Our shepherd and angel take stage

We had the Children's Christmas program scheduled for last Sunday, but alas, all church services in the surrounding area were canceled due to severe weather (the roads were sliiiick with ice)!!  So today, a few days after Christmas, we enjoyed the program at church.  Micah is the shepherd on the far left in sea foam green, ;-) and Joy is the smallest angel front and center (her first Christmas performance). :-)

Pastor's wife and student playing for the offertory

Family Snow Time ;-)

Yikes - it's been awhile since I've been here on this bliggity-blog. I have a number of photos I've been meaning to post throughout December, but wow, the time just flew by with holiday prep/festivities and home schooling. I want to get some more pics up soon, but for now here's a little snapshot of some fun in the snow yesterday.

Goodbye, oak leaves, see you falling again next fall.

It's that time again - hauling out our leaf bags to the curb (just shy of 60 this year).  Mr. Van is thankful to be sleeping in his garage again; he had to hand it over to the fall foliage weeks ago...

Thanksgiving Day!!

We had a FABULOUS Thanksgiving Day yesterday.  For starters, we already have snow and Micah is LOVING it.  He's been shoveling, snowball-making and sledding for the past couple days - nearly living outside.  He tells just about anyone that it's his favorite season, he is so excited for snow.  For our Turkey feast, we went to Brad and DeeDee's (they were the gracious hosts this year). 

Picnic breakfast to let daddy and Uncle Luke sleep in longer :-)

Prepping our part of the meal - deviled eggs, yams, green beans/bacon

Micah in his element!

G'ma and baby blueberry

Yes, she is made of "sugar and spice and everything nice"

Papa carving the turkey

Micah with baby bumblebee

Joy loves her baby cousins

Delicious feast!

Joy loves her DeeDee too!

Enjoying some new books from Papa and Mama

DeeDee's apron :-)

They LOVE being read to

Tired Joy bear when we got home...

Homemade Ice Cream

This week we were learning about ice cream, so we of course had to make our own homemade batch!  I found a quick how-to guide online, and after reading a good selection of books about the topic from the library, we whipped up a batch (add ingredients, shake-shake-shake, and eat - yummy).

A New Park

Last week on the way home from church Scotty spotted a small park off the main road.  So after lunch, nap times and some light work at home, we went back that evening for a quick playtime before the sunset.  Just before leaving the house, Joy did a potty break all by herself (big girl)!  Upon parking the van and walking to the park I turned around to see Joy trailing me and there was something dangling around her ankle. I near busted a gut laughing when I realized her underpants had made their way down her pant leg!  After resolving the issue, we all enjoyed time getting some energy out, and even daddy proved to be quite the climber.

Raking and Reading

This weekend we jumped into our annual fall clean-up (raking oodles of leaves).  The tikes took occasional breaks while daddy and mommy did most of the work. ;-)

Micah in mid-jump