a family tradition? or treat!

Ever since I have known Nathan, his Gram has ALWAYS made homemade peanut butter cinnamon rolls. If you have never had one of Gram's peanut butter cinnamon rolls, you are REALLY MISSING OUT! They are yummmmmmmmmmy! While we were home for Thanksgiving, Gram was gracious and kind enough to make us some; in fact, she made us EIGHT DOZEN!!!! (The sad part is we ate them ALL!) Well, eating Gram's peanut butter cinnamon rolls has and is becoming a family tradition of sorts! In fact, Ivy even managed to eat almost 3 rolls at one sitting! (If she ate 3 rolls, I'm not even going to tell you how many Nathan or I ate!) :-)

Ivy definitely enjoyed the treat. When she was done eating her 3 rolls, she turned to her Great-Gram and told her, "Those are the best things I have EVER ate!" :-)

Even "Baby" had to try some!

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." ~Proverbs 22:6

Grampa's pink gun

Grampa (Nathan's Dad) recently got a handgun which came with PINK handgrips already on it (although Grampa didn't know that it did AND it had black handgrips that also came with it), BUT we thought it would be a funny prank to give Grampa his gun leaving the pink grips on it!!!!

Here is Grampa discovering his new source of protection...

"It's PINK!"


Ivy declared that the gun could be Gramma's since boys shouldn't have pink guns! :-)

Needless to say, the pink grips did NOT stay on the gun for very long!

AND, of course, it had to be tested...

Getting the targets ready...

Fire when ready...


Isn't this a scary pair?

I know I wouldn't want to mess with them! :-)

Here's a sure shot...

Daddy (Uncle Shannon) helping son (Alex) fire the handgun...


Alex now realizing the importance of wearing ear plugs...


Now, Alex is a pro...thanks to a little help from his Daddy and his Uncle Nathan. (Seriously, you should have seen him shoot and his placement on the target! Great job, Alex!)


BUT, all in all, we won't say who had the BEST shot! :-)

not liking CT

On Saturday afternoon, we left for our 12-hour drive to western Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving and celebrate Christmas with Nathan's family, visit with some of my family, and see a couple of friends. We have found that since having kids, it is best and easiest on everyone to leave in the afternoon/evening and drive into and through the night. Well, if this was any indication of how our trip was going to be, we had packed the van and buckled in ready to head out when Nate put the key into the ignition, turned it, and NOTHING happened! DEAD BATTERY! After jumpstarting the van and throwing the jumper cables into the back, we were off!

The trip was going well with the kids taking an afternoon nap as we made our way down south. When they awoke from that glorious time of day, we prepared ourselves to stop for supper...McDonald's in Worcester, Massachusetts! A trip to this particular McDonald's in this particular city was an adventure in itself! First of all, McDonald's is not Nathan and my top pick of places to eat, but Ivy LOVES McDonald's and it's a real treat for her since we rarely go to the place. Second, it has a PLAYGROUND in it which breaks up the trip for the kids and allows them to stretch and move their legs and have a break from sitting and riding.

As we were walking in to eat, we were approached by a man who indicated that he was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard and that he and his wife were traveling and far from home when something went wrong with their car (I can't remember what it was now), he just happened to forget his wallet at home, his wife was next door with the car at Denny's, and he needed some money to get it fixed. What do we do? Well, I took Ivy and continued to go inside leaving Nate and Owen outside with this man...(don't ask me why I didn't think to take Owen with me!). Well, Nate determined that the man was just a con artist trying to scam us and was inside the McDonald's shortly thereafter.

While ordering our food, I soon wondered if we were still in the USA and realized that our family were the only people who really spoke English in the entire place...even the people behind the counter spoke really broken English! We soon got our food and enjoyed our meals as much as possible, and we were back on the road after a short time of playing at the playground.

A short while into our trip, Owen decided that he wanted the trip to be over with and let us know about it. It just so happened that the moment he decided he was done with this drive, we were just entering the state of Connecticut, and he managed to unconsolably cry and scream through the entire state of Connecticut (which was about 1 hour and 45 minutes worth of driving)!!!! The moment we crossed the border leaving Connecticut and traveling into New York, Owen settled and fell asleep! For some reason, Owen just did NOT like Connecticut!

Well, it was that time of night where the kids fell asleep, and we were quietly making our way the rest of the way to Hawthorn, PA! There wasn't much traffic on the roads, but it seemed that when we did see a vehicle, it was usually swerving in its lane which always makes for some scary driving!

Praise God that we made it safely and remained SANE!

Owen's favorite books

Like his big sister, Owen LOVES to read books. He will even bypass his toys to sit and scan through and act like he's reading books. Out of ALL of the books we have on the kids' bookshelf, it never fails that Owen ALWAYS dumps the books on the floor and searches through them for a few certain books OR will just see a particular favorite book on the shelf and take it right off.

These are his favorites...



Note the two little books at the bottom...There are almost 20 different little books like the ones shown, and Owen will SPECIFICALLY get these two certain books!

Our kids never cease to amaze us!

Grandma and Papa "Charming" visit...

and now it's back to reality.

Grandma Ochs and Papa Snack (my parents) were up to visit for an extended weekend over Veteran's Day. We felt soooo blessed with them being here. Since moving up to New Hampshire and especially after having our kids, we have learned to cherish and treasure our times with our families and try to take advantage of every moment and to make the most memories as possible for our kids to look back on. Just their physical presence in our home means so much to us, and they help us soooo much just by being here. (Although I must say, we really put my parents to work when they were up here this time - sorry, Dad and Mom - so much for relaxation!)

During their visit, Ivy somehow got her Papa to play dolls with her. I have no idea how as I have no recollection of my Dad EVER playing dolls with me, my sisters, or any of Ivy's other girl cousins. During this time of play, Ivy dubbed Papa with a new nickname..."Papa Charming"! :-)

Clearly, you can tell that Papa hasn't ever played with dolls before! :-)



Aren't they so cute playing together? What great memories to look back on!

Now, enough with the dolls! Let's WRESTLE!

Well, Grandma and Papa's visit wasn't all fun and games...They also helped us with a few projects around the house. We are truly grateful and appreciative for the willingness and happiness they have to help us out. And, we THANK YOU (Grandma and Papa / Mom and Dad) SO MUCH for ALL of your help! One project was the lovely work of RAKING!

Although I was a little late getting a picture of all of us raking almost the ENTIRE yard, I did manage to capture Papa and Ivy picking up the leaves from our hard work...

A few other projects included installing the rest of the child safety latches into our upstairs bathrooms, hanging hooks for towels to dry into the bathrooms, and hanging hooks into our laundry area and coat closet to get things more organized around here which definitely makes me one happy girl! :-) Completing the hanging projects was a HUMUNGOUS help to us as Nathan and I have learned that, although we are a great team and work really well together to accomplish a lot, we cannot hang things together and remain married!

Thank you, once again, Dad and Mom for ALL of your help and for the enjoyable and memorable visit!

(P.S. Sorry, Grandma, I realized I didn't get ANY pictures of you on this trip!)