Confession

I can spend hours in Brooke's bedroom. Seriously! It's pink and purple, clean and neat, girly and fun. Not to mention that there are dresses and skirts hanging in the closet! It is just so much fun having a little girl! Brooke is seriously my little doll baby. I get to play with her and dress her. She gives me special smiles that just melt my heart.

The other morning she was just so adorably sweet I had a fun time photographing her. I know my camera isn't on a good setting, so bear with me. When I use a flash she blinks and stops smiling, and I miss the cute expressions on her precious face.

She is so cute trying to find me when I'm in her room talking to her. Look at those little peepers!

I bought this doll brand new at our consignment shop for $1.25! I had been eyeing it at our local grocery store all summer long, but just didn't want to pay full price. Imagine how excited I was to see it show up in our consignment shop!

Another consignment shop find. This dress and hat had every one in church smiling last Sunday! Does it get any cuter?

Six Years

On January 6 Cole celebrated his sixth birthday. Actually, we all got to help him celebrate, but it was his special day. I love birthdays! After the kids go to bed, I hang streamers and balloons in the dining room, and it's so much fun to see the boys' faces when they see those streamers the next morning. They all get excited!

I love my Cole. We used to call him Cole-Baby, but when we were expecting Logan, he became Cole-Boy. (Logan calls him Coy-Boy. He can't seem to get those two words to flow together right!) Cole is the goofy one around here. Trevor used to call him a clown, but Cole didn't appreciate that. I think Trevor meant it as a compliment! Cole is so funny and comes up with some goofy things to say and do. He's my climber. He's the only one of my boys that figured out how to climb out of the crib. And he's been climbing ever since! He's fearless when it comes to that kind of thing. He's a sweetheart. He loves his little sister Brooke, and I even heard him "baby talking" to her in a high-pitched voice the other day.

For his birthday this year Cole wanted to go to Slinky's. It's similar to Chuck E. Cheese, but not quite. First we opened presents, and then we headed to Altoona to party.

The play land in this place is huge!

Brooke even got in on the action.

Cole doesn't like cake! (He did not get that strange gene from my side of the family!) So ice cream cake was his choice this year.

The Christmas Story

It's not a new tradition. In fact, most Christian families read the Christmas story from Luke 2 every year before they open their presents. I remember doing that as a child growing up, and we are continuing that tradition with our children as well.

This year it was even more special. I listened with pride as my boy Trevor read several verses from that passage of Scripture. I'm so thankful that he can read well, and that he can use that reading ability to read God's Word.

This is probably my favorite picture from our Christmas celebration. Look at all those boys, gathered around the Bible. And look at their daddy, reading to them and teaching them! I am so blessed.

Christmas!

The boys were so excited when Christmas finally came. And if I was honest, so were David and me! It brings me joy to watch the kids open their gifts. I love how excited they become. Here are a few pictures from our gift-opening time for you to view.

The Dollar Game

Have you ever seen this game? Someone holds a dollar bill near your fingers. When they drop it, you try to catch it. It is nearly impossible to catch that dollar bill, especially if it is a nice, crisp one. The boys were sure trying their hardest to beat Dad at this game, but nobody was successful!

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I thought I should start the new year with a fresh post. So here it goes!

We started the new year with the boys piling into our bed! I love it when all the kids just hang out in our room with us. It's such a cozy, family feeling, and with 6 of us, you do have to get close to each other if you hope to stay on the bed! After plenty of joking, tickling and laughing the boys settled in with Dad for a game of Uno.

Brooke is still infatuated with her toes. I'm thinking maybe she'll be a ballerina someday!

I had her propped up on the bed this morning. She was just so adorable, I couldn't contain my smiles! I mean really! Just look at this picture and you'll catch yourself smiling as well!

I hope you have a wonderful, Christ-centered year in 2010. It will be exciting to see what God has in store for us this year.

Stuff

Saturday it snowed here and we got about 10 inches. A man in our church plows the parking lot and our long driveway for us. The kids are just LOVING the big piles of snow that he makes with his plow.

We were getting ready to go outside. Isn't she just adorable?

We were at a birthday party and I was able to catch the boys being still for a few moments!

Cookies

Last Friday I made some sugar cookie dough and let the boys have a go at rolling and decorating the cookies. Here are some pictures from our evening.

David thought we should see if our readers could guess who decorated which cookies? (Is that sentence grammatically correct???) So if you'd like to make a guess, you could post a comment under this post, or in the cbox on the left.

I'm putting this one on here for David. He was quite proud of his Ohio State cookie.

We Tried

The other day I got everyone dressed and ready to take some family Christmas pictures. I was just going to take the pictures at home so it would be a relaxing setting, and we could get things done quickly. Who was I kidding?!?!?! Let's just say it was quite an adventure. I did get a couple of good pictures out of the bunch, but not what I had hoped for. Oh well! I'm going to post some of the "duds" that we took. The photo we decided was a "keeper" is going out in the mail tomorrow.

Looking back on all those little cutie-pies, I can't even see one picture that was a dud! I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder! I love all those cute little faces.

Ice!

Two Sundays ago there was so much ice on the roads around here, we had a low day in church. Since we live behind the church we don't do much driving, and don't have much of an excuse to stay home! Ha! I took care of the nursery that morning since the other ladies couldn't make it, and what do you know? It was just me and my baby Brooke. So I loved on her extra and then did some photos. She was so cute that day in her pretty brown and pink dress.

She was all bundled up here like a little snow-baby.