Jesus Dies on the Cross (as drawn by a 4 year old)

Logan drew this picture on Sunday morning without any prompting by us. If you look closely you can see the nails that were used to nail Jesus to the cross. On the right hand side of the picture you can also see a picture of an angel in green that he drew. It amazes me what goes on inside his head.

Logan as a pirate

This was one of the dress up costumes Casey included in Logan's Christmas dress up bin. He looks like the real deal...dread locks and all!

Catching Up

My old roommate from UWEC, Jon Mattison, and his family were back in Wisconsin from California so we got our families together up in the Dells to play and catch up. It was good to see him and his wife again and for our kids to get some time together (they have three that match up one-to-one with ours). We had some laughs and shared some "where is he now" moments while chasing the kids around. It's great to have friends that are at the same place and share the same values...I just wish they were closer and our visits more frequent.

Christmas 2008

It was another exciting and eventful Christmas holiday for the Recob clan. On Christmas Eve morning we did presents from Mom and Dad. Julie made some delicious Monkey bread and we all enjoyed it's yummy, sticky goodness while the boys tore into their presents. Ava got into the mix a little bit too, mostly wanting to play with whatever toy the boys had just opened.

After presents we headed over to my parents to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa Recob, Kaitlyn, Ron, Bobbi and family. We ate like normal (tons of delicious appetizers, a full course dinner featuring the "roast beast" and desserts-0-plenty) with present opening framing dinner. Logan got a remote control helicopter that he'd been asking for since September, Cooper got some new food for his kitchen (he's quite the chef) and Ava had fun opening some matching bedding for her owl themed room. We left probably a half hour too late with the kids getting a little cranky but everyone had a great time.

On Christmas day morning we woke early to find that Santa had visited and he must have thought the kids were especially good this year. All I can say is that there was a whirlwind of wrapping paper and when it was all over we had even more presents which the kids played with enthusiastically until it was time to leave for Christmas at the Miller's.

We got up to Julie's parents around 1PM and had a wonderful turkey dinner (I'm not sure how we crammed it in...I'm still full). We then opened even more presents...Logan got a trunk full of costumes (Transformer, pirate, horse) from his Aunt Casey that both he and Cooper enjoyed. Cooper got some food which he could cut (velcro'd segments) and was chopping up a storm. After presents we all went to the sledding hill to try out the new sleds that the boys got from Grandma and Grandpa. We all had a great time and everyone had a laugh at Dad when he went over an unseen jump cut into the sledding hill which gave him a nice little adjustment to his back.

Like I said, another eventful Recob Christmas...

Ava's Birthday

In typical Recob fashion, we had Ava's birthday party on a "bad weather day", which for those of you who live in Wisconsin at this time of year know as a day containing a mixture of snow, ice, wind and cold. Even with the weather though we had a great turnout and our little girl had tons of fun entertaining family and friends. She got to show off some new moves (she just started walking the last couple of days...more to come on that) and was all smiles for everyone. Julie decorated the house in an owl theme (including the creation of 20 or so owls that must have taken hours) and the food was delicious. It was also an opportunity for Julie and I to reminisce on the last year and to once again be awed by the changes that have taken place. It's said often and is probably cliche but time sure does move fast and the only hope is that you enjoy every minute of it...I know we all did today.

Our Princess

One year old today...she's getting so big!

Enjoying the winter

We've had plenty of snow for quite a while but it hasn't been quite right for packing (too cold, snow was too fluffy). Finally today we had a day where the weather cooperated and we decided to make snowforts. We called up Ron and Maddi to invite them over and then proceeded to create the worlds largest snow forts. After we finished we had a quick "battle" which ended shortly after Logan took one in the face. We then went in and had some hot chocolate and marshmallows, all in all a great day.