Family Photo Shoot 2013

Mark did some work for a customer and in exchange she took some gorgeous family pictures for us!  Here are a couple of them:

Aren’t they lovely?  I love them!

Visit with Auntie Mary

My sister and her husband were in town this week to visit family!  We were able to spend an afternoon and evening with them at our house.  It was such a special time!  The kids enjoyed getting to know their Aunt and Uncle a bit more and had lots of fun playing with them.  It will be a few years more before my sister and her husband can move back here so I'm glad the kids had this time together with them.

Mary and Ty with a few of the kids

Me and Mary with Jeremiah

Some beautiful flowers that Mary brought for me!

Say Cheese!

Having fun out back...

Visiting with Great Grandma

This past month my husband's Grandma has been visiting.  We were wonderfully blessed in that we were able to see her quite a bit!  Elijah was able to go camping with most of Mark's family on Mother's Day weekend, and to spend some time getting to know her there.  He had a blast!

The next thing we did with her was have tea at my Mother-in-law's house!  Yum!!! It was such a special time for the kids to see their great grandma!  Mark had to work so it was just me and the kids.  My kids are a bit shy so it took awhile for them to warm up to her, but once they did they stayed right by her!  :-)

The next time we got together was a bit different in that it was just me, my mother-in-law, and great grandma.  We went out for a tea/brunch, then spent the morning window shopping.  Mark watched the kids for me, it was such a nice break!

Our final get together was at my in-laws house for Memorial Day, a celebration/goodbye time all in one.  By this visit the kids had warmed up to Great Grandma enough that Emmaline wouldn't leave her side but just sat and talked her ear off!

It was a very special time and I'm so glad the kids had a chance to spend this time with their Great Grandma!!!

Frogs

Once a week we clean the frog cage, and while it's being cleaned the kids have fun holding the frogs and watching them jump around the living room.  They all have to take turns since we only have 2.  Here, Josiah is admiring Mrs. Jumper, who was enjoying all the attention and sitting perfectly still for my picture... 

When it was Emmaline's turn she was wearing a sweater that the frogs could climb on and they climbed right up her sweater and nestled next to her hair!  She was a good sport and held still, except for giggling...

Here Elijah gets a turn.  He had to take a break from cleaning to hold the frogs, since they are his pets it's his job to clean the cage.  The frogs have been a good pet for us so far, they are easy to care for and don't require much attention or maintenance and they are fun to have around.  :-)
 

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day we had a pretty normal day.  During school time we made valentines for each other.  The kids made one for each of their siblings and me and two for Mark, I guess we know who they love more!  For dinner we set the table with our very best china and used a red tablecloth.  Mark bought me flowers for our centerpiece and we had a red candle burning.  Our menu was :
         Heart shaped meatloaf
         Pink Mashed Potates
         Green Salad with tomato slices cut in the shape of hearts
         Red jello
         Fruit Punch
         Pineapple Pie, I died the filling pink with food coloring

Our table, set and ready to go, with everyone's valentines on their plates.

Pink Mashed Potatoes, they look more like frosting!

It looked so festive!  And, as Mark said at the end of the meal, "Everything was great Betsy, and we just got our years worth of food coloring in one sitting!"

More flying

On Saturday Mark's brother and some of his kids came over for a little while to visit.  We all went over to a nearby empty field to fly some of Mark's planes.  Unfortunately, just as we arrived the wind picked up so Mark was only able to fly his trainer.  He was pretty disappointed, he really wanted his brother to see him fly his bi-plane. 

Christmas Decorating!

The day after Thanksgiving we spent the day putting up our Christmas decorations.  It was so much fun!!! I love Christmas!  We don't put up much beyond the tree, since our house is small it drives me CRAZY to have too much out, so maybe someday when we have a bigger house we will do more.  Elijah was the designated picture taker while Mark and I put up the tree.  He did a pretty good job!  We did have to take a break and run to the store in the middle of our decorating though...all our lights for the tree were not working! Everything looks so beautiful and festive, almost magical, I LOVE it!!!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we went to my mom's house for the day.  We almost didn't go because my Uncle was there also and he was VERY sick.  After talking about it though we decided to go anyway, and had a wonderful time!  And none of us got sick!  I forgot to take pictures but everything was lovely!  My mom had everything you could possibly want for a Thanksgiving feast!  She even made pecan pie, my favorite!  We played games and just had a great day!

Fall Leaves!

Elijah, Emmaline, Josiah, Jeremiah and I had a great time last week raking up all the leaves in our front yard and jumping into the pile!  It had been very still the whole week prior so all the leaves from our tree ended up in our yard instead of blowing away.  Normally we don't need to rake up the leaves, we just leave them and the wind takes care of them for us!  We had a pretty good size pile going and the kids had fun burying each other, throwing the leaves up in the air and making "leaf angels" (snow angels in the leaves).  After the kids got tired of jumping in the leaves we played duck duck goose and freeze tag.  It was a lot of fun!

Some Various Pictures

Micah, 8 months, practicing his crawling

Mark and Emmaline, 4 1/2, at a birthday party

Josiah, 3, Elijah, 6, and Jeremiah, 23 months at the same birthday party

Elijah and Emmaline, playing together

Elijah and his "robot"

Airshow

Last week we went to an air show/car show in Akron, CO.  It is about a 3 hour drive from here one way.  We left at 7:45 a.m. and arrived there about 10:30 a.m., just in time for the start of the show.  We got to see an F-16 fly, a wing walker, several aerobatic older planes do stunts, RC planes flying around, a World War II reenactment and tons of classic cars!  It was great fun, especially for Mark.  The only downside was the heat; over 90 and not a cloud in the sky!  We all came home with sunburns, mine was the worst, I looked like
a lobster!   

Out to Grandma's!

This week the kids and I went out to my mom's house in Hanover, CO to spend the day with her. It is about a 40 minute drive from our house. My parents live on a dirt road so we always say that "when we get to the bumpy road we are almost there!" We had a great time! It was so nice to see my mom and catch up on all the news. :-) My mom made us tea, pumpkin bread, and spice cookies when we first got there, then later on we had potato soup for lunch. Yum! It was the perfect day for tea, cold (about mid 40's) and windy. The kids are so comfortable at my folks house, they know exactly what they can do, where their toys are, etc. And they LOVE to have tea anytime they can! We stayed all day and got home just in time to make dinner for Mark. It was a really fun day!