Fun Visit

You may remember back in June we said good-bye to some dear friends. Well, they were back in town visiting family over Thanksgiving and took the day today to spend it with us! Yay!



We met up for church, then all got together for lunch. The kids were THRILLED to see their buddies again! After lunch, Brett and Lee Ann had some errands to run and things to take care of, so we took the kids back home with us, so they could play together longer, before Brett and Lee Ann met us with us again at the house.

Bodee and Noah fell right back into their fun, goofy routine as did Ella and Madie. They had a great time together and it was like no time had passed at all!

Later in the afternoon, the Burkeys came back and joined us. They were there at lunch, but had to head home and put the boys down for their naps. Once that was over, they came to the house and we all had pizza together.

The guys had to watch the Bears game too, so we all fell right back into our routines. :-)

Had to get a shot of all the kiddos. I hope that they always remember special times like this. It was so fun to see them all so happy again!

Of course, we girls had a great time chatting it up as well. I *heart* my friends!

Gotta laugh every time I take a picture of the guys. It's funny how we girls all cram in and hug each other, while the guys stand straight and look cool. So very thankful that we got to spend the day together and are looking forward to making time for them every time they find their way back to IL. They are always, always welcome in our home!

Thanksgiving 2011

For the first time since we were married (if I remember correctly) we spent Thanksgiving at the Drexler house. Now, my kids were not happy about this at first, because we always have it at the Trolingers and, I quote, "Nana makes the best Thanksgiving food ever!". So, the idea of breaking with tradition and not eat Nana T's food was not their favorite thing. But I explained to them that Micah was coming out with his family to spend Thanksgiving with Nana D, because this might be our last Thanksgiving with her. Once I explained the reasoning behind it, they understood and were resigned to eat MY Thanksgiving food instead, though they still weren't totally ok with NOT eating Nana T's food. ;-)



We had lots of fun hanging out with my family. Having 9 grandkids in the house was often a noisy and pretty crazy time, but there were moments like in the picture above where it was really calm and sweet. Kendalyn loves her Papa. And, I don't mean she loves him. I mean she LOVES him!! With her sweet little voice, she'll call out "Papa" and Dad's heart melts and he is right there for her. She's got him wrapped around his finger.

Now, I ask you, what is wrong with this picture? Should two grown men be reading the Black Friday ads BEFORE the girls? No. But, did they? Yes. We almost had to fight our way into getting to read them. Times are a' changin!

The cousins had an amazing time together. So much laughter and joy with them. It was so fun to watch! Livie and Caleb were watching cartoons together, so I had to take a picture. :-)

Of course, Noah revelled in being able to play with boys. They had a ball!

We all took turns working on Thanksgiving Day in the church kitchen. We used that space instead of the one at the house, so had more room. Here, Jeff is making his sweet potato casserole.

Dad brought Mom over about an hour before we ate. She enjoyed getting to see the grandkids and talk with us before we ate. She was very happy to have Micah here this week.

We took the opportunity when we were all in town to take our Christmas pictures. Had to get the kids dressed up and take one of just them. Boy, do I have beautiful kids or what?! :-)

And, look at those nephews and niece of mine! This was my first chance to meet Emma and she is just the cutest little thing! I am a very blessed Auntie!

In anticipation of having all the kids together, I bought turkey placemats. The turkeys were made out of chalkboard, so they could draw on them. This was Isaiah's creation.

This isn't the Christmas shot I choose for our Christmas cards this year, but it looks about the same. Just wanted you to see that Pete's on the floor and I'm on the stage and still a good 12" shorter. ;-)

Emma (L) and Avery (R) are just 2 weeks apart and were so stinkin' cute together. Avery kept grabbing Emma's hand and eating it. It was hilarious! I got my baby fix this week, let me tell ya!

Because we don't know what will come with Mom's health in 2012, we wanted to take the opportunity to take a big Drexler family picture with all of us, while she's still with us. I think it turned out GREAT! Last one we took was when Livie was just 4 months old. We've added 1 spouse and 5 grandkids since then!

I love how the men gather around the turkey when it comes time to carve. I must say the boys stayed very active in helping this year with the food - and not just with the turkey. It was definitely a collaborative effort.

Jeff's mom, grandma, Aunt, Uncle, and cousin joined us for the meal. They all brought goodies themselves. I took a picture of Jeff with his mom, grandma, and my mom - along with his family.

As you can see, the kids were hard at work on drawing their turkeys.

They were all very excited to show me the finished product. Here is Caleb's design. :-)

Kendalyn loves to draw, so this was a lot of fun for her!

They all did a great job on their placemats.

We had a great spread that day!! We took over some of the leftovers to the firemen next door. They really appreciated the gesture and the kids loved being able to share their goodies.

When we're at the Trolingers, I usually help with peeling potatoes and I know that Sue always had a 10 lb bag. Well, with 22 people there, I figured we'd need 15 lbs. As you can see, Livie was excited about all thos potatoes!! We had so much leftover though that I decided that only Trolinger men need to eat 10 lbs of potatoes. The Drexlers aren't quite up to their level yet. ;-)

Right before we sat down to eat, my Aunt Phyl and Uncle David skyped in from Haiti. Mom was so excited to see her sister! When Phyl was out, Mom was in a really bad place emotionally, having had just moved into the nursing home. It did Phyl well to see how much Mom had improved with that. Mom is so at peace there now and looks forward to being there. It was so good for her to see that. :-)

Why Pete wanted to only have 3 kids, I'll never know, because he LOVES babies and they love him! He's a natural! And, boy, he's so cute when he's taking care of them too. Here Avery is enjoying her Uncle Pete. :-)

After C-R-A-Z-Y Black Friday shopping (which involved cursing, fistfights, display destruction, and waiting in line for insane amounts of time), the boys went golfing. Cara and I had the kids sit down and paint pictures for Grandma, so we could hang them in her room. They really enjoyed doing that and took their time to make them really special for her.

Here, Papa is enjoying some quiet time with some of his grandkids. I guarantee you that dad is still sleeping off our visit! It was very loud and very busy those 4 days. :-) He didn't get a lot of quite moments like this. ;-)

We were supposed to go decorate mom's room on Friday, so I could join Pete and the kids and go down to Warsaw to see the Trolingers for a while, but after shopping until 3:30am and going out again at 7:30, I was exhausted as were Micah and Jeff, so we opted for me to stay behind while they went down themselves and we went and decorated mom's room - just Micah, Em, and I. Well, Avery too, but she just sat there and was cute. We felt it was important to make that a special time just with us and she really enjoyed it. You can see the little Christmas tree and some of her snowmen and all the drawings the kids made.

Cara and the kids came shortly after with dad to say their goodbyes. Dad wanted to help mom if she got too sad, but she handled it well. She was pretty tired when we left, so she went straight to bed and to sleep when we went home. She tires easily now, but is happy when we can be with her.

One request Dad made was that we decorate the house for Christmas too. So, Dad, Jeff, Isaiah, and Mason went out and got a real tree. Then we all helped decorate it. Micah and his family left right after that and about an hour later, Pete and the kids came back and we loaded up and left too. It was a really special time together. I think we know mom's time is shorter than it is longer, so we tried to make sure that this was a time we will always remember and I will say that I think we accomplished that. I hope next year at this time, Mom will still be ok, but we trust God's plan and are trying to make our time together count. This year, we were thankful for family and for the precious gift of time. :-)

Something to be Thankful For...

After tonight I know what I will be thankful for on Thursday. I am thankful that Pete, Madie, and Tater made it through hitting a 250lb buck on the way home from dance without a scratch. I got a call from Pete, that Noah answered, around 7:15 tonight. He said, "I need you to come pick up Madie. We just hit a deer and she is shaken up.". I loaded up Noah and Livie and headed out immediately. I called on the way to make sure everyone was ok and they were, but I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw when I got there. Madie came running up to me in tears, obviously scared by what had just happened and when I saw the car I began my thankful prayers to God. Seeing the antlers on the deer and sheer size of it, it could've been so, so much worse. The fact that the windshield held and it didn't go through is a miracle. So, tonight, though we have a car that is currently unusable, I have a safe and healthy family at home with me right now and that's all that matters. Thank you, Lord, for protecting them.

The Children's Tree

At the end of October, a friend of mine from the Worship Committe at church told me that a Christmas tree had been donated and wondered if there was something my Sunday School kids would want to do with it. Well, I said, "Sure!" and we started brainstorming ideas. I emailed my friend Donna, who is quite crafty, to see if she had any ideas. She gave me several, but the one that stuck out the most was one where the kids made frames and framed baby pictures of the church family. I LOVED that idea, so I emailed Nathalie (my friend from worship) and she agreed that it was an awesome idea.



A couple weeks later Nathalie and I met up and we went shopping at Hobby Lobby for some supplies. She bought 200 popsicle sticks, glue, paint, pompoms, and christmas balls. We knew it was going to be fabulous! I got up and made the announcement about collecting the pictures and soon I was overwhelmed with them. It was sooooo fun to see baby/kid pictures of some of the elder members of our church and they all loved sharing them with me. My church family was very excited to see this happen. Before we could make it a reality though, we had to get 200 popsicle sticks painted! I put my girls to work and soon they were painted and ready to go.

I sadly was remiss in taking pictures of the Sunday School kids putting the frames together, but they did a great job! After everything was dry, Noah and Livie helped me attach the pictures to the frames and today, after our Thanksgiving Feast at church, we joined Ms. Kerry Gerding (who donated the tree) and we got the thing decorated.

Look how fabulous it turned out! We called it the "Children's Tree", because we were all kids once and we wanted to make it a church-wide tree. Presbyterians have very traditional Christmas decorations, so there is no room for different decorations on the tree in the sanctuary. This one is in the foyer of the church, where everyone enters, and is now a personalized tree for us. I imagine seeing that small foyer filled with people looking at all the great pictures people submitted. There are nearly, if not more than, 50 on there! This is what a Chrismas Tree looks like when a loving community of Christ comes together to make something special. And, of course, with my own sweet kids helping out their mom to make it happen. :-)

The Science Center

Noah went with his class to a Science Museum in Aurora today. Pete was the chaperone, so I have no idea what happened. I'm interviewing Noah, so he can tell me what all these pictures Pete took are about. :-) I'm handing this over to Noah now...


Well, this picture is about when we were in the outdoor exhibit, there were 4 things that were out there. One was a bicycle on a tightrobe that we got to ride, but we didn't fall, because there was a counterweight thing. And, the second one was this giant yo-yo and there's a string that you have to pull down and then you go up. It pulls you up. And, the third thing was this bench thing that you had to sit on and then you had to pull down a rope and it made the bench go up. The fourth was a swing that you ride on, but you weren't supposed to pump, because there was this thing that was really heavy. The first person that sat on it had to pump and then when the next person sat on it they didn't have to pump, because the big heavy thing was going back and forth and since it was so heavy, it pulled the swing.

That is the giant yo-yo. I didn't do this one.

This is the bench one. They had to pull and I was on there.

There's me on the bench. It was very fun!

This is where we were just lookin' over the edge, since we had nothing to do. We were looking at the river.

This was something, I don't remember what it was. I looked through the goggles. I forget what happened.

That is where there is a bunch of mirrors and you had to put some blocks down and it showed up in all the other mirrors. It was cool!

This is the giant xylophone that is just like a regular xylophone and there are songs on the wall that you can play. They had "Old MacDonald had a Farm" and "ABCs".

That was a giant magnifying glass. And if you stand far away, it looks bigger. If you stand close, it just looks like regular.

Oh, yeah. That was the thing where you had to put your hand under there and it pushed up all the tiny pins. You know.

That was the giant tornado maker! That was my favorite part of the exhibit. I didn't get any pictures of my second favorite. You know those glass balls with little balls in it with all those lightening things that come out of it? Where you put your finger on it and it comes to your finger? It's like a giant plasma thing. That was my second favorite.

That was a hot air balloon that you had to press a button and had to wait a little for it to get heated up, then it goes up.

The giant bubble! It is where you have to pull this string and this thing of soap goes up and a giant bubble appears and you can blow into it and then you see like, it starts to go out and then it pops.

THAT is another giant bubble. It's where you have to dip the thing in the soap and pppuuullll it up and it makes a giant bubble.

That is where they were singing a song about the layers of the Earth, which were the inner core, the outer core, the mantle, and crust. That was the best day of school I've ever had! I had fun with daddy.

***This has been a full blog post from Noah. His words as he saw it. :-)