Starting our Sleigh Ride

"Jingle Bells"

Adoption is one of the best Christmas presents. We are thinking about our 2 children that are not celebrating with us today.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! We love waking up on Christmas morning and relaxing. Darrick made a delicious breakfast and then Micah read us the story of Jesus' birth. We stayed in our pajamas and gathered around the fire to open presents. We are blessed with some wonderful and generous friends who have connections with LEGO and hooked us up with LEGOs for the kids for Christmas. They were a HUGE hit, Thank you so much Kodak family!

And to top it all off we were blessed with FREE bikes for the kids. We spent $0.00 on Christmas this year! God is so good. The kids were very surprised and excited because they do not have bikes.

After lunch we rode bikes and then Naomi and I made Puppy Chow!

Oliver had a nice Christmas nap.

We were also blessed by the Homesley family with AWESOME new Hays shirts! We love them and can't wait to wear them.

We spent a lot of time building and playing with LEGOs.

And we even made our family out of LEGO people.

We hope you each had an awesome day celebrating the birth of our Lord.

Happy 35 to Me!

I can hardly believe that I am 35 today, where does the time go?!

I woke up this morning to find Darrick making me breakfast. Every year for my birthday he makes me french toast. It was delicious, as usual.

We usually go out for Mexican food every year for my birthday but this year we decided to eat lunch at home so Darrick made me a delicious lunch.

Then it was time for cake! He made my favorite-chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. He put 35 candles on and the first ones lit were melting fast as he was lighting the last ones! After a hardy version of "Happy Birthday" we blew out the candles!

I had such a relaxing day. Jacob combed my hair and rubbed lotion on my feet, with Naomi's help. I was able to read and take a nap. I talked to my parents and brothers and got some nice cards from my dear friends.

We went to the Christmas Eve service tonight at First Christian Reformed Church.

Happy Birthday to Me!

"Oh what fun it is to ride, in a two horse open sleigh..."

Yesterday, as an early Birthday present Darrick and the kids took me to Leavenworth. It was a 2 hour drive to the east. It was such a beautiful ride through farmlands, forests and snow covered mountains.

Our first stop was to Eagle Creek Ranch to do something none of us have ever done before. We went for a ride in a two horse open sleigh. It was quite cold but the views were breath taking. We even saw some wild turkeys and sang "Jingle Bells" during our ride. After the ride we were invited by the fire to sip on hot apple cider while we defrosted. This is definitely a tradition that we will do every year at Christmas.

Then after the ride we went to the actual town of Leavenworth. It is a Bavarian themed town that really goes all out for the holidays. They have so many lights, it was awesome. It was a great start to my birthday!

Bellevue Garden D'Lights

Someone recently told us about something we should check out during the holiday season. It is called the Bellevue Garden D'Lights. It is a botanical garden that transforms into a garden of lights at night. It is beautiful and amazing how they make all the flowers out of lights and they are so detailed! They also give each child a map to find certain animal displayed throughout the garden. We found all the animals except 3 geckos. The best part is that it was totally free, we will definitely go back next year!