School, snow, and Christmas

The girls LOVE science and art.

Walk Through Bethlehem at our church brought the largest crowd yet.  

Nana and Papa were able to come and then we had Christmas craft morning the next day :)

Bowling with friends :)

A new tradition we are going to continue because it was awesome....1937 Night!  Kansas got electricity in 1938....no lights or phones or TV or anything they wouldn't have had back then.  It was so fun!  We played games and enjoyed each other company by candlelight.    

The girls first experience with "the ballet."  Joni said it was boring but she couldn't take her eyes off the stage the whole time so the verdict is still out :)

And our first snow...

Caroling with the Youth Group

And their Christmas choir performance at church...

Decorating cookies with friends...

Christmas Eve service....

Christmas morning in our Christmas sweats.

Jesus' birthday cupcakes.

We have a big New Year's Eve party (Extravaganza) for the Youth Group every year and this year we set up an Escape Room (you get locked in a room and using keys and clues, have to find a way to unlock the door and get out).  Hadley is super into them and so we let them go through the room we set up so they could enjoy too.  It was a hit!

My parents came for a few days after Christmas and we so enjoyed them being here.  My mom snapped this picture...my sweet girls.  

We went shopping...before

...and after :)

Andy and Opa went to see Star Wars with friends and the girls went to the Good Dinosaur.  

One of my most favorite memories growing up is watching America's Funniest Videos with my dad.  His laugh is contagious.  It became even more special when we lived with them and I watched it with Andy and him.  Now the girls are fans...we have a video of them watching AFV.  So great.

Love to you all!

Thanksgiving in St. Louis

Having Janet and Kemper only 4 hours away has been AMAZING.  This is the closest either of our parents have been since we moved to KY when Hadley was a baby.  They probably won't be there for long so we are trying to take advantage of the "closeness" while we can.  We all met up there (Uncle Ben too and Kemper's brother Lance and his amazing family who we love and always look forward to spending time with) for Thanksgiving and to celebrate Papa's 60th!  Happy Birthday Papa!!! 

We celebrated with steaks at Texas Road House and they brought out the "birthday saddle" but Papa wouldn't get on it...the girls, however, were happy to give it a try.

We planned lots of fun things to do for the kids (and the adults too).

Climbing a tree on one of our walks through a park...

a little Geocaching...our first one!  Go to www.geocaching.com for more info about that.

On Thanksgiving day while the guys did this (the guys didn't do ALL the work..except on the bacon turkey, that was all Ben and Andy)....

the kids made turkey cookies...

and dessert...

 and Thanksgiving placemats...

 and played Thanksgiving BINGO.

And then we ate!

After dinner, we went to a sculpture garden where Janet and Kemper had creatvily put together a little scavenger hunt for the kids.  It was super fun for them and really good exercise for everyone else.  I'll be honest, there is some strange "art" out there.

 On Friday we went (along with everyone else in St. Louis:) to the City Museum.  The kids (and Andy and Ben) were is playground heaven.  Lots of climbing and sliding and hiding and crawling through tiny spaces.

 That night Andy and I took the little girls to a drive-thru Christmas lights display.  I know they are just lights, but I get so excited about this kind of stuff.  Plus the girls thought it was super awesome so how can you not love it?

 The light "river" was by far my favorite and I'm still trying to convince my husband that we need to set one up in our yard.

 We finished up the night with a little Christmas music dancing night.  It's a favorite tradition!

We have much for which to be thankful.

Love to you all!