O Christmas tree

Carter and I went to Menards to buy our Christmas tree tonight... we'll start decorating this week for our first Christmas as a family!!

Self-Picture in line

Carter in line (I love this pic!)...

Carter balancing the tree to make it straight!

Yay for Christmas! :)

Reasons to be Thankful

Eleanor's silliness...

Eleanor sounding out words...

Happy niece and nephew...

One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish...

Eleanor learning to text at age 6 :)....

She texted all the family and friends who were out of town...

"I Love You You See."

(I think she got the cadence of that sentence from Dr. Suess)

And Carter cooking a Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake!!!! Yummy!

Carter and I are thankful for each other and thankful for our families!

The weather outside is FRIGHTFUL!

Here are some pics from our recent trip.

From left to right: Dad, Mom, Me, Jamie, Chad and Andrew

There was ice on the seats, and our bodies melted the ice. 

Therefore, we had wet behinds the entire game! brrrrrrrr

After the Steven's Point win... Dan is in the middle.

Us waiting in the van before the second game, avoiding cold weather. 

The second day was much warmer, but we still avoided :)

brrrrrrrrrrr...

On Saturday my Mom, Dad, Andrew and I met Jamie and Chad at Messiah College in Pennsylvania to watch Dan's sweet sixteen game against Steven's Point. Steven's Point is one of my old college soccer rivals, so it was fun to see Dan's team win 1-0 in the chilly weather. He made it to the Elite Eight!!! That meant he got to play a second game on Sunday against Messiah. They lost the second game 2-0, but played really hard and it was fun to cheer them on and see them play such a high level of soccer. 

On Saturday there were a few inches of snow on the ground so the game was delayed to fix the field. It also snowed during the game! It was SO BITTER COLD that we decided that we didn't care what we looked like, we were going to bundle. We got a very HILARIOUS family picture of us looking like the gigantic marshmallows, but it's on my dad's camera. In the meantime, below is a picture of Jamie in her "under" layers after the second game. We had to unlayer in the car so we wouldn't suffocate. ;) 

We figured out that we drove 28 hours over this past weekend to see two soccer games and hang out with family. We left on Saturday morning at 4 a.m. and I got back to Muncie at midnight on Sunday... my parents got back at 2:30 a.m. However, we all decided that we would do it again in a heartbeat!! (But maybe not EVERY weekend! hehe)

Flowers!

When we had all that company I splurged on a fall bouquet for our coffee cart. Thankfully, they are still beautiful! I have been enjoying their company! :)

Fall or Winter?... Finter! or is it Wall?

Indiana has confused seasons. This tree in our backyard refuses to drop all of it's leaves, yet yesterday I raked under it while it was snowing. hmmmmm...

More pics

Part of the fun of the Mast visit was visiting Carter at work. The kids got to run around in the field house and take turns catching the football while diving into the high jump/pole vault pits. Levi had fun making faces through the nets, and Maddie joined him. The phone's camera doesn't have a flash though, so it was hard to capture his cuteness :)

Toby and Josiah wrestling on the mats.

Evie eating her lollipop.

MMMMMMM... post raking hot chocolate.

Post nap cuteness.

Giggling with Uncle Carter.

Maddie and Kristie have birthdays coming up, so we sang an inspiring

rendition of Happy Birthday

Many hands make light work...

One of my favorite childhood memories is when my Mom and Grandma Mouw would make homemade applesauce in the fall. Grandma Mouw would bring bushels of Michigan Apples, and they would get to work. I would come home for lunch and come home from school to the smell of cooking and pressed apples. YUMMY. In that process, inevitably, my Grandma would at some point say, "Many hands make light work."

Well, such was the case yesterday. Carter and I were blessed by the visit of my sister and her family. All seven of them were here for two nights! What a blast. Yesterday, Maddie and Josiah wanted to jump in the leaves. We got the kids to bag the leaves too by bribing them with hot chocolate (it rained mid-raking, making them less desirable to jump in). In all, 20 bags were filled with leaves, and the majority of the leaves were picked up. There are still leaves on the tree, but this was a TREMENDOUS start! THANK YOU!! Not only do many hands make light work, but many hands make fun work!

This picture is the initial race of, "First one to fill their bag gets extra marshmallow fluff!" Josiah, the ultimate competitor, was the winner.

The girls all had pink coats. Here Evie is helping her mom.

Toby got extra fluff for staying out the latest and helping us finishing the job.

Here are Maddie and Kristie stuffing the bag full! Maddie got extra fluff for filling the most bags... 9 out of 20 total!! She is the endurance/determined competitor in the crew. She is also compassionate, suggesting that Toby get the extra fluff for helping despite the younger crew going in because of being cold!

Josiah being silly.

Evie was my helper for a while.

Kristie sitting in the leaves with the girls.

Kristie, Maddie and Toby finishing the job. 

lost

I lost my camera, and therefore my postings have diminished. But don't worry, my Phone is taking over until I find it :)

My Mom, Dad and Eleanor came and visited Carter and me last night/this morning... fun times. Carter had to be at school to get ready for his game, but the rest of us ate a "summery" dinner of hamburgers, corn on the cob, grilled veggies and salad, and then we headed over to Carter's game. 

Eleanor wasn't too excited about the game, but there were things that kept her occupied...

1. Playing "Hair Salon" (Note the jewel in my hair)

2. Asking questions about lots and lots of things

3. Going on a walk around the stadium at half-time

4. Looking for Uncle Carter during timeouts 

5. Watching the different sets of cheerleaders (dancers and traditional) during time outs

6. Running away from Charlie the Cardinal, Ball State's Mascot... she was NOT a fan! (see him conducting below)

7. Screaming every time the buzzer went off... it was loud!

8. Hair Salon Round 2... I kept my hair like that until we got home so Uncle Carter could see it. I am not going to lie, she did a pretty good job! AND, it felt like a head massage... double bonus!

It was so fun to have them here for a bit!

Sunday Sunday Sunday

I got to hang out with Chicago family Sunday night. Natalie, Andrew, Eleanor, Ezra and Maria joined us at mom and dads for dinner. 

Eleanor showing off the adhesive gemstones that Aunt Jamie and I gave her for her birthday. She turned them into stick on earrings... the best! There is also a trend that when one is sitting on the lap, the other one does too :)

We also did some singing and piggy back riding. My favorite was pretending to be the magic carpet in Aladin and singing "I can show you the world," to her.

BINGO! The old bingo set is so old, that we use old valentines day candies to mark our numbers :)

Birds eye view

Ezra pretending to play as well :)

WAAAAAAAY too much fun...

Yesterday I drove up to Chicago to meet up with some college buddies. Kronner (Sarah Kron), Clummer (Jen Clum), Jfer or Jbomb or just Bomb (Jennifer Finell), Megan and Kron's friend Ellie (from Minnesota). Ellie was such a good sport because half the time she had no idea who or what we were talking about, and the other half of the time she was listening to Kron tell a story she had heard about (on average) 4 times. :) I had lots of fun meeting her though!

We stayed up until 2 a.m. catching up and being silly. I am pretty sure I haven't laughed that hard for that long in a REALLLLLLY long time. My stomach hurt by the time we went to bed! 

Not only did we get to hang out, we also grabbed some some Giordano's (Chicago Style Pizza), went to the women's soccer game at Wheaton and caught up with our old coaches, and we are going to go to Egglectic for breakfast. But mostly we just got to laugh and catch up and have fun. Good times :)

THE CHURCH PEW PICTURES

Ellie, Sarah, me and Jennifer... somehow Jennifer missed the memo on when we were supposed to pretend we were seriously listening to a sermon, and when we were supposed to smile for the camera :) I also like how Ellie is holding the pumpkin like it is a child!

COUCH PHOTO SHOOT

Me, Sara, Ellie and Jen

normal...

goofy....

and still goofy! Not much has changed!!

THE PYRAMID PICTURES

just to make us feel athletic again, and not "has beens!"