Birthday Boy!

Today was my baby's birthday! I can't believe he is 3 years old now. He LOVED his day. He talked about it all day long. He did something naughty and I asked..."Davis, why did you do that?" He replied "I'm just so excited that its my birthday!" Of course he was pretty familiar with the whole present thing. He couldn't wait to get more tonight at his party:)We are so thankful for you Davis!

Yoder Family Christmas

Christmas part 3...

For the last 4 years, Scott's family has had a tradition of heading to Shipshewana for an overnight Christmas in a hotel. The kids look forward to going of course and talk about it all year long (and adults too!). We always eat at Jo Jo's in the Davis Mercantile then spend the evening playing games, eating, swimming and playing basketball and ping pong.

This year it happened to be the annual ice carving competition. Unfortunately for them, it was 63 degrees that day. (Don't worry...it was 35 degrees the next day)

Another annual tradition Grandma and Grandpa started a couple of years ago was a bingo game. It's a combination of bingo and gift stealing:) The gifts this year ranged to a giant chocolate bar to a $5 gift card to the dollar theater! In the end, everyone was happy with the gift they ended up with.




Until next year!

A wonderful day!

My loving hubby got me 2 great presents for Christmas. One was a bumper sticker that I have wanted for years. It represents my family:) And it is perfect!

Second was a new digital camera. I have desired a smaller camera that I can carry easier. He and the boys got me a cool green fuji fine pix. I love it and am trying to figure it out.

We had a wonderful day overall. The boys enjoyed all their presents. We had a big dinner with our parents and good friends/neighbors. More food than we could possibly eat! We have so much to be thankful for. The Lord truly blessed the Yoder's in 2008. His faithfulness to us is overwhelming.

Craiger Family Christmas

This year for our Craiger Christmas we wanted to go somewhere all together. Our dear friends from Church allowed us to stay in their home for the weekend while they were visiting family in TN. It was perfect. They use their home as a Bed and Breakfast from time to time so you can imagine the Hospitality that was displayed! We wanted the time to be full of memories so we planned just about every hour. We had an event schedule and all! We had game time, sledding, gingerbread house and cookie decorating, movie time, meal time of course and a gift exchange. I had so many pics to post, I decided to do a slide show. Hope you enjoy!

Yearly Tradition

For the last couple of years we as a family have gone over to a local neighborhood to see their Christmas light display then out to Krispy Kreme to get a fresh donut. This year we invited our good friends and neighbors the Walters to join us.

Davis and his best friend Caylee

The Finished Product

I had a lot of fun decorating this year using things I already had. I think the only thing I bought was a bag of fake blanket of snow:)

My mom recently gave me this old cupboard that she had gotten at an estate sale. I love it! I look forward to decoating it thoughout the year.

This pic is a little out of focus but I think it gives it a cool effect!

The tree.....standing:)

The Hunt

This year we decided to get our first "real" Christmas tree. So the hunt began last Friday. It was 14 degrees but a beautiful sunny day.

After driving around for a while...there it was! Well, there were two actually. Reis and Hudson each spotted one so they went running and then we had to choose. Reis liked this one because it was tall and thin, and full of needles.
This was Hudson's pick. We decided on this one because "mamma" liked how you could see the truck through it:)This is our good friend Brittany. She joined us for the day and took pictures. Including this one of herself...freezing. She is from Arizona so this weather is...well, not her thing!
So here we are. The Yoder's first Christmas tree cutting down ceremony!

The men got it down with no problem and up on the van.

We got it home and up. It fit perfect. We noticed that the truck was a little crooked so we tilted it a bit to make it straight. That was a mistake we found out. After decorating it that night we woke up the next morning to it laying on our kitchen table. The sad part in all of that is that I have a collection of about 230 old glass ornaments. They are Shiny Brights for those of you who are antiquers:) Scott guesses about 20-25 of them were smashed on the floor. I cried as I cleaned them up:( But you know... I got thinking how blessed I am and how they are just "things" in my life. Life will go on! We stood it up (straight), redecorated it and it looks beautiful! Someone asked me if I got a pic of it laying down, no....I wasn't in the mood really:)

Our trip to California

Scott and I had the priviledge to go back out to where we lived for 5 years and to visit our good friends Jeff and Adrienne Reichanadter. We had a wonderful, warm, packed 5 days...did I mention warm? We got to go to the ND game (although we wish we wouldn't have:) and sight see around LA area and also visit some dear friends. I had so many good pics I decided to do a slide show. Hope you enjoy!

So much to be thankful for!

I have so much to post about and don't want to leave anything out so I will begin way back on Thanksgiving day...one week ago. We had the priviledge of celebrating the day with both Scott's family and my parents and Grandma. We were all invited over to a dinner at Scott's parents Community room at Greencroft where they live. We had a wonderful time being together, playing games, laughing, watching football (of course) and what else...eating!
This will be all for today! I'll try to do more soon!

My mother-in-law did a wonderful job making it feel warm and inviting. There were 26 in all!


Lots of games

Lots of food!

Mom Yoder and Aunt Velma

What guys do best. Eat then watch football:)

What girls do best... look at the ads for great bargains!