Abigail had a dream the other night. A wonderful dream, at that. In her dream, we were gardening, planting our favorite vegetables, and lovely flower beds. It was warm and sunny; the picture perfect day. She woke up with a smile and upon looking outside, she saw this:

Beautiful snowflakes, but a depressing sight after such a dream. :)

The following pictures were taken during the recent ice storm we had. I never got around to posting them, and since I don't have pictures from our latest snow storm, I decided to go ahead and put them up. It is currently nine below, and we're all inside, trying to see if the ten of us can fit around the fireplace. :)

It almost looks black and white!

Cutest kid on the block! :)

Not everything is void of color.

A stick.

Welcome to Narnia. :)

A winter wonderland.

The Frozen Frog Prince.

Frozen in time.

King Midas must have graced this branch with his golden touch.

Tuesday was the last day of Christmas, also known as Twelfth Night or Epiphany. The Twelve Days of Christmas is a popular Christmas song and sadly, the history and the meaning behind the somewhat silly gifts are no longer commonly known. My mom took the time to research the song and wrote an article on it as well as a made a craft out of it...while the Twelve Days of Christmas are over, I thought some of y'all might enjoy it anyway. :)

According to tradition, attendees at a Twelfth Night party come in costume. As we enjoy events like these, we were quite excited. Instead of wearing our regular costumes, we decided to dress up as characters from Shakespeare's As You Like It (well, from the era and place setting that Kenneth Brannah had his movie adaption in :)). Melissa, Jessica and I borrowed some authentic costumes from a friend who used to live in, can you guess? Japan! Here are a few pictures from our party.

Our homemade Twelfth Cake!

L-R: Rosalind, Celia, Phoebe, and Georgianna Darcy

Our mothers.

The gentleman who crashed the party because the men's meeting was canceled. :)

The Queen and her bean.

A delightful round of Pride and Prejudice was in order.

And then we decided to mix up the characters. :)

Where to move on the board...

I wonder what she's up to...

Mom read the Hockey Family Moves to the Country to our party. Like I said...it's already a favorite!

Daniel, Christa and Joshua are heading back home today. We're going to miss them terribly. It'll be so strange to walk into the living room and not find this:

We are so thankful they were able to spend a two weeks with us, and their visit in July is already something we can't wait for! Joshua will be much bigger then, but maybe he'll be able to say some of our names by then! :) Our New Years party was full of fun, games, food, singing, and praying in the New Year. With 2009 upon us, we have much to look forward to, so many things to learn from and through it all, an awesome God to serve!

Check out those squishy cheeks! ;)

*sigh* It will be several month before we'll see this lovely sight on our floor. :(

Aunt Jess toting around a darling little guy.

Hmmm...I wonder what he's thinking...

His favorite place to be.

Having a good conversation with Mom. :)

The Davis family sent us the most adorable book called The Hockey Family Moves to the Country. We all crowded around mom as she read it aloud to us and it's already become a family favorite! Thank you, Davis' for sending us such a delightful treasure! We love y'all!

William wanted to look like a giant again...

...so did Christa. :)

Lily and Jess team up for a fun game of Scattergories!

Dad teaching the young men a new game.

A round of Cribbage, anyone?

Happy girls!

A toast to the New Year!