A Christmas Carol

One of my incredibly talented friends from high school is a professional actor and now does local theater here. The last couple years she and her son have been part of The Christmas Carol. She plays Mrs. Cratchett and he is Tiny Tim. I took Lauren to see it and afterwards we were able to visit with them for a little bit. I am telling you..you should go see it next year if you live in this area. All of the cast is so talented. It was a wonderful production and Lauren and I had a great time. Thanks Steph!

Victory Days

All 3 kids love gymnastics. It is a great time for the boys to get some of that energy out! Every year that have a special day for the younger classes called Victory Days where they get to show us their stuff and get a certificate. It is so cute and they have so much fun!

Violin Concert

This is Lauren's 3rd year playing violin and she loves it. We are so thankful for the wonderful program she is in at her home school class. If you can't tell..she is the little one on the left. Her special friend Savannah is standing next to her. Savannah is Briannah's sister (the one Lauren did the birthday for). I am hoping that if you click on the youtube site I have here you can see a video of it. I thought the picture of my Dad looking at Brennan is sweet, so I had to include it. Try clicking on this site and see if it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EKxcm5eihc

Thanksgiving

Greg was gone for Thanksgiving, but I took the kids to our annual Neely Family Reunion. My Grandma was one of 15 kids, so that makes for a LARGE family. The kids had a great time visiting with cousins and on the way home we saw a beautiful double rainbow. It reminded me of how thankful I am for what God has created.

Since Greg was gone on Thanksgiving, we had another Thanksgiving with him on Saturday when he was home. My parents and sister's family came over. We also celebrated Mom's and Michelle's birthday. No-we don't normally have a large curtain hanging on our window, but we were taking family pics and trying to cut the sunlight out.

One picture is worth a thousand words.

This is Brennan. I cannot tell you how many times I have found him over the last few months hiding-his mouth full of something. A couple months ago I found him shut in the pantry...mind you there is only about 6 inches between the shelves and the door-he had a mouth full of chocolate chips. I have also found him under the table with different things-including the container of sugar. This last episode was when we were watching some family videos together. He was being so nice and quiet and really into the video-I thought. I knew that he was lying under the coffee table, but what I didn't know was that he was eating a candy cane....this is how I found him. Needless to say...discipline was involved. Not 2 days later we were out Christmas caroling. We stopped at our friends house and they offered him a candy cane. I said that he could take it, but we weren't going to have it right now. While I was talking to my friends, I see him out of the corner of my eye crouching down and running to hide (military like) behind a bush in their yard. I went over to the bush and he was sitting down behind it with a mouth full of candy cane. "Mommy-it was broken, so I had to eat it". I have to say-it is hilarious when we find him...but it has become a matter of obedience and his heart. Yes, you can laugh.

If I could only be a monkey...

I think Joshua's dream would be to be a monkey and to climb trees all day long. He is so happy just climbing a tree. Any tree...eveywhere we go. Look closely in the first pic-he is up about 12-15 ft. high.

I'm back..starting out with more pics from Lauren's birthday.

I know I have let the ball slip in keeping up with the blog, but I figure I can get caught up today before the new year!

As most of you know Lauren's birthday was the end of October. She asked if she could do a birthday party where no one brought any presents for her, but instead brought presents for baby Briannah-her friend's little sister. She has an inoperable brain tumor and the medical treatments she is undergoing are very expensive. In fact, just 2 days ago she had to be rushed to the hospital, because of low sodium levels which was causing her to have convulsions. Praise God she is doing fine now. This picture is of Lauren, Briannah and her sweet Mom Tammy. It was actually Tammy's birthday that day at the party and I didn't even know until after the party was over! It was a wonderful afternoon and so many people brought wonderful donations for her. We are so thankful for all of you who donated!!! Please keep Briannah and her family in your prayers.

American Heritage Festival

OK- this was the coolest thing!! One of the mom's from our home school class organized a field trip to the American Heritage Festival. It was so much fun. Everyone there was dressed in a time period costume. There were little tents set up all over where someone (i.e., Daniel Boone, Pocahontas, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln) would be sitting and would answer all kinds of questions about that time period. They also had booths where people had different trades (rifle making, doll making, spinning wool, medicine making) and would explain how they made it. All the people there were so knowledgeable and so in character you almost felt like they could have been the real deal. President Lincoln-kinda creepy he looks so much like him. They also had mock battles. It was a great day.

Flagstaff

A couple days after I got back from England, we took the kids to Flagstaff. It was a chance to take advantage of Greg having 2 whole weeks off! There is a military facility there that has some cabins, so we stayed there. The kids played out back and explore the whole time. Someone had built several forts out of logs, so that made it even better. Joshua is very into building clubhouses out of anything he can get together-including our big nasty trash can outside one time. Boys. It was so nice to have a couple days together as a family-not worrying about all the normal things you have to do on a daily basis at home and especially when you get home from a trip. We were able to get together with some of our closest friends who live there too. Their boys are in one of the pics.

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Daddy Time

I just have to say that Greg gets the Daddy of the year award from the sweeties. While I was gone he took them camping in the back yard..smores and all, bowling, hiking and best of all (according to them) took them to Circle K where they got Coke with Vanilla syrup in it and bought gum. The Circle K part was the first thing Brennan told me on the phone when I got to talk to him. They had soooo much fun! I don't even know that they cared so much about me getting home.

Happy Birthday Landon!

Today is our sweet nephew's 3rd birthday! Happy Birthday Landon!

Video of Church Bells Ringing

I wanted to get a little video of the church where my cousin was married. I think this church is a few hundred years old. It is right down the street from the house he grew up in. It is also right next to the school he went to. All the children there were looking over the wall waving, clapping and yelling, because they were so excited there was going to be a wedding. It was so cute. The bell ringers ran the bells for about an hour before the wedding started.

October Update-England

I am finally finally starting to get this thing updated. England was great. As most of you know I fly standby. Out there-great! No problem. Coming home..not so much. Took me 3 days to get home...but it was worth it. I missed Greg and the kids horribly...but I had an amazing time and the kids had a blast with Daddy. I am so thankful to have a husband that treated me to something so special and took the time to make the kid's week so much fun. Anyways, I will start with the pics bottom to top..

1. Lunch with cousin's just a few hours after I got to London. It was great to see them. I hadn't seen Daniel for several years and Emma for I don't even remember the last time I saw her. We had lunch at this asian restaraunt with a really crazy name. I think it was Wagamama's or something.

2. Right after lunch Daniel walked us over to the Tower of London. Amazing! The history there is just incredible. I could have stayed there for days!

3. Of course you have to take this pic.

4.Parents standing by Parliament

5. Big Ben

6.Me and Mom in front of Westminster Abby. Gorgeous. I can't even explain how beautiful this place is. It makes me think how much more beautiful heaven will be! The history there is incredible as well. I saw people's tombs whom Lauren and I had just studied about at the end of last year's history.

7.Parthenon ruins at the British museum

8. Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace..people were just jammed on the streets to watch this.

9.Cleopatra's mummy! British museum

10.Standing with my cousin in front of the golf course where he volunteers.

11. The incredibly gorgeous golf course ( I knew Greg would love this pic)

12.Tower of London

13.Scheffield Park-seriously one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. That castle in the back?...people rent out rooms as apartments I guess...I can't even imagine.

14.My Sweet little cousins

15.The church where my cousin got married and where his Mom is buried.

16. Daniel and Vanessa

17. Vanessa with my cousins

18. Sweet little cousins again