Sibling Dinner 2018

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is our now annual sibling dinner. Phil's brothers and sisters along with their spouses/significant others all come together to eat and catch up. Not everyone lives local, so it's a great time that we've been able to carve out during the holiday craziness to visit with each other. As the size of the group has grown, the restaurant set up was more and more impractical and made it hard for us to actually get to talk to everyone. Now that we've moved home, we've been able to host the past two years, which I love. It also helped that we are much more settled in the house than we were this same time last year.

This year we also had 2 babies under one join in on the fun, my nephew Carter (Cory and Naomi's) and niece Mallory (Tim and Taylor's). They were super cute and slept peacefully, despite all of our carrying on.

Me and Mallory!

Tim and Taylor

Jared and Rachel

Luke and Alison

Naomi and Cory

Lydia and Garrett

Phil and Mallory

Cutest new members of the family!!

I love this big family that God has blessed us with, and I am always thankful for our time together. I'm really excited that my kids will now grow up close to aunts and uncles and cousins to play with and love on them!

Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for this year!! Our sweet niece, Mallory, was born on the 20th and already has the whole family smitten! Needless to say, she didn't make it to our place for turkey, but we had a great time with everyone that was able to come.

 Phil made it home early Thanksgiving morning and was able to get some rest in before jumping into turkey duty. He fries it every year now, and it turned out fantastic, as usual. 

Our adorable nephew Carter was the only baby present and definitely the star of the show. These two turkeys of mine, were pretty cute, too, though. :) They loved watching the Macy's parade and the dog show (Avery was so excited and literally glued to the tv all morning, shouting "Mom! Look at this!" every few minutes and hushing anyone who dared to interrupt. I've created a monster!).  

We are so thankful for our family near and far and love it when we are able to spend time together. This first year back in Indiana has really been such a blessing to us already, and we are looking forward to many more family get togethers to come! 

Back to School!

 This past year has been a bit of a whirl wind. It's hard to believe that these cute kiddos of ours are already in 1st and 3rd grade. By cute, I mean mostly when they're sleeping or getting along for a few seconds of the day. ;) 

We are still trying to get used to the "balanced school schedule." The kids went back before the end of July, but we'll get two weeks off in the fall and the spring. It did seem like the summer went by really quickly, and they aren't ready for the earlier bedtime. However, they seem to really like their teachers and are happy to be with their friends. They even insist on getting up early to get on the bus (6:45!) because they want to ride with all the neighborhood kids. We have been truly blessed that they've already made such good friends here.

I am excited for all this year has in store for them!

Easter

Our Easter festivities started with the neighborhood egg hunt. It was a great way to meet more of our new Woodbridge neighbors and their kiddos. We also went home with all of the eggs afterwards, as Phil was roped into being in charge of the hunt next year. Yay ;)

Next, was the Easter eggsposion at church. Every thing was a muddy mess from all the rain we'd gotten the day before, but we still had a great time and were glad that the Selfridges were able to come play, too.

Mom and the sis braving the mud....

Yay for rain boots!

We were excited Phil was home for Easter day! The kids had fun hunting for their baskets first thing in the morning. Avery was excited about a new beyblade, and Claire was super pumped about her new owl shimmer "make-up."

Next came the obligatory family photos before church...

The weather was really nice...I may have jumped the gun a bit with my romper in my excitement to see the sunshine. 

 We tried to make them laugh to get some good smiles.

 To avoid the mud, we waited until after church to do our Easter Egg hunt inside at Nana and Papaw's. house.

Big people enjoyed hiding, and Avery and Claire did all the seeking.

 Next year, they'll have to share the fun with their 2 new baby cousins on the way!

Board game time!

Not sure what the excitement was all about in this pic...but He is risen!! That's enough reason to keep cheering all year long!