Merry Christmas!

Wishing our dear friends and family an oh-so-merry CHRISTmas, celebrating the birth and redeeming love of the Saviour of the world! We didn't have a very white, wintry day after all, but the little ones learned that Christmas can be celebrated with or without a covering of snow. :) We also didn't have a family picture taken yet this year...I guess we're just waiting until we can ALL be together [after Ethan comes home...], because we hate leaving anyone out! But here are a couple pictures of the littles for you to enjoy...with the little bit of snow that soon melted. :)

Christmas Waltz

[Source]

Wow. We've been so busy I hardly even noticed that so many months went by since I last posted! Work, new babies, parties, school, holidays, birthdays, and so much more have all filled our days to the max. Hopefully [since this is Christmas...and the work load should be a little bit lighter!] I'll have time to put up some new pictures, especially since we didn't end up putting a picture in our Christmas cards this year. It was as much as we could do to send out cards at all! But that's [finally] all done and the cards are in the mail, yay!

This week, aside from the usual, we've been sooo busy making yummy foods [caramel corn, cookies, salted caramel hot chocolate, homemade marshmallows...yum!], shopping, wrapping pretty gifts, and getting packages ready to mail out. We've made time in the evenings to watch a few Christmas movies together and sing carols...and dream of a white Christmas [which, by the way, probably isn't happening this year...we're still dreaming though!]

Josh and Suzi's little girlie, Eva Charis was born on October 31st this year...Spencer is crawling EVERYWHERE and has a mouthful of new teeth, while Silas has started losing his [his two front teeth and a few more are missing now]...Savannah and Sophia celebrated their 5th birthday with a special tea party a couple of weeks ago, and Stefanie's husband, Ethan, will be coming home from the Middle East in a little over a month! And that's just a glimpse of all the happenings around here...

Frosted window panes

Candles gleaming inside

Painted candy canes on the tree...

It's that time of year

When the world falls in love

Every song you hear

Seems to say

Merry Christmas

May your New Year dreams come true

And this song of mine

In three quarter time

Wishes you and yours

The same thing too.

Eva Charis

Scenes of Autumn ~

A few beautiful photos captured by Skyler this fall...some were taken on a family excursion to Kinzua Bridge, and others at and around our home... :)

First day of school!

We usually like to start each new school year the day after Labor Day...and that's today! Some people ask how we could ever home school ALL of those kids, but since only five out of us eleven are actually doing "constructive" schoolwork this year [the most we've ever had at one time!], it's really not as difficult as some imagine. =]

Samuel is starting 7th grade this year, so he has an impressive stack of school books. =] Seth is in the 3rd grade and Silas is in 1st...neither of them are very thrilled about ending their summer vacation, ha!, but hopefully it'll be easier for them once we've developed a good school-day routine... Savannah and Sophia were soooo excited to begin kindergarten today! And Shiloh colors pictures, listens to stories, builds towers with the math blocks, and is very good at distracting the rest of the kiddos!! =]

This week has been pretty chilly...only about 60-65 degrees. So it's beginning to feel like Autumn. Yay! That's my favorite time of the year and I don't think the season ever lasts long enough! Time to pull out the sweaters and boots, light some apple-scented candles, and sip on pumpkin spice lattes! =]

Sleeping Spencer...

Samuel

Seth

Silas

Savannah

Sophia

Shiloh

My favorite pic of the day...

Instagram!

Sometimes it's easier to capture moments with a phone than it is to carry around a camera with you all the time... [somehow Skyler's mastered carrying around BOTH, but the rest of us aren't that talented... =] Instagram is one of the most popular photo sharing apps for the iPhone, and since it takes less than a tenth of the time to post photos on there than it does on here, that's usually what ends up happening! =]  Skyler has nearly 400 daily viewers of his photos on there, and has even won photo contests...but Stef and I just like to take everyday pictures using this iPhone app to capture memories... Knowing that most of those who will read this haven't seen these photos on Instagram yet, we thought we'd share some with you... =]

Happy September morning...

We realize that it's been well over three months now ... so lest we be forgotten altogether, we decided to update the "forgotten" blog again! =] What a summer it has been for us! It's been pretty much chock-full of family picnics and reunions, baseball games, swimming at the lake, Vacation Bible School, friends visiting... Some of us have been traveling quite a bit this summer as well--Stefanie spent several weeks in Tennessee with her family-in-law, the Rodgers! And Sara spent about five weeks in Chicago and Oklahoma visiting the Paine family and her adopted grandparents, the Toedts, at Eagle Springs! One of the highlights of the summer for Skyler and Sara was spending a week with some of the young people in our church at Happy Valley Baptist Camp [located at Summer's Best 2 Weeks in Somerset, PA]. We've become a little bit more involved with our church, Bible Believers Baptist Church, and made lots of new friends this summer as well! Now we're gearing up to begin school again [Sam, Seth, Silas, Savannah, and Sophia are anyway!], help Josh and Suzi remodel their downstairs and build an addition, and maybe....juuuuust maybe have a little bit more time to keep up with this blog! Ha! Here's some of Skyler's photography...some edited and others not. =]

Bennie turned THREE this July! He's suffered injury upon injury the last couple of months, poor little man...but he doesn't seem to be daunted even by that! =]

Spencer is over SEVEN months old now...He's starting to roll over, but he's not crawling yet. And he LOVES to be tickled!

Stefanie and Spencer...[you can't see it very well, but here's a picture of "the ring," Brielle!]

Savannah, Becca, and Sophia at the wedding of a dear friend... The twins will turn FIVE in November, and Becca will also turn FIVE at the beginning of 2012!

Neat perspective on family portraits...taken during a family reunion.

Dad and his brothers and sisters!

We've spent more time at the peninsula at Lake Erie this year than we have any other year...we love it there!!

Anna just turned SIX years old a couple of weeks ago...

Sara Katie makes the cutest little faces! She doesn't just walk, but she RUNS wherever she goes. =]

Another picture of Ben...because he likes to make silly faces too. =]

Mrs. Paine, Abby Paine, and I [Sara]. Here's to prove that I was in Oklahoma after all! I decided I wouldn't steal all of Brielle's pictures, but I had to post a couple of them...

At my first rodeo in OK...with Johnny, Danny, Joey, Brielle, and Abby Paine. =] THANK YOU, Mrs. Paine for letting me tag along on all your adventures with your family!!

Shiloh will be THREE in about three weeks! Eeek! Can he possibly be any cuter?? =]