Christmas Lights!

On Saturday, December 12 we celebrated our 10th anniversary of visiting Cherry Lane. This is an amazing street where all of the houses are decorated to the max. And, the highlight is the house at the end of the cul-de-sac, where for years they have opened up their backyard Bethlehem to the public. It's an amazing walk through the story of Jesus' birth, complete with a pasture of pretend sheep and a stable with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. The first time we visited Cherry Lane was in 2000. We bundled up our one month old baby, Daniel and headed out as a family of three. This year, the six of us all walked the street together, hand in hand! After Cherry Lane, we were pleasantly surprised to find another amazing Christmas display. A garage filled with Christmas villages. The homeowner has collected village pieces for over 25 years, and for the first time, she made a display of them in her garage for the public to enjoy. We were in awe of the collection, the beauty and the detail of this display. We are hoping this is the first year of many to enjoy this new Christmas treat!

Our Gingerbread Village!

For this year's gingerbread creation, the boys picked an awesome gingerbread village, with five miniature gingerbread buildings--a church, a chateau, a flat-topped building and two houses. We assembled our village on the morning of December 5. It was a blast!! All of the boys loved adding candy accents to the houses, being creative and careful! We did catch Noah sampling some of the candy, what a surprise!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for! Including a wonderful family-filled Thanksgiving Day! Our day started out early with a visit with sweet Grandma Gerty. She was at Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Chet's house and was looking beautiful! She really enjoyed watching the boys run around the house! We also had a chance to see Aunt Kim and Uncle Vince, who had also stopped by. Then it was off to have a Thanksgiving feast at Uncle Andy's condo. He said he could do it. We may have had some doubts beforehand, but no longer! He did a fantastic job!! He made a flavorful, moist turkey, a standing rib roast, potatoes, stuffing and rolls. The rest of us brought side dishes, pies and desserts. We were all stuffed after this delicious meal. It was great to have a chance to visit with Grandma Bettie, Grandpa Ron, Uncle Flake and Grandma Freda, too! What a great day and what a blessing to share it with so much of our dear family!

Zoo Lights!

Benjamin wanted to celebrate his birthday by going to Zoo Lights. He invited Aunt Kim and Uncle Vince to come along, and as a bonus, Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Chet were also able to come! It was a great night, not very cold and not very crowded. And, because we went on a zoo member preview night, we were all able to ride the carousel and pet the sting rays for free! And, Jengo, the talking Giraffe, even sang Happy Birthday to Benjamin! It was the perfect start to the Christmas season!

The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular!

To celebrate Daniel's 9th birthday and Benjamin's 7th birthday, we had a wild adventure of a birthday party--right in our backyard!! We had 56 kids join us for the celebration . . . just amazing!! The party started with an Indiana Jones Stunt Show. Indiana Jones (played by Dad!) battled a ferocious bad guy (played by Uncle Vince!) on the roof of our house. It was close, and Indy was pretty banged up, but he eventually escaped! Indiana Jones then joined the party, leading us over to the park across the street for two games. First we had a mummy-wrapping contest and then a treasure hunt. Then we headed over to the picnic tables for a birthday treat. Chilled monkey brains were served to all the party-goers. Okay, they were really vanilla cupcakes, but they were made to look like monkey brains! After eating, we went back home where the "Bug Lady" was ready to give us kids one last treat. She gave an awesome presentation on bugs and arachnids and then all of the kids (who wanted to!) were able to hold some of her creatures--including a millipede, giant cockroaches and fascinating stick bugs! What a great day, and thankfully, the rain stopped right as the party was starting. Thank you God for great friends, great weather and a great day!

Welcome Spot and Ned!

Our tadpoles arrived this week! We ordered two tadpoles last May, but they could not be shipped until the weather cooled. On Friday, November 6, they arrived in two plastic jars, packed in styrofoam. The boys could not wait to open the package. Once we opened them, we prepared Planet Frog, got some bottles of purified water and began to get them acclimated to their new home. On Saturday morning, we fed them their special tadpole diet and they seem very happy and quite active. Welcome to the family, Spot and Ned!

Happy Halloween!

The Keller Boys love Halloween! Dressing up and eating candy are a few of our favorite things! This year, all four of us boys dressed up as Army soldiers. We got many comments from neighbors as we marched through the streets at night. Many thanking us for helping to keep our country safe! Before trick-or-treating our neighborhood, we had to carve our pumpkin (which we wanted to look just like our pumpkin shirts!). Then we filled up on a dinner of Halloweenies (pigs in a blanket, wrapped to look like mummies). We then piled in the van and headed over to Aunt Kim and Uncle Vince's house to get some treats! They were thrilled to see the Calvary headed to their front door. They had their front yard decorated like a creepy pirate village-wow!! We were back home in time to walk our neighborhood and fill our bags with goodies. It was a great day, an awesome night, and we got a ton of candy, too!