familyofjoys: October Rushed to December

Oh I wish there were more hours in the day! But there aren't. So here I am, back a bit sore from a busy afternoon shovelling snow and the realization that it's been weeks and weeks since I've updated this blog.

Ah well, Merry Christmas to you all!

So some fun things that happened here since we moved...

Some silliness...

Some deliciously sweet moments... (early November

This is Pip's favorite thing on walks, she rounds up her sisters and they walk together, she loves it!

Some Art!...

turkey hand finger painting- I have some amazing shots from this craft on the camera- I just haven't had time to upload. I will do a special post of that soon- perhaps on Christmas break?

Some one is growing by leaps and bounds! And she literally leaps and bounds all around!

She proably spends about 45 minutes a day doing this with me- we can't get enough!

She is obsessed with Elmo and Abby- all conversations (albeit one-sided still but her speech is improving!) lead to "Elma" and "Abby". She carries these Little People Sesame street EVERYWHERE, and likes to set them around her food so they can enjoy the meal too!

And these three keep my days crazy busy

And their room is done!!!! Well the closet shelves and doors still need to be done as does the new light fixtures, but it's useable and we LOVE it!

And I completed some other projects in the last 2 months as well (on top of painting the girls room and ceiling)...

I gave the bead board in our bathroom a new fresh coat of white...

And painted the ceiling and walls in the hall way (walls were a mocha color, now are a nice fresh creamy bisque)

Miss Friendly is getting *really* good at writing and wrote this for school (well she wrote it for fun but fun is school so, ya know!)..She wrote it all- I helped her with spelling...

And this one is filled with the Christmas Spirit!

She did this herself!!!

Oh and we were blessed with a new car! The end of November a dear friend offered us their old Subaru Outback. It had a lot of miles on it, but we couldn't believe the blessing they offered us. Our van has been broken pretty much 9 months out of 12 the past 2 years. We were DONE fixing it and were trying to figure out what to do...Do we buy a minivan? Do we buy a cheap interim vehicle to get us through the next couple of years? What do we do? Then THanksgiving weekend we were given this wonderful car.

We went on a Christmas Tree hunt with my Mom...

And we set up our tree...

And we've really enjoyed quite a bit of snow for December...

And Ryan crashed our new car. :(

Really heart breaking. But before that we are just *so* thankful he is okay. Seriously if he had panicked or done any thing other than what he did he would have been critically injured or killed. He was at work, because it had snowed and sleeted several inches he took our new family car with AWD so that he could even get up the giant hill TO work. It took him nearly 2 hours to get there that morning (usually 25-30min) and they needed him to go to the ware house. To get there he has to go down a VERY steep hill a hill with a spot that under certain conditions completely ices over. He wasn't aware that the hill was in that condition- he has gone down that hill in the snow many many times with out trouble. There were no company vehicles available at the shop that morning so he had to take our car.. He crested the hill at 5MPH and realized that it was ice and he had no control, he was sliding. He did his best to just let the car go as straight as possible, didn't try to break or any thing because his tail would start to spin and he knew he would spin out and either roll the car down the ravine-type area to the side, or wrap himself into a tree. He slid about 600 feet right into a tree and a giant branch crashed down on it at the same time-thankfully on the back of the car (smashed in the window). The accident could have been *so* bad...But it wasn't. I mean besides totalling our new car. :( We're still not sure what we're going to do there, I very much feel back at square one. Do we buy another interim vehicle? Or do we go for a van that will really fit and last for our family for years and years? Praying about what to do.

Ryan is thankfully okay, some bad whip lash, some sprains and bruises but he'll be just fine in a few weeks. He's been home from work since it happened (last Tuesday the 10th)...Prayers for a quick and full recovery with no lasting pain issues would be appreciated....

In the mean time we prepare for Christmas...