Episode 3: More Merry Making Moments

Dressing up for our annual recitation of Luke 1/2. Opa reads while we stand around in costume, sometimes repeating our parts, or just acting them out. we still have a bit of work to do on this tradition, but i love it. Julia is the casting director, she hands out the costumes and directs us to our "parts". This year, she went as far as writing up a script for Karli, who was one of the angels. :) haha.

Time to flash forward to boxing day: in the morning we got ourselves ready for the three hour drive to B-town for our annual Van Oordt visit! The bags had been packed late the previous night, floors were swept and the cat taken care of ... we were ready for a road-trip-holiday! the drive went very well. Dave and I took the time to discuss the top ten travel locations for our next __ years, as a couple and as a family. That was a fun topic!! :) we love our travels, both alone and with our kidlets, which is why i picked this topic as our "long drive conversation topic". The next step to brainstorming locations will be a date where dave and i go to the library to read about our top ten locations. We will choose the ages that our kids should be for the different trips as well. Some of the ideas were practical: the maritimes,NWT and the Yukon. Perhaps even throwing Alaska into the mix with the Northern territories. I'd want the kids to be old enough to enjoy snowshoeing, canoeing and exploring the wilderness of the north. Watching the wildlife, without the concern of "how do i escape a bear attack while holding two babies?" hahaha. JUST KIDDING. WHEW. okay, enough of that blabbering, on to the weekend with the Van Oordt Clan----


Dave is our Breakfast Man. :) He always makes us breaky, first for the seven children, and then for the adults. :) we sit in relative peace, as the children run off, full of french toast and fruit, to play.


a cute Mercy smile.

Snow!! Well, sort of. Apparently it was enough for these festive frolicking children!


Train Table: okay. seriously, i've never seen one single toy entertain children of all ages for such a LONG time!! :) Emily and I were even playing and we're "all growed up".