Birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Visits... Oh my!

It has been such a long time since we've posted! Since you've last heard from us we've had 2 birthdays... Olivia turned 5, and Mother turned... Well she'd rather not talk about it. Happy very belated birthday to both of you!

Thanksgiving was such a wonderful time of...
- Cooking
- Family Time
- Eating
- Cooking
- Games
- Eating
- Playing
- Resting
- Good Conversations
- And Lots More Eating!
We all enjoyed the day with our Aunt Lisa, Uncle Sam, and our 2 cousins Eric and Luke!
Our meal consisted of mashed potatoes, gravy, asparagus, corn, relish tray, cranberry scones, beets, stuffing, ham, and turkey. And our dessert consisted of cheesecake, apple salad  pumpkin spice pie, rice crispy treats, red velvet cupcakes, a pecan pudding pie and french silk pie!!! YUM!!

The Witzenburg family also visited us on Sunday last week! We all had a lovely time! It was such a fun visit and we can't wait to see them again soon!

We all enjoyed playing the table slapping game :)

Shooting!

We went shooting on Saturday! Dad took Emily, Caleb, Anna, and me; while mom stayed home with all the young ones. I shot 50 times with the shot gun and my arm is so sore it's ridiculous!

Here are some pics of our fun day! :)

Philip 7 already?

Yes it is true Philip is seven today. The years have gone by so quickly. Philip is such a blessing to us.

Some of the things Philip enjoys doing include,

Gymnastics
Riding Bikes
Climbing trees
and eating.

Happy 1st Birthday Ella!

We are so excited that Ella is now one! Happy birthday! We can't wait to see what God has in store for your future!

Family Camp Boats!

One of our families favorite activities that we did was watching the boys make boats out of card board and duck tape! And Emily and I made a flag! Here's our boat and some of the pictures of sailing across the pond... And no we didn't sink! :)

Family Camp!

We had an absolutely amazing time at family camp! It is such a joy to spend time with like-minded families and Godly friends.
We did so many things its impossible to list them all. But here are some of our highlights from the week...

-Archery
-Mighty Mighty Scoop Noodle Challenge!
-Yummy Meals
-Wonderful Teaching
-Great Music
and my very favorite...
-Hours and hours of VOLLEYBALL! :)

The fathers and sons also did something fun and built a boat out of cardboard and duck tape only! It was so fun and hilarious to watch them race across the lake! And only 4 boats sank!

Packing for Family Camp!

Today is the first day of our vacation! We are so excited to be heading out of town. Tonight we're headed to our cousins birthday party, tomorrow we're going to be watching the Hawkeye Cyclone game with our grandparents, and on Sunday afternoon we'll be heading to family camp!! I'll continue with the updates throughout the week. :)

Here are a couple pictures of our packing process!