Thursday, December 24, 2015

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, Mitchell invited us all over to his house for supper. 
He's quite the cook you know...for real.
We had barbeque...ribs and brisket. Both really good. Baked beans, potato salad, lettuce salad, and bread.
As an added bonus, he has plenty of toys for all the kids and adults to enjoy.



Attempting a cousin picture, in their fancy coordinating clothes.


We all went to the Christmas Eve church service at Whitestone.
Prior to going to putting the boys to bed, they had a frosted sugar cookie, that they had helped make.





Christian took our picture using the "big" camera...it isn't the clearest, but that's just fine.


After the boys were in bed, I went over to Mom and Dad's to play cards for a bit with Mitch, Tim & Carissa, and Mom/Dad. Ben was gracious to let me have fun :)

Our Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Hershberger boys!


We celebrated our Christmas on Christmas Eve day. 
We had haystacks for lunch (that seems to be a family favorite for all of us to enjoy). Ben read Humphrey's First Christmas (the Christmas story told in the eyes of the camel Humphrey), and then we opened presents.

Jonah did not care about the "opening" part of the presents. If there was something small he could rip apart that was fine, otherwise he wanted them opened for him. Primarily, he was interested in getting into things (nativity characters are scattered throughout the house...as they are at Grandma's house!).


 Christian opened a minion stocking hat and new lunch box from Noah.

We gave Noah a carnival set of Magnaformers.

A family gift was this super large and SUPER soft blanket.



 And the very last present was for Christian....a very large box of Legos. There were an assortment of things in there, but ALOT nonetheless. A woman at work had said her son doesn't play with them anymore, and I was quite excited about that!! Christian and Noah were pretty excited...well, I think Daddy said he was equally as excited to get to play with all of them. The rest of the afternoon, they were busy busy busy, constructing all kinds of things!


JOY!
Grateful for Jesus, the greatest gift of all. 
Because of Him, we get to celebrate...and that is just awesome.


Family times

Christian and Noah love to frost AND eat Christmas sugar cookies...
this was about all the fun Christmas baking we did (and we barely had enough time for that!). 

Wednesday evening, Grandpa and Grandma Sweigart and Jim & Cindy, came to Mom and Dad's for supper. We were also invited.


Then, Grandma Sweigart gave the great-grandchildren the blankets she had made. 
Christian's has a fox and bird, with the letters to show how to spell the out (very fitting for him right now), Noah's was a minion blanket (also very fitting), and Jonah's was Thomas the train (anything is good for him!)...they were all very soft and nice.



Over the course of the other days we were around Mom and Dad's house, prior to the actual "Sweigart Christmas" there were enough random pictures I wanted to show. Many of them have a baby in them! She was very well looked after!!





It snowed, probably not enough to go sledding...but I tried. It was SOOOOOO cold, mostly due to the wind blowing. We hung in there for about 10-15 minutes, and then came in to get warm.

These two and all Grandma's snowmen that sing and dance. They love them!

We watched Miracle on 34th Street one night..we all ended up watching it with the kids.


Monday, December 21, 2015

Bringing the Gredlers to KS

First of all, there was a very special event that took place on October 23. Eliana Joy was born to Tim and Carissa...and I am so happy about that! I got to go out to VA and see her now for the first time...and bring her and her siblings...and her mama back to Kansas for Christmas! (Tim flew out a little bit later due to work...and he'll drive back with them.)


I flew out on Thursday. On Friday, we ate breakfast at The Little Grill (yum!) and in the afternoon we watched the Christmas program at the bigger kids school. Wow, they really do alot of entertaining (both students and teachers!). That evening, Darren joined us for supper and I got to hold Eliana in between times as much as possible. She is such a good baby!!





Saturday morning, we left bright and early to head to Kansas. Carissa has obviously traveled with children, she has a system..and it works. Those kids did so well! As in unbelievable..I think I'm still in shock that Eliana didn't cry a ONCE that was outside of being hungry that we stopped and then was fine for another 3 hours. The older kids were all SOOOOO excited that they were getting to go to Kansas.




Crazy coincidence...Brent and Alyssa's family were traveling to PA for her family Christmas the same day we were driving to KS. We had called about 10 minutes prior to this picture...and realized we were that close to each other. A pit stop at this parking lot next to the interstate...and we got to see each other! It was Maddox's 12th Birthday :)



We ended up driving straight through...per everyone's request! We got home around 1:45 am on  Sunday, and were ready for some sleep. 
I was glad I got to go!!

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Tis the Season

There has been just a variety of things going on this month, and I haven't done such a wonderful job of staying on top of writing things down. Jonah and Noah both are just changing so much everyday! Jonah is learning new words every week and DAILY gets better at getting into things.
Noah is just becoming a running commentary for EVERYTHING. He makes sense of things I would totally not think he would notice. And he's SUCH a goof ball. I can't possibly remember all the funny things he says, which makes me sad, but while I'm in the moment of hearing it....he sure does make me laugh!


So here's a look at the randomness in December so far...

Jonah was put in the Santa boot at Uncle Mitch's house. We went over there for soup...and oooohhhhh he made good soup (Chicken Wild Rice and an Italian Sausage something)! It was a soup day as it was very icy, church had been cancelled that morning due to the ice.



I came home from work, to several caution signs taped to the floor...written by Christian.
He loves to clean, and he had scrubbed the floors.

Signs read (well, I'm sure its obvious...but just in case):
"Everyone, Christian has made a slippery floor"
"People, Christian made the floors wet"

Oh, this made my night! I just love his genuineness, willingness to help clean, and his desire to read/write. You can literally see him learning as he does it.



Daddy helped Christian build his own stable/manger out of popsicle sticks and hot glue.

Prior to going in the jogging stroller, this two just took a leisurely stroll...holding mitten hands.


This poor fella had a virus, that was passed around among the three boys of varying levels. It took some time, but my goodness, the poor little guy just seems so little and needy when he is sick. I don't mind the extra snuggles.

Again, the struggle bus came and Jonah had climbed into this drawer and then had a HUGE problem when he couldn't get out. He did this more than once. This was following my attempts to keep him away from me loading the dishwasher. He is FAST and sneaky...I have to be a lot more agile than one would typically think necessary for the 'simple' task of loading dishes.

There were several really warm days, that we could be outside to play.
Now that Jonah is bigger, he just thinks he is pretty great in getting around ALL over outside too. He takes off down the driveway to the road, midway he'll turn around to check if we're watching and then resumes at the fastest pace he can manage.


 Group effort chalk "Frosty"

Noah had his routine eye appt. He will be getting new glasses since his prescription changed. While we were trying on glasses, we tried out these sweet shades. Oh man, they were SO cute.

Jonah and Christian playing on the floor in front of the tree. Christian is one of Jonah's favorite people. And he soaks up any playful moments Christian has to offer. I love it when Jonah walks up to him and says, "tik-a-tik-a-tika" (tickle-tickle)...and then takes his chubby little hands and opens and shuts them on his hair.

Our own concert pianist...Noah.
This is the night he wanted to try on his fancy Christmas clothes...and then he wanted to play the piano. He is just quite the guy.

Christmas is in the air.
Decorations are up, cookies have been made, advent calendars have been opening, Bible stories have been being told, and presents are bought (but need to be wrapped!)