Birthdays, Christmas, and miscellaneous fun!

Mike turned 30 on December 18th!!! He's so old!! I threw him a surprise birthday party with our friends from Sunday School.

We had a full house!


Sophie helped Daddy open his presents (he's reading the card that she made for him!)

I had to work Christmas Eve night, so we opened presents quickly before I had to go in. Sophie got so many fun new toys!

Giving kisses to her new teddy bear from Aunt Claire

Her favorite new thing is to throw the magnets off of the fridge (you'll see a video of this at the end of the blog!)

Sophie also loves to stand on things now. She'll stand on anything she can find, including her parents!

This was all Mike's idea.

Wearing her daddy's shirt!

Sophie's walking!!

Sophie's talking a few steps now! She likes to walk back and forth between me and Mike. Our little girl is growing up too fast!

Make sure to look at the next post too for some more pictures!

Brrrrr......

It's been pretty cold here the last couple of days! Sophie likes to get bundled up in her coat and hat! She spends much of the morning in her pj's because they are so warm and comfortable! She has been especially silly and funny lately! And...she's been taking some steps on her own!!
Our little girl is growing up so fast!

Sophie and her friends playing at our Sunday School Christmas party (Hannah is in the far back, Emma is in the toy bucket, and Sarah is the one in front by the table)

As you've probably heard on the news, we've been having an ice storm over the last couple of days. We lost power on Monday for quite a few hours, but it came on around 6 pm that evening. Mike was a little disappointed because he wanted us to all sleep out in the living room by the fireplace, and he was looking forward to using his camping stove! The poor trees are feeling the brunt of the storm. The first 2 pictures are of our little tree, and the last one is our neighbor's tree. The roads haven't been bad at all, so that's good, and it should be clearing up today! I wish we could get snow here like some of you are getting in Colorado!

Many, many, many pictures from our Thanksgiving adventures!

For Thanksgiving, the Rabus family met in Mountain Home, Arkansas at the Rocking Chair Resort on Norfork Lake. We had such a fun time sharing a cabin, and the cool weather didn't keep us from enjoying the outdoors!! I've included several pictures (the bad part about digital cameras is that there are usually too many good pictures, if that's possible!)


We did lots of eating....

We celebrated Sophie's birthday again (which meant lots of more eating!)...

One of Sophie's new toys is a John Deere tractor (just like Grampka's!) Sophie and Alex took turns pushing each other around!





We did some fishing from a pontoon and the dock by our cabin...

As you may have noticed, I was the only one of the fisherpeople (me, Mike, Laura and Mom) who didn't catch a fish. I did catch a rock on the bottom of the lake, though. I'll let you decide which takes more skill!

Sophie's least favorite part of the vacation (she cried the whole time!)

We also did some hiking...

The Snow family

And we also got to hang out in the cabin...


"Hey Alex, what movie are you watching?"

Sophie and Aunt Kim

Sophie and Grampka

Sophie and Uncle Craig

The girls playing card games (The boys were playing some Cannon game where they were shooting things at each other!)

Sophie and Grammy

Sophie and Aunt Laura