Christmas 2015

 By Christmas it was still fairly warm. This picture above is us on Christmas Eve. The weather was pretty nice - hence the short sleeves - so we decided to hike at the Wissahickon.


Pictured right: Lilia and Alex, Christmas Eve, on our way to church.









Pictured below: Presents have been opened (in about 20 minutes), it's barely 7am, but these two are knee deep in Lego building. It's as good as it gets!

Later Christmas morning we headed over to my brother and sister-in-law's house. I had made Ellie and Olivia these really special learning books. Ellie will be going to kindergarten in the fall (wow - already!?!) and I love education. I learned a few things from volunteering at The City School, and from Pinterest. I was so excited for them to open them and start learning!

Naomi holding a baby doll

Ellie hard at work in the binder I made her.

My new cowl!!!

Claire and Naomi had more fun with this cardboard box (isn't that always how it goes). They were playing "train".













We used a selfie stick to take a family photo. We are a big group of people!
As you can see it was still fairly nice out, weather wise. No jackets! Alex was so disappointed there wasn't snow. I feel ya buddy.

Karen and her fiance Jesse came into town for Christmas. It was so nice to see them and spend some time together. They are getting married in October. We were getting excited talking details!

Best Birthday!!

My 36th birthday was so memorable.
First of all, the weather was crazy - it was in the 60's.
Second of all, we had discovered Cira Green earlier in the week and we had a great plan.
Cira Green is an 11 story public park on top of a parking garage. It's located on 30th, between Chestnut and Walnut.
My mom brought my favorite cake, black magic, and we got salads from Sweet Greens. On this rooftop park, over looking the city we had a picnic dinner and my family sung "happy birthday." It was so special and so memorable. We wouldn't have enjoyed it so much if it hadn't been so warm.
Truly memorable!

Fall adventures

On a chilly fall morning my parents, Dave, the kids and myself ventured to high rocks for a hike. We made our way down to the creek, skipped lots of rocks - I think the record that day was 8 - and ventured through the woods back. It was a crisp beautiful day, Halloween weekend.

 The kids went trick-or-treating with next door neighbors, Olivia and Peyton. The four of them have a really great time when ever we are at my parents for the weekend.
Alex was a ninja, Lilia was princess Leia.

 We went to Storehouse Church Sunday morning and got to see all the littles. Some of the kids were playing squish the lemon on the slide. Ellie was off in her own princess dream world.