Catch Up!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tyler celebrated turning 15!!!!!!!!!!1

Sleeping Beauties!

The Famous Five!

Well, it seems like it is harder these days to keep up on our blog! Our life is simply busy!

Tyler turned 15 on November 21st! Time does fly! I remember our first Thanksgiving with Tyler. He was only a few days old. My mom came to help out with the transition. We had this wonderful video of our dinner that day....pre-feast. We then had another video of the remains...post-feast. My mom and I laugh to this day that the time between the first video and the second video was only 19 minutes! That Thanksgiving 15 years ago (me, Tom, my mom, TJ (18 months old then) and our newborn Ty was so different from this Thanksgiving!

We spent Thanksgiving at the farm in Holmes County. As some of you may know, the farm lost a barn to a fire several weeks ago. The barn has been in that spot for over 100 years and Tom's great-great grandpa. The barn, Dad's truck, two silos, plenty of hay/straw and some other things are gone. I think the silage was saved that was in the silos. Oh, the important thing is that the cows all got out of the lower barn and no one was injuried! Praise God! Something like this does put into perspective things that are important in life!

If any of you know the Alexander extended family, you know that it is big! We were all there for Thanksgiving dinner. We met at Julie's because they have the biggest table and the biggest house to spread out the family! Grandpa Thomas came down to join us. I think Grandpa is 95 now! Tom's parents, Larry and Carolyn, were there. Brenda (Tom's sister) and her huband were there with their three children....Brianna, Brandon and Bridget. We were there with our five...TJ, Ty, Dane, Lily and Sarah. Julie and Ron have eleven children....Tosha, Lateria, Chantrell, Britney, Gio, Alexis, Jonathan, David, Josiah, Marcus and Timothy. So, it was a happening place to be! We stayed for a few days.

We are now really busy with basketball and Christmas things. TJ is playing on the JV team and Lancaster High School. Tyler is playing on the JV team for Fairfield Christian Academy. Dane is playing on the sixth grade team for Fairfield Christian Academy. Needless to say, we are at a basketball 4-5 nights out of the week!

I added a few pictures of the girls. They were so excited to have the tree up...finally. They drove us nuts. Our tree used to seem so big to us! It looks very small now that we put five kids around it! I promised the girls that they could sleep under the tree ONE night before Christmas. Well, at least I got it over with! It was really a BAD idea.......fun, but bad! They didn't fall asleep until midnight. I didn't want them downstairs alone so I tried to sleep in the recliner. That didn't work. It was 3 a.m. and I was still wide awake thinking about how miserable I was going to be today! Tom came downstairs at 3 a.m. and took over so I went to bed. I don't think anyone has ever died from the lack of sleep so I'm sure I'll be okay! I did get some great photos at 2 a.m. though!

I will be posting something that my internet friend Lisa Perry sent me...waiting for a friend to scan it for me! Here's a shout out to Lisa for sending it to me! Oh, Lisa has two children from Yangjiang....the same orphanage that Lily is from. Thanks, Lisa...if you read this!

Kathy