Christmas and Birthday Pictures

 

Christmas with the Spence's

Grandpa Spence and Noelle

Noelle, with some new accessories from Grandma Spence

Christmas with the Sauder's

Decorating Gingerbread Houses with Grammy Sauder

 

Noelle's 7th Birthday 'cake'

Annual tradition: Birthday Bowling

Brad and Sadie waiting for their turn to bowl

Happy New Year

Happy New Year from the Spence's.

We've been in VA for the past 6 days and did lots of celebrating - 2 Christmas's and Noelle's 7th birthday.  It's always a lot of fun.  Full of laughing and indulging.  Now we're back and ready to settle into our normal routine again.  I have lots of Christmas and Birthday pictures to share on my next post.

No Self-Esteem Issues Here

Oh yes, I have a blog...we've been busy with all things Christmas and a few not-so-festive things like the stomach bug so my blogging has been neglected.

In the past month Noelle has made 2 comments that really capture her current attitude - the word 'princess' comes to mind.

1) We wrote letters to Santa Claus this year.  Not that the girls believe in Santa but it seemed like a festive thing to do and Noelle got to practice her letter writing.  I told her that one of the things she needed to include in her letter was a rating of herself.  She had to tell Santa, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, how good she was this year.  She readily replied, "Oh, I'm a 10!"

2)  I had a parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago and before I left for school I asked Noelle what I should expect her teacher to tell me.  She confidently said "She'll say, 'Noelle's awesome.' and that will be the end."

We've Been Busy

We've had a lot going on at our house since I last blogged.  So here's a quick overview:

First we installed a wall to enclose our basement.  We liked the openness, but this is simply more practical.

Here's a 'before' shot. (ignore the box spring on the right)

This is Brad and Alex McCall after the railing is out

Framing up the wall

Drywall goes up

Mostly complete

I don't have any pictures of the final look.  It's painted with trim around the door, but there are still some trim pieces to install.

Now with an 'extra' room we were ready for company.  Brad's brother, Dave, came out with his family for Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed many fun times...and one trip to the ER that you can read about on my SIL blog.

Noah and Ethan, making a turkey

Buddies; Noelle and Noah

Spence Sandwich

Singing and Dancing

Making a Thanksgiving banner

The 4 cousins: Noah, Ethan, Sadie and Noelle

Noelle reading to Ethan

The kids got along great and it was so fun to hang out with Dave and Elizabeth. Good times.

Pandora

I just love Pandora.  My new favorite station is "Sovereign Grace".   The majority of our worship music on Sunday is from Sovereign Grace Music but I didn't think Pandora would have it...but it does!
It's a great station to listen to to counteract any frustrated moments you may be having with your daily life - I'm guessing you can relate:)

If you're not familiar with Pandora, it's a website that plays music from your computer.  All you do is enter a song or artist that you enjoy and it picks songs that are similar.  Brilliant!