Make a Joyful Noise

Tricky, trees, birthday, basketball, and Santa

Alright, here we go for December. We've only had 11 days, but the most wonderful time of the year has been busy! 🎅 Our elf came back to visit from the North Pole on Dec. 1st. He left the kids a note out of Fruit Loops and Emerson had several questions for him.

We went to Eby Pines to pick out our Christmas tree and the kids got to visit with Santa. Landon asked for a squishy basketball and a new football.

Emerson asked for Shopkins and American Girl Doll things.

Our perfect tree🎄

The next day (Dec. 4th) was our first good snow. The kids were out long after dark making snowmen and snow forts. They loved it and it was the perfect snow!⛄

We also got to celebrate the greatest guy's birthday!🎈 Matt turned 39 this year. He is such a great leader for our family and we love him a bunch! Emmy and I made him chocolate chip cookies for his birthday. He's also a pretty good sport as he asked Em to get him a hat so I could take pictures for his birthday and this is the one she picked out:

This weekend, we got to go down to Purdue for the Kids Club basketball game. 🏀 We spent the night with the Berger's. The kids get along so well and are always sad when we have to leave.

Before the game, we got to go down and make a fan tunnel for the players.

The girls trying to master the selfie!😜

Decorating our tree:

This morning was the kids' Christmas play at church. They performed "Santa Bowed at Christmas". Emerson was a shepherd and had 2 lines to say.

Landon was a wise man and had 1 line about bringing a football for baby Jesus because he didn't know what myrrh is!

All the kiddos and adults did such a great job. I know it takes a lot of practice and time to put something like this together. It was fun to watch.

Caleb got to meet Santa. He wasn't too impressed!

It's a great start to a great time of year to celebrate!

Our November

While October was crazy busy with every weekend full, November was more calm. Since the Cubs made it to the World Series (and hadn't won in 108 years), they were still playing in November! It was pretty crazy when they won at the end of 7 games! ⚾

It was an election year and people came out in record numbers to vote between two interesting candidates: Donald Trump (R) and Hilary Clinton (D). I waited over an hour to vote and wasn't happy with either choice, but Donald Trump won.

Our local football team was also on a roll. NorthWood was undefeated and made it to play at Lucas Oil Stadium over Thanksgiving Break. We drove down to Indy to watch them play. Unfortunately, they didn't win state, but we had fun hanging out in Indy with everybody. We spent the night with the Hahn's, too.🏈

We got to celebrate Thanksgiving at mom and dads with the Clark's, Hahn's, and Bontrager's. There sure is a lot to be thankful for!!🍗

October Recap

So, yes. I am super far behind on keeping up with my blog. I will warn you that the next couple posts will be long so I can catch up without doing a ton of separate posts. This is only for October! 😁

We had a lot of fun over Fall Break this year. Unfortunately, Matt's break was a little different so we had a day without Dad. Emerson LOVES make up and I don't usually let her play with it. So she was super excited when I agreed to a make over. 😀

She and Landon also played school together for quite awhile. A day of no school...let's play...school!

We also got out the pumpkin carving kit and since it was raining, lots of newspapers! 😃

Landon HATES this part!!😝

They did most of it by themselves. Landon drew his own face and Emmy wanted an emoji with hearts for eyes.

Matt and I also got to get away a little over Fall Break. Thanks to grandparents and Steven and Kristina! We went to a suburb of Chicago and did some shopping at an outlet mall, ate at a winery, and since the Cubs were one game away from getting to the World Series, went to a bar to enjoy the game with some locals! :) It was nice to have some time away together. But we only took 1 picture!

Pictures from my 38th birthday:

We got to return the favor and watch Caleb for the night. We had a great time. But since he was getting up around 5:30 am....we may wait awhile to watch him again over night!! 😴

He loves his "Nanan" and "Meme".

Our Boilermaker Kids Club football game was at the end of October, which I was originally bummed about because I figured it would be cold or rainy. But we got to go on a gorgeous day! The sun was shining and we were actually sweating in the stands. The football team is MISERABLE so the game wasn't too great. But we had a good time with the Bergers and Rummels in the stands.