December 2022

Happy New Year!  Here are a few pictures from the last month of 2022...

The boys have been playing football all the time lately.

For my birthday, Eric took me to a fancy dinner and to the Dallas Symphony's Christmas pops concert.  This is one of my favorite things to do every year.

I love seeing this scene almost nightly- Eli curled up in bed with a book, Christmas lights, and Mabel.  :)

CJ spent a weekend with us during the break, and we loved having him, as always.

Corban and Davin came over one day as well, and I forgot to take any pictures except this bad one of Corban and Eli shooting their airsoft guns off of our under-construction back porch.  :)

A few days before Christmas, we gave Eli an early present that he's been wanting so badly...

Two baby sulcata tortoises!

Meet Moses and Aaron...  They're tiny now, but they will eventually grow to be around 100# each and live for 70+ years!  Eli is thrilled to have new additions to his menagerie of animals.

My birthday was such a special day, filled with sweet surprises from friends and family.

We've had some gorgeous winter sunsets lately!

On Christmas Adam (December 23), we eat filet mignon and scallops.  I love this little tradition.

On Christmas Eve, we went to our church's Christmas Eve service and then had dinner and played games with the Heinzes.  It was a lovely evening.

One of my favorite things is to get outside early on Christmas Day...  this year it was freezing cold, and the stars were shining so brightly.  I loved it!

Christmas 2022!

We opened presents, ate cinnamon rolls, and then watched Hank go insane in all the boxes and wrapping paper.  :)

After a beautiful church service on Christmas Day, we headed to my parents' house for presents and raisin bread with the whole family.  We took an afternoon walk all together, cooked a big dinner, and enjoyed playing games together all evening.  It was a perfect day.

I didn't take any pictures of New Year's, but we spend the 31st with the family again, which was great, and then we headed to Uncle Albert's house on New  Year's Day for Japanese food and lots of games.  We love kicking off the New Year that way.  

On to 2023!  Love and joy to you!!

 

November 2022

Here are a few pictures from our November...

The youth group went to Daingerfield for a day of camping-like activities without having to sleep in tents overnight in 30-degree weather.  :)  We had a blast.

Eli and Timothy got a few new baby turtles!

CJ came to spend the night with us over Thanksgiving break.

LOTS of football has been played!

The boys decorated "their tree" for Christmas.

The night before Thanksgiving, we had our own little Thanksgiving dinner and watched "Elf."  We love this tradition.  On Thanksgiving Day (of which I have no pictures!), we went to Eric's uncle and aunt's house for lunch, and then to my parents' house for dinner.  It was a full and fun day.

We went to breakfast and picked out a Christmas tree with the Heinzes.

And we decorated it for Christmas!

Happy Christmas season to you!!

 

October 2022

 October was a full, fun month.  Here are a ton of photos to prove it.  :)  As always, this is in backwards order, but here we go...

We finished off the month with a trip to Daingerfield with the whole family.  We had a blast being together in our favorite place in Texas.

I can't believe how BIG the kids are...  we've been taking their picture on this sign since they were toddlers.

Lots of fishing!

It was pretty chilly for most of the weekend, but we dared/paid Charlie and Eli to jump in the lake and swim to the dock in their clothes.  :)

It rained some on one day, but that didn't stop us at all.  The boys played "pelt" in the pavilion for hours.

The leaves were just starting to turn...

This is Halloween, obviously.  :)  We carved a pumpkin, ate our traditional pumpkin pasta, and really enjoyed handing out candy to a ton of kids.

Our church had a fall festival with games and candy for the neighborhood.  Savannah helped us with our game.  

We had a "Happy Retirement" dinner for Mom this month, and it was beautiful and meaningful!

At the beginning of the month, we went to the fair.  We've been taking CJ with us since he and Eli were little, and we love this tradition.  We did all our usual fair things- rode tons of rides, ate good food, visited the car show, played midway games, and finished out the night with a funnel cake.  

This is back to the retirement dinner...

And back to the fair...

And back to the fall festival...

And that concludes our out-of-order look at October!  MUCH LOVE to you!!!