South Carolina!

Our first convention of the season was last weekend and it was a blast! It felt sooo good to be back in "the loop" and to see all of our "vendor friends" again!

 Setting up the booth. :)

It was raining at the convention and Ben accidentally locked the keys in the car! Sooooo, Dad and Sam tried to get them out...but were unsuccessful. So finally, some vendor friends of ours came to their aid. They were trying to pry open the back window...when the entire thing shattered! :) Our insurance covered it thankfully and they had it fixed before we left SC!

Springin' into Spring!

Spring arrived much earlier than usual this year...but we were glad to see it!

Cal loves his bike!

The first bouquet of daffodils of the season!

 Crocuses are some of my favorite flowers, I love the all the different shades!

Blossoms from our crab-apple tree!

Happy Birthday Abe!!!

Abe turned 11 on March 6th!!!

What We've Been Doing in...2012!

Ok, since I have not posted anything for a LONG time, I thought I'd just do a quick run down of all that we've been doing in the past few months!

Jed turned 4 on January 15th! He is such a fun little guy and always makes everyone laugh! Here he is, having a blast at Chuck E Cheese's!!!  

We totally redid our family-room this winter, complete with tearing down the old paneling and putting up new drywall (we hadn't planned on doing that part!).

Dad's favorite part? The new mantel, we had nothing but bricks before!

I turned 15 on February 10th! Here I am with Cal, behind the cake that Dad and Maggie made for me!

 One awesome big brother turned 17 on February 17th! Here is Jed and Cal with Sam, the birthday boy!

 After years of wishing and searching, we were finally able to purchase Mom's dream car of a chartreuse green bug!

On Maggie's 8th birthday on February 26th (YES! We have a lot of February birthdays!), we went to the American Girl Place in Chicago! She had been waiting for, and talking about, this for this for a whole year!

 We took the train to Chicago so that we wouldn't have to bother with traffic (just us girls went)! She is getting so big!

 The little boys will play Lego's for hours!!!! They are definitely following in Ben and Sam's footsteps!

 We finished our newest book, "The Homeschool Experiment, a novel", written by Charity Hawkins, the first book we have ever sold that someone else has written. Go to our website by clicking here, to check it out!

 

Maggie is playing on the UPWARD basketball team this year at a local church! She is loving every minute of it!

The "Lady Panthers" in action! 

The convention season is approaching, so we are starting to get ready for that too!

Daniel & Jackie: 12/27/11

Two days after Christmas, my cousin Daniel married Jackie! The wedding and reception were so much fun! I didn't get any pictures from the actual wedding but here are some from the reception.
My cousins Grace, Elizabeth, and Kristen
{Flower girls}

More of my cousins, Hannah, Bethany, and Rebecca. Cal was the only little boy at the "girls" table, he loved the cotton candy!

Anna, the third flower girl, twirling on the dance floor!

The pretty table setting.

Ben was one of the ushers at the wedding.

SNOW!!!!

We had a regular winter storm a few days ago!!! I know this isn't the first snow...but it was prettier...and more interesting!

This is what it looked like outside around dinner time...it got progressively harder however and when some of us went over to a friend's house later that evening the roads were TERRIBLE! When we got back home the power was off and remained so until morning! But it was beautiful nonetheless!
Here's Cal playing in the snow the next morning!

O Christmas Tree...

We went to cut down "the perfect tree" on the Saturday after Thanksgiving!

Jed...not wearing a coat. :)
Our little lumberjack.

How 'bout this one?!?!?

Sam cutting the tree down with this small audience! :) Don't worry, they got a turn too!

Putting on all the ornaments!