Cairney Christmas/New Year celebration

After an exhausting day of playing with his cousins, Ben falls asleep with all of his new pals smothering him with love - too cute! Thanks Cairney West and cousin Joe for the new furry friends - he absolutely loves them!

The girls - showing off their new scarves that Grandma made them

and the boys, just as excited about the new PJ pants that she made them. All of their favorite teams!

Cairney cousin pyramid - this gets better and better each year. Way to go big guys on the bottom!!

Happy 2010 to everyone! We spent this weekend celebrating Christmas and the New Year in Indianola with all of the Cairney's. We had such a wonderful time! Delicious food, beverages, games, playing cards, watching football, playing Wii, basketball, telling stories, and getting all caught up on the latest happenings with everyone were the highlights of the weekend. Kate and Ben also loved having sleepovers with their cousins all weekend, what fun!!! Thank you Dick and Celie for hosting the fun weekend and for our gifts - we love you both!!

If the weather cooperates, we are headed to Nebraska to spend some time with the Suhr's and Breitbarth's celebrating a belated Christmas next weekend - can't wait!!! Kate and Ben are looking forward to getting back into the swing of things with school and preschool tomorrow.

Christmas photos

Kate with her new basketball and skates


Mr. ninentdo DS was very excited about the new Star Wars game

It's kind of hard to tell, but the kids are standing inside of the fort that they

have built at the end of our drive way. They have a tunnel door from one side

to crawl through and then the hole at the top. It is very cool and taller than they are so they love it! -

Christmas

Our candlelight Christmas Eve dinner


The kids at Perkins - what kind of face is this Benny?

At church for Christmas Eve "Eve" service

this is Perfect Kate. Christmas morning, still in her PJ's, new Hannah Montana Roller Skates

on & putting together some new Lego figures!

We had such a wonderful Christmas. Even though we were all a bit disappointed that our original plans of heading back to Pender were changed once the weather got bad in Nebraska, we started some of our own Christmas traditions here. Our annual routine of going to Perkins after Christmas Eve "Eve" (the night before Christmas Eve)church held true. We all enjoyed a yummy meal and of course the kids were super excited because they love that place! We usually go there after Christmas Eve church, but this year we went to the Eve "Eve" service because we could and the weather was supposed to get bad on Christmas Eve. Thank you HOPE for having church that night - it was such an amazing service with the live nativity (donkeys, sheep and even some awnry goats (-: ) and once again, celebrating the wonder and magnificance of Christ's birth. How blessed we all feel being able to BELIEVE in such an awesome and amazing God and RECEIVE his love and grace in return. We played games after getting our PJ's on, and then turned in for the night. Christmas Eve day was very relaxing around here. Doug went to work until noon and then we just played all day. The weather continued to deteriorate in Nebraska for all of our family there, but here it really was not that bad. The kids even enjoyed some time out in the snow. Kate had been asking Doug and I what we used to do on Christmas Eve and we shared stories and memories with them. I decided to surprise them all with a special candlelight dinner and then we opened our gifts from one another after that. They were so excited! We finished our evening with watching the movie Snowbuddies and then got our cookies and milk ready for Santa.

Christmas Day, Miss Kate woke up at 0630, but did a great job letting her brother sleep in until almost 8 - that was CRAZY! They both enjoyed playing with their lego's, new race track, board games, DS games, and playing out in the snow most of the day. Kate skated around the kitchen in her new skates without even one wipe-out - way to go SIS!

That night, we ended our day with another "dark dinner" (that is what Ben refers to the candle light as) and cupcakes with candles for dessert to sing "Happy Birthday Jesus"! What a wonderful celebration we had! Such fun memories for us all.....quality time here at home together playing games, sledding and shoveling snow, laughing, cuddling, eating yummy Christmas treats and truly enjoying the reason for the season. We are so blessed.

Polar Express Train Ride

The girls - Ciara, Erin, Anna & Kate

Bodie and Ben - crazy boys!!!

Getting ready to board

Saturday afternoon the kids and I went on the Boone Scenic "Santa Express" train ride with some friends. Kate and Ben were both very excited. They were supposed to dress in their PJ's to have it be similar to the The Polar Express. The ride started out with the reading of the Polar Express story to everyone on the train. Hot Cocoa and cookies were then served while we were enjoying the ride. To finish the trip, silver bells were given to each of the kids by who else but Santa of course! Kate and Ben loved this part and I was treated to the "jingling " sound off and on all the way home. What a fun afternoon we had!!!!

14+ inches of snow

Kate taking a breather in the powdery bed of snow

Mr. Ben, enjoying the sledding Sunday afternoon

These flakes were some of the biggest that I have ever seen on Tuesday night

Ben's snow angel in the dusting Sunday night

What started as just a dusting last Sunday night (the 6th), turned into over 14 inches of snow by Wednesday morning - it was amazing! The kids and I went to dinner at the Wilson house Sunday night, and on our walk home the snow began. Kate and Ben were both "giddy" with excitement, they could hardly stand themselves! Both of them were rolling around in the snow covered grass. Giggling, laughing, like it was their first time experiencing Winter. It was so fun to watch. They even attempted snow angels in the dusting on the driveway that night. Little did they know that in less than 48 hours, we would have more snow than we knew what to do with! It started really coming down Tuesday afternoon when they let school out early and kept on through the night, and into Wednesday. We all played out in the snow Tuesday night until around 9. The weather was perfect, warm, and the HUGE flakes were just beautiful. We all enjoyed our snow day together on Wednesday, but Doug definitely "worked" more than he probably enjoyed. Him and a few other neighbors ended up helping many people on our streets that had gotten stuck more than once. That was a bummer!!! But thankful to have such caring people in our neighborhood.

Thanksgiving

We spent Saturday afternoon out at the Fett house with all of them. That was such fun and wonderful to see all of them. Becky & I snapped a quick photo. Love you old girl!


Ben is very "thankful" for Grandma's cookies (since he passed on pumpkin &/or blueberry pie

Mr. Ben and the "Mrs." is what he has been referring to me as this week - crazy kid!

Even though we were not able to be in Pender for Thanksgiving this year, they were all in our thoughts and we can't wait to spend the long weekend with all of them over Christmas. Love you guys!!!!!

Thanksgiving blessings

Grandma Cairney & Ben in a heated game of SORRY

Kate learning how to play SCRABBLE

Ben with his crazy face, showing off the Indian head piece that he made in preschool last week. I especially love the decorations on the feathers.

Jack, Ben, Kate, Joey, Drew & Abby

Jack, attempting to blow out his "12" candles in one breath....that was funny!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with some of the Cairney's last week in Indianola. The festivities started on Wednesday night with Jack's 12th birthday dinner. WOW, I cannot believe how all of these kids are growing up! Thanks Lynne, for the delicious meal and wonderful fellowship for the evening. Also, a special thank-you to Miss Abby and Grandma for finding my missing gloves, I so appreciated that! Kate was able to sleep over with her cousins that night, so she was super excited! Who wouldn't want to have 3 extra "big brothers" for a few hours??? ( I know that you can related with how fun this is Aunt Lynne (-: ) Benny chose to head home with us for the night. Thanksgiving AM was spent at church and then we headed down to Indianola for lunch. Celie prepared a fabulous meal, and it was enjoyed by all of us. Thanks again for hosting us! We spent the afternoon walking on the golf course with the kids looking for lost balls, playing games, and enjoying quality family time together. Kate wanted to try her vocabulary expertise at "scrabble" and Ben has been working his competitive streak at SORRY lately.

Here at the Cairney's, we are once again, overwhelmed with the blessings of our families, our faith, our health, and our "stuffed animals" (that was on Ben's list).