Fun with friends

Here are just a few cute pictures with some little friends:

These two burrowed down in between bean bags with extra pillows and blankets. They sat giggling together and talking about who knows what girly fun.


So adorable!


We had some fun walking through the woods behind another friend's house and the kiddos lined themselves up on the log and cheesed it up!





Emma also spent the walk collecting as many big leaves as she could hold!

New Years Celebration

We enjoyed ringing in the new year with the Proffitts once again. The big kids had a blast eating at their special table for meals.


We went to a local park to check out the light display in the evening.


Apparently all the kids like to stand by the Peanuts characters because the snow was so packed down it was slick like a sheet of ice. Right after I snapped this picture the three of them too turns having their feet slip out from under them!


All settled in bed (for the moment). They took quite a while to fall asleep, initially Will and Joshua took turns climbing on Emma's bed and she would reprimand them.


They were so worn out from getting up early the next morning too that Will passed out on my lap. That hasn't happened since embed was probably 4 months old!


We spent the majority of New Year's Day watching the Mummers parade and and enjoying the time to relax!

The Christmas Whirlwind

We were blessed to get to celebrate Christmas with so much family this year. Here's the super short version!

Christmas with Grandma


With Grandma, Omi, and Pap Pap on Christmas Eve for the train table.


Christmas morning at home together.


Christmas with the Koons


Christmas with the Kings


Christmas with Omi and Pap Pap

Pre-Christmas

We enjoyed this year's Christmas season so much, especially with how excited Emma and Will were about each little thing.


They could hardly wait each day to run the train and take turns pushing the whistle and looking for smoke from the locomotive.


We enjoyed a Christmas coffee house fundraiser at church. Will loved the time of kids singing and perched himself right next to Brian playing the guitar. While all the other kids sang, Will could hardly keep his hands from reaching up to play along!


I had great cookie making helpers this year! They were SO into helping with each thing, and on the whole obeyed instructions pretty well.





Our new favorite winter treat: peppermint marshmallows :)



In homemade hot cocoa...yum!


We drove to a local house that had a stellar lights show that matched a specific radio station.


And we basically wore the kiddos out...during December naps were a necessity and one night we even found the kids like this!

Cutting down the Christmas Tree

With our busy weekends, it was hard to find the time to go get our Christmas tree this year. We ended up having about 45 minutes before it got dark one night and went to our favorite tree farm, Hickman's. We've gone there 5 of 6 years in Middletown!


The kids loved helping pick the perfect tree,


as well as pointing out all the others that had recently been cut down.


Finally, we found the one!


Posing.


And everybody!


Watching intently as Daddy works with the saw,


then both Emma


and Will took a brief turn with the saw.


Excited!


Emma even "helped" take the tree to the car!

Great Wolf Lodge

We had a blast in Williamsburg at the indoor water park. None of us had ever been there before, but we are looking forward to going back sometime!

Every 5 minutes this giant bucket dumped water. A bell rang before it dumped as a warning and Emma and Will loved watching it.


There were four large rides for tubes and two smaller rides that didn't need a tube.


We took Will on two of the tube rides with us. He really wanted to go until we got up on the ride, then we had to more or less convince him and he wasn't thrilled on the way down. But afterwards he kept talking about the slides and wanting to go again.


Emma took a little to warm up to all of the spraying water, but was very brave and let us take her all through the water maze.


Will camped out under the bucket with a number of us to get dumped on - he loved it!


Omi and Martin got to try the Waverider ride and did really well. I would have loved to try but I was still having trouble with my toe and wasn't able to.


Emma and Will loved watching them and cheering them on!


The little slides in the kids area were a big hit on the last day, just before it was time to start home.


Emma finally came into her own and loved sliding down, counting each slide as she ran around to do it again.


We wore these kiddos out!


At night they had a show in the Lobby with singing and a special surprise...


Snow!


It was a great little getaway vacation right before the Christmas season go into full swing!