Christmas Celebrations

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The holidays brought our traditional celebrations back this year.

We missed some of these things last year because of illness!

It made the celebrations all the more special as we reflected on last year’s holidays and how hard they were.

First up was our annual Christmas caroling to the nursing homes with our church.

Being in the nursing homes ministering to the people there is an all time favorite of mine.

The children really enjoy this too.

We had a HUGE group show up that night – seriously, I think it was almost half of our whole church!

We split into two groups because of that an enjoyed singing to the residents!


Next up was our Christmas celebration service at church.

This is a service where you can sign up to share music, poetry, singing – whatever you like!

Grant and Kamryn surprised us by doing a skit!

We did not know they were going to do this!

It was SO GOOD!!!

Our friends that host Hymn Sing every month shared a song as well, and they are VERY talented!


Finally, it was Christmas weekend.

I was SO excited!!

Kay’s came over that evening after the candlelight service at church, and we all shared hor d’oeuvres together.

It was yummy!!!

Grant and Kamryn came over too!!

It was very fun!!

I must have been focused on the food, because those are the photos I have except for that last photo of some cute munchkins in front of the tree.


After everyone was in bed that night, my head elf (Blake) and I set the gifts under the Christmas tree.

Something about that simple thing brings me so much joy!


The next morning started bright and early as always for me.

I enjoyed some coffee by the tree.

Once everyone was up and Grant and Kamryn were back, we opened gifts together.

And I do not have one photo to share of that, ha, ha!

Except of one cute Ruby Jane who kept eating all of the wrapping paper.

Then everyone played games and built Legos while we waited for Kay’s and some dear friends to come our way at 1:00.


We had a brunch and more gift opening planned!

The food was delicious – even the slightly burnt egg bakes – but the company was even better!


Once we finished eating it was time for Kay’s crew to open gifts from us and for the children to exchange gifts that they had for the sibling gift exchange.

It was super chaotic in the VERY BEST WAY!!!

Blake and I were so touched with some beautiful cards from the children and some money for a weekend get away!!

I cannot wait to plan that!!


I cannot believe Christmas is over!

It went so very fast.

I made LOTS of notes on my lists from this year with changes I hope to make to our food choices and such next year!

Do you all keep lists from year to year?

I would never remember ONE THING if I didn’t!

I still write my lists with a pen and notebook paper, but I think I need an excel spreadsheet for all things Christmas gifts – as our family has grown I need a better way!!

I hope you all had a nice Christmas too!

Such a wonderful time of the year.

Now that January is here, we are hoping for some SNOW!

Happy New Year, friends!!!

Let’s do this 2024!!!

Happy 20th Birthday, Chad Ryan!!

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If you have been here for awhile, you know we love to celebrate birthdays!

We enjoyed celebrating Chad’s birthday the week before Christmas!

Thanks to our mild December weather, we had a grilled burger bar, homemade french fries, tossed salad, fruit salad, and chocolate cake for Chad’s meal and dessert of choice.

It was enjoyed very much!!!


There were guests at Chad’s party!

They are super cute guests!!


Of course there were gifts!

It is so fun to get gifts for someone else!

I really like the hat, with the logo of David’s new business, that David and Kayla gifted Chad .


Let’s not forget about that cake!!

Addie Mae made two cakes, of course, because we feed a crowd around here!

We sang to Chad and he blew out all twenty of those candles.


It was a fun Sunday lunch celebration!!

Sundays are the BEST in all the ways – but a birthday makes it better!

Chad Ryan, we enjoyed celebrating your birthday!

You bring so much life and laughter to our lives!

Happy, happy birthday to our giant!!

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH, CHADDY!!!

A GREAT start to December with Another Tradition

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The first weekend of December was wonderfully full of many good things!

It did make us “divide and conquer” as Blake took the youngest three children to a Combat Robotics Competition in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, that Saturday.

Lane had qualified to compete in the Midwest Combat Robotics Championship!!

The fact that Lane qualified for this competition was enough, but he ended up tying for eighth place that day – out of the thirty-two best robots in the Midwest!

This also made him tied for eighth place in the 250 robotics participants nationwide!

Lane worked SO hard designing, building, and preparing for this event.

We are thankful for the growth, skill and knowledge it has brought!

One proud mama here!

There is great joy in watching your children excel and grow in things that interest them!


While Team Lane was away that day, I had a trip planned too!!

I headed out bright and early to visit a long time friend so that we could spend the day together!

It has been awhile!

This sweetest friend usually always comes my way because of the season of life I am in.

I was very excited to head north to not only see her, but also her two daughters and grandbabies!!

We had the BEST day!!

Shopping, laughing, talking non-stop, visiting those adorable babies and their mamas…

I hope we get to do it again soon!!


After our day together I headed back home to get ready to go to the Rotary of Lights that evening.

It is a Christmas tradition to be volunteers for an evening at the Rotary of Lights display in LaCrosse.

One of my favorite traditions for sure!!

We were missing most of our crew because of that robotics competition, but we still had a wonderful time!

The weather was cold, but dry and not windy.

The crowds were HUGE!

I stood at the exit to collect monetary donations and donated food for the food pantries.

I said “Thank you so much! Merry Christmas!! Don’t forget to turn on your headlights!” hundreds of times!!

My face was sore when our two hour shift was over from smiling so much, ha, ha!

About this first photo – got to love a blurry selfie while driving, am I right?


Sunday of that weekend Team Moschel was in charge of our meal day at our church.

It is a FUN job!

Once we got that all cleaned up, everyone headed to Twin Oaks to hang out and have some snacks at dinner time.

SUNDAYS FILL MY CUP, you all!!!

And we woke up to a little bit of snow that morning!


Phew!

Reliving all of that made me happily exhausted all over again!!

We said yes to A LOT in December – more posts about all that coming up!

I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

I have a deep craving right now for community.

For people.

For face to face time instead of “facetime”.

Maybe it’s my age?

I actually think it is because our pastor has been speaking of community and its importance in his sermons lately.

Do you realize that the people (people JUST LIKE US!) in the Bible had to TELL each other things face to face?

It was their ONLY way!

Thought provoking!!

Because it is the end of the year, it is a good time for reflection and a new direction.

Happy New Year, friends!!!

I hope that you can look back on 2023 with gladness for all the Lord has done!!

The Things of November

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It is so hard for me to believe this year is almost over, let alone that November already happened!

I think this incredibly mild weather has some part in that!

We still put our bird restaurant on the corner of the deck like we do every year.

I am anxious for some snow so that we can get our cardinals to visit!!

They always wait for the snow before they start showing up everyday.


We are still the team in charge of the kitchen at our church.

I can honestly say that we do not do all things as well as I would like – and this is one of them!

We did find a few hours at the beginning of November to clean the church kitchen and the kitchen storage area.

These three tackled the kitchen while Addie and I tackled the storage area.

We made a good dent in both!

Getting Lane to smile with his eyes open is a new challenge!!

Maybe those orthodontic rubber bands he wears are pulling his eyes shut, ha, ha!

We laughed so hard tying to get this photo of him!


We used our thieves cleaner from home at the kitchen that day.

We use this cleaner for everything in our home too – and I love how effective and yet how safe it is!!


School marched on in November!

Bookwork, piano lessons, and even art class where we water colored all of the gift tags for Christmas presents!


We also had an “art” project of covering the sliding glass windows with hand cut snowflakes.

This is my effort to keep the birds from running into the windows, and it works 99 percent of the time!

The kiddos were diligent in this effort and the finished windows look so beautiful!

We get lots of compliments on them!


We kept up with Twin Oaks as always too.

What will I do someday when I do not have kiddos to help with everything???

They are amazing helpers and really apply themselves to their chore duties!

Eliza, who’s shoes are you wearing in this first photo, ha, ha!


I have many chores too, even though I am in management here at Twin Oaks these days!

My biggest things are management things, but also laundry, dusting and floors.

Laundry is a never ending humble job for someone who likes to have a list and check things off of it!

You NEVER check laundry off your list, just saying.


See that bedding in that photo above?

It was worn out.

My husband says that is what happens when your wife buys cheap bedding.

He is wise that way!

I bought new bedding – which wasn’t super pricey, but a little more pricey than the cheap bedding from Amazon – so there’s that.

This new comforter is AMAZING.

Blake and I both agree it is like sleeping under a cloud!

I think it is pretty too, don’t you??


We would always choose a day with our bests!!!

As Kayla’s family has grown and our youngest children get older too, more time is needed at home for school.

I decided to take a whole week off of normal life at Thanksgiving and somehow talked Kayla into that too!

Then I stole her children!!

We had the boys first, and then the girls!

We sure miss them when we are not together – but we video chat a lot and we are always together on SUNDAYS!!


Blake and I were offered a last minute date night one Friday night by Addie who said she would be home with the younger children.

I messaged Blake quick to see if he was up for not only a date, but asking Grant and Kamryn if they were crazy enough to join us!

He said yes, and then they said YES!!

We had THE BEST TIME!!

We ate dinner out, and then had ice cream while sitting by the fire at Hyvee.


Speaking of those two – Addie and I got to join Kamryn, her Mom, and her sister for some WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING at the beginning of November!

I KNOW!!

It is all just way too exciting for words!!!

Kamryn did not get her dress from that wedding dress shop that night, but she does have her dress ordered!!!


Blake and Chad like to hunt.

They went hunting on opening weekend, as they always do.

I do not know all of the stats on who has shot a deer what year – or how big it was – or any of that.

It just doesn’t stay in my brain!!

But I do know they hunt a lot and do not get many deer – a lot of times not even seeing any while they are out hunting.

So this year when Blake shot a buck within the first few hours of the first time they were hunting, they were VERY excited!

I was too!

We donated the meat to some friends because our freezers are FULL.

It was a good day for the guys!

And a good day for me and the youngest three at home because we had a pj, donut, and movie party that morning while the guys were hunting!

I think we need to make that a tradition, don’t you, kiddos??


Addie and I are on our Women to Women committee at church.

We had a BEAUTIFUL worship night the Monday evening after Thanksgiving!

Eliza joined us too!


I was able to share some gluten-free sourdough with some friends!

Eliza called them my sourdough babies, and they sat in the fridge until we delivered them.


Our animals are doing great in our Lil Red Barn!!

We love them so much!!

The goats’ personalities make us laugh!!


Here are some random snapshots from November!!!

I will let the photos tell their story!!


How about a couple of beautiful sky photos to end this long post??

The sky is just so unbelievably amazing in every way.


That was a fun walk through the rest of November!!

It was a GOOD month!!

Yikes, you all!!

2023 is almost over!!!

I am hoping you can look back on this year and see the Lord’s hand in it ALL.

Life is a blessing!

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