More Christmas Photos….

Cody and Liz both got some good photos at Christmas time on their cameras…so here are a few of them (a little late)…

Above: Cody

Above: Megan

Above: Liz & Megan on Christmas Morning…they’re so cute together…

Above: Marc (Frank’s brother)

Above: The Nolden Boys (Marc & Frank)

Above: Lynn, looking beautiful as always!

Above: Cody hiding out with all of his goods….

Above: Grandma Nolden…enduring all of the craziness around her .

Above: Sandi & Lynn….enjoying the Holiday Spirit…

Above: Lyndsey, Lynn & Katie…our own family models…

Above: Shayne and all her “loot.”

Above: Frank, looking dapper as ever. But, dressing up for Four-Wheeling??? Nah, I think he was headed off to a baptism or something.

Above: Liz in one of her many self-portraits. She actually has the nerve to complain about how long her eyelashes are!! They are beautiful!

Above: Lyndsey & Katie checking out Build-a-Bear (or-a-dog, whatever).

Above: Ashley, Liz & Mikayla “bonding.”

Above: About a week after Christmas we got a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Searles and we got to celebrate Christmas for the 3rd time…it was great.

Above: Ashley modeling the lovely BBs for the BB Guns .

Above: Cody demonstrating proper form with the BB Guns.

Above: This is the basement where the kids can hang out & relax. Mikayla is playing the Wii and Megan is on the computer.

Bowling with Sandi’s Family (again)

We had another fun night bowling with Aunt Sandi, Uncle Larry, Seth & Hannah…

Above: Sandi and Larry… Is that half a smile, Larry???

Above: Three monkeys – Donovan, Seth & Ashley.

Above: Wait, there are four Monkeys now – Hannah, Don, Seth & Ash.

Above: Seth practicing for his modeling career.

Above: Meggie-Lou.

Above: Don’t ask me where the mustache came from…it just appeared. She had a great time with it though.

Above: Can you say, “Uni-brow?”

Above: Liz bowling like she does everything else…with flourish!

Above: Megan & Frank…I guess I must’ve been sideways…

Above: Hannah & Liz…

Above – VIDEO ALERT: I know this is sideways…but it was so good I had to put it on anyway (I keep forgetting that during video recordings I can’t turn the camera sideways). For people that know the “quiet Donovan” at school…this video would be SHOCKING!!!

Above: Too bad I didn’t video one of those many strikes instead .

Above: “I told you I couldn’t do it!!”

Random Winter Items

Here are some recent odds and ends (mostly January 2009):

Above: This is a poster that PJ came up with. It has been on the fridge since last April. We finally decided to retire it to PJ’s scrapbook…but we had to scan it and put it on the blog first.

Above: Ashley and Donovan are playing Indoor Soccer right now. We were able to get them on the same team…which is awesome for time management. Unfortunately, 4 out of their 9 games are on Sunday…so they are missing almost half of the season (the website said they “might” have a game on Friday or Sunday when I signed up). But the games we HAVE made it to have been a lot of fun. Ashley has never played before but she is a fireball out on the field. She is very agressive and really goes after it. Donovan has got natural athletic ability…but most of the time he is too self-conscious to show it . It’s funny to see them stand together because Ashley is actually 1 and 1/2 years older than Donovan….but he is much taller.

Above: The youngest of the kids (PJ, Ash & Don) got to explore a park that is close to our house recently.

Above: PJ may not look like he is having fun…but he actually got out there and ran around (up the slide, etc)…

Above: This is a “Family Home Evening” Group that we belong to now. As you can see, we constitute almost half of the group (a couple of families are missing though). Most of them have been doing this group for years and years, but now a lot of their kids are off to college (they are home here – Christmas time), so they recruited the Noldens to help bolster their numbers back up .

For those of you not familiar with Family Home Evening, our Church asks us to set aside every Monday night to be with our family to have lessons and do fun activities together…to keep the family strong. We normally do that just with our family…but now, once a month we get together with some other families. It’s a lot of fun.

Above: All of our Elementary-aged kids received an award at the school’s quarterly awards Assembly. Both PJ and Don had all A’s (although it is just a percentage and no letter is attached – why do they do that because we all still attach the letter to it to establish significance?). Ashley was on the A/B Honor Roll…which was an awesome improvement for her (she works really hard). I love the awards assemblies because the kids come home with a lot of “freebies” from the community (like free kids meal at Applebees!!!). Megan also had straight A’s last quarter/semester.

Above: This is Donovan receiving his award from his teacher Ms. Ferry. I was using Liz’s nice camera, but I couldn’t get close enough to get a good picture because all of the kids were sitting in the front. So, this and the next couple of photos are pretty bad…but I thought I would put them on anyway.

Above: I love this one because it shows how tall PJ is in relation to the rest of his class. Those of you that grew up with me know where he gets it from…I was always like this from Kindergarten on….until I finally stopped growing in 7th grade and everyone caught up to me. PJ grew 4 inches last year – 2 of which were between October and the end of December. No wonder he can get away with eating so much. He is only 1 inch shorter than his mother now (he’s in 5th grade). PJ also hates to be in front of people…can you tell?

Above: Some of Ashley’s classmates were getting pretty excited about their “freebies.” Ashley on the other hand was waiting until the photo op was over so she could go see what she had and start trading them with the other kids…she always ends up bringing home a ton of free Apple Juice coupons (Publix). She is a little entrepreneur. I remember at the first Hunt Reunion we went to in Fredonia, she went around “working her magic” and getting raffle tickets from everyone (I can’t remember how she managed to get them all)…and ended up with way more than anyone else.

Above: Megan participated in her first Spelling Bee this past month….which seems really weird to me since she is in 8th grade. When I was in school we had them in 4th grade through 7th grade (and we walked UP HILL to get to them!)…but the schools we have been in up until now haven’t really stressed Spelling Bees. Unfortunately, she didn’t do as well as she had hoped…but it was a really good experience for her. She felt better the next week though when she placed 3rd at her school in the MathCounts competition. She will go to a regional competition at Georgia Tech next month to represent her school.

Above: This is Megan and me right after the Spelling Bee. I had a GREAT time there because while I was sitting down waiting, one of Megan’s teachers came up behind me and mistook me for Megan….until I turned around…and then he was like, “UUUHHHHHH….”

What Happens During Sunday Naps….

I REALLY love my Sunday afternoon naps. They rejuvenate me and help me prepare for another long week .

Take a look at what PJ, Liz & Megan were up to this last Sunday – since they don’t watch TV on Sundays (all of the evidence was gone when I got up…I had no clue until hours later when I saw the photos .

Above: PJ getting the worst of it.

Above: Look at those evil grins .

Above: Huh?

Above: Oh…King Tut… Pretty fancy.

Cody’s Photos

Cody got a new camera for Christmas! AND, he started posting photos on his blog…so now we will be better able to keep up with him and what is going on his life at BYU.

Check out his Blog:

Visit to Blue Willow Inn

We had been told that we HAD to visit the Blue Willow Inn…so we did…and we took Grandma and Grandpa Searles with us.

The Blue Willow Inn is an establishment of delectable Southern Cooking. The flavor of the food was so so wonderful and the ambiance was very elegant and “Southern.” It was a buffet…one price covers everything. So, needless to say…we tried EVERYTHING. It was all soooo very gooood.

We would highly recommend it. It is in Social Circle, Georgia….it was a 30 minute drive for us…but worth it.

Above: Grandpa and Grandma Searles…before the feast.

Above: Frank and Shayne before the feast.

Above: Shayne with Grandma and Grandpa Searles.

Above: Grandpa and Grandma getting closer to the feast….

Sorry…I was too uncomfortable to take any AFTER photos.

Haircuts – Liz & Megan

Megan and Liz both got a haircut the other day. I took the BEFORE pictures…but I forgot to get the AFTER pictures. But they were cute so I decided to put them in anyway.

You can check out Megan’s though on her new Blog: http://megan-diane.blogspot.com/