Christmas Vacation

We have been having the best time with our families in Oregon! We got about 3 inches of snow yesterday and they are forecasting more for today and tomorrow. We have been taking a TON of pictures, but here are just a few of my side of the family from our get-together before Christmas...












The whole clan

















My sister's family

















My brother's family

















Don't ask me why I'm making a weird face












Nolan and Zachary (my sister's youngest)

















Lauren & Nolan on my dad's bear footstool

December Festivities

Well, this is probably going to be my last post for a while because we leave in less than a week to go to Oregon for our Christmas vacation! We are all so excited and can't wait to see our families! It has been a busy couple of weeks since we got back from St. Louis...Last weekend, we took the kids to a town called McAdenville (about a 35 minute drive from here), which is also called "Christmastown". It is the cutest little town and they light everything up for Christmas. It was so fun to drive through and look at all the lights - they had signs that said "Happy Birthday Jesus" and the Baptist church in the middle of town had their church bells ringing to "O Come All Ye Faithful". It's moments like that where we just appreciate living in the South...you would never see any of that in liberal Oregon!! :) The kids loved it, especially Nolan who said "cool" for the first time.

Also last Wednesday, Nolan and I went to Lauren's chapel at school because she had her first speaking part! Her kindergarten class was reenacting the story from Luke about Jesus and the 10 lepers. Lauren was cast as Jesus, so it was a big deal. I asked her if she wanted to rehearse her lines and she said "Mommy, I already know my lines." And she proceeded to rattle them off to me in perfect form. She has obviously inherited my photographic memory! She did a great job and we got the whole thing on video...it was really cute because she tried to make her voice sound deep, like a man's!

This weekend, we celebrated Ryan's and Lauren's birthdays! We started off the fun yesterday by making homemade waffles (Ryan's favorite), bacon and orange juice for breakfast. Then, we had him open all his presents. I spent the rest of the morning baking the Cherry Chip cake that he and Lauren requested. And we had lots of great family time.

Lauren was surprised on her birthday (Sunday) with a breakfast in bed of cinnamon rolls, fruit and orange juice and we let her open her "big" present before church - my sister got her an American Girl doll. She was beyond thrilled...our eardrums are still recovering from the scream that she let out when she unwrapped it and caught sight of her doll. :) She was able to open the rest of her presents when we got home from church, but the doll (now named Emily) is still her favorite!