We're doomed...

My friend called tonight to check on us and said that she and her husband ended up getting the "flu bug" also and the three of them have been sick all day!!!!!!!! That is scary since we all were exposed!!! Hope we can survive without getting it! If not, I still have some Phenergan suppositories from last January! Yea!!! Bend over kids...

Still here...

Yes, we survived Christmas and are just now getting back to "normal" around here. I have had to work every other day all week while Jonathan is home with the kids! He is getting a little tired of doing dishes he says and a bit tired of the kids as well! :) We finally about have everything out of the boxes and put together. We already regret buying a few items! (Kitchen set with a million "food items," tool bench complete with hammer, drill, and a million tiny pieces, etc!) The kids have enjoyed being home all week playing with their new stuff while Jonathan and I have not enjoyed trying to find places to put everything!
My tree and decorations are still up and may be up for a while due to my work schedule. I am dying to get it put away and back to normal but it will just have to wait.
Jonathan is singing on Monday evening at Teen Triumphant with the group he used to sing with before we were married. The Singing Friends are having somewhat of a "reunion" that evening. I suppose I will drag the kids along and have a wonderful time corralling 3 kids during a 4 hour concert without my Mom to help!!! It will be good to see some of the wives if they decide to come as well!!!
The twins 2nd birthday is a week from Sunday and I haven't even begun to think of what to do... It is a shame it is so close to Christmas! They don't need a thing, that is for sure!!!
I have to work in a few hours so I must sign off. Sorry, no pics tonight. Just wanted to let you know we are alive and well at the Walden household! (Oh yea, at least we are "well" for now! We had company tonight and their little boy threw up all over my kitchen right before they left! That was after all 5 of our kids had played together for about 4 hours! Yea! We got this wonderful intestinal thing last year over the twins birthday and it hit the entire household! Guess I am off to find the Lysol now!)
Goodnight!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love,

Jonathan,Karen,Parker,Peyton, & Paige

Chrismtas Past Photos...

Michelle had a neat idea and posted several photos of her kids from past Christmas' so I decided I would share some of our past photos also! It is neat to see how much the kids change from year to year and to look at their Christmas outifts! (Michelle found a pattern with her girls dresses...) So far, I haven't seen a pattern yet with ours.

Parker 2 months old: Christmas 2002

Parker: 2002

Parker 1 year 3 months: Christmas 2003

Parker: Christmas 2003

Parker 2 years old: Christmas 2004

Parker 3 years old: Christmas 2005
(One of my favorites!) Parker: Christmas 2005
Parker 4, Peyton & Paige 11 months: Christmas 2006

(The twins first Christmas!)

The Walden kids: Christmas 2006

Chrismtas Eve 2006

The Walden kids: Christmas 2007
(Notice it is a different Santa this year! It was "our" Santa's day off! I was crushed!)

Parker 5 years, Peyton and Paige almost 2: Christmas 2007
They really do like each other!

Merry Christmas from the Walden's!
Jonathan, Karen, Parker, Peyton & Paige

Welcome to our house...

As you walk in our front door...
Our main tree decorated with red & green ornaments,

snowmen, & special gold ornaments...
The stockings are hung by the "fireplace" with care...

(We don't have a chimney!)

My tree by the fireplace decorated with Boyd's bear ornaments...

A new favorite Boyd's piece I got last year in Tennessee...

Our kids ready for church this past Sunday morning...

Merry Christmas 2007

I didn't get all my Christmas stuff out this year due to 2 toddlers and a 5 year old who loves to play ball inside! One of my favorite things, my Boyd's Bear nativity set is tucked away until the kids get older! Maybe next year I will be able to put more of my things out and not worry about them being shattered!

Perfume anyone?

Last week, Mom and I were shopping in the Greenwood Mall and were in Macy's at this particular time! We were walking by the fragrances and I absolutely hate it how they "hound" you when you are trying to walk by them. I saw the perfume that Jonathan bought me last Christmas that I absolutely "love" and decided to squirt some on myself! The fragrance is "Juicy Couture" and it was fairly expensive so I used it sparingly all year and just ran out this month! (Pretty good for me, I usually run out in May or June!) Anyway, I grabbed this very small bottle of this particular perfume, gave myself a squirt and said, "I just love this stuff, it smells so good..." to my Mom! A sales lady saw me, came over to me and said, "Would you like to try the "real" perfume in that scent? You just tried on the "doggy scent!" In disbelief, I said, "What? They make this stuff for dogs now?" She proceeded to show me that it was in a dog bone case and they have a "set" for $55.00 that you can buy for your dog so you will smell alike!!!! I cannot imagine ever buying perfume for a dog and especially that expensive of a set! I told the lady that I had the "real" stuff at home and said my goodbyes quickly! Boy did I feel good smelling like a dog for the rest of the day!

"People" Juicy Couture

"Doggy" Juicy Crittoure

See how I made the mistake???

It's over for another year!

Yes, we actually were able to have church yesterday and pulled off both programs without "too many" blunders!!! The Jr Church program was very cute and all the kids did well! One little boy was so scared he wasn't able to say his "Welcome" but quickly recovered after he saw everyone else saying their parts! Peyton and Paige even went up front when they were supposed to do so. Peyton decided he wanted "...to go see Parker" when they were getting ready to sing. We let him go up there and it was so cute to see him and Parker standing there. Peyton just stood there and Parker kept patting him on the back. (However, he didn't stay put for long!)

We practiced all afternoon for the adult program until we were blue in the face! The first practice was so terrible I thought we should cancel it! We had several visitors fight the snow and come out to see this wonderful production! Let's just say we could've used several more weeks of practice! By the way, we did not pull this program off without any big blunders! Several times we got "lost" and got so carried away "ad libbing" that even our prompters didn't know where we were going!

At one point in the program, I was standing up about to say my line and all of a sudden this coat rack "loaded" with coats decided to topple off the platform! The crowd roared and I said, "There is going to be a slight break in the action here folks..." and proceeded to try and clean up the mess! My Grandpa jumped out of his seat and helped me! How embarrassing!!! Wesley repeated his line before me and we were able to go right back into it!

Another hilarious thing was when our maid, Janet, came running out of a side room and said, "What was that noise?" and had skipped several pages of the play! Obviously, the sound effect had not gone off and I knew that wasn't right so I "ad libbed" once again and said, "What noise, I didn't hear anything!" and went right back to my line that I was actually supposed to say! (Someone told me later that they were all dying in the back room when she said the wrong line and when I brought it back, Jonathan said, "Good girl, Karen!" Later on when the racket actually occurred, I looked at our maid and said, "Now there's that noise you thought you heard earlier!" It was quite hilarious to all of us but I don't think the audience even knew we goofed! It seemed like there were minutes between some of our lines when we would forget our parts but somehow somebody always pulled though and we did survive! (Thanks to our prompters, Missy and Mila!) We are all breathing a huge sigh of relief that this past weekend is over and we are looking forward to an actual Sunday afternoon at home for a change!

Unfortunately, I did not get any "still" pictures as we were all involved in the play and my mom was busy with grandkids! We had our DVD recorder all set up on the front row and thought we had an hour disc! We didn't know it was only 30 minutes on each side and only got about 33 minutes of the play. I guess it is better than nothing since no one was even running our camera!

Blogging may be scarce the rest of this week! You should see the pile of gifts I have to wrap! I am really stressed! I don't see how I will ever get it all done! I work the next two days so look out Thursday and Friday! I will be burning midnight oil for sure!
My laptop also has a "bug" and is in the hospital so I have to use Jonathan's when it is home and available! I am going through Blog withdrawal during the day!

Hope you all get your last minute Christmas shopping done and have a great rest of the week!

Just a quick picture I snapped of Paige today during lunch in the mall! She is finally starting to pose for the camera instead of running from it and laughing!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Well, our first big snow of the season didn't pick the best time of year to desend on us at all! This was to be an extremely busy weekend and now we are all holding our breath until we wake up in the morning to look outside! Our Sunday School class party was supposed to be this evening but got cancelled early this morning due to the snow! When we woke up it was snowing hard and I think we got in too big of a hurry and cancelled it but, oh well... Later on the snow turned to sleet, then rain for most of the day and the roads were fine! It didn't stop this family from getting out in it and hitting the mall! (I am sure the ladies are glad we didn't all go "tracking in" their houses tonight though!)
The Jr Church program is scheduled for tomorrow morning weather permitting! (We have heard rumors of 4-6 more inches of snow tonight though! If that happens, we will all be watching the Hobe Sound Bible Church services live streaming video!!! :)
Our adult Christmas play, "Beneath the Guiding Star" is scheduled for 6pm tomorrow night. We haven't done a play in several years and decided to really do it up big this year!! HA! We had planned on staying all day tomorrow and practicing all afternoon! Jonathan says we are still going to practice no matter how much snow we get! He says he will go around and pick everyone up and drive them there! No excuses now, cast members! It wouldn't be a big deal to put the play off another week but 4-5 of the cast won't be in town next weekend! One of the members is moving back home as of next Friday! So, if you are up during the night tonight, please help us pray that the snow bypasses Columbus and we can proceed with our plans! We may not have much of a crowd out there but we won't know, the lights will be out!!! :)
If you don't have any big Sunday evening plans, slide on down to Bethel and check us out! It promises some laughs!!!
Here are just a couple of pictures I took of Parker today in the snow! He stayed out so long his hands were beat red when he came inside! He was almost too cold, but did he ever have fun throwing snowballs at the neighbor kids!
I must be off, there is laundry humming, kids and a husband sleeping, Christmas outfits to be ironed and play parts to be studied AGAIN...
Hope you are keeping warm!!
The twins didn't get to go outside and play in the snow today so these were taken at Texas Roadhouse where we had lunch/dinner! It was yummy...

Another Parker funny...

Last Sunday morning, we were sitting in church during preliminaries and the Sunday School Superintendent said, "Does anyone have anything on their heart before we go to our classes?" (Just like he always does and we think nothing of it!) He briefly pauses and then says, "All right, then let's everyone stand as Jonathan leads us in our theme song!" Parker turned to me after Brayton asked if anyone had anything on their heart and said, "Mom, we never have anything on our hearts!" I about laughed out loud!! It is true though, I can rarely think of times when someone has a testimony at that moment during the service!! I can't believe my 5 year old pays that much attention! Maybe next Sunday someone will surprise him and jump up with a testimony at that moment!!!

Our Getaway Weekend...

We had an absolute blast in Shipshewana as you can imagine without 7 kids for a change!! We went with Darin and Amy Shearer and Randy and Missy Dunn. Don and Dottie Shearer and Chuck and Mary Jane McGuire were there also, but didn't stay with us. We did run into them a few times while shopping. We all ate dinner together on Friday evening and sat with them at the concert!

We laughed so hard Jonathan thought he pulled a muscle in his right side. We stayed up talking and playing games until after 3am each night. We hardly knew how to act getting to eat our food when it was still hot and getting to shop without dragging a stroller along! We all called our kids at night and they were all enjoying the company of their grandparents! (Thanks to all the grandparents who let us have a nice getaway weekend! We thoroughly enjoyed it and are already planning it again sometime!! HA!!!!)

We had some hilarious things happen this past weekend, but you would have just "had to have been there" to see the humor!

We rented a little farmhouse owned by the Blue Gate Restaurant. It was called "The Preacher's House" and it had 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, a nice sized kitchen and family room. It was perfect for 3 couples with plenty of room to play games and sit and solve the world's problems! (The upstairs didn't have one stitch of heat though, so we along with Randy and Missy decided we would be glad to sleep where it was cool! Darin and Amy thought they would be nice and cranked the heat downstairs trying to help us out! They burned up and we were just toasty!!!) The Collingsworth's were superb as usual! (Tamra probably saw about the same concert as we did!) They are still my favorite... They were so nice to chat with us before the concert and so down to earth!!! Very nice family! Boy, do they have the talent!!!

We ate enough food that weekend to get us through the holidays and brought more food home than we even took with us! (You should've seen the pile of snacks we all brought! You would've thought we were going for a week with no chance of buying any food once we got there!)

Anyway, all good things must come to an end... Our wonderful weekend came to a close on Saturday afternoon when we all returned home to relieve the grandparents and get back to reality!

If you have never been to Shipshewana before, you really need to go sometime! It was so relaxing and slow paced! We all just have to go again!!!

(I have tried several times to upload my pics to Picasa but it isn't cooperating tonight, maybe in a day or two I will have more time!) I took 135 pictures during our two day stay so these are just a few of the highlights of our trip!!!