Now to decorate the tree...

After we got the tree in, it was time to decorate... we were so excited! The boys wanted their best buddy Roni to come over and help, cause well, she joins us for every thing that is fun! So we all decorated. :)

This is Matthew's favorite ornament, my parents got it for him when he was born.

Daniel just played with these beads the entire time, it was hilarious! He didn't care about the tree itself after he found those stringed beads! He's a wild one, that boy is!

Halfway through out decorating session, Matthew disappeared. He comes back as Santa... he is outgrowing the outfit, so he substitutes different pieces from other outfits. We had made this sort of puppet of Santa a few nights ago, he put it up to his face, like it was his "mask"! He loves to pretend and be creative! :)

The beautiful tree! The ornaments have all moved up the tree, as Daniel's curisoity and boldness grows. Yesterday he tried to take off a whole strand of lights! Ah, careful little guy! We are just loving this season. Tomorrow we are gonna go to my mom and dad's for a Christmas boat show on the Columbia river, and some cookie baking time! Oh, the fatness of it all! Yum! Hope you are having some fun times and creating beautiful, fun memories!

Getting the Christmas Tree!!! YAY!

This year, we chose to go to the Kiwanis stand for our tree... beautiful trees and no mess! Love it, the least amount of stress the better! We got a beautiful noble fir, it is beautiful! Matthew chose the tree, he was the boss about it! We were all just along for the ride! Ha!

I think that this one is the best~!

It's a good one. We all agreed on one! Daniel and his constant buddy, "CHEETAH" even went with us to check out the trees!

Telling jokes!

I just had to share this little story of Daniel and our family...

Daniel, Matthew, Steve and I have had this ongoing thing lately, that when we sit down to dinner Matthew tells us knock-knock jokes! The other day, we are sitting down for dinner and Daniel says and signs "Knock-knock!" we all are like okay... "who's there?" we all ask back. Daniel says, "G!" And we say, "G WHO?" he laughs so hard and says, " G,G,G,G,G!" It was so stinkin' hilarious, like he totally had the flow and timing down of the whole thing! It was so cute! HA!

This is Daniel after I gave him a "big boy" haircut... ummmm... after I did it, I was like, ooooo, he looks so much older now... didn't really love that! :( what do you do? :)

Asking for your prayers...

I just wanted to ask a simple request for prayers for my younger sister Tiel. Next Wednesday she is having an angiogram done on her brain. Well, it is hard to explain, it is an Dural Arteriovenous Fistulae. She has had this issue for some time, it causes really weird sounds, like swooshing in her head, bad headaches, she has migraines very often, poor thing. This DAVF needs to be repaired, they think with the embolization process that they have done for the vessels in her lungs that are also affected by HHT. She is thinking of having the surgery AFTER the holidays, it is about one night in the hospital, so that is good. :)

We appreciate your prayers and thanks for your support!

God bless!

Getting into the Christmas swing of things...

The other day we set to work putting the lights up on the house! So fun! We started by taking out all our lights, lining them up and seeing what we had to work with. I started by twisting them all over the porch and poles. While I did that our neighbor comes over and says, Hey Steve, do you need some help? Of course! He helped by holidng the ladder and keeping Steve alive for us! Ha! Daniel helped me sort the lights, Matthew carried them all over the place. Then all the neighborhood kids came to watch, then they all got in on a game of intense tag while we were working. There were about 10 kids running around us, it was so fun, they were so excited for our lights to go up. Right now we are the only ones on our block to have them,

so it was quite an event for all the kids to see!

Daniel helping out!

So delighted!


Steve, our neighbor Frank and Kenny, our neighborhood helpers! Kenny is a good boy, he wants to help anytime we are out in the yard, he is 8 and quite the kid! We love our neighborhood, all the neighbors are so great, we all hang out cause our kids hang out! We are truly blessed!

Thanksgiving Feast and get together!

Thanksgiving started out gorgeous and didn't stop... my grammy's entire family rented the Quincy Grange for our family's meal together. It was so fun! We all brought different food, there was sooooo much food! Yummy! So easy too, you only had to worry about your one thing to bring. :) My grammy's brother and sister-in-laws, and all the kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. Not everyone can make it, but there was a total of about 50 people. It was really a nice time to visit, we hadn't seen some in over 10 years... what a blessing to be together. Here are some fun shots of the day... Steve "trying" to get a picture with the boys, there was a lot of other kids, so they were running around like crazy! They had a blast together!

left to right: Steve Kreins (our fam calls him Little Steve), Steve Wynkoop (my mom's sister Kelly's hubby), Kelly Wynkoop (my moms sister), Sig Wynkoop, Sharrie Kreins, in the background, Deb Neiman (my moms sister) and Melissa Bosell (Deb's daughter) playing Yahtzee!

My little cousins, Kiefer Westlund (Tom and Tina's son), Sig Wynkoop (Steve and Kelly's son), Gena Wynkoop (Steve and Kelly's daughter) and Kyler Westlund (Tom and Tina's son) just hanging out, they were so much fun. They all stayed at our house this year, what a blast seeing these kids hang out together and love on each other... I can tell you one thing, 15 and 30 have a ton of difference when it comes to how much sleep you need!
I am not so young anymore! HA!


THE GIRLS!
Grammy Doris Neiman, Tina Westlund (Neiman), Deb Neiman, Jo Messenger (Neiman), and Kelly Wynkoop (Neiman)

Yah, stuffing our faces, Sharrie, Kelly, and Tina! YUMMY!

Steve and his cousin Luis Perez. Luis is stationed at Ft. Lewis Washington with the army and he has joined us for at least the past 3 years for Thanksgiving!

Our family loves having him with us to celebrate!

OK, something is so crazy and awesome about this! My grammy is 78 and she never stops! I soooo pray that I have her genes, God please let me have as much energy and spunk as she does. She was there from like 7 a.m. she was at my house at 6:45 to get the roaster from me, then she went to cook! Then she was one of the last ones out of there at like 6ish!

It was such a great idea to have it somewhere else, all those people to help clean up too, it was so nice and easy, no one had to have all the mess at their house! We than proceded to our house to hang out and live it up! We had a stinkin' blast together! I love my family so much, they are the best, thank you Lord for them~! God bless!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving all! We have so much to be thankful for! Can you believe all the things that we have to be thanking God for! I pray that you will have the opportunity to be with your family and friends and be blessed today! Never take one day for granted... we are but a vapor of air, here and gone... we never know if we even have tomorrow! Isn't that the way to live? Like today is the last!

God bless you today... I am gonna go stuff my face! Ha!