Fun with the babysitters

Streeter and Sterling came over this morning to watch the kids while Greg and I worked in the basement. It was so nice to have them help out! Sterling and Zachary
Hannah and Ellie had fun plastering Streeter with stickers.

Streeter and Sterling with all of the kids. Can you guess who did most of the work!?!? Just kidding...they did a great job! Thanks for all of the help, boys!

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas this year. The kids were so excited to open their presents! It was so much fun to watch their excitement over even the simplest gifts! Here are a few pictures of our day!

Christmas Eve with the Safly's

We had such a good time celebrating Christmas Eve this year with our good friends, the Safly's. The kids spent most of the afternoon chasing each other around while the adults played a few hands of our favorite game, Hand and Foot. After a supper of appetizers, we got ready to go to the Christmas Eve service at our church.

Before the service, we got a few pictures of the kids all dressed up in their Christmas outfits.It was impossible to get a picture of all of the kids...it's pretty crazy when we are all together, but I guess that's what makes it so much fun!Wow! Did we actually get a good family picture!?! Seems like that never happens these days!Mark, Melanie, Alaina, and PaigeAfter the Christmas Eve program, we went back to Mark and Melanie's house. We had everyone open one present. Everyone got a new pair of pajamas! The kids were so excited to wear their new footie jammies!Melanie and I surprised Greg and Mark and got them matching jammies(of course we had to get ugly ones, too)! Priceless! We laughed so hard at the thought of them with their matching pajamas!
They were great sports and humored us by putting on their matching pajamas and posing for a picture...I think this will be great blackmail material for years to come!Melanie and I got some pajamas, too!
Here is a picture of our whole family in their new pajamas. We had a great time laughing (a lot), playing, and celebrating the birth of Jesus. What a great way to spend Christmas Eve!

Bible Study Christmas Party

We had our annual Bible Study Christmas party last weekend. We began the night with caroling at a local nursing home. It is always so much fun for the kids (and adults)! After caroling, we went to Pizza Ranch to eat and open presents. When we got to Pizza Ranch, we found out they were closed due to plumbing problems! We were so thankful to the Brusegaard family for opening up their home to 30 hungry people!!!

We began the night with the kids' gift exchange. The kids drew names and exchanged gifts with each other. The rule was that they had to find something from their home to give. Paige had Hannah's name, and she went a little crazy! Hannah loved her presents!!! I think she probably had about 30 gifts in one bag! Thanks, Melanie...I bet your toy room is a little easier to pick up now! :)The adults also brought white elephant gifts from their homes. I ended up drawing this matching bowl and cup. Isn't it beautiful!?!I think Trevor and Jen brought the most random gift...boxes of AstroTurf!

Look at all of those kids! Our Bible study has 17 kids and 13 adults! Thanks again, Connie, for opening up your home to all of us! What great memories!

Playing in the Snow

Once again, I thought I would get a really good picture of the kids playing in the snow together...maybe not! Zach was fine until he tried to crawl and his hand touched the cold snow. Obviously he HATED it! Ellie tried to make a snowball, but the snow didn't stick at all. She still had fun throwing the snow at me, though. Hannah's favorite thing to do was to make footprints in the snow.

After Zach and I went inside, Hannah and Ellie played for quite a while in the back yard. They had fun chasing eachother around, making snow angels, and making footprints and handprints in the snow. It was so sweet to watch them play so well together! When they came back inside, we all sat down to a nice hot cup of hot chocolate! What a fun day!

Glace Family Christmas

Last weekend we went to my parents house to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. It was so much fun to get everyone together again! We have quite the housefull of kids when we all get together...6 kids 4 years old and under!!!
Zach and Boaz trying to get into the Christmas tree...those two are quite the pair!

Katie and Nolan brought their Wii. Hannah loved trying to play MarioCart with Grandpa! It was so much fun to watch her try to play. She really gets into anything she sees on TV. It was quite funny to watch her duck and cover her eyes any time she ran into anything (which was pretty much all of the time!).

Ellie and Blake had fun coloring with Grandma. It was so much fun to watch them interact together!

This was Zach's first time "opening" presents. He pretty much tried to eat the wrapping paper the whole time!

Hannah was so excited about opening presents this year! I think she had just as much fun handing out the presents as she did opening them. We have had a blast this week playing with all of her new fun toys. She was so excited to get a REAL camera!I love this picture of Ellie opening one of her presents...she is so expressive! She was absolutely thrilled to get a bib for a doll! The next present she opened was a little high chair for her dolls. She has such an active imagination and has spent most of her time this week playing "mommy." On Sunday, the kids got to wear their Christmas outfits to church. Doesn't he look handsome!?!

We tried to get a nice little picture of the kids all dressed up. Well, as you can see that didn't work very well. I guess this picture pretty much shows you what our lives are like these days!

Decorating the Tree

Ellie tried so hard to put up an ornament by herself, but she kept dropping it. She ended up pointing to where she wanted each ornament, and then I put them up for her.

Hannah was so excited to put ornaments on the tree this year. She actually did a pretty good job of spreading them out, too!

Zach was pretty entertained by the decorating of the tree. Ellie thought he wanted her to sit with him in the exersaucer.

The finished product! We have had a lot of fun looking at our tree this year. Hannah and Ellie like to play "find the ornament" with Greg every night. Hannah also likes to bring her pillow and blanket into the living room every morning so she can lay next to the tree for a while before everyone else wakes up.