The Wedding

This past weekend we celebrated the wedding of Jonah and Holly West. It was a great wedding. We had a chance to see family and friends that we had not seen in a long time. Samuel was the ring bearer and did an excellent job. I have posted a slide show of pictures and a video from the weekend.

Chris

Baby it's cold outside...

This week that has sounded like an understatement. It was so cold this week that they canceled school on Thursday and Friday. Levi and Samuel were not at all upset about the cancellation. It meant that they could stay in their jammies all day long. The coldest temperature that we sat was -28 on Friday morning (that doesn’t include wind chill). At that point it sounded very tempting to give great grandma and grandpa a call to see if we could come for a visit. They spend their winter in southern California.

This week will be spent getting ready for uncle Jonah’s wedding. Our next post will probably contain pictures of the wedding celebration.

Chris

New Year's Firsts

The Payne’s started the new year with a couple of firsts. We saw a breakthrough with Nathanael’s sleeping at night. He slept through the night for the first time earlier this week. Remember, he’s 14 months old, so that’s a big deal. With Nathanael sleeping better that means that mom is happy. As the old saying goes “when mom’s happy, everybody’s happy”.

Another first involves a Dixie cup and the toilet. With four boys it’s only a matter of time before something “unnatural” goes into the toilet and the kid attempts to flush it. Samuel learned that if something (the Dixie cup) falls into the toilet that you don’t flush until it is taken out. It was a bit of a mess to clean up, which I won’t go into detail about, but it gave us a chance to sit the boys down and explain that only a few select things belong in the toilet.

Chris

Welcome to 2009 and Fun in the Snow

The Payne's celebrated the New Year by having a sleepover at a friends house. A house with six boys (four of ours and two of our friends) was a pretty exciting place for New Year's Eve.
The Payne boys took advantage of all of the Wisconsin snow by playing in the backyard with their sleds.

Spaghetti Dinner

Just some dinner time fun.

The Payne family has competed their 2nd and 3rd Christmas celebration. 2nd Christmas was and grandma and grandpa's (West's) house in St. Paul. 3rd Christmas was at nanny and papa's (Payne's) in Superior. At the West's we had our traditional lasagna dinner on Christmas Eve. The entire faimly was there and we had a great time of food, poppyseed bread and opening presents. Christmas at the Payne's is always exciting. With 9 grandkids between the ages of 8 and 1 it makes for a loud and very fun time. Thanks to both sides of the family for making it another great Christmas celebration.

Payne Family Christmas

Today the Payne family celebrated their family Christmas. As one of my co-workers says, we are starting our 12 days of Christmas celebration. This is because Christmas starts early and ends late due to travel. We also had our traditional "Birthday Party for Jesus". This helps us remember that Christmas is not about presents, Santa Claus, etc., but about the birth of Jesus Christ. We pray that all of our family and friends remember the Christ child this Christmas, and also remember that this child grew up to be a man that would pay the ultimate price for all of mankind.

Chris