13 years!!

Happy 13th Anniversary Sweetheart!! (January 7th)
I have been abundantly blessed to be married to this man.  Not only is he my best friend but he is my rock.  I depend on him a great deal in life.  Fix this, fix that, help me here and there, watch the kids while I have a girls night or bible study to attend, listen to me complain and tell my joys.  We have had some amazing experiences in life from living in many different states, to vacationing in many different places to even relying on each other and God to get us through some difficult situations. I am so thankful above all that my husband is a strong man in the Lord.  He encourages me when I am down and helps me to sometimes see the bright things in my life.  We have been blessed with four amazing gifts called children.  (if you look closely you will notice a "waldo" in this picture)  This is the one child who has become a permanent fixture on my hip!!  (is this a girl thing???)  Anyways, I am so thankful to have had 13 years with my husband and I look forward to what God has in store for us in the future.  I pray that it will be eye opening and that it will require us both to draw closer to him and each other.
I love you babe!!  You are the love of my life!!

Our Christmas!!

 I have to admit, this year I wanted to forgo all our traditions for Christmas.  You see our plans were to travel to Florida for the Jerry Gutwein christmas and I had so much to do in such little time including our Christmas traditions and packing for a family of 6!!  A bit overwhelmed was I!!  Needless to say I asked the boys if we could make it a "unfancy meal" and not do our traditional fondue dessert.  They were very sad.  They pleaded that we still do it and well.......they won!!

 Elijah and Caden offered to help set the table to help me out.  I was a bit nervous since it was my china, but they did a great job and it looked very nice.

After dinner dishes were cleaned it was time for stocking stuffers.

 It was so cute how Ellie would get down on her belly to look inside of her stocking for more gifts rather than reach her hand in to see if there were more.  To precious.

 Ahhhh.....I just love this picture.  Puts a smile on my face and makes me feel so blessed by these four gifts!!

 Perhaps it was a year to early for this gift but we got Ellie her very own kitchen.  We wanted her to be able to start playing with it, but obviously the paper was way more fun then the box underneath.

 We made Caden go on a small scavenger hunt for his bike and in the end he was out on the porch for his final gift:).  He was not disappointed to say the least.  Sweet Caden, being the second child honestly gets all these hand me downs in larger toys, and even in clothes.  He has been sweetly using all of Elijah's old bikes in the past.  However he has been having a few chain issues with his current hand me down bike and so Nick and I decided it was time this boy got his VERY OWN BRAND NEW bike!!

 And of course the kids were overly thrilled with the fondue again.  Tried something a bit different and added the fondue to their very own cup for dipping.  Kept the mess contained rather than drips of chocolate across the table.  Even Ellie got to join in on the deliciousness!!  She had no problem "opening wide" for each bite.

Harold Gutwein Christmas

On December 24th we had the Harold Gutwein Christmas.  It was so much fun having Dan and Tess and Sophia join us this year. They were actually staying with us while they were in town.  They got in on the 19th of December and stayed till the 24th.  We also had Jason and Joy bring one of their Gateway kids with them to the Christmas.

Didn't get a ton of pictures of each child but we all enjoyed opening our gifts and the kids were thrilled to get more Adventure in Odyssey cd's.

Got this shirt for my aunt.

Again.....

Please tell me why I do this "catch up" thing over and over again??  I am so behind on posts that it seems daunting to try and get caught up.  But, like I always do and because I enjoy my blurb books, I'll do it once again:)

Waibel Christmas was on the 23rd of December.  Always enjoy the wonderful appetizer meal and then watching the kids open gifts.  It gets more and more hectic but this year oddly enough we had order to the gifts and it went real smooth!!