Thanksgiving with family

Avery and Scarlett at Thanksgiving.  Ryan's family rents a "gym type building attached to a comfortable room to sit with a kitchen type facility" each year for Thanksgiving. 

It is just wonderful because the kids can run and play in the gym and the adults can actually carry a conversation.

Logan holding Mr. LJ!

Another party over the holidays was the "Ingold Christmas" - yes Christmas around Thanksgiving!  My dads extended family has been getting together the weekend after Thanksgiving since everyone is in town for the family Christmas party.

Cousins chilling with Uncle Milan

Megan holding her baby brother.

The cousins playing games!

Coloring FUN!!

Scarlett helping little Savannah with her work.  Sometimes its hard to have "lots" of parties but we LOVE our family time and we are so blessed to have this time to fellowship together.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our little Turkey just loves preschool.  She is doing so good in school!  I went the day they had their THanksgiving feast and enjoyed the festivities.

I can't say enough about Sarah, who is the director at Willow's preschool.  She has a heart of gold and loves the Lord.  She is such a blessing to our family as she teaches Scarlett's Sunday School class on Sunday, loves on Willow during the week (although she is not her teacher, she sees her for drop off and pick up) and loved on my Lane during Thanksgiving.  She is pursuing the surrogate route for another family, and has three children of her own.  She is a blessing to so many people and I am honored to know her.

girls just wanna have fun

A weekend of FUN, LOVE and Family!!

Ryan's family is full of fun, so they came down to Cincinnati for a girls get away weekend.  We stayed in on Friday night and went shopping all day Saturday.  I hope to continue this tradition.

No matter the style, shape or size.
No matter the height, wedge or heel
No matter the color, black or white
Relationships are like a pair of heels.
you start off brand new, until you get worn in
they fit just right, you may have a scratch
a bump or a bite
but in the end you depend on the left and the right!

Thankful for the "in-law" family that has been so loving and kind.  I pray continuously for my children and their future spouses, but I also pray for their in-laws as well.

Fun shots

Willow LOVES to line things up!!

She loves to paint and NOT get her picture taken, like ever.  If you tell her to smile for the camera these days, she DISLIKES!

Sweet Nicole Lacy holding our little buckeye, Lane Joseph!!

You should see our Christmas cards we were attempting.  I am thinking that Nana should have actually used this one...its hysterical and tells most of the story!

While I was back in Wayne County, the girls I grew up with in church got together (we do every year for an ornament exchange) and I had to snap this beautiful picture of Amber's cake....YUMMy!!!

Daddy and his girls = LOVE this picture before church.

Year end Upwards

Throughout the fall, Scarlett participated in Upwards Cheer.  It was great to get her involved in something outside of school and we love that scripture is intertwined into the weekly practices and games.

The end of the year awards was very cool, Ryan and I were totally impressed.  The church goes all out in making the kids feeling important and they even cheered on the stage for everyone!

If you have Upwards in your area, you should for sure check it out.  This entire season was based on "RAKES" - they learned about random acts of kindness everyday.  So we have been able to talk about that around the house as well!

Welcome Walter

My oldest sister, Amy had her 8th little baby.  Walter Lee Baltic!  We drove up for the day to visit with them.  It was fun to see how different 10 weeks can be for little babies!  His birthday was on Halloween!

The kids loving on Lane and my girls LOVED driving to spend the day at the Baltics house.  I think its because they always have someone to play with...ha.  Can't wait to see these little guys grow up and enjoy each other as cousins.  You can check out my other sister, Joy's blog which has more pictures of Walter!

Yah for Birthdays!!

Happy Birthday Makynna!!

Having a birthday party at a gymnastics studio is so ideal.  Our girls ran around with their heads cut off and were able to shake off their sillies.

Willow bean on the bar!

Swinging on the rings!

of course birthday girl was LOVING her gifts!!

I grabbed this picture real quick at the end of the party of Scarlett and Madi.  They are both the "oldest" in the family.  What a moving morning.  It has been so fun making memories with this family, as you might remember our babies have the same birthday too! (you can check out our little boys hanging in the hospital at this post)

Pumpkins, Parties and so much more

Carving pumpkins are so much fun!  The girls love to dig into the goo.

Willow stirring her "mixture" of pumpkin seeds.

Great job Daddy and girls!!  Our front porch looks great!!! (notice the grass growing out of the hay bale...ha)

 Willow had "hat" day instead of "Dress up" and she wore the "parrot" hat.

I love going to the parties at school (as a parent). For many years, I was the teacher and so this is such a breath of fresh air.  Love that I could chill with my Willow bean.

This is little Ben in Willow's class, I was friends with his mommy before they ended up in the same class.  The two love to play together.

Then after Willow's party, we were off to Scarlett's fall party!

The kids doing a craft during their Halloween party!!

Our good friends, Anne and Mike  (whose daughter Ariana is in Scarlett's class).  Daddy was reading to their youngest, Aubrey!

Anne helping Ariana with "pin the mouth on the pumpkin."

Scarlett playing the game!

After all the parties, we went to visit Daddy at work....although this isn't Daddy's desk...mmmm, do you know whose this is?

 We went over the the "Ryan's" house for a little fall fun early in the month and she had it decorated so cute!

 The girls loved painting pumpkins at the party too!

Jen had all sorts of activities for the kids, our girls are into crafts so this was perfect!!

This year we decided to be the "Bee Family with the Bee keeper"  Daddy is such a good sport!  We had so much fun and the girls just loved it.  I know I only have so much more time and the "matching stuff" will be out the door.  I will enjoy it while they like to do it! 

I love to bake (not that I can actually do it)!  I love to get on pinterest and get ideas.  Although you could get sick looking on pinterest too.  The ideas are crazy and you feel like its impossible to do all the things on there.  I just made simple cupcakes and then colored the icing and put a candy corn on top!  They were so cute and I really didn't want to eat them.

These were little treats I made for some of the teachers.

I have got to post this on pinterest too!  I used colored chocolate from Michaels.  I put the orange on first and then waited a few hours and put the yellow on them.  I was nervous the marshmallows would go bad, but they didn't.  I had to get rid of them all within days though because I was too nervous they would get super hard and yucky!