After a long trip in the car (which went very well)...we found our way to Deckerville and we are so happy to be here. The kids were so excited to see their cousins and lots of snow.Here are my brothers and sisters - definitely a full house, but we do have loads of fun.

And of course you can't leave out the grandkids. On Christmas eve, the kids opened one present (the boys got pjs and the girls got dolls). Again, they were so excited to be in Michigan. After the kids went to bed, we (the adults) opened our presents. Then on Christmas morning, we let the kids open presents. They all got so many new and fun toys. But the biggest present to everyone was the new pool.Here is Caleb and Chloe enjoying the new indoor pool that my parents put in this fall. I will be sending more pictures and movies of them enjoying the pool. I just wanted to send some pictures of us having fun in Michigan. I hope to send some pictures of opening presents with the Lunn family as well as the McGregor family when I get home. Have a happy new year!!!

Making cookies

Our advent calendar today was to make cookies. So after dinner we made cookies, the kids had a lot of fun rolling out the dough and choosing the cookies that they wanted to cut out. We played Christmas music and just enjoyed each other tremendously.It started to "snow" in the evening and the kids were supposed to be going to bed, but we couldn't help but let them go outside and play, as tired as they were, they had a blast.

On Tuesday, school was cancelled because of the icy roads, so we stayed in and decorated the cookies that we made on Monday. Chloe was very particular with her cookies. She also was very sneaky and ate a lot more than I wanted her to. I should have figured it out when she was being so quiet....
Caleb decorates his spiderman gingerbread man.....I am not sure that one will ever be eaten......

Grandma Lunn came over to decorate her cookies with the kids as well. We were pretty tired of decorating after almost 2 hours of it.....but boy did we have fun. Can't wait for next year!!!

December fun.....

Well, I can't believe it is almost Christmas...it came up so quickly this year. We have had a pretty good December so far. The kids have enjoyed the advent calendar that we are doing. Each day we have a piece of candy and on some days we have a family activity we are doing . For example on Monday we are going to get ice cream and drive around and look at Christmas lights, Tuesday we are going to make Christmas cookies and take them to some friends, Wednesday we are having a mini Christmas with our cousins Tanner and Tessa, Thursday we are going to the nursing home to visit our adopted resident, Friday is movie night and Saturday Santa is coming. Lots of fun activities that we are doing and the kids get so excited when there is a yellow activity paper in the advent calendar drawer.

Chloe has started potty training a little bit. She is so independent that she doesn't want me to help her at all. One day, she comes running out of the bathroom (no diaper on ) yelling, "I went poop in the toilet!" She was very proud of herself as were we. However, she hasn't pooped since, but peeing has been going pretty well. She is probably going to teach herself and that will be nice and easy for me. I took her picture, but Josh decided that we shouldn't post it...

I ran my half marathon today - no pictures - it was a very windy day, pretty gusty. I am not sure if I am making excuses, but the race was not a great one. I have never ran a race that I just felt yucky the whole race. I can't pinpoint what felt yucky, but it was just not a great race for me. I finished under 2 hours which was my ultimate goal, but I wanted to finish farther under 2 hours than I did. If you are a runner, you know what it is like to have a bad run. I just usually have bad runs at home, not in a race. Oh well, next time.....
We are heading up to Michigan on the 23rd, so we are excited about that. A long road trip is never fun, but we are excited to see my family and hopefully play in the snow.

Here are a couple of pictures just because I know it is more fun to see the pictures than to actually read the posts :)