Success!

The revamped chore chart is AMAZING!!! I think I have stumbled upon the right system for our family! It has worked this week like a dream.

I'm still doing some tweaking and probably will for a few more days. But overall, I think I was right on the money with dollar amounts, chores, and motivation. I was right in thinking that there would be a little competition factor in wanting to earn the most money each week. And just as I'm typing that, I just had an epiphany to encourage more chores getting done. Ha! I'm going to try giving a bonus to the child who earns the most money at the end of the week. Sweet! That will motivate my oldest into doing more. :)

This is the chore chart after 5 days...

You see who isn't so fired up about the chart. He doesn't seem to grasp the idea that the 25 cents and 50 cents adds up each week. Maybe the bonus will motivate him!

Here is my FOUR year old...

 
Tonight alone she earned $1.25! She did 4 different chores. It has been such a help to have the table cleared after meals, the dishwasher unloaded and loaded, the bathroom cleaned. It is worth every penny I am paying the kids!

 

Chore Chart

We have had a chore chart (multiple variances of chore charts) for a while now. It starts out great for a couple weeks. But then the kids get tired of it, I forget to pay them, they don't like the chores they are assigned, I have to nag them to do chores, etc., etc., etc.

I don't remember where I first saw my new approach, but I've seen it a few times online lately. I'm giving the kids control of the chores they do. I used our existing magnet board (that I painstakingly spent hours gridding out!) OK, not hours, but it took a long time. :)

I made up chores and gave them corresponding dollar amounts. I printed them out on magnet sheets, cut them out and stuck them on the laundry room door. 

Here's what it looks like...

Emma has already earned 75 cents, Sara 50 cents, and Hope $1.25!! Luke was busy doing a Scout project so he didn't have the opportunity to do any chores.

I think this is going to work so much better. If the kids want to earn money, they determine how much they earn! It's that simple. So much better than nagging them to do chores only to give them a "smiley face" that means nothing to them. 

They are in charge of their own destiny! And one thing I noticed tonight. It's going to instill a little friendly competition between the kids. Sara's mouth dropped when she saw Hope earned $1.25 tonight. They are going to be trying to beat each other to do the chores so they can get the money! Win for everyone!

A Walk in the Woods

What a great day! Lance has been wanting to get over to the Buffalo National River for a while, but fall came and went and we never had the time. Today was a great January weather day with highs in the upper 50's so we made plans to drive over this morning and spend the day.  He was on a mission. His grandfather's family homesteaded in Madison county and Lance knows from him all the stories of the families that lived there 100 years ago. He remembers his grandfather telling him of a moonshine spot and he wanted to hunt to find it. (He's been watching entirely too much "Moonshiners" on Discovery Channel! Ha!)

The kids spent the night with Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Leah last night. (My brother and SIL) We picked them up mid morning and headed out on our adventure.

Thanks Aunt Leah and Uncle Jeremy!

We have reached another milestone as a family. This was the best hike we've ever taken the kids on. We hiked for about 4 miles. And did some bushwacking on the side! The big kids did amazing! There was no complaining. And little Emma was great. She was exhausted on the hike back, but she made it. She was a trooper.

The only negative was knowing that it's only January and we will have cold, bad weather for another few weeks. But we are praising the Lord for the great weather today!

Daddy giving a nature lesson

Taking a snack break

Me and my girls!

Cool tree that had been hit by lightning

We found the still site!

Hope found a heart rock

Love

Love. My. Family.

 

History of our Adoption

My friend Kelly at Kelly's Korner is having a blog link up on adoptions. I figured I'd be in trouble if I didn't link up, so I'm going to try to condense our adoption story into just a few paragraphs. That is going to be EXTREMELY hard to do! :)

We are in the process of adopting a little boy in Haiti. Why Haiti? Read about how we fell in love with the country of Haiti here. Haiti went from being a place of that we were vaguely aware of to a people and country that stole part of our hearts.

Lance and I talked about adoption before we ever got married. The benefit of dating for 3 years is getting to talk through all aspects of your life together. We truly had the expectation of God adding another child to whatever biological children He was going to give us in a situation resembling the movie "The Blind Side." We had a vision of our kids having a friend when they were teens that didn't have a family and needed one. You would think after following the Lord for 32 years, I would have learned not to ever think you know how God is going to work in your life!

So fast forward 8 years and 4 kids later, our thoughts of adoption got pushed to the backburner. And if I'm going to be completely honest, Lance didn't think it was going to happen at all. Our conversation after finding out I was pregnant with number 4 went something like this...Me: So what does this mean for us adopting? Lance: Um, that's not going to happen. Me: But Lance, you're calling can't change. Lance: Oh yes it can! (Hahaha! He was only half serious.)

But on that first trip Lance took to Haiti, things changed for us. On one of the days leading up to his departure, we were talking in the kitchen while he was organizing supplies. I looked at him and said, "What if our child is in Haiti?" He looked me in the eyes and answered, "I've already thought that." Now if that isn't God at work, I don't know what is. 

We both knew then, that were were going to have 5 children. And that number 5 was in Haiti. It has been such and emotional roller coaster since then, and God has taught me so much about trusting in His timing and His calling. At the time that we felt Him calling us to adopt from Haiti, we weren't even eligible to adopt from that country because we had too many biological children. It was almost 2 years before laws were changed allowing us to pursue adoption in Haiti. And it's been over a year since we started the process of compiling our dossier. Our dossier arrived in Haiti October 30, 2012 and we are now waiting for our referral. 

There have been so many times throughout this journey that God has confirmed His calling and our response. He has revealed Himself in supernatural ways, and given us such a peace that we are following His will. Our kids tell everyone that they have a brother in Haiti. (It is a boy and he is between the ages of 4 and 7.) And that's another way that God has revealed Himself to us and our family. Our kids are so excited about the adoption and there has never been anything negative said by any of them about growing our family with another child. There will definitely be an adjustment period, but there always is when you add another member to a family. Whether that be by birth or adoption.  

The waiting is hard. I'm not going to lie. I look everyday for that email saying we have a referral. It gets really hard to hear the questions week after week from friends and family asking how things are with the adoption. There's just not a lot to report. We have had some forward movement and are cautiously expecting our referral in the next few weeks. But we rest totally in the fact that God is in control. He determined our children before the foundation of the earth. And our son will come home in HIS timing. You can read about where we are in the adoption here.

In the meantime, he is in an AMAZING place. An orphanage in Haiti called God's Littlest Angels. He is being taken care of, provided for and most importantly, LOVED on!

100

The kids are coming up on their 100th day of school. In 1st grade they do "100" projects. They have to make something that has 100 things on it. There's no guidelines. It just has to have 100 things. Luke drew a chicken and added 100 real feathers when he was in first grade. Sara drew a huge flower and decorated the petals with 3D glitter hearts.

We went wild and crazy for Hope's project this year! Kinda like her. :) She told me me she wanted to use crayons. I bought some crayons and foam board today and had no idea what we were going to do until I got home and we started talking through it.

I remembered a Pinterest project I'd seen and wanted to do. I showed it to Hope and she loved it. We hot glued 100 crayons to the top of the foam board and then melted them with a hair dryer and made art!

It was fun. She could do it herself. And it turned out so cute!

Socks

I've got nothing profound to say today. No big events. Kids didn't do anything cute. No fun family outing. Lance worked. The kids were off for MLK day. A friend from church and her kids came over for a couple of hours. Her oldest son and her daughter are Luke and Sara's ages.

That was the excitement for the day. But. As the post says. I'm blogging about socks.

I hate them. I can truly identify with the Apostle Paul when he asked the Lord to take the thorn from his flesh. Socks are my thorn. Ugh.

A family of 6 goes through at least 84 socks in 7 days. At least. That doesn't account for kids coming home from school, taking them off, not knowing where they are and putting on another pair if we have to leave the house again.

This was my sock pile when I was folding laundry today...

Target Practice

This weekend has been gorgeous! It has been so cold for the past couple of weeks that we haven't been able to get outside and do anything. I think we all have been getting cabin fever. Yesterday would have been a great day to go hiking, but we were at Luke's tournament all day. 

We had a narrow window to get outside today between church and the kids having to be at Children's Choir so we came home, at a sandwich and headed to the farm. 

My kids have the BEST daddy! We spent 2 hours shooting bows and arrows and BB guns. The kids had a blast!!! 

It made me soooo ready for spring and then the lazy days of summer!

Hope sporting the red boots!

 Sara is a dang good shot with a bow!

 Luke has had lots of practice with his Daddy and can hit the target every time. :)

Emma was not about to be left out!

Hitting the BB target proved a little harder.

 Hope had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to hold the gun. :)

Poor Emma just couldn't quite figure it out. Barrel? V? Trigger? Never mind, just squeeze this. Ha!

i LOVE this!

Lance told me when Luke shot his deer this year that Luke is a good shot. But man! He is! He hit the Mt. Dew can every time!

Hi yah!

Today was Luke's first ATA Tae Kwon Do tournament! My boy did great! He's been in ATA for over a year now, but I've been really nervous about letting him do a tournament. They are always out of town at least a couple hours away and I just didn't know if he would get there and perform to the level of the competition.


Our instructor manages 2 ATA's. One here in Bentonville and the other in Fayetteville. He decided it would be a good idea to have a tournament for just our 2 schools. It was great! About 300 kids and adults participated, and it gave all of us who haven't done tournaments a feel for what they are like. And I have to say, Luke did GREAT! It is definitely something we are going to think about doing at least once a year.


Luke's favorite thing was getting to do the tournament with his cousin. Clayton goes to the Fayetteville school. They had a blast hanging out and competing. :)

Watch out for these two!

Doing his weapons form

Combat sparring

Receiving his medals

Proud boy!

Look at those smiles!

 And I had to put this in! Our best friends called us and wanted to go eat catfish tonight. Lance and I haven't had catfish in years. And I guess I've been watching too much Duck Dynasty, because I had the urge to try frog legs! Oh my!

So here it is, my one and probably only time to eat a frog leg! It wasn't that bad, but I prefer chicken! Ha!

Just a Day in the Life

Today was a typical day in the Faddis house. Typical in that it did not go as I had planned!

I got an email at 9:30 from Sara's teacher. She had sent it at 8:30. She apologized for the short notice, but wanted to let me know that Sara was getting an award during Colt Stampede. Of course, Colt Stampede started at 9:15. And I was on the couch snuggling with Emma watching Disney Jr. 

I was upset because I go to all the kids awards and parties and field trips. And to know I was just sitting on the couch with Emma (which is one of my favorite parts of each day) made it a difficult pill to swallow. :(

I did jump up and pick up the living room and kitchen, jump in the shower, dress Emma, and run out the door at 10:30 to go pick up Sonic and headed to the school to have lunch with Hope first, then Sara. 

Thankfully, a good friend was at the Stampede and got a picture of Sara for me. :)

My Super Colt! Love that girl!

After school, I picked up the kids and we went to the girls' piano lessons. Luke has guitar on Tues and I so wish we could do this all in one day, but thankfully there is a great lounge room with a tv and vending machines and WiFi where they all take lessons. Makes it soooo much easier on this mom. We spent an hour at lessons and this was Emma's head attire. Her choice, obviously. That crazy girl.

My Laura Ingalls

Then it was home for an hour or so until Lance got off work. I had planned on fixing dinner in that hour, but I just wasn't in the mood to cook. And Lance had a really rough day at work, so we loaded up and went out for Mexican! This is what it's like to go out to eat with my family...
 

Hope was hamming it up with her fajita. She would not let me get a cute pic of her!

At Luke's urging, Sara ate a jalapeno. God bless her! The pictures get blurry because I was laughing so hard!

Sure, she's smiling now.

Wait a minute. This isn't so funny.

Holy Cow! What have I done!

Then Luke wanted me to take a picture of him so he can see if he can look cross eyed. I told him the first pic was going to be in his yearbook!

And then Emma wanted me to take a picture of her making a silly face. But it turned out more of a "man my hair looks really bad" face. Ha!

Dinner is never an uneventful occurrence in our family. Not by a long shot. :) It's like wrangling squirrels. As crazy as it is, Lance and I get complimented all the time by strangers in restaurants on how well our children behave and what a sweet family we have. Every time, and I mean every time, it happens, we just look at each other and laugh. We feel like all we've done is say, "stop, sit, no, quit, eat, no, sit, stop" the entire meal!

Adoption Update

I know I have people that read my blog (although I truly have no idea why! Ha!) and I've had so many friends ask me and even a blog reader email me a couple months ago asking about our adoption. I've been hesitant to talk much about it because it is such a long process with no movement and it gets really old saying, "nothing has changed." And in all honesty, the less I think about it, the less anxious I get about the lack of movement. I have so much going on in my day to day life with raising the four we already have, that it is pretty easy to push the adoption to the back of my mind.

I know that sounds like I don't think of our son, and that's not true. It's hard to explain. It's a coping mechanism, really. We talk about our brother in Haiti with the kids. We are thinking about room rearrangement when he gets home. We pray for him. We look every day on the orphanage website for news. But I can't linger too long on those thoughts or I get anxious and frustrated and that will accomplish nothing.

Today we got some news. :) Not the BIG news we are still waiting for, our referral, but forward movement. So we'll take it! ;)

To give a litt;e background, Haiti announced in August of 2011 that they were going to ratify the Hague Convention which was going to change adoptions. We had just contacted God's Littlest Angels orphanage and had been approved adopt from their orphanage. We knew of GLA from our friends who lived in Haiti, and knew that they are an amazing place and that God was leading us to them. After a long road trying to figure out how our adoption was going to happen.

Because Haiti was going to ratify the Hague, we were told that instead of working directly with GLA, we would have to work with an accredited adoption agency in the States. GLA works with 2 American adoption agencies. One of them is Bethany Christian Services. I know people who work in the Little Rock office of Bethany, so we felt confident in choosing BCS.

That was in August of 2011. It took until October of 2012 to get everything in order for our dossier to get to Haiti. (I won't even go into all of that. It is such an exhausting an long process.) There was a magical deadline of November 1 that we were trying to beat. On November 1, the government office in Haiti that handles adoptions was shutting down and not accepting dossiers. After they reopened, the dossiers they accepted were going to be processed under the new Haitian adoption laws. Laws that no one is certain of. But we are all encouraged that these new laws will make adoption in Haiti easier.

Our biggest concern has been the fact that Haiti was going to make an announcement of all the American adoption agencies that they would work with for all new adoptions. There was a chance that our agency would not be accepted. I've had a peace that BCS would be on the list, but there was a chance that they wouldn't be and then we would be in no man's land with a completed dossier in Haiti that is obsolete. And we didn't know how much would have to be re-done. (And remember it took over a year to put it together.)

Today, after 2 postponed announcement dates, the list was announced. And BCS IS ON IT!! Praise the Lord!

So now, the next step of waiting is for our referral. There is some uncertainty on our part what has to happen before we get the referral. I think GLA will match us with a child (a boy between 4 and 7) and then the child's information and our dossier will go to the Haitian government office for approval. After it gets approved we will get our referral. That's not to say we have to accept that specific referral. That decision is definitely ours. If we feel that the child we are matched with is not the fit for our family, we can say no. Then GLA will work on another referral and send that to the government.

I do want to say, I don't think there would be a scenario in which we would reject a referral. It is always a possibility, but we have prayed over our referral and we have complete confidence in the director of GLA and her prayers over every referral she makes. We truly feel that God has directed us in every single step of this adoption process and He knew who our son was before He formed him in the womb. This is a process that has been determined for our lives and we know that we won't get "the wrong kid."

And now the waiting continues. :) I do ask 2 things. Please pray for us and that our referral will come quickly and that our son will come home this year. This has been the longest "pregnancy" ever! And second. Please pray for the families who have been working with adoption agencies that were not approved. They are now in the position of trying to find another agency and figure out what how much of their dossier has to be redone.

Proud Momma!

Like the post says, I am a PROUD MOMMA! Emma and I went to Luke's awards assembly today at school. He is on the A/B honor roll! And only by 1 B is he not on the all A honor roll!

I have been so proud of him this school year. Luke is an amazingly brilliant kid. Kindergarten and 1st grade were fine for him. Then came 2nd grade. His teacher was a very sweet lady, who did care about him, but just wasn't able to manage a classroom and keep up with all of her kids. Luke fell through the cracks.  Then in 3rd grade, he got a teacher that just really didn't care.  I learned my lesson that year. I will never be more concerned with not offending a teacher than my child's education.  

Luke went from straight A's in 1st and testing for talented and gifted to making some C's in 2nd and 3rd. He is not a kid that fits "in the box" and unfortunately he didn't have teachers for a couple of years who would work with him outside of that box.

In 4th grade, he had an amazing teacher. And thankfully she caught Luke up to where he needed to be in his study skills and and classroom performance.  I was really looking forward to 5th grade. I knew that middle school would be a great thing for Luke and expected him to thrive.  

In 5th grade, the students change classes each period.  But they are eased into it. They start out in homeroom and move as a class to their other periods. I expected the change of pace in the day would be wonderful for Luke. And he does well when given responsibility. 

As expectant as I was, I never could have dreamed how fast things would change for him. He was elected to student council at the beginning of the year and started his term this semester. He finished the 1st 9 weeks with 6 A's an 89 B, and a 79 C. Then 2nd 9 weeks, he got 7 A's and 1 B! His semester averages were 7 A's and a B! It has been such a blessing to this mom's heart to see him thriving and truly enjoying school. But the best thing has been to see him take pride in himself. His self esteem had really taken a beating the past few years and he was beginning to think so negatively about his abilities. But the past few weeks, he has literally come into his own.

 

Cookies Anyone??

After much thought and deliberation, I signed Sara and Hope up for Girl Scouts this year. I really struggled with adding another activity to our schedule, and I wasn't really sure how I felt about Girl Scouts. But I knew that it was something they would both enjoy. The selling point was that we only meet every other week! Score! 

Sara has several friends that are in scouts and she has wanted to do it since last year. Unfortunately, she couldn't be in the same troop as her friends. They are a troop of Brownies and Hope is a Daisy and I needed them to be in the same troop. But, we found a great troop and both of the girls are making new friends and having a lot of fun. And that makes it all worth it. :)

And so begins their soiree into free enterprise! Ha! I have 2 cookie salespeople living with me. We went to a district kick off event tonight. It was an "almost" sleepover!

Aren't those the 2 cutest Girl Scouts you've ever seen??? :) They wore their pajamas; brought their bean bag chairs, American Girls, and blankets and had a blast. 

We had one not so great part of the night, but God used it as a teaching/learning experience for the 3 of us. Unfortunately, the movie that was selected for the event was Troop Beverly Hills. Because of the title, I can understand why it was picked, but someone really should have previewed it before showing it to 6 year olds and up. :( We're pretty conservative in what we let our kids watch. Not fanatical, but we do have a problem with movies that use course language, speak in sexually explicit overtones and have kids speaking disrespectfully to adults. And this movie had it all. :( 

I had to make the choice to leave the movie. Sara totally understood when I explained to her that I didn't think the movie was appropriate. She was sensitive to the fact that the kids and adults were "sassy" and she picked up on the fact that the troop leader in the movie was smoking all the time. Hope was a little more clueless, but when we talked about it later, she was able to point out some things that were inappropriate.

We went to get ice cream instead and they were awesome about leaving and not throwing a fit. I was really proud of them. The best part of it all was that God allowed me a "real life" example of doing what is right even when those around you might not be. 

Several of our friends in our troop and in other troops also left the movie, but there were so many kids and parents that didn't. It was such a great conversation on standing up for your values and doing what God wants you to do even if it isn't the popular thing. I pray that my girls always care more about what God thinks than what those around them think.

My Momma Heart Hurts

The tragedy in Newtown, CT before Christmas has affected everyone. We told the kids about it after it happened because we knew they would hear about it from other kids at school and also because there is now more of a police presence at their schools.  Which I have mixed feelings about. So thankful that they are there as a sign of support to our schools and kids, but disgusted that there is even a reason for them to be there.

But anyway. That's beside the point. We told the kids, but we really haven't talked about it in front of them very much. It's not something we want them to worry about. Yet despite our efforts to shield them as much as possible, it has affected them. As least it has Sara.

Last night she came into our room in the middle of the night last night and said she had a bad dream. I pulled her into me and prayed for her and sent her back to bed. I know. Great mom, huh?? I am not a morning person, or a middle of the night person. :)  She came back a few minutes later and asked if she could sleep on our floor. I sent her back to her room again and she went back to sleep.

Now, tonight as she was getting into bed, she asked me if she could tell me her bad dream so she wouldn't have it again. When I looked in her eyes, I could see the tears welling up. I realized how serious it was so I sat down and held her hands and let her tell me.  Bless her heart. She told me and it was a horrible dream.  We were at the farm and she went in the camper and she looked out the window and saw a soldier and me and her daddy and everyone else were dead.  It broke my heart.

I just held her while she cried and assured her that wasn't real, and we talked how we turn to God when we are scared. We quoted scripture that she can say when she's scared and I told her when Satan is attacking us, we have the power of JESUS in us to demand that he leave us alone. It was so amazing to see her eyes light up at the realization that Satan does not have control over us. 

My sweet little girl. My sweet girl that internalizes her thoughts. My sweet girl who worries about her family. My sweet girl who protects her family. It hurts my heart that she has to even be aware of such evil in this world. But, I will not let Satan win this battle. It THRILLS me that I can teach my child that Satan is not in control, that he has to flee at the name of JESUS! It makes my heart happy that we have access to that power because of the price that Jesus paid for me and my family and everyone who believes in Him.

Happy, Happy, Happy

Today was a first for me. I witnessed one of my kids on "Happy Gas." Hahahahaha!!!! Luke had a molar that has been coming in on top of a baby molar that will not come out. It wasn't the least bit loose. I've been keeping and eye on it for a couple of months, but it just wasn't budging.

I called the dentist and got Luke in. He was scared to death about it. And in all honesty, I was a little nervous myself.  I didn't know for sure if they would use nitrous, so I didn't say anything about it to Luke. When the dentist told him that he was going to use happy gas, that scared Luke as much as getting the tooth pulled. He was grilling the dental assistant about the entire process. They finally got him on the table and put the mask on.

Oh my gosh, it was the funniest thing!!! Luke was HYSTERICAL!!! He's a funny kid anyway, and when he's high, he's a hoot!!!  The dentist and his assistant were laughing at him, too. I tried to video him, but my phone camera was out of storage. Dang!  He was watching Tom & Jerry and it was the funniest thing he's ever seen! He kept laughing and saying, "I've seen this show a hundred time and didn't realize how funny it was!" :) He never felt a thing. So it worked! 

 We went to get lunch after while he was still under the influence. Ha! The waitress got to laughing at him, too. I love my boy. And it's such a sweet confirmation to see his personality when he's most vulnerable. He's an amazing kid, growing into what will be an amazing man.

Happy, Happy, Happy!

 
 

Catching Up!

So there's no good excuse for letting the blog go for 8 months, but I'm back. :)  I have wanted to start it up again so many times, but just was overwhelmed with the idea of it. 

With the New Year, comes resolutions. One of mine is to blog again. I want to document our lives for my kids. So they can read about our life when they were little. And so I can remember the little details that time will erase from my memory otherwise.  

And to kick it all off, here's a pictorial recap of the past 8 months!  :)

 

Starting in May...

Sara went on a field trip to a One Room Schoolhouse. It was so much fun!

Our good friends returned from Kenya!

Sara's "Hooky Day" from school

Luke's "Hooky Day" from school

Hope's "Hooky Day" from school

Poppa had a heart attack. :( Scary, but he is back to normal! Praise the Lord!

Kindergarten Sock Hop

Luke won the Pinewood Derby.

Crossover ceremony

The girls were in a wedding.

Lance was Aerosmith's personal doc at their concert in NWA. SOOOO much fun!

WE BOUGHT A BOAT!

And spent 7 weeks camping at the lake! AMAZING memories!

Happy Father's Day!

Luke learned to ski first. Followed by all the girls!

Hope (6) and Luke (10) had camping Birthdays at the lake! Smores cupcakes. :)

No caption needed. :)

Momma's still got it!

A storm came through and Hope loaded up all that she held dear. (All her birthday presents! Ha!)

Luke went to kids' camp for a week.

Our garden was awesome!

The reason for "living" at the lake.

4th of July!

No words needed

Here either

Cinderella came to Emma's 4th birthday party!

Luke started 5th grade, Sara started 2nd and Hope started 1st

1st day of school dinner at Shogun's. (And mine and Emma's birthday dinner.

Last year of Preschool

Square Dancing!

Square Dancing!

Road trip to Disney World!!!

Magic Kingdom

The transformation...

...into Princesses!!

The whole crew!

Halloween :)

Our dossier arrived in Haiti!!!!!!!! We're waiting for our referral. :)

Luke got his first deer!

And Daddy added 2 more to the freezer. :)

Sara turned 8.

Thanksgiving

Santa

Jingle came back!

We went to a ball!

Christmas caroling with great friends.

My niece turned 1!!!!

And our 1st snow!!!!

 Wow! The memories! So here's to not going 8 months until the next post! :)