December celebrations

Well, I am playing catch up on our family happenings.  We'll see how much I get done today.  God has been so good to us.  We are enjoying this crazy life with a house full!  I live mostly by what is right in front on me so blogging has not been a priority.  I want to try to get a little more regular with it as it really helps me and keeps those of you far away in touch with our family.
I'll let the pictures tell the stories from these exciting celebrations in December.

We enjoyed another beautiful Christmas dance celebration in early Dec.  Here are Abby and Rachel in their costumes.  It was a special performance for our family.  Abby had a ballet solo and Rachel danced her first dance 'en pointe.' 

Micah was also in the ballet performance this year.  Late into the semester, he was asked to be the "boy Jesus."  He had a small solo part, which he loved!!  You can see the proud smile on his face.

The same day as the performance, we were part of a craft sale .  CRAZY!  But worth it!  Rachel had the idea to bake goodies and sell them at the annual craft sale in our small town.  She wanted to raise money for Casa de Fe, a children's home in Ecuador run by one of CornerStone's missionaries.  So along with ballet rehearsal's we spent the week making pumpkin bars, cookies, granola, cupcakes and other goodies, along with friendship bracelets.  We had fun as a family and raised a good sum of money, too!

Here are the four boys with their Christmas nutcrackers.  Grandma Trimble sent these to the the girls, but the boys loved them so much that the girls shared them. 

Micah was so happy to get these two Black Stallion movies for Christmas!

My parents were able to come up for a few days before Christmas and we really enjoyed spending time with them. Here is one of the gifts they brought along.  Nathanael is riding on his rocking horse.

Also in December we get to celebrate Keenan's birthday.  He had a "hunting" party theme this year.  This is his camo ice cream cake.

We did a relay race with hunting clothes for our first game.  This was after  they had target practice with their dart guns. :)

Next we played dodge ball- hunters against "deer."  These are the deer for the first round.  See their antlers??  Abby is far left and Micah is in the middle.  The others are friends that we are glad God brought into our lives.