) are brothers) wanted to go see the Star Wars movie. I have decided to never watch Star Wars so I wasn't interested so I offered to watch Ephraim and Mathias. I did it at their house (they are neighbors). We started off well (You never know with 1 and 3 year olds) But within 10 minutes we had blood from one end of the house to another. Ephraim wanted to show me the glow-in-the dark stars in his room and so of course we had to turn the lights off and then he wanted to jump on his bed (and I was being a lenient aunt) and then he fell and hit a corner of a wall and cut open the back of his head. He had blood streaming out and ran to the other end of the house looking for his mom. We got it taken care of and had a great time with stories, games and music later but I did wonder if I was very good at babysitting anymore.

-We moved all of my Mother-in-law, Sharyl's stuff out of her 2 storage units and into her house and garage. That was a busy Saturday. It is nice to have it done. We were thankful to have my parents and our kids (including our very helpful son-in-law) help. Though not Aaron's help - that was the day that he was sick.

-Overnight we got a lot of snow which continued to fall on Sunday. Church was cancelled but since 3 households from our church (My sister and family, my mother-in-law and us) all live within 1/2 mile of each other we decided to have church together at Keren and Benjamin's house. We figured we would walk but Aaron was still feeling a little gimpy from being sick so Ken thought he could test out his new truck in the snow. It worked quite well.

At Keren and Benjamin's. Ephraim entertained after we had spent some time studying the Bible and listening to some thoughts that Benjamin shared, had communion and sang a song.

 -Then we had those people over to our house for lunch and games. We are so thankful to have family living close that we can hang out with even if there is a snow storm.

 -We had a special supper on the last day of Chanukah.

Potato Latkes are always a favorite. We also enjoyed baked chicken, fresh bread with sesame seeds and cooked apples.

-The morning of New Year's Eve found Mara and I sewing up 3 easy 1920's dresses for the party we were going to that evening.

 -On New Year's Eve in the afternoon Mara, Thomas, Jonathan, Sharyl and I went to an "Escape Room" that was at the State Park. We had to get a park pass for the vehicle but otherwise it was free. We had fun with that.

- We traveled up to my sister Martha's for New Year's Eve and New Years Day. She and her family live around 2 hours drive North East of us. They suggested that we wear 20's apparel for the evening.

Ken and I dressed up.

Others that dressed up (not counting Aaron who is on the end).

I had fun hanging out on New Years day with my newest niece - Buelah.

Here she is with my cute little nephews too.

 -We had the Rotary exchange student who is due to come live with us for a few months starting in March over for a day.

-We made candles.

 -On the 5th a couple of girls from church came over for the afternoon. They and Megan had fun with a art project (Making globes and planets).

-Also on the 5th we held a party with Soup, Snacks and Games. We had around 50 people here. It was fun.

-On the 6th Jonathan had us shoot a video for "Matterhorn" the song we had recorded earlier. We had over all the teenage cousins and Harrison who is 21. Jonathan also had his friend Will come help with the filming. I spent that day with 13 teenagers and college age people. It was fun and I found out that they can eat a lot. :-) They had fun turning part of our house into a "ski chalet".

Cousins!

 -Both of my sisters that live out of town were in town basically all of last week. So all of us siblings, except my oldest brother who is currently in Oregon, and our families hung out together a lot. We spent a lot of time over at my parents house.

We enjoy having music as part of our gatherings.

-We went to an art show premier (I don't know if that is the right term or not!) that showed the art of a friend from Theater. It is super neat fabric art.

-We enjoyed a supper at Nana's new house.

-Mara and Thomas left after being here a little over 3 weeks. We were so glad they got to come.

It was a good month. I am excited for this new year - I hope you are too!