Christmas 2012

Getting ready to go to the Christmas Eve Service

 

We woke up to just a coating of snow. Even though it was just a bit, a White Christmas it was!

 

 

Christmas Morning!!

Later that morning we headed out to western PA to see both sides of our family.  We had Christmas dinner at Anna and Tim's house, but I failed to bring my camera so no pictures of the evening.  It was so fun to have everyone accounted for..12 adults and 19 kids (That includes Joel's new girlfirend Tammy and her 2 kids)

Then we headed back to Grandma and Pappy's house for a Christmas celebration the next evening.

The Garvin cousins

It snowed about 8 inches of snow that day so the kids had plenty of fun outside.

 ...including these two!

The beginning  the snow fort!


We miss living closer to our families, but the time we get to spend with them over the holidays is just that much sweeter!

 

 

Merry Christmas from the Garvins!!

Max's 4th Birthday

Max turned 4 on Dec. 13th!

 

 

This year has been so much fun with Max.  I know that the ages of 2 and 3 get sort of a bad rap being named the terrible twos and the trying threes, but they are just so funny at this age!  Of course we have had our share of not so bright moments with Max, but it doesn't take him long to have that smile back on his face.
 

  

 

Here is a Max story to share in honor of his birthday.

 

Max has a fan club at the local grocery store.  Thursdays are our big shopping days.  We walk into the store and for some reason there are workers in each department that know Max by name.  They have no idea what Abby or Drew's names are (perhaps becuase they sit there quietly...Abby sucking in her finger and Drew asleep), but they sure know Max.  He makes out pretty well...he gets stickers, cheese, cookies, and the checker always has wipes ready to clean faces and hands for us! 

Max's favorite is guy who works in the dairy aisle.  Max creeps around the corner and then jumps out in front of him saying, "HI YOGURT MAN!!"  By now we know his name, but "Yogurt Man" has stuck! 

As he leaves the store, Max gives a great, "Good Bye Everybody", and they in turn say, "Bye Max". 

 

I'm glad he seems to have people skills though because his book smart skills aren't all there!  To give his some encouragement, I recently bought a wooden alphabet puzzle.  He seemed interested for a few minutes so I just sat and watched him figure things out.  He found the "K" and was trying as best as he could to fit it into the "H" spot.  He turned and pushed and turned again and pushed harder.  Abby who isn't quite 2 came along and picked up the "Q" and put it into the Q spot, then proceeded to do the same with the "O".  It cracked me up!  A few seconds later Max was on to playing hunter who bagged some tasty venison for our family. 

 

As is tradition in our family, Max gave up his lambie when he turned 4. At 4 Jack gave up the sippy cup, Emily gave up her binky (at 3), Samuel gave up his blankie and his finger sucking, so I'm hoping that when we take Max's Lambie away, he will also give up sucking his thumb.

 

Here he is with his beloved Lambie.

 

 

  We decided that Drew might need Lambie, so Max very willingly gave it to Drew and never asked for it back.

 This is his first night without his Lambie. Unfortunately though he didn't give up sucking his thumb.

 

We look forward to see what his 4th year will bring! 

Happy Birthday, Max!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Garvin Family Thanksgiving

This year Bob's family came out to us for Thanksgiving. 

 

This was the third Thanksgiving meal that I had cooked.

 

The first was for my own family plus Titus.  After all the time in the kitchen we sat down to eat and they scarfed it down in about 5 minutes and were gone.  Needless to say it was a little anti-climactic!

 

The second was for the Martin family, and that was a blast.  I had underestimated the time to cook the turkey, so we ate about an hour and a half later than I had intended.

 

So now for my third time I should have it all prefected right!?  I decided to use the convection roast setting on my new oven and well...I totally over cooked the turkey.  Thank goodness I had brined it otherwise it would have been as dry as a bone!!  So I have learned...turkey, shmirkey...it's all about the sides, right???

 

I actually didn't take any pictures of all the food, but more importantly the people we shared the meal with.  The only picture I missed was a picture of Grandma teaching Emily how to make rinkey-dinks out of the extra pie crust.  They had fun in the kitchen together.

 

So here we all are gathered around the table.

 

Jack, Mitchell, and Emily

Samuel and Hunter

Emily and Ella

Max eating his trail mix from his turkey nut cup (a tradition passed down from my mom)

Abby


And after dinner, the games were on!  Seidler (aka Settlers) and Monopoly were the popular games this year.

Aunt Jenn, Hunter, and Mike

 

 Mitchell, Hunter, and Emily

We certainly do have everything to give thanks for! 
Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

Who is Who??

When people are introduced to Drew the question of which kid Drew most resembles comes up the most.  To me, he seems to have his own little look.  So I decided to put up a picture of each child all around 2 months old to see any resemblances.

 

 

Are any of you able to tell who is who? 

 

If you can't, don't feel bad because even Bob missed a few!!

 





Who is Who - Part 2

 

Here is the order of the photos:

 

Drew

 

Sam

 

Jack

 

Emily

 

Abby

 

Max

 

 

So who do you think Drew looks like the most??






Drew's Baptism

 

Titus and his wife Alyssa were willing to come out to baptize Drew.  As you can tell from the picture the whole ordeal tuckered the little guy out!

 

We trust that God continues to keep his covenant promises to us.  He is our God and we are his people. It is such a privilege to be able to raise these children to be part of God's family.

 

God has certainly blessed us with a very special heritage of believers.  My own father and brother have been able to baptize four of our six kids.  And we pray that heritage will continue in this next generation and the next.



Two Months Old

 

Drew is now 2 months old!  His major accomplishments this month were sitting up in a Bumbo chair for short periods of time and a smile! 

 

The smile is such a great gift to a mom...after all the night time feedings, explosion diaper changes, fussy afternoon spells, etc., the smile just melts away any weariness of taking care of a newborn.

 

I think with each child I treasure these early days all the more, realizing that they don't last too long.

Happy Halloween!

Darth Vader, a dinosaur, 2 pirates (one sporting a light saber), a lion, and a bumble bee who refused to put on her costume 

 

 

Enjoying the booty!!

Abby Joy

 

Emily took this picture of Abby and I just had to share it with you. 



A Peek

 

Bob just recently took down three pine trees across our back yard to allow more sun into our garden for next year and this is what we saw...

 

...a peek at the ridge across the river.



One Month Old

 

 

Our little Drew is a month old today and here he is!

 

 

And his big milestone for his first month was taking a bath!  His cord finally fell off after 3 weeks and into the tub he went.

 

Drew's first bath

 





The Pumpkin Patch

This year we picked over 70 pumpkins from our garden!  The funny thing is, we didn't plant a single pumpkin seed!  We composted the seeds from last years jack-o-lanterns which Bob then spread on the garden and up came our pumpkin patch. 

 

Here is a picture of Samuel standing in the sea of pumpkins that ended up taking over most of the garden.

 

 

We had enough pumpkins to decorate the house and yard with (thanks to Bob and his mom while I was in the hospital with Drew) and to decorate and give away for our fall party.

 

 

It is just so neat how God preserved seeds, provided them with sun, soil, and water and made them grow even after we had pretty much discarded them a whole year before.

 



Drew Michael Garvin

By God's abounding grace, Drew Michael Garvin decided to make his entry into the world on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 and here is the story.

 

I had been feeling very sporatic contractions the two days before he was born.  This brought some excitement because I have never gone into labor without the midwife either stripping my membranes or breaking my water. 

 

Wednesday morning I had an OB appointment where the midwife told me I was dilated 5 cm, so she stripped my membranes to get me into labor.  Bob had to put in for vacation 90 days in advance so his week off was set to start the following day.  We were hoping that the baby would come at the beginning of his time off so he would be able to help out most of the week.

 

At 4:00 I headed to the hospital because the midwife had said if I wasn't in labor by the afternoon she would break my water.  So Bob finished up his day by 4:30 and at 5:00 I was 8 cm, so they broke my water.

 

Well that put me into labor!!  And little Drew (although he was a whole pound bigger than any of the other babies) came out at 7:32 that evening.

 

It couldn't have gone any better!  And here he is!!

 

Drew Michael Garvin
8 pounds 9 ounces
21 1/2 inches long

 



One of my favorite parts of being in the hospital is when the older kids come to visit and watching them welcome their new sibling.  So the next day Bob brought Max and Abby in while the older kids were at school.

 

They showered Drew with kisses as well as some good poking of the eyes and shoving of the binky into his mouth.  Abby looked as if she had suddenly grown up overnight!  She's not the baby anymore!

 

Later that day Bob brought the 3 older kids into meet their brother, but I had taken a turn for the worse and was completely worn out and even threw up, so I was sad to see them go quickly.

 

Fortunately some good sleep helped me out and I was able to go home the next morning.  The kids were so excited to make it home from school so they could get their paws on Drew.

Going home!

 

 

Life didn't seem to slow down too much, so I was very thankful that Bob's mom, Judy, stayed for 10 days to help out.  She was a tremendous help!!  Bob's dad was also here, but needed to get back home after a few days.

 

 

 

And here we all are as a family of 8!

 

 

We thank God for our new baby Drew!