Kyle's Solid Gold Belt

Friday night Kyle had his final belt test as a Little Ninja. He graduated from a little ninja brown belt to a solid gold belt. Now he begins the children's level classes to move through the belts towards his black belt. He's very excited and we're very proud of him.

Christmas in PA

We left Monday morning after Christmas to head to Pennsylvania to visit the extended family. We arrived Monday afternoon at Great Grandma and Great Pap-Pap's house. We visited with them as well as my cousin Chrissie and her husband Matt and my Aunt Diane and Uncle Charlie. There were gifts and stockings for the boys - they were thrilled! And we had an nice dinner. After that we headed to the hotel for the night. The next morning we had breakfast and Bob Evans with Ma, Pa, and Uncle Mike who also were up visiting with us. Then we headed over to Great Grandma Morsey's house to visit with her for awhile. It was good to see her . . . it had been 2 years. After that we headed over to my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Jeff's house, or "Ben and Jillian's house" as the boys refer to it (they're my 10 year old cousins who the boys love to play with). We spent the rest of the day there visiting with many aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was fun to see everyone! We headed back to MD on Wednesday morning.

Gingerbread House

We couldn't get to it any sooner so we finally made our annual gingerbread house on Christmas Day. The boys enjoyed making it as always!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas! We celebrated Friday evening with Jason's family at Uncle Carey and Aunt Casey's house. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with Ma, Pa, and Uncle Mike. Then we spent Christmas Day just the four of us. We had lots of yummy food, fun presents, and got to attend the Christmas Eve service at our new church. This was the first adult service the boys have been to and they did quite well. We are so happy we got to spend the holiday with our wonderful families! The boys were thrilled with their presents. Kyle's favorite was his Nintendo 3DS along with quite a few games for it. Max's favorites were his macaroni and cheese (2 years in a row!), legos, Leap Pad, and Thomas snowy adventure train set.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving by going to my parents house to visit with them and my brother. It was a beautiful day outside so we spent lots of time outside while we were there. We also played games and celebrated Uncle Mike's birthday. We had a delicious dinner and spent the night. We spent the whole day Friday there as well and Jason and I even got to go to a movie while Ma and Pa watched the boys! Oh and Friday morning Max went with Pa to get donuts - I think that was the highlight for him. He tells everybody who asks about Thanksgiving that he went to get donuts with Pa :).

We also celebrated with Jason's family the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures to commemorate the day but almost everyone attended and we had a nice time.

Max's family birthday party

On Saturday we celebrated Max's 4th birthday with a family party at home. Ma, Pa, Uncle Mike, Grandma Luster, cousin Michael, Grandpa Inman, Uncle Carey, Aunt Casey, and Uncle Jonathan were all able to come. We enjoyed Max's favorites for lunch - homemade mac and cheese, chick-fil-a chicken nuggets, fruit salad, and chocolate cake. He opened his presents and played and visited with everyone. It was a fun time and Max loved everyone being there to celebrate his birthday with him.

Happy 4th Birthday Max!

Today Max turned 4! When he woke up in the morning we gave him his present from us, a Caillou treehouse playset. Caillou is one of his favorite shows to watch so now he can reenact the episodes with this playset. Then, we celebrated with a party at Chuck E Cheese in the evening with some of his friends. He loves Chuck E Cheese and I'm pretty sure he wanted a party there because Kyle had his 6th birthday party there. He did not, however, want the whole party package with the singing and dancing - that part overwhelmed him at Kyle's party. So, we just invited a few friends and found a corner of the place to camp out and ordered pizza and tokens and brought cupcakes for everyone to enjoy! It was a fun time. And Jason even won the jackpot on skeeball - 150 tickets! So we ended up with quite a stash of tickets when were done! When I put Max to bed he said "That was the best birthday I ever had!"