The Journey of a Lifetime
Ryan and I have decided to pursue our forth adoption and add another beautiful baby to our family. We couldn't be happier and are thrilled! Join us in our journey in adopting baby Schlenner!
On Christmas Day we open presents at Nana and Bumpa's house and then took off to the lake to stay and celebrate more Christmas cheer at Grandma and Grandpa Schlenner's!
We got to the lake and had a wonerful dinner of crab legs and shrimp!!! It's our traditional meal for Christmas with the Schlenner's and the girls love it.
Things went down hill from there....and the girls progressively got sick over the course of 3 days. Over the holidays no clinics were open and tylenol and cough medicine weren't working anymore. By Monday morning Gabriella and Jocelyn were miserable (including mommy)!!! We went to the doctor Monday morning and we have phenomia and Gabbi has bronchitis. Thank goodness for medicine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On Friday, Christmas Eve day we went to Nana and Bumpa's house on the farm for our Christmas celebration with the Johnson bunch!!
Here's the grandkids making a ginger bread house together. Thanks to Adri for the help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We did our traditional live nativity!! Jocelyn was the angel, Gabriella was Mary, Ahnya was baby Jesus, Deacon was Joseph, and Harley was a shephard/king!!!! Adri and Tyus are not officially "retired" from their duties of the nativity!
We all sing carols by candle light!
Holly, Harley and Nana singing.
Ryan and Ahnya
The Nativity group! What a special day it was! Happy Birthday baby Jesus!
Christmas morning we open our stocking as Santa made it to Nana's house!!! Notice, Jocelyn crying...and Harley is trying to console her by a huge hug!!!!
I love this pic of the girls opening gifts together at our home.
Our family had our Christmas together on Thursday, Dec. 23rd! Christmas gets to busy going to everyone's homes...so we always have our "day" together and celebrate on 23rd. We do our own traditional things and make it an EXTRA special day!
Gabriella loved the Oliva gift......
Jocelyn's favorite gift was a doll from Disney World when we visited!
And little Ahnya loved Belle and the Beast!
Thursday was a special day for our two girls in school. Gabriella's class at Holy Redeemer had a special Reader's Theatre program that we attended.
Gabriella did a fantastic job reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas" story. All the children did a wonderful job. They are all GREAT readers!!!!
Here's Gabriella so proud and confident in a job well done!
Of course, Grandma Peggy and Nana were there to support the girls. Daddy and Ahnya were there too! Wouldn't miss it for the world!!!!!
Jocelyn's preschool class had a cute program!! They made reindeer t-shirts, complete with matching reindeer ears, too! They kids sang songs, danced, and showed us all they know!!! It was a wonderful start to our Christmas celebration!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here's lil' Ahnya in her dress-up hat (it's her favorite!!!) and pushing her baby!!!! Playing babies is her favorite past time right now!!!
Is anyone laughing..........................................what a riot! Never a dull moment at our house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, this is what I was origionally posting about...the Sunday School Christmas program!! It was a success and here's Jocelyn singing her praises!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And Gabriella all smiles at the program........it was a wonderful day!!! We are so glad Grandma Peg and Grandpa Bob made it to the program!!!!!!!
Gabriella and Jocelyn had their ballet, tap and tumbling dance recital on Saturday, Dec. 18th!!!
Momma was soooo unbelieveably proud of them!! They have wonderful abilities and stage presence!!!! Good job girlies!!!!!
Here the girls posed with their sister, Ahnya, at home!!!
I am more thankful than ever that we chose to send Gabriella to Holy Redeemer School!! The atmosphere at the concert was unbelievably warm and family-like. The concert itself was precious and where else now days can you actually "see" a real Christmas Concert with the nativity and holiday heart felt songs. It was touching and I definatly "FELT" the Christmas spirt move me as I listened to those angels sing their praises to God!
Here's Gabriella.............what a difference a year makes with stage presense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gabriella with her first-grade teacher Mrs. Gregoire!!! What a fabulous concert it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Winter Dance Recital has been rescheduled (due to major winter blizzard last weekend) to this Saturday, December 18th @ 10:00 a.m. The girls are in three dances this year; ballet, tap, and tumbling routine.
Hope to see you this Saturday!!!!!! It's sure to be a fun filled day!!!!!!!!!!!!
On Saturday, Dec. 4th we celebrated our 2nd Annual Holiday Party at our house. Gabriella and Jocelyn each invited three girl friends to come over and play!! We frosted and decorated cookies, painted ornaments, and sampled Christmas cookies. Then we went to the movie Tangled and saw Rapunzel in 3D!!!! What a fun fun FUN day!!!!!!! Thanks for coming girlies!!
We had "ThanksMas" (aka Thanksgiving + Christmas) with Grandma Ro and the McCorquodale families this weekend. It was a lovely time and we really did it up good!
Here's Grandma Ro with all the Great Grandkids!!!!
Gabriella opening gifts..........................................
Jocelyn opening her gifts..............................................
My awesome sister-in-law, Nicki with her daughter Madi and Gabriella and Jocelyn!
Ahnya was pooped and passed out at the party for a couple hours!
It was great seeing everyone and look forward to seeing everyone again soon. Happy Holidays!
Happy Thanksgiving from the Johnson side of the family!
Here's the grandkids at Nana's house on Thanksgiving Day!
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with our family.
We're back!!!!!!!!!!! And we all had the most amazing time at Disney World!!!!! The girls loved it again...and lil Ms. Ahnya had a magical time. Here the girls are going to the park for our first day!
Gabriella and Jocelyn had appointments for the Bibbity Boppity Boutique to be transformed into royal princesses! Gabriella picked out the dress Rapulzel and had hair and make-up done by her Fairy Godmother! Jocelyn picked out the "Belle" dress and her Fairy Godmother did her hair and make-up. This is one of the top highlights of the trip. They had a wonderful time. Oh, Ahnya was "Tiana"! She kept saying "momma, I'm a princess!"
After the Bibbity Boppity Boutique (which was right in the castle) we met Cinderella and then had lunch with 5 Disney Princesses! Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty joined us for lunch. This was the 2nd highlight of the week!!! Food was good and having lunch in THE Disney castle was breath taking!
Here's Ariel with the girls!
..................and Sleeping Beauty getting a group hug from girlies!
After lunch we did rides and character greetings! It was a long but fun day. We were at Disney World for 5 days.
We went to SeaWorld for one day to break up the 8 days we were there! The girls and Ryan and I were able to FEED the dolphins and pet them! What a super memorable time.
Grandpa Bob and Grandma Peggy were wonderful to have with on the trip! Not only did they love it but they really got into the spirit of Disney!!! Peg stood in line, saved spots while Ryan and I ran here and there! They were life savers and it was wonderful to have 2 more extra sets of hands!!!!!!!!!
The girls loved LOVED the rides. I think we went on them all. Some we went on twice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The girls even went on Roller Coaster rides!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you look close you can see Gabriella and Grandpa Bob and Ryan and Jocelyn in second row of this water roller coaster ride!!!!
Always have to go on the Mad Tea Cup ride twice!
We went to all the parks except Epcot. The girls are just two young and we decided we'll save that for next time! We went to Animal Kingdom 1 day and HollyWood Studios the other day. We also had a day to relax and swim at the house we rented.
Diseny was a hit, Ryan and I enjoyed our time, girls loved it so much and we are already looking forward to our next visit!
