Springtime in January birthday party

The twins began talking about their birthday party soon after we returned from Texas. Every year they ask to have a "Ducky and Bunny with flowers and butterflies" party and I find another theme. Well, this year I let them have their wish since they will soon be too old for Ducky and Bunny. (Miss Laura gave them Ducky and Bunny when they were born. They have grown up sleeping with Ducky for Corinne and Bunny for Emma.) Thankfully, the Easter decorations were already on the store shelves so the theme was fairly easy to pull off.

Coloring pictures while everyone is arriving.

The guests were encouraged to bring a favorite "baby" as well. Notice Doggie and Arctic (panda bear) were there too.

Miss Laura made the cakes and decorated them then Mom did the "writing".

The girls received some nice and thoughtful gifts. Their friends (moms) know them well! :)

C blowing out her candles.

E blowing out her candles.

Our friends - Lily, Ashlyn, Genevieve, Emma, Corinne, Neely, Jamie and Caitlyn - and their "babies"

The twins had a fun day with two Upwards games this afternoon. They are quick to tell you that they are not REALLY four until Tuesday because that is their REAL birthday. Guess we'll do a little more celebrating then too! :)

Thank you God for our sweet girls the past four years!

Snow...melted of course!

2 and a half days days of snow and about 30 minutes of surprise. I was asleep and Hannah came in my room and woke me up(The twins did to.) But...the day came where all the snow was gonna be melted and there would be now sleding down the big hill...boo hoo! We went sleding 1 time and then...me, Corinne, Daddy and Hannah went sleding 1 more time! Emma said: Daddy, tomorrow can you take me sleding!


brock

Snow, Snow, Snow, Snow

We awoke to a couple of inches of snow this morning. The kids thought it was the greatest thing. By lunchtime there were 4-6 inches of snow depending on where we measured.

Needless to say, we had a "Snow Day".

Our first view this morning. The kids woke us up before the alarm even went off!

Snowball fight with our neighbor, Mr. Smith.

Dad giving E a push for a ride on the sled. We lost count of how many times she went down the hill. (We were on our street for those who have visited us.)

B's turn. He got good at it by the time we stopped.

H was all smiles every time she went down the hill.

Look out for Mom and C! Wheeeeeee!

Mr. Smith giving Dad a push for his ride down the hill. It was fun having some of our neighbor friends out playing with us.

B's snow angel.

H making a snow angel. Dad was going to pull her up.

Catching snowflakes on our tongues.

The kids were back outside this afternoon after warming up during lunch and drinking hot chocolate. They had a few more snowball fights then came in exhausted. They were in bed early tonight!

For my friend, Christy

My friend, Christy, along with her husband and oldest daughter, are in another country this week bringing home their new son/brother. We are all very excited to meet Abraham.

In the meantime, they left 3 other children here in NC with Grandma and Grandpa. So we invited Grandma (Vi) and the kids to go with us to the NC Life and Science Museum on Wednesday to help pass the time during their week-long wait for their family's return. We spent the day learning about being a meteorologist, geologist, botonist, biologist, astronaut, entomologist, zoologist and block builder...just to name a few.

Christy, if you see this...know that you're other 3 are doing great! (Below is some proof.)

Here we are, Mom! All smiles:)

Fun with blocks.


The seven heads Vi and I counted all day!

Watching the roaches eat. (Thanks to the entomologist who let us watch.)

Rock climbing.

Horse grooming.

Ball collecting. (I do believe this was her favorite part of the day.)

We also saw the butterfly house (I forgot to take photos there) and the outside animals (my fingers were too cold to operate the camera). We all left exhausted! (I think Grandma crashed!:)

We are now anxiously awaiting your return!!

Life of Reilly - a must read

You've GOT to read this!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789373&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

Hoop-time

H began her Saturday at a birthday tea party for her friend, Alexa. It was a good time according to H and her doll, Romania. (Jennie, she still loves that doll!)

After a morning of play-d**gh fun for the younger three, it was off with Dad for some errands and then basketball games.

Dad's play-d**gh creation.

We had our first Upwards games today. H played first. She moved up to an older division this year so it was a bit more competitive. She scored one time, and had some good blocks and steals.

H taking the ball down the court.

It was B's first time to play a basketball game. He did great! Although he didn't score today, he moved the ball very well and passed it like a pro.

B taking off like a rocket!

We have seven more weeks of Upwards...just enough to get us to the beginning of spring soccer.

Back in the Swing of Things

We've been home a week and it feels like a month. After a weekend of unpacking, doing laundry and planning for a week of school, we hit the ground running! In addition to our school lessons, we were seen at KidStuf rehearsal, the dry cleaners (twice), the mechanic for auto inspections (twice), the grocery store, speech, church, 4-H, a birthday party for the twins to attend, a playdate for the older two (so Mom could take the twins to the party), co-op, the bank, and the library.

And it all starts over again tomorrow with laundry, a birthday party for H to attend and two Upwards basketball games.

The kids were excited to be back to co-op today. Here are C and E painting.

E and C with their friend, Lily, at co-op. They made name tags in Elizabethan type. (Lily is turning 5 this month. She was the birthday princess yesterday. Her parents and oldest sister are leaving for another country tomorrow to bring home a new baby brother.) And we can't forget dear Mrs. Fields in the background. We love Mrs. Fields!

I'll be posting photos from our TX trip this weekend. I'll be putting them on the correct date so some "new" posts may have "old" dates.

Home

There's no place like home!

We pulled in our driveway just before 7pm. Dad had H at basketball practice at 7:30 pm. I guess vacation is over.

If you hear news of an unidentified purple flash on I-10 somewhere between Beaumont and Houston, don't fear. That was just me driving my mom's van. Our flight from Beaumont to Houston was canceled due to fog. Thanks to Mom and Tony for getting us to IAH in time to board our flight back home. (We couldn't fit everything in the van so Tony drove the truck and Mom entertained/fed the kids while I drove the van.)

Happy 2009!

Remembering Daddy's Birthday

Today would have been Daddy's 64th birthday. Uncle Wayne gave me a cd of photos of Daddy to use for the funeral. I picked a few of my favorites to share today.

Daddy was the youngest of 7 children...5 girls and 2 boys. Grandmama had a baby just about every 2 years. This is the only family photo I've ever seen of all of them as children/teenagers (and one is missing). The older girls married and moved out while Daddy was still quite young. In every photo I've seen of Grandpapa, he was wearing a hat. Needless to say, that's Daddy in the front making a funny face.

This photo was of Daddy, Mom, John and me around Christmas 1970 or early 1971.

Here are the 7 Hanks "children" again...just many years later.
Bottom row L-R: Daddy, Grandmama, Uncle JW, Aunt Margie
Top row L-R: Aunt Wilma, Aunt Betty, Aunt Rita, Aunt Novis
(I think this was taken in April 2007 at Grandmama's 94th birthday. Aunt Margie was unable to attend due to her health but my uncle added her to the photo.)

Christmas is over!

Fiddle sticks, more presents than africa gets. The tree was flowing with presents. Their were like 19.0000 presents!! Just kidding, but alot.

I will tell you what our presents were.

Brock's gifts: 3 hot wheels, a remote control hummer, a bookmark, a winter hat ( Blue ), a $20 bill, a miss paty cake dvd and gloves!!!!

Hannah's gifts: a bookmark, a scarf ( Purple ), A $20 Bill, a head band, jeff and sheri easter CD, Little house on the prairie DVD season 2(She already has season 1 so she knows what it is like!!), and Gloves

Corinne's presents: a bookmark, a braclet, a necklace, a headband, silver sparkly shoes( that rub blisters as she said), a $10 bill, and gloves.

Emma's presents: a necklace, a headband, a bookmark, silver sparkly shoes( that rub blisters as she says), a braclet, a $10 bill, and gloves!!

Well there you have it, that's about all. See you on my next post.
~Brock

Our final Christmas Day

We spent Christmas Day at Grammy's. After everyone woke up (except Uncle John) and had breakfast, we opened gifts. The kids had already had two other "Christmas Days" so it didn't take long to finish the gifts. However, Grammy had a surprise for the girls so that took us through the rest of the morning with playtime. (B wants to post what everone got so I'll leave that to him.)

All the cousins came over for dinner again (chicken fried steak) and the kids had a good time playing. By bedtime everyone was exhausted.

Christmas Eve

Grammy received a phone call this morning about a lady from her church being in the hospital and feeling lonely. So Dad and Mom decided to load up the kids and go with Grammy to visit her friend. The kids drew her Christmas cards before we left. When we got to her room, she was happy to have visitors. We sang her a few Christmas carols. Her husband got there just before we left. He told us about the effects of Hurricane Ike on their home. They are "homeless" right now...living with their daughter. They are one more family who was flooded in the Labelle area when the flood gates were closed. It was a nice way to let our kids (and us) think about someone else rather than ourselves during this Christmas season. Made me think that should be our focus all the time more than what gifts to give or what desserts to make.

After lunch we got in that game of bowling we missed last night. That was the first time for all four to bowl so we just went with one game. We all had a good time.

Just after dinner we went to Calvary Baptist Church in Beaumont for their Candlelight Service. That is the church where Dad and Mom met. And we LOVE the worship leader, John Griffin. John and his wife, Shari, were there when we were at Calvary. They went to First Baptist, Norfolk, just before we went to Virginia Beach to church plant. Now they are back at Calvary. We always enjoy being in a service where John and Shari are leading in worship.

The Candlelight Service was a nice reminder of the focus of this holiday. The pastor's comment about the Christmas story and the Easter story being ONE story put everything back in perspective for me. It's not where we celebrate or with whom we celebrate or how we celebrate or when we celebrate...it's WHO we celebrate!

Have a merry CHRISTmas!

Christmas with Mom's family

We had Christmas with all of Mom's family today. That's our six, John plus two, Shawn plus four (and a half!), Tony plus three, and Grammy. We decided to open gifts before dinner which turned out to be a good idea. There were plenty of gifts to go around for everyone. Grammy did good when she got Mom the complete Anne of Green Gables DVD set. We taped it off tv one year when I was in college and watched it at Thanksgiving for many years. I was quite happy to get the DVD set now. (The taped set was about worn out.)

Grammy made ham, turkey and dressing plus more veggies than we could count. There were three pies and peppermint fudge. Can't forget the rolls. It was yummy eating! We tried to go bowling after dinner but when we got there, the wait was an hour. That would have to wait for another time.

This was our second time to open gifts. Still have the "real" Christmas to go. At least our four are hearing "the true meaning of Christmas and gift giving" three times this year. :)

Grandmama

We spent the afternoon with my "95 and a half" year old grandmama today. (The kids think the "and a half" part is very important!) My three brothers and their families were there as well as our mom. Grandmama didn't say a whole lot while we were there but she sure was enjoying it. When it was close to time for us to leave, she spoke up and said, "I want a picture with all of y'all!" So we sat her on the couch and gathered around her for a family photo. Sadly, Daddy wasn't there to be with his mama for such a special photo. But we were happy to have Grandmama with us for this Christmas time photo.

We couldn't get all the great-grandkids to look at the camera at the same time. (Imagine that!:) But we still got them in the photo with Grandmama.

I'm not sure if my aunt and uncle have recovered yet from being invaded by all 19 of us but they sure were gracious hosts. The toys were ready for the little ones and the chairs were ready for the adults to sit around visiting while the kids played. This was in the midst of their hurricane repairs being done. We are thankful that Uncle Charles' test results came back with good news. His cancer is in remission!

On a side note, our drive to see Grandmama took us through Bridge City which was almost completely flooded during Hurricane Ike. The photos do not really show the damage and loss the people of that town have experienced. We are being reminded of that loss time and again while we are here.

Yesterday at church, all the children were given a stocking made and donated by a homeschool 4-H club in Beaumont. It was full of goodies for the kids. Each stocking also had a gift card in it from a local store. A boy in Abilene had all his friends bring a gift card instead of a gift to his birthday party. Those gift cards were sent to my mom's church for the children there. When you consider that about 80% of her church family lost everything in the hurricane, it makes you appreciate what you already have instead of wanting more, more, more. We spent some time talking with our children about why the stockings were given to all the children at church. Since we actually went through Hurricane Ike, they understand more than if it was just a story for them. When you think of the hurricane, pray for the families of LaBelle Baptist Church. They have a long road ahead of them in rebuilding their homes and their lives.

Apollo 8

40 years ago today Apollo 8 launched for the first trip to the moon. On Christmas Eve the 3 astronauts read the first ten verses of Genesis 1 on a live television broadcast. We heard part of the reading during the church service we attended this morning. This is one event in history you probably won't hear about on the evening news.

Read here to learn more about Apollo 8.

Happy first day of winter!

Blue Bell

One of the things I miss most not being in Texas is the ice cream. There is no ice cream like Blue Bell ice cream. Homemade vanilla Blue Bell ice cream.

I have been in TX for 48 hours and have had 4 bowls of Blue Bell. I have 14 days to go. That's 28 more bowls! :) I may actually buy some other flavors but homemade vanilla will be the last I eat before returning to "no Blue Bell land".

Christmas at Our House

We had our family Christmas at our house Saturday evening. We wanted to have our family time before our trip. It was a fun evening.

We didn't get out our 7ft pre-lit tree this year. Instead, we opted for the 2ft fiber optic tree we had the year Mom was on bedrest with the twins. We had just enough room for the gifts and a few manger scenes. It's hard to see but please take note of the BLOOMING Christmas cactus on the top of the shelf. I've had that plant for years. This is the first year it decided to have more than two blooms. Maybe I'll take a close up photo for a later post. :)

Here they are...eager with anticipation!

Nana made the girls matching aprons. B got a new H*t Wh**ls. They were big hits! We've had hours of playing Little House on the Prair*e. We moved the toy kitchen upstairs today so now they play "restaurant". Fun, fun!

The girls got "each other" Christmas socks. You can see in the photo on C's if you look closely. They light up when they move. E thought it was soooooooooo funny! H got some too. B got a t-shirt that does the same thing.

Our big "surprise" for all 4 kids was a glass mug. When we went to the Renaissance Festival back in October, we watched a glass blower make this mug from beginning to end. He made it clear that you could not purchase that mug because it had to be in the "oven" for 14 hours. So...Dad, being the sly guy he is, found a way to get back to that booth while I was entertaining the kids. He paid for it and had it shipped to us. They were clueless! For the past two months, he would bring it up every now and then. Every time, H would say, "I wish we could have bought that mug. That was cool! I wish it didn't have to sit in that oven for so long." Little did she know...the mug was sitting in a box in our closet. Those who know my dear hubby well know how very hard it is for him to keep a secret. So I hid the mug from HIM so he wouldn't break and give it to them early!

C took this photo but you can see the mug up close here.

The best thing about opening gifts when you're 3...the bubble wrap! C sat in Dad's lap for quite a while popping bubbles. Guess the mug was worth the $$ for the bubble wrap!

E gave Mom a new hair-do while Mom cut tags off socks and opened impossible packages.

Now they are counting the days until "the real Christmas". I have said, "No room!" more times than I can count as the twins act out the story of Baby Jesus. Such a fun time of year!

Have a blessed CHRISTmas!

KidStuf Christmas

We had our KidStuf Christmas show Sunday evening. After decorating and eating sugar cookies, coloring a manger scene, and making a tree decoration, everyone heard the Christmas story "KidStuf style". The worship team led in singing some Christmas carols.

That's H in the red shirt. She has so much fun being on the KidStuf worship team.

You can see B and C's heads on this photo and the one above it. They love singing at KidStuf.

Here we are...Mom and Daughter. I'm thankful that we get to enjoy this together.

December's virtue is GENEROSITY...making someone's day by giving something away.

Thank you, Father, for making my day...my life...by giving Your Son...the Babe in the manger...the Savior of the world!

Christmas Parade

Dad, H and B have gone to every Youngsville Christmas Parade since we moved here. I missed the first one as I was expecting the twins and on bed rest. Nonetheless, it has become a Freeland Family tradition. H got to walk in it last year with her Upwards team. This year Dad and B joined her with the Upwards group. They all had a great time waving and saying "Merry Christmas!" As you can see, H made a fashion statement even though she had to wear green. :)

That's B wearing the black cap and waving. (His first comment to me this morning was "Mom, I think my sweats are shrinking." I replied, "No honey, I don't think it's the sweats." The boy is growing so fast!) H is the girl in pink waving.

You know you're in Youngsville when the highlight of the parade is the firetrucks. Thankfully, we know one of the volunteer firefighters. Mike always throws the kids a handful of candy. They are ready for him to drive by in this photo. Thanks again, Mike!

Priorities

All 4 kiddos were playing a game they were making up as it went along. Suddenly, H ran into the living room and proclaimed,

"Tomorrow is Lazy Day. We don't have to do any work."

B replied without hesitation,

"But who will COOK for us!?"