Many bucks are breathing a sigh of relief as they are safe from the bullet for yet another year. This deer, however was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is now bologna in our freezer! Ryan shot this deer during muzzloader season....I think it was number 7 for the year and I believe he is done but the season does go until the end of January so I never can tell!

Casey's Birthday

I can't believe that Casey turned 5 last week! In the fall he will be off to kindergarten. He will always be my little boy though. He is still very sweet and innocent. Many days are spent as some kind of ferocious animal. Lately he has taken on the role of Travis, his favorite person on his new favorite movie, Old Yeller. Ryan got it for him for his birthday and I think he has watched it every day since. He likes to quote things from the movie now....today is was a saying by the mom, "If you do that I'm going to switch you good!". Another one of his favorite lines is said by Travis when his horse does something silly. Since Casey doesn't have a horse to say it to he says it to us when we do something silly, for just no reason at all. You could just be sitting at the table and he'll say..."Jumpa you jughead!" I'm already amazed at how much of the movie he has memorized.

Thursday was Casey's birthday and we headed to Chuck E. Cheese with Koby, Braidon, Jacob, and Audrey (That took some convincing as he was pretty sure this was to be a no girls allowed party!). Anyway, we had fun playing and then enjoyed some cupcakes for dessert. My parents came in for the weekend so we had a grandparents party on Saturday evening. We had Casey's requested supper of hamburger gravy and mashed potatoes, green beans and fresh fruit. Presents were next on the agenda and then the cake and homemade ice cream. Mom and I spent a great deal of time eariler in the day designing the pens for the many animals on the cake. As goofy as it looked Casey thought it was great! The rest of the night was history because we all sat down and watched Old Yeller. Casey was glued to the T.V. and asks to watch it every day. I'm already getting tired of the movie and it's a little over a week old!

Beautiful Audrey

As I was cleaning things up a bit in the bathroom, Audrey came in and asked "Can I do my hair pretty like Ava?" So here is the Ava inspired hairdo. (Ava is Audrey's friend and she loves to look at pictures of her on the family blog. Last month sometime she did her hair in barettes simialar to this new hairdo of Audrey's). Also on the note of Ava, whose favorite movie is The Wizard of Oz, Audrey has recently come to love watching The Wizard of Oz. She can actually be kind of scary when she laughs like the mean green witch!

Snow Day with the Cousins

I'm so happy for this snow. If it's going to be cold we might as well have some fun stuff to play in. Friday I had promised Casey and Audrey that Taelor and Braidon could come play and maybe go sledding. Instead it was a snow day and Koby and Cierra came as well. What a production that was getting 6 kids dressed to go play in the snow and even more of a production to get all that wet stuff off without a pile of snow all over my floor! But it was worth the hassle. Ryan was home so they were thrilled to have the 4wheeler hooked up for rides. They did some sledding too. I spent most of my time trying to make sure kids didn't get too cold, changing gloves because hands were cold, breaking up fights, and deciding who was going for the next ride. After our fun in the snow we went inside to get warmed up and of course that meant hot chocolate for everyone. We had hot chocolate and watched Jungle book to settle down.

New Years Weekend

Casey and his new castle

Audrey modeling some new dress up clothes.

Our best shot at the whole Dean Kauffman Gang. Some were happier than others to be taking pictures! None of the kids look too happy but in their defense they had taken quite a few shots prior to the whole group one!

We had decided that we would spread things out a bit and wait to do Christmas with my side of the family until New Years weekend. (So Thursday night New Years Eve) we had decided not to stay out until midnight so we could get the kids to bed at a decent time and not start out the trip with tired kids. We got home shortly after 10 to put them to bed. Friday morning we headed to Indiana to celebrate Christmas with the whole clan. Last year we were not all together at one time so this is the first time the three youngest cousins have all been together. It was a little chaotic with 8 kids all 6 and under but the more the merrier right? We arrived Friday night in time to watch the Buckeyes game and mostly just visited. Saturday we had an adult only breakfast while the neighbor girls came and watched the little ones. It was so nice and relaxing. We took our time getting home and then opened presents with the kids. Casey and Audrey were thrilled with their presents. Casey got a castle that he has already played with for hours. The neat thing about it is that it's all homemade out of materials around the house. I'm afraid to ask how long it took to make it but he loves it! He wants to make more pens for some of his animals to stay in the castle. Good rainy (or snowy) day project! Audrey got a box full of dress up clothes. She was very excited about her clothes and it worked out perfectly because some of the clothes are too big for her but they fit her cousins perfectly so when they come over they have something to wear too. Chelsea was not all that into Christmas this year and as a matter of fact she didn't even join us for the celebration there. She was much more thrilled to take a nap than to open a present! The kids spent the afternoon playing with their toys and then we went to Brad and Steph's house for supper. All the kids went to bed there and the adults stayed up way too late playing Cranium. Mom and dad always make for some good laughs. The best one of the evening was mom acting out Death Valley. I think we were all crying we were laughing so hard. Sunday we decided to get the kids out a little bit and headed over to a local motel with a pool. The kids swam and then we had our supper there. By the time we left we had some very tired kiddos (and adults)! Off to bed we went. Monday morning we left to come back home but we made a stop at Cabelas in Dundee Michigan. The kids loved it. It was Chelsea's first time there and I'm not sure she really knew where to look. As we walked through the fish aquarium she would say "A bish" over and over and over again. Then it was home sweet home....at about 6 that evening. It was a good trip but it's always good to be back in your own bed and have a little bit of a routine.

Christmas Celebration

Casey, Koby, and Braidon with their new remote control cars.

Audrey and Cierra model their new robes from Grandma Syl.

Notice Audrey is not in the picture! That's two years in a row we have tried. Do we try again next year? Third time is a charm right?

Oh where to start with all the Holiday fun and festivities! Guess we'll start with Christmas Eve. Ryan's Yoder side of the family has a big get-together Christmas Eve so we headed to Bethany Church for that. We had wonderful food and just sat and visited while the kids enjoyed playing in the gym. When we came home we were ready to hit the hay for the night. We had promised the kids that we could sleep by the tree so earlier in the day we made all our beds. Ryan and Audrey were planning to sleep on the floor and Casey and I were planning to sleep on the two couches. A couple things turned our nice special family night into a "what in the world were we thinking" night. #1 Audrey had taken a nap that day so she wasn't terribly tired and #2 they were just way too excited to be out of their beds and they knew that Christmas was oh so close! We read several books hoping that sleep would settle in quickly. Didn't work too well....I think we switched who was sleeping where about 4 times, got drinks several times, turned various lights on and off because it was too light, then too dark, and went to the bathroom. That was over the course of several hours. Finally at 12:30 when I woke up from a little doze and Audrey was standing up looking at me I told her that we were going upstairs. Casey did fall asleep and made it the rest of the night. Maybe we'll have to rethink that one for next year! They were both pretty tired the next morning. I had to wake Audrey up at about 9:15 to open presents before we went to Steve and Holly's for Christmas breakfast. They opened their presents but didn't have much time to play. After the breakfast we came home and they played for awhile then but both of them were pretty tired and took naps before heading to Jr. and Sylvia's for our celebration over there. We opened presents in the garage and the kids spent a considerable amout of time playing out there with their presents. We had a delicious Thanksgiving meal. By Saturday morning we were all just ready to stay at home in our pajamas and get things sorted out and cleaned up after having several days of crazy schedules. But it was all fun....well, maybe all but our Christmas Eve by the tree!