It's been a fast week!

I guess I'll start with last Tuesday, since that's when I last posted. That evening, we were invited to U. Vernon and A. Ruth Koch's house for supper. They've been trying to have us for quite a while now, and it finally worked out! We had a great night; they invited several other couples, so it was fun to see who was there. U. Vernon made lamb for us, and I have to say that it was AMAZING! I've never had lamb before, but his, at least, was super delicious. Max was a little cranky that night, but we knew he had that ear infection, and he was tired out from the doctor visit, I think.

On Wednesday night we went to Mom Rassi's to help her with Jr. High night. Meg Koch came to help, too. The more adults, the better. Twelve active jr. highers can be a handful! They were fun, though. We did Bible charades with characters Meg picked out and wrote on pieces of paper. I think some of the kids even learned a few new Bible facts. Anyway, like I said, it was fun. I'm glad kids start out as babies, though. We've got 12 years or so before Max is a teenager.

On Thursday and Friday I finally took down our Christmas decorations. I figure the end of January is about right, time-wise. :) Actually, the Christmas tree came down a week or so ago. I just got tired of telling Max not to touch it. The other big news for these two days is that we have Verizon DSL internet now! Whoo hoo! I worked on setting it up on Wednesday, and then Wednesday night Greg finally got it up and working. The only problem with it was that we have no phone jack in the kitchen or the laundry room, which is where the computer desk was. So, we moved some things around in the living room and moved the computer and desk in there. The La-Z-Boy chair is now right next to the piano and the computer desk is right beside the front door. As you can see, we had to move out one of our end tables. I think the tentative plan is to put it in Max's bedroom for now and then move it to the basement once it's finished.

The little monkey crawling around...he loves to be underneath things

I'm gonna get Mom!

On Friday night, Greg went with Dad Rassi, Caleb, Mike, and Jacob to a Deer Feed in Eureka. Jason and Nic were there, too. He had a good time being with the guys, eating deer burgers, etc. Meanwhile, the girls had a finger food night at Mom Rassi's! We would call it a Girls' Night, but we also had Silas, Jack, and Max to share in the fun. We started out with a group picture before eating supper:

I told Mom we needed to take another one because Ellie's eyes were closed, but didn't know if the little kids would sit for another one (notice the absence of Jack in this picture...he did NOT want to sit down for it). She said, "Ok, we'll take one more, and the kids will just be what they are." Grace and Silas heard her say that and took it as a cue to be goofy on the next one. Here's the result:

Grace's silly face, Silas covering his eyes, and oh, yes, Jack decided he wanted to be in the picture this time! Oh, well. We tried. :)

For supper we had hot ham and cheese pastry sandwiches, finger jello, fruit with toffee dip, and chips and salsa with mini cream puffs, choclate eclairs, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Yum yum! I, for one, did not miss the deer burgers, though I'm sure they were good. :)
After supper the kids just played for a while, especially the younger ones. Later on, Mom and I helped Grace, Elisabeth, and Silas do some Bible charades. They loved it! Silas was David the first time around, with Mom being Goliath. He swung his arm in a circle as the 'sling' and pretended to throw a rock. Mom fell down quite dramatically, and had Silas nervous when she didn't open her eyes right away! :) Every time it was Silas's turn after that, he said, "I want to do David!" I think there were two more repeat performances.

Jack is king of the Lego table!

Hannah toddling around

Max trying to play U. Caleb's guitar

This picture looks worse than it is. Jack had laid his head down on the chair and Max had just put his hand on Jack's head when I snapped the picture. No, he's not holding him down.

Hannah, Jack, and Max playing on the Lego table. (Max was the only one who couldn't climb on top of it)

Silas in his DINO pajamas!

Elisabeth hamming it up

Jack trying to dump out the doll baby bottle into a cup...good luck, Jack. :) Hannah was 'sharing' his chair by standing behind him.

Big grin from Max

This video was from Friday evening, too. Max was trying to push the computer chair, but couldn't quite get the hang of standing and walking with it. I thought it was funny to watch.

Saturday evening we had rotating potluck at Nelson and Christy Musselman's house. Another great night, good food, nice fellowship. Sunday evening we went to U. Steve and A. Diane Kauzlarich's, ate lots of food, watched the Super Bowl, and brought Katy back to Tremont.

Sunday afternoons can be fairly laid back at our house. Here's Greg and Max saving the world on Chicken Invaders...

Yesterday evening, we took supper over to Dad and Mom Beutel's because they were coming back from Japan! Hooray! We were all very glad to see them! We saw all 3 Gigabytes of their pictures...quite something. It was fun relaxing with them and hearing about their trip, though. After we got home, Greg was playing with Max and snapped a few cute pictures...

Look at those teeth!

One more picture, this one from today. Since we've moved around a bit of furniture and taken down the Christmas tree, Max has access to our two west windows in the family room now. He loves to crawl over to them and just look at the world outside. It's an added bonus if Kia is out and comes up to him!

Hope everyone has a good week!