Happy New Year from the Chances!

Whatever your New Year's Eve plans have in store, please be safe and careful. We hope you have a WONDERFUL, blessed New Year 2009 and are honored to truly realize the many blessings that are in your lives! :)

I couldn't decide on a picture, so I'm posting them all! :)

Train Table

The one thing Zachary asked for for Christmas:

It was really kinda a bit cute- if not a tad bratty- but after opening all the presents under the tree, Zachary was very disappointed. Of course, he loved the stuff that he got, but he really wanted a train table. When asked what was wrong, he said, "Mom, I only asked Santa for one thing. ONE THING! And, he couldn't even bring that!" It was cute how he said it. So, we started cleaning up the wrapping paper trash when he noticed an envelope under the tree. Sure enough, it had a note from Santa explaining that a special toy had fallen out of his bag while he was checking on the sleeping boys. Shawn went downstairs to record the moment and it was hysterical. If I can get it downloaded to my computer, I'll have to post it. Zachary went down a few stairs and peered into the side where they play at and he about fell down the rest of the stairs because he was so estatic about seeing his new train table. Shawn tacked the wooden tracks onto the table so the boys couldn't pull it apart all the time. They were constantly asking us to build new tracks for them. This way they can still construct their own plastic tracks, but have a permanent wooden one.

We made a flying trip to KC last night. Shawn gets random thoughts in his head to do spontaneous things so we drove down there to visit my sister and future brother-in-law as well as leave Zachary for a few days. Zachary supposedly is helping her get her wedding invitations ready to go, but tonight he called and was headed out to the movies, so I'm not sure how much work is getting done. We'll be headed down there again on New Year's Eve (tomorrow) and then back on Thursday. We might leave Logan for those couple days since they'll be headed back this way on Saturday for a bridal shower.

Today, I've been scanning pictures like crazy trying to get the slideshow for the wedding put together. I have a "surprise" one and a traditional one. I'm not the bachelorette party type, so I need to get something made to replace me on that occasion. So, I'm back to working on that and will get some blogs scheduled tomorrow for my time away. :)

KU Boys

I made a KU collage for my aunt and brother, both of whom are huge KU fans. After all the pics in purple, I thought I needed to post these:

Christmas at Grandma & Grandpa's

Here are a few more pictures from Christmas at my parent's house. It's starting to get to be a LARGE family affair, but so incredibly enjoyable! My Christmases at my own grandparents house was as extraordinary as anything could be. My mother is one of 13 kids, so when all the kids and grandkids got together and EVERYONE got lots of presents, it was quite the sight. We had an entire room filled full from the floor to ceiling with presents, and they also spilled out into the floor under the Christmas tree. Santa would come visit and it was just such fun memories being made. As I am one of 5 kids, we have a bit of the same experience, except scaled back just a tad. It's amazing though how thoughtful everyone can be when it comes to giving and it truly says something about the closeness we share that we can pick out the perfect gift for those on our lists.

Here is the Christmas tree, decorated by my brother Brady. He decorated about 10 trees this year. I'm sorry, but my camera just doesn't do it justice. It really was beautiful.

Malachi LOVES my mom's indoor cats. Here is Georgia, who is older, but very spunky. She was teasing Malachi with her tail and after he started pulling on it, she still didn't get up and run away.



He has such an ORNERY look on his face. Georgia is a manx cat, but she actually has a tail. Her sister, that also lives there, but is very smart and hides when the kids come to visit, is a manx cat without a tail.


Jarin gave Logan a new tie to wear since he's started enjoying wearing them. He wore this most of the night.

Jarin with Zachary and Tarin:

Zachary and Logan playing a recorder concert:

Logan playing his recorder with the new record player we got for my brother. Funny how records are making a comeback.

Malachi stayed up quite late, but finally crashed. He did great on his first Christmas.

Today, I went up to my parents to pick up my 3 campers (Shawn, Logan, and Malachi) as they spent the night up there last night. Shawn just LOVES being up at my parents and I don't mind visiting, but like to get home to get stuff done around my house rather than sitting around visiting all the time. Shawn enjoys the farm life and the nature since my parents are in the middle of nowhere. It is beautiful out where they live, but again, I do enjoy returning to my normal daily life. So, we came home this afternoon and have been trying to find our floors since then. I'm sure the trash people will hate us this coming week as our trash barrels are overflowing with toy boxes and misc. stuff. I've noticed freecycle has been quite busy too, which is my next item on the list- get stuff packaged up to give away to make room for all the new items! UGH- it shall be a LONG week.

Family Fun at Christmas

Well, it has been yet another long and exhausting day! We had my family's big Christmas lunch today, and there was so many people there it was a bit exhausting just trying to stay out of everyone's way! Tonight, Shawn wanted to stay up at my parents house, but we live so close (1/2 hour) that I really wanted to be home in my own, comfy bed rather than on a floor or possibly sharing a twin size bed. So, I brought Zachary home with me and Malachi & Logan stayed with Shawn with the help of the rest of my family. I'm praying definitely for no snow tonight as Shawn is supposed to have snow removal at church and I'm not one to enjoy the cold as much as he does, so if it should snow, I'll be driving up to pick him up and bring him back here to help out. Otherwise, Zachary and I will sleep in, enjoy the morning to ourselves and go up to Oak Hill for church. It's a bit odd just Zachary and I, but there used to be a time it was just Zachary and I when Shawn worked the weekends and Zachary and I used to go everywhere together and do everything together.

Here are a few Christmas pictures:

My sister and her fiance- they love the babies. Here she has my new nephew, Tarin.

And, finally Tarin started to smile.

Taige, Zachary and Logan at the new Lightning McQueen table:

Jarin and Brendan and the babies:

Malachi's ornery new look:

My siblings and I:

Another one of the many that were taken:

Family picture- long story, but I let the boys wear whatever they wanted- obviously sweats were the choice for the day. It was Christmas so I wasn't going to try to be picky.

Jarin and Brendan in their "insta-family" picture- always choosing Malachi because he's so smily usually.

Well, I'm off to bed tonight. It's always interesting when Shawn's not here because I hear the teensiest sounds. I was finally getting the hang of sleeping without him here while he worked nights for a couple years, and he's usually such a sound sleeper that he wouldn't protect me if something did happen just because he'd still be asleep, but I still feel so much safer knowing he's here should there be a mouse or annoying tree limb outside our window! :)

Christmas Presents

Christmas was an exciting time for the kids yesterday. They were so excited with all the gifts that they recieved. Here are a few pictures:

I love Malachi's hand- It's like "duh!"

Zachary helped wrap many of the gifts this year. Of course, it wasn't perfect, but it's on the inside that counts, right!? :)

As you can see, at the first few presents he didn't quite calculate the amount of paper that he'd need or position the gift in the center of the paper.

He also made our labels too. Thank goodness since that saved me a LOT of time!

The 3 boys on Christmas morning:

Malachi started to get the hang of unwrapping his presents and he was quite excited for the presents rather than the paper, like most babies do.

Logan loved his bug books! I just love his expression:

Uncle Rylan bought the boys some recorders which they LOVE!!!! They tried to play them all evening until it became a bit annoying. Logan will NOT let go of his and even has to sleep with it! :)





Logan got a nice tie to match uncle Brady now! :)


And Zachary got some fun K-State stuff:

Overall, it was a WONDERFUL Christmas and blessed time with our family. Today, the weather was absolutely perfect to get some cleaning done outside and stuff put away and sorted. We have yet another big family Christmas celebration tomorrow and then the rest of the week to rest and relax while working on thank-yous and getting ready to head back to school. This week has flown by!