Happy New Year!

We spent New Year's Eve at Clint and Amy's house.  It was so much fun.  It was so cute so see all of our kids playing together.  Since we live up in Leo, it doesn't happen too often that we get together with everyone, so it was great.  The kids played really well together (for the most part:) ), and us parents had fun playing the newleywed game (which we won--we have been married for 7 years!) and outburst, and just talking.  Here are some pics from the evening:

Carter, Hudson, Madalyn, Hayleigh and Kaine--they were super hyper most of the night!

See what I mean?  Poor Maddie is taking a beating--she was such a great sport!

The little ones were much more subdued:)  Here is Halle and Deacon--I think they will be good friends someday--they are exactly 1 month apart in age.  Actually, speaking of that, today is their "birthday"--Halle is 10 months today, and Deacon is 9 months.  Happy Birthday, Halle and Deacon!

All of the kids, minus Cline (he was in bed):

Deacon, Hudson, Carter, Mason, Kaine, Halle, Hayleigh, Madalyn, and Gage

I just have to mention what a great sport Deacon was that night.  This is a picture of Deacon at about midnight!  He was so amazingly good!  I couldn't believe this little guy lasted that long!

Here is Kaine at midnight--Amy bought all the kids these little horn things.  Kaine loved his!  He asked Amy if he could take it home, and she said "Yes--please take it home!"  Thanks a lot, Amy:)  He didn't want to stop blowing it in the car!

All us girls: Jane, me, Tara, Jessica, Amy--we missed you, Sarah and Angie!

The men and the little boys (once again, minus Cline)

Thanks for a great evening, Clint and Amy!  We had a blast.  Happy New Year, everyone!

happy anniversary to my love

Happy 7th anniversary, Natie!  I love you so much and I thank God for you all the time.  You are a wonderful husband and friend!

Christmas!

Here are just a few Christmas pictures.  We had last weekend off duty and spent a few days in Bluffton having family Christmases.  We had lots of fun!  It is hard to fit so much fun stuff into a blog post!  But here are some of my favorites.

This is typical of Halle, or probably any other baby.  As you can see, Halle would rather play with the bow from her gift, instead of the toy!  It would be a lot cheaper to just skip the toy!

Jill and Halle before bed

This is Kaine's new funny face.  It looks a little creepy, but he was getting such a good reaction out of us, and he thought it was so funny!

Kaine opening his big present from Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jan--he was super excited!

They got him a new John Deere bike!  He is a little small for it right now, but I predict that next summer he will be riding it all around campus:)

Aaron decided to try out Kaine's bike (and you can see Nathan in the background, wearing the annual Christmas vest.  It is a Christmas tradition for him--he got it in a white elephant exchange a few years ago:) )

The beautiful Halle with her beautiful great-grandma Lil!

Here is Halle getting ready to open a present

Here is Halle with another beautiful great-grandma (Leona)

This might be hard to see what is going on, but this is the fish pond that my dad made for Kaine.  It was so cute!  Kaine would throw his fishing line over the barrier-thing, and my dad would attach a present, then pull on the line.  Kaine would "reel" it in.  He loved it!

Here is my studly grandpa, with the game that we play in our Yergler family.  It is a spin off of Hoosier Millionaire, but they call it "Yergler Pennyaire".  (although, we get more than just pennies:) )  It was lots of fun!

Halle is not too sure about Kaine's new bear:)

Merry Christmas and God bless, everyone!  We hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

this is what happens when we get bored at the Maple House...

Last Friday night the Maple House girls (and their houseparents:) ) were feeling unusually hyper.  The girls, along with our assistant hp, Lisa Zaagman, were doing exercises, cheerleading jumps, etc.  Then they started doing this:

I don't know what to call that.

Then, our tiniest resident (she is 4'8"!) was challenged to fit into multiple furniture items around our living room.  This is her in the end table:

Another girl thought it would be fun, too:

Then Nathan decided to get in on the fun.  He decided to try to fit through our rather narrow coffee table.  Here he is, starting out:

Unfortunately, he got stuck.

 

However, he then went on to impress us by fitting through this incredibly small table thing (I don't know what it's called).  He really did go all the way through!

Kaine wanted to get in on the action:

I think this is so cute.  Kaine thought this was the coolest thing!  He still calls this girl's name, trying to get her to go in the cabinet with him again.   
I know, a very random post, but it was lots of fun and I thought the pictures were cute:)

she's on the move!!!

Yes, it's true--our sweet little Halle is officially CRAWLING!  What a fun milestone!  She is 2 days past her 9 month birthday, so that puts her about a month ahead of her brother, who started crawling at about 10 months.  She is still pretty slow--the farthest she has made it is about 2 feet:)  But it is so adorable and you can tell that she is so proud of herself!  Here are some action shots:  

she's thinking about it...

...and she's off!

Good job, Halle!  

bowling night

On Friday night, we went bowling with our Maple House girls.  It was really fun!  We went to Georgetown Bowl, which was a really nice bowling alley.  

Kaine absolutely loved bowling!  It might be kind of hard to tell in this picture, but he even got little kid bowling shoes--so cute!

He carried his bowling ball everywhere:)

This is one of our residents.   The night was kind of bittersweet, because it was her last night with us at Gateway.  We will miss her a lot!

This is our group:)

We made a stop at Burger King afterwards, and Kaine had such a great time in the play place!  He was loving it!

So, that was our Friday night.  It was really fun!  

Casa Vida y Esperanza

Well, Nathan and I just got back from a week in Magdalena, Mexico!  We went to visit Nathan's sister Jenna.  It was lots of fun!  We left Kaine and Halle here with our parents, so we had a week to ourselves.  It was really nice to get away, but I did miss the little cuties:)  

In the van on the way to a day trip at the Ranch, this place CVE owns.  The kids in Mexico just pile into vehicles--no seat belt laws:)

Diego found a bull's skull at the Ranch.  We actually brought one of these horns home with us:)  Don't ask me why, Nathan thought it was cool.

Nathan and Jenna helping make lunch.  We had a ton of hot dogs.

Two of the kids were giving Jenna head massages and braiding her hair.  As you can see, she was enjoying it:)

Julissa and Nereida, 2 ADORABLE little girls!

Jenna's kids getting hyper before bedtime!

Candi...she is so cute!  She was playing peek a boo.

More hyperness before bed...thanks to Nathan:)  The kids LOVED playing with him!

See what I mean?  They were having an absolute blast!

Candi again--so cute!

Natie and Jenna...eating at the fish taco stand.

Jenna, Nathan and I with Jenna's kids on our last night there.  We went to the Plaza to get ice cream and chips, and then just hung out there for a little while.

Ramses licking all the hot sauce out of his chip bag.

Nathan and Ramses racing in the plaza.

Me and Ramses...he is also super cute!

This is the adorable little Julissa and Nereida.  I told them to say "Hasta la Vista, Baby" and it was so cute!  I just love these cuties!  (By the way, this one is a video, for those who may be confused...just kidding:) )

Thank you for an awesome week, Jenna!  We had a really good time.  We love you, sis!!