A new look

I get bored with designs easily. Just so you know, the look of this blog will change periodically! I wish it was that easy with my house:-) Hope you like it (for now).

Get off my driveway!

Ava thinks the kitchen is her driveway! She loves her new bike:-)

A little Christmas

We had a great Christmas at the Epley house. Ava is at such a fun age! She loved everything about the day (except getting a little cranky because of no nap). She really enjoyed opening her many gifts from our wonderful family. We spent the morning at our house with just our family. Allie is still a little too young to know what's going on, so her big sister was "willing" to help her open her gifts. We went to my parents house for the afternoon and then went to Mike's Aunt's house for the evening! It was a fun day with family celebrating Christ's birth.


Our Cousin Marty and Allie

Chris, Ava and Miranda

Ava's favorite gift!

Grandma and Ava

Ode to Papa (a bit late)

My amazing dad turned 60 on the 16th. We celebrated with friends and family on Sunday and ended it by watching him (and my two brothers) play hockey. My dad is awesome. He has been such a wonderful, loving and supportive dad to me my whole life. I think a lot of times people view God based on their earthly fathers. I always knew I was loved and worthy in my dad's eyes and now feel the same way about God. So thank you dad for being such an awesome example of Christ to me. I love you.

Dancing Queen

Allie has a love/hate relationship with this Frankenstein doll.

Italian Family Tradition

Every year at Christmas time my mom and I get together and make Binulatha. My great Aunt Mary says it's called "honey tree" in English. It is so delicious to Italians. For some reason, nobody else seems to like it. Anyway, here's some pictures and video from our fun evening!

Rolling the dough and cutting it into little pieces

Frying the dough in oil

Shaving the chocolate

Pouring on the boiled honey after the chocolate

shavings are on


Sprinkling on the powdered sugar

The finished product! Mangia!!

Prayer time

Carrie, this post was motivated by you! Ava likes to say her prayers every night before she goes to bed. The older she gets, the longer they get! One of these days I want to video tape one of her prayers but for now, I'll just relay a typical prayer by Ava.

Dear Jesus, thank you for mommy and daddy and Allie, and Grandma and Papa... (the list keeps going until she's named every member of our extended family), and thank you for Jesus and God, and my baskets, and toys, piggie bank, cash cow, walls, bed, blankie, the rainbow and the sky, the ocean and the lakes, my maps, my cart, the penguin, for June and Rocket, my fans (the kind that help her get to sleep at night), and mommy's fans, and for everyone and everything, AMEN!

Usually she lists all those things about three times. So her prayer typically lasts about ten minutes. I think she really likes talking to God, but I think there's another part of her that likes to stall the bedtime process. Smart, and sweet, girl!!

Waving and Dancing

Any time any music comes on, Allie immediately tilts her head to one side and starts dancing! It is so adorable. Unfortunately, every time I run to get my camera, she stops. So this isn't the greatest example but it's a start. Oh, and she also discovered waving! (Sorry about the shakiness). And a little of Ava at the end!

Whole family shot... finally.

This was our attempt at getting a recent family picture of ALL four of us (I don't really like being in pictures). It only took us four tries!

Cutting off heads

Where's Ava

Where's Allie?

Finally!

Just for Laura!

A special visit.

We went with Grandma and Grandpa Epley to go see Great-Grandma Epley. She is 92 years old and lives in an assisted living center. She (along with all her friends) loved seeing the girls!

Scared or Excited, you be the judge!

Fun with Daddy

Merry Christmas

Allie and Maya

Fun with friends

Well today was a busy day. We had Maya over in the morning (I watch her Wednesdays and Thursdays) and then Braden in the afternoon. They are both such sweet, easy going babies!! Maya is already standing and Braden is walking like a pro! We had a fun day with these two little sweeties!


Allie and Braden

Maya and Allie

What's going on!?

As I was cooking dinner tonight, I noticed that it was unusually quiet. So I looked in the living room and the girls weren't there. So I quietly walked down the hall and peeked into Ava's room to find Ava and Allie playing so nicely (not really together, but near each other). I ran back to get my camera so I could catch this sweet moment. Unfortunately they caught me right away. But here's a little snippet of what I saw.

Sports Fans!

We're huge sports fans at the Epley house. You name it, we like it. This has been a sweet couple weeks for sports for us too. My awesome dad gave us tickets to the Wings game the day before Thanksgiving. The seats were great. We were tenth row, center ice. You could spit on Mike Babcock, but you wouldn't of course. Unfortunately the Wings lost 3 -1 to Montreal but it was still a lot of fun. Then this past weekend, the Westermans had two extra tickets to the Pistons game. Our seats were upper bowl but it was still a ton of fun. And the Pistons won 107 - 97.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I love Christmas! Everything about it:-) The reason we celebrate it (Jesus!), the decorations, the family gatherings, the food, and on and on. Last night we decorated our house. We usually buy a real tree but decided that we would save some money this year and use the fake one we already had. It's pretty small, but it's cute! So here's to the start of the Christmas season! May we be reminded daily of the true reason to celebrate: Christ's birth.


snowman collection


village and Nativity scene



Ava and our rinky dink tree:-)

Thanksgiving fun!

Ava, Everet, and Anika

Braden and Allie