Family Visiting from Florida

After spending a little over a week in Maryland, Daniel's brother, Josh, and his wife, Alisha, and two kids, Hannah and Drew (who are from Florida) followed us back home to the cold and snowy North. They were really hoping (even praying!) to see some snow while visiting. Well, God answered their prayers! That very next morning we woke up to snow!... and lots of it! It was like a winter wonderland! It snowed off and on all day long. We ended up getting about 8-10 inches! It couldn't have been more perfect. The kids (Josh, too, I think) were VERY excited to get outside and play. We have a good size hill in our backyard so the kids took turns going down in the sled. They all had such a great time!!

Here are some pictures of playing in the snow:

Waiting to go out in the snow!



Josh helping Drew.

Drew after going down in the sled! The snow was so fluffy it just sprayed the kids in their faces!

Rebecca had a great time in the snow too! She didn't want to leave!

Drew(3), Hannah(6), Abigail(3) and Lillian(4) stopping briefly for a picture.

Come on, Drew! Let's go!

Hannah and Lillian




Daniel and Josh got the kids to make a human chain and then they pulled them around on the wood floor. They did this for quite some time!

A few days later we took the kids to a nearby park with a bigger hill for sledding. They also discovered that you could go down the normal slide and ...

... keep going past the slide, fly off the edge of the sandbox, and continue on down the icy hill!




Here's Josh going down the slide on a sled and flying off the sandbox!

Walking on water!

Abigail and Daniel




Josh, Alisha, Hannah and Drew keeping watch over the ice fishermen in the big lifeguard chair.

We had such a fun time with Josh, Alisha and the kids... it was really hard to see them go! Alisha called today from Florida and mentioned it was about 70 degrees and that they even had their windows open! It was about 10 degrees here. Why didn't we go to Florida? Next time...

Thanks for coming Josh, Alisha, Hannah and Drew! We can't wait to be with you all again!

Christmas in Maryland

What a fun Christmas we had! We drove to Daniel's parent's near Baltimore, Maryland and stayed there for a little over a week. All of Daniel's brothers and families were there for the week too. There are five boys in Daniel's family and they're scattered all over the U.S. Nathan, Sharon, and 3 (almost 4!) kids live in Pennsylvania; Josh, Alisha, and 2 kids live in sunny Florida; Enoch, Sarah, and baby-on-the-way live in sunny California; and Mark lives in Indiana. It's always very special and FUN when everyone can be together!!

I don't know how Daniel's mom does it! She is such an amazing woman! I have learned so much from her in the past 9 years that I've known her (just think how much there is still to learn in the years to come!!). She cooks fabulous (huge) meals like it's no big deal... what's another 17 mouths to feed, 3 times a day, for 7 days anyway? She made atleast 10 different kinds of Christmas cookies (there were so many I can't remember them all!)... oh, can't forget the fruit cake too! She finds time to sit and enjoy her 8 grandchildren and even sends each child home with a "travel bag" filled with little goodies to enjoy on the ride home (which, by the way, are always a big hit!). She really is a neat lady... and a GREAT mother-in-law! Thank you for ALL that you do, Phyllis!

We stayed pretty busy during our time out in Maryland. We had the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. and tour the entire first floor of The White House and see it decorated for Christmas, we went up in the Washington Monument, we walked around Arlington National Cemetary (we did this quickly because it was COLD!), and walked through the Museum of American History (we saw Dorothy's original red slippers!). I don't have pictures of any of this though because cameras were not allowed in The White House, and I left my camera in the car which we didn't go back to until our afternoon was over. Oh well.

Here are some pictures of our time at Daniel's parent's house with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins (Grandma and Grandpa, too!):

Christmas morning attempting to get a "nice" picture infront of Tim and Phyllis' (the house Daniel grew up in).

Abigail and cousin Drew working on their gingerbread house. I think these two put more of the candy in their mouths than on the house!

Auntie Alisha helping Lillian and Hannah with their house.

Auntie Sharon helping her three kids Lydia, Jacob and Sarah Beth with their gingerbread house.




The guys took all the kids to Ft. McHenry which is only a few minutes from Tim and Phyllis'. It was cold but they had a blast. See the cannons in the background?

Being they got there later, they were able to watch them lower the flag (which they do every night). I guess all the kids that were there got to take part in folding up the flag.

The Ranger (if that's what you'd call him?) picked Abigail out of the entire group of kids to hold the flag after it was all folded up. BUT, she dropped it! It does look like a big thing for a little girl to hold! She just picked it right back up and everything was okay, phew! :)

I would still like to find/get a picture of the entire Birx bunch that was taken Christmas morning and post it so you can see all of Daniel's family. Hint... Hint... So hopefully I can get that posted in the near future. We hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas!!

Thanksgiving and Chuck E Cheese's

No. We didn't go to Chuck E Cheese's for Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a really nice Thanksgiving at my Grandma Haglin's house. She always puts on a feast for all my aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and their families. It ends up being about 40+ people! I don't know how she does it! I always enjoying going to "the farm" and seeing everyone. Growing up my family would go over to the farm for the day every Sunday after church, along with all my aunts, uncles and cousins. They still continue this tradition every Sunday but being we're about 2 hours from Grandma's, we don't get there every Sunday. I do miss seeing everyone. I can't believe that my cousins, who I remember being BORN, are turning 19 this month! Am I really getting that old? Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving...

I really wanted to try and get a nice family picture to maybe use for Christmas cards. This ended up being the best one we got. It was SO windy and cold. This was taken on the lake at my Grandma's house. Lillian even got to walk on the ice!





Look what Grandpa picked up in the field! What a great find!




Look out Dad! Looks like you've got some future farming helpers!

This is my entire family. My oldest brother, Mike, and his family are on the left; Dad and Mom in the middle; my other brother, Dan, and his family infront; and our family on the right. How do you like my brothers' matching shirts...

This is where Chuck E Cheese's comes in... My sister-in-law, Beth, turned 30 on the 2nd and Dan surprised her with a party at Chuck E Cheese's. It ended up being a total surprise! The girls had such a blast. Lillian now wants to have her birthday there (thanks, Dan!). Happy 30th Birthday, Beth!

Lillian and Chuck

Riding in a jeep

We got SNOW on Saturday! The girls were so excited to wake up and see snow. They couldn't get outside fast enough to go sledding! It snowed even more today - it looks like a winter wonderland! We're hoping that it stays so Daniel's brother and family from Florida will get to see it when they come up the end of this month.

Abigail was even in on the sledding action this year. Last year she only wanted to watch from inside the house. They were forced to come in yesterday because it was SO cold... only about 10 degrees! I think they could have stayed out there all day!

Our First Video

I finally took the time to figure out how the video mode works on our camera (and it probably took one minute, if that!)! I now wish I had taken the time 4 years ago when we got the camera! Anyway, I asked Lillian to sing "Jesus Loves Me" for the camera so I could see if I had figured it out correctly. She did such a great job singing that I thought I'd post it (you can also hear Lillian's back-up singer, Abigail, in the background). I hope it actually works for you and that you're able to watch and hear our first video! :)

These next pictures are from today. The girls helped make some fun Thanksgiving "hats" to take over to Grandma's house tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy 3rd Birthday Abigail!

Three years ago today I went to my scheduled prenatal check-up. Little did I know that while at that appointment my doctor would discover I was 5 cm dilated and in labor (and to top it off, Abigail was born on her due date - right on time!)! My doctor said that was only the second time in her career she found a patient to be in labor during a routine check-up! Oh the memories... How can that be three years ago? Where has the time gone? How can our little Abigail Evangelyn be 3 already?!!

Well, she is 3 and what a fun 3 years we've had! We've done some "celebrating" these past couple of days as you'll see in the following pictures:

This was right after I had finished her Curious George (or as she would say, "Curious Gorge") cake. I wanted to get a picture before any of my little monkeys got too curious!

On Friday the girls and I met my mom, sister-in-law Susann, and her three girls, Mikayla (8), Serena (5), and Lydia (1 - she's only one month younger than Rebecca!) at a mall. This mall has an indoor 2 level carousel! Mom treated the girls to a birthday ride - they loved it! Well, all but Rebebcca. She cried the entire ride after she was (accidentally!) put face to face with a horse! Although, she wasn't the only one who didn't like the horses. Abigail (another one of my daughters, of course) didn't want to be on a horse either. She was more than happy to ride in the sleigh thing. Oh well, it was still a fun treat!

Birthday girl

This was today. We stopped for lunch at Sonic before heading to our birthday destination. Daniel has been itching to get to a Sonic ever since they finally appeared in Minnesota! I guess there were a few by his college in Florida and he loves their real juice lime slushes. This is like an "old time" drive-in restaurant where you order from your car and then eat in your car. The guy even brought our food out to us on rollerblades (but the food was in a bag and not on a tray - the temp outside was around 34 degrees!). If you've never been to a Sonic, GO! It's very, very good!!

This was our birthday destination. A huge indoor playground! They loved it! They even had an area for kids 3 and under. Being it was Saturday, it was a little more crowded than we would have liked. BUT, the girls didn't seem to mind at all.

Ok, well, Rebecca didn't like the ball pit very much. Other than that she had a blast!

Lillian is definitely our athletic one. She scaled this wall like a pro!




Stopping for a picture while playing in one of the high mazes.




Here's Rebecca trying to catch up to her big sisters. Maybe next year, Rebecca!




Taking a 3 second break.



After getting home we finally got to eat some of that cake!





Happy Birthday to you!!!













Happy 3rd Birthday Abigail!
We love you!!

Finally - A New Post!

We haven't had much going on lately - we've just been trying to stay warm! It's cold! The pictures I've included for this post are just various ones from the past couple of weeks. Nothing too exciting. Our big outing for this week will be bringing Rebecca to her 15 month well check-up. Oh! Can't forget Abigail's 3rd birthday on Saturday! I guess that will be next week's post! So until then, here are some pictures of our 3 giggling girls:

This was Halloween night. The girls all cuddled with Daddy (well, long enough to get this picture anyway!) while we watched a movie.

I'm not sure what she was doing here. Just being Abigail, I guess!

These funky pigtails were too fun!

Rebecca's really becoming quite the monkey. Now that she's walking 90% of the time she thinks she can do anything! She has to keep up with those big sisters!

Our second year Awana Cubbie. Last year she was a "Jumper," this year a "Hopper!"

Lillian wrote the entire alphabet all by herself! Some of the letters aren't exactly right, but I'd say that's pretty good for a 4 year old!

Lately Rebecca's been looking at books while sitting in the book basket. This was taken last Sunday after church. Do you like the leopard print dress with matching boots? She's stylin'!

Thanks for looking!