January Birthdays!!

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This post is a little late in coming. In January, we celebrate two birthdays. Both at the end of the month, now that just for our immediate family, but January happens to be a big birthday month on my hubbys side of the family. Eight birthdays total. Unfortunately we don't spend them all together.

In our home, this is how we celebrated ours.

Matthew's comes first, My second child, first son has turned 13 this year. It's hard to believe that we now have TWO teenagers in the house. It feels like time is flying with these guys. And I have so much to teach them yet.

For birthdays we give the option of a favorite meal at home or going out to supper. Matthew chose to have his favorite meal. Spiral Ham with Brown Sugar Glaze, Homemade Mac n Cheese, veggies, and homemade biscuits. For dessert his request was my homemade ice cream cake, he chose oreo for his.

We had Grandma and Pop-Pop over, and Matt has his friend from down the street over.

We enjoyed our supper, and then surprised Matt with a new BMX bike, that he has been wanting for a long time.

We ate our ice cream cake, even though the temp outside was a frigid 29*.

And just had a wonderful evening with the grands! :)

On Hubby's birthday, he wanted to spend the day in Lancaster. Our first order of the day was to pick up the Angel Food Orders for our church outreach and drop it off at church then head to Lancaster. We picked up our order, got back to our home to unload our stuff only to realize that we had the wrong boxes!!! Aaaahhhh! Back to the Angel Food distribution site, for the correct ones. This put us way behind schedule.

But alas at 10:00 am, we were on our way. Lancaster is about a two hour drive for us. The closer we got, you could feel lifes tensions just melting away from us all. All of us except, Daddy ( he was driving) slept in the car. Waking just as we hit one of our favorite sights to see, a big ol' white house and barn with John 3:15 on the side. Ashley commented on how it just feels like home. :)

One of our stops was a continuation for Matthew's birthday, we stopped at a huge Archery Supply Store. Just our luck they we're having a huge competition that weekend. The snow was falling softly and luckily for us we found a parking spot and headed into the Archery store. It was a full house with people qualifying and a live video feed of the competitors that we're in another building. We got a few items for Matthew's bow. Watched a bit of the action and then headed out.

We then headed over to our favorite campground. Pretty much it's the only place we go to in the summer. It just feels like home there. Ashley got some great pictures of the campground, completely covered in snow. The Mennonite family that lives right next door to the campground had their horse drawn sleigh out. It was fun to watch them circle the campground. We chatted with the owners for a bit had coffee and then headed out again.

Off to get some raw milk!!! Oh so yummy raw milk!!!!!! We visited with the Mennonite farmer whom we buy it from for a bit, and got some cheese made with the raw milk as well. We left with 9 gallons of milk and some cheese! :)

Then off to the Shady Maple for some dinner!!! This is a most wonderful scrumdeliumcious smorgasbord. And it was prime rib night!!!!!!!! Daddy got in free since it was technically his birthday!! :) We sat and stuffed ourselves silly! With delicious dutch foods.

By the time we were done it was after 5pm and Lancaster pretty much shuts down at 5pm. All the Amish/Mennonite places are closed. We took a few night time pictures and headed home.

It was a fantastic way to spend the day. I'm almost out of raw milk and am looking for an excuse to head back..........

It's February...Emma's birthday this month........hhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.............