Mary's first home, was in the south.
We are slowly turning her into a Minnesotan!
Mary has the fuchsia pink hat on!
This was her first time sledding!
I love firsts with these kiddos!
It warms my heart!
Abby pushed the tube and hopped on with Mary!
I'm taking these photos from the comfort of our home!
We have a perfect view of the sledding hill out our windows!
Grace and Mary are working so hard
to get the tube and themselves,
up the hill!
When along comes another tube
and startles them,
they lost some ground!
So fun!
Playing in the snow
is like playing on the beach!
It never gets old!
Looks like Grace gave up
and big sis Abby is helping out Mary!
The kids have also enjoyed downhill homeschool skiing!
It's not a fit for all of our kiddos
but those that go, LOVE it!
It's so nice going during the weekday,
when everyone else is in school!
It's not crowded at all!
Anna, Melissa, Abby, Sam and Sarah
And for budgeting purposes and health issues,
we have not started the younger 2-4 kids.
They may ski next year?
For now, we are having other kinds of fun with them!
So right now we have 6-8 skiers!
Ava, Melissa, Anna, Sam, Abby, Madeline
and Sarah and Mia went once!
And while they ski...
we go out for lunch!
Jenny and Ben have both decided
that skiing is not for them!
They tried it last year and had fun
but it felt a little risky to both of them.
For safety reasons, it was a good choice!
We go bowling with our adoption homeschooling friends
about twice a month!
Sam had a banner game and
we just had to get a pic of his score!
TV time with our kitties!
They do not normally run the house
because they have claws
(and they love to use them on furniture and other expensive items...).
They have their own room downstairs
with lots and lots of windows!
They LOVE watching the birds, squirrels and our dogs!
This is Mike on Ava's lap.
He is such a great cat, completely chill!
Tom is the black cat, he is not chill...
He is a wonderful cat but not good
with relaxing and watching TV or movies.
Cookie is in Mia's arms.
She has a bit of anxiety
but she will calm down, relax
and rest while we watch TV or movies!
They are also so well behaved and cuddly
when we bring them upstairs for movie time!
Mike and Cookie are brother and sister.
They adore each other!
There are three kitties in this pic.
Tom, the black cat doesn't last very long
but the other two will relax with us
for a two hour movie!
Ava is a kitty whisperer!
She knows how to calm them and cuddle with them!
I got this book for Christmas and absolutely LOVED it!
It brought me such peace as I read it!
We celebrated our 38th anniversary in January.
Our older kiddos may have forgotten...
so we texted them this picture...
as an oh. so. gentle. reminder!
And then we attempted to get a good photo of us
from our 13 yr old photographer...
We all ended up laughing!
But this pic works!
Thankful to be married to the man of my dreams!
Thank you to the love of my life
for these lovely roses!
Feeling a bit rushed about life...
Opened the garage door...
didn't wait for it to get all the way up...
and rammed into it...
ugh...
slow.
down.
Jean!
In January, we snuck in a visit
to Virginia to see the grand babies!
We had lunch at school with Emily
and her kindergarten class!
And then off to the park and a short hike
with the kids!
We love our Ali Jean
and our Emily!
Chuck E. Cheese is once again
one of our favorite places!
We go, where the kids want to go!
It was such a blessing to
spend time with all of them!
We miss them sooooo much...
Bennett is a man's man!
He's all about the guys!
And his Papa loved every minute of it!
Time to play Little House on the Prairie with the girls!
Wait a second...
some of them are NOT girls!
Olaf lasted a long time in the front yard!
We spent 2 days at Great Wolf Lodge!
It was a screamin deal
and tons of fun!
I relaxed and watched everyone have a great time!
I haven't laughed this hard
in a long long time!
Especially at first, when they weren't used to it
and it caught them by surprise!
They were whisked away by the current!
After awhile, they got quite good at it!
Nice pose, Melissa!
Relaxing in the lazy river!
These two girlies had the tonsils out together!
The surgeries went well
and they recovered quickly!
In November, we had 4 kids
get their "tongue ties" surgically corrected.
We have had visitors throughout the winter months!
This is in front of our neighbors house
but we've seen them in our yard, too!
But then it got warmer
and the sun was higher and
Olaf started to melt!
Ellie and Emma asked some friends
from school
to go to Sadie this year!
They were both very excited to go!
So proud of these two!
Emma asked Pierce!
And Ellie asked her boyfriend, Jacob!
They had a wonderful evening!
Just have to post, the beauty of winter!
Love the frost on the tree branches!
God's masterpiece!
Ellie is a senior in high school!
She had her PATH meeting in February!
It's hard to leave high school
but this helps her to look forward to transitions
and to her future!
Baker Nature classes are amazing!
We go to them once a month!
Today they did basket weaving and I was the volunteer.
It was really FUN!
I got to make a basket, too!
Ava helping out Anna!
Melissa and Ben listening intently!
Our other kiddos were ice fishing,
snow shoeing and feeding winter birds/animals,
making winter shelters, etc!
And then we were blessed
to make a quick trip in February
to see our family in Colorado!
Baby girl #2 got in the pic this time!
Love them soooooo much!
We babysat the two precious grands,
while Mom and Dad went on a quick date!
One of us had trouble sleeping!
It wasn't Nana and Papa bc we started
to fall asleep during "Paw Patrol"!
Winter has been a blessed time and the weather has been tolerable!
We are thankful for the fun we have had
and all the memories that have been made!
Abundantly blessed!
