Finishing out 2013

 Greg and I are on a little getaway this weekend, and as he is out on a long bike ride, my mission is to catch up the blog!  Here goes the rest of 2013 for the Beutel family:

Funny enough, the first thing I'm writing about is our getaway last fall!  We spent a couple of nights in Galena, IL, and it was delightful.  Great accommodations, food, weather, and time to catch up.  We rode horses, took a bike ride along the river, walked through the shops, and kayaked.

I'd never kayaked before and it was so fun!  I got the 'beginner' kayak, meaning it's got a bigger base and is much easier to balance.

That huge green one on the left is mine.  Greg's was an 'intermediate' one (I think), so smaller and a little bit more tippy.  It only took him a couple of minutes to get used to it, and then he discovered the perk of that particular kayak vs. mine...

...smaller = lighter and much faster!  He breezed through the water and I had to paddle twice as hard to keep up with him! :)  It was a super fun couple of days, though.

No date on this, but I think Tirzah was supposed to be napping in our bedroom...I found this later.  The little stinker pulled drawers out of Greg's dresser to use as a ladder to reach his bag of chocolate nuggets up on top!

Halloween 2013:  Max the dinosaur (I think he was telling people he was a dragon, but I can't remember for sure.)

Nora the, um, puppy princess?  Or was it puppy tooth fairy?  Poor girl is outgrowing all of our dress up clothes!  You can't tell in this picture that the puppy pants are pretty much high waters on her!

Tirzah the doctor!  I might be kind of afraid to have this crazy operating on me!!!

Halloween was COLD this year, so I put Griffin in his fleecy monster pajamas, made some 'eyes' to put on his stocking hat, and carried my little monster around to keep him warm. :)  Cutest little monster I ever did see!

Greg and the kids really love the timber behind our house.  He will periodically take them on hikes back through there and usually comes home with some good pictures of them. :)

Hard to see, but Griffin had popped a tooth not long before this picture.  He was 7 months old here.

The big kids loved the snow!

Steph and I took our older girls to see The Nutcracker.  Nora and Elena both LOVED it!  Their favorite character was the Sugarplum Fairy.  Shocking! :)

Our lovely neighbor Amy has an adorable miniature horse named Mocha that our kids love.  One Sunday afternoon we went for a visit.  Nora LOVED being so close to Mocha!  She was the one still brushing her long after the other kids lost interest!

All the kids got a turn riding Mocha, but only these two pictures were good.

Around 6-7 months Griffin started eating baby food.  He was a slow starter on it, but loved it once he figured out the whole eating thing!

Happy 7th anniversary to us!  We took our whole crew out to eat at Culver's to celebrate!  My favorite people in the world right here.  We might have done something else, but I really can't remember.  Maybe bowling or something?

These two were my helpers the day I mixed up, rolled and cut out, and baked my gingerbread for...

Our gingerbread houses!

At my Grandma Rassi's Christmas, we do a Nativity play every year.  One VERY excited 4 year old finally got to be Mary!  She did great and was so sweet very gently holding the doll representing baby Jesus.

The star of the show to me, though, was this spunky little shepherd.  She was hysterical.  Her hat kept falling down/off because it was huge on her, and then she'd be trying to juggle the hat and her sheep, etc.

Max did great as a wise man this year.  He was so cute!

Yep.  That shepherd.  Floppy sleeves, pink shoes...I just loved it.

My aunt Kathy does a phenomenal job at getting ALL of the great-grandkids presents from my Grandma.  This year the girls all got matching nightgowns and slippers for American Girl dolls/Bitty Babies, plus a bed with a pillow and blanket!

All of the boys got doctor kits with a smock, 'light' head band, name tag, pen flashlight, real stethoscope, and I can't even remember what all else.

I loved Max's face here...he was listening to my mom's heartbeat.

Not too many pictures from our little family Christmas...but these girls were excited about their new jammies and church purses!  And oh my...I forgot how horribly chapped Tirzah's lips were.  Maybe this winter she won't be so stubborn and actually USE chapstick!

She couldn't even stay awake to watch Nora play Daddy's phone. :)

We took our yearly trip with the whole Dean Beutel family back to Lake Geneva.  Unfortunately, Max got sick (fever and I think puking if I remember right...if he didn't actually throw up, he definitely felt like he was going to) so I pretty much stayed in our hotel room with the boys and Greg took the girls everywhere.  It worked out, but I'm hoping we can stay healthy for our trip this year!

The traditional 'after church Christmas program' oranges!  This year Tirzah will get to be in it!  Crazy!

We celebrated Elena's 5th birthday at Nate and Steph's.  I love that these two cousins are so close!  (Side note...I used color flow again on her cake and it didn't crumble like Nora's did!  Hooray!)

Our activity of choice this Christmas break was bowling at Bass Pro!  It influenced some of our decorating choices as you'll see in a different post.

Oh, these four!  It's tough to get a picture of all of them, but it's so worth it when we do! :)

And that's all for 2013, folks!  Bring on the next year! :D