Thanksgiving, Christmas Tree Hunting, and Abel's birthday

Church's chancel for Thanksgiving.

 We had a very nice Thanksgiving. We started it in a very good place, Church! We thank God for all His mercy and blessings upon us and for His most precious gift, His Son!
A few members from Church joined us for a traditional meal (the very first one I cooked all by myself! It was edible!! :).

Boys after church in the leaf pile

One way we got ready for Thanksgiving was by making a "Thankful Tree" this year. The boys got to write something they were thankful for on a leaf for the month of November. They had some very sweet ones (such as Daddy and Jesus dying for my sins) and some funny ones (the color orange and numbers and clocks). It was a good practice for us all to set time aside to think about what we were thankful for!

 Christmas Tree Hunting!
We have been going out the day after Thanksgiving for a few years now. It is a fun time to hike and spend some time together. Abel is quite the hiker/climber and has little fear. He climbed this all by himself!

Dad carried Matthias up and I carried him down while Samuel carried the tree:)

Elisha needed his picture taken on a rock too!

Found a fun cave

Handsome guy!

Found the tree! Everyone got a turn to cut

Even mom had to take a turn:)

All my guys!!

"Helping" Matthias climb the rock...it turned out better than this picture suggests:)

 Abel's Birthday!

 Abel turned 6 on the 30th. He requested Carrot cake and a party. He had his friends from the neighborhood over to play and have cake. It was a fun time!

 Opening presents!! He got a lot of Lego's, which he loves!

 A gift from Grandma Beda to hang in his room.
November was a very busy month with 3 birthdays and Thanksgiving. We all made it and even had fun! :)

Matthias' 1st Birthday!

 Matthias celebrated his 1st Birthday on the 26th. We had a cake a church the Sunday before. Here he is with his cake at church.

 I took another picture of him at home with his cake because I wanted a closer one of him. Love that Smile!

 Birthday balloons were waiting for him when he woke up!

 And this would be the happy birthday boy....I think I must have told him not to touch the candle and he was a little upset.

 Over it now and ready to eat!

 His first present! I made him a fleece tie blanket just like his big brothers have.

 This is the best 1 year old picture I could get, in the others he was either crying or ripping the paper...but it was his birthday so he could cry if he wanted, right?

 We ate lunch outside on the swings. The boys love to eat outside!

 Birthday cake again! He was pretty excited about all the candles and singing!

 We let him have his own plate of cake, boy was he happy about that!

 Abel helping him open presents. When he was all done the big boys kept wrapping them up again and handing them to him, felt like he had twice as many that way!

 Everyone was excited about the bear that Grandma Beda got him. Multiple times we had to tell the other two that it was Matthias' toy and not to take it from him!

 Dad and Matthias. Matthias loves it when Dad comes home from work, he crawls as fast as he can to get to him to be picked up.

Mom and Matthias. I just love this (mostly) happy guy! What a blessing he is to our family! Can't wait to celebrate many more birthday's with him!

Random pics from the last month

Matthias likes to climb under the end table and read books:)

 Some random pictures from the last month or so....

Elisha got to ride a horse! Samuel usually takes Abel to his riding lesson alone, but we all went on Oct. 31. The teacher was so nice to let Elisha take a turn....

Abel got to practice leading the horse.

Matthias hung out with me:)

And he played in the leaves.

Abel riding. He is getting quite good and he enjoys it.

Matthias 11 months!

The boys eating lunch in their
"tree house". It isn't really in a tree, but Samuel built it up higher for them.

Playing in the leaves!

Abel found a tomato horn worm in the garden...unfortunatly I didn't figure out what it was until after it became Abel's "favorite pet" therefore we couldn't let the chickens eat it...

We have quite a busy time coming up. We will have 3 birthdays this month and one next month. Abel is very excited for his birthday! We have been counting the days on the calendar each day at school.

October fun!

 I took the boys to the park the other day. It was such a nice day and we needed to get out of the house!! We are so blessed, this park is only about a 2 mile walk round trip and it is nice and quiet.
Matthias climbed all the stairs himself so he could be up there with the big boys!

 Abel offered to take Matthias down the slide and of course Elisha had to go too, so here they all are!

 Love the swings!

 My Abel. He has thankfully learned to pump himself, so I only have to keep 2 swings going at a time!

 And my Elisha...this is his smile!! What a goof!

 We found this storm trooper outfit at the thrift store the other day. We don't do Halloween, but Abel loves to dress up. He also loves Star Wars right now. This didn't come off for about 2 days, then I insisted that we wash it! I'm sure it will be back on here shortly!

 My boys!

And Matthias' 10 mth picture. Hard to believe my baby is going to be a year in 2 short months! So very blessed to have this happy guy!