Christmas in Virginia

OK- so i think Christmas may finally be over for us :) We did PA from Friday-Monday; my Granddad's on Christmas; and my family in Staunton on the 26th...

Christmas in Staunton, well let's just say i think some people went overboard on the presents... my mother- i just don't think she can help herself. we are suppose to only buy stocking stuffers for each other and get together to have a meal... well i would of had to have had a pretty large stocking, let me tell ya!

We did have a nice time together...
although little Emma got sick about 10 minutes before coming over for dinner ...

and then continued to get sick several more times that evening...

Of course she managed to get her presents opened with a little help from her big sister, Hannah.
Christmas always manages to remind me how blessed we really are. to think about the real reason for the season and where we would be in our lives with our Saviour Jesus Christ! that God would send His only Son here to earth to save such a one, like us.

What a blessing to be able to get together with family and just spend some good quality time with one another. As mentioned in the previous post, we spent several days in PA with Matt's family, minus his little sister, Marci and her husband Aaron, they are due with their first baby on January 12th- grandbaby number 6 for the Landis clan! So we missed them.
As well as spending some time in Max Meadows and Staunton with my family, minus my big brother, Mitch and his wife Lyne. They live on the Outer Banks and my brother is self employeed - so you know when you have work- you pretty much need to take advantage, especially in the building industry these days. We missed them and their 2 dogs as well...

I think one of the neatest gifts i got was from my sister, she bought me a fetal heart beat amplifier- it's very similar to the hand held one they use at the OBs office when they are checking for the heartbeat. We all took turns listening to the baby's heartbeat with headphones... how awesome is that?! Plus it's reassuring to hear that every now and again... especially since i'm not feeling (or recognizing) baby movement just yet.

Max Meadows on Christmas day was a bit bitter-sweet. My Grandmother passed away this year, i would say unexpectedly, and so this was the first Christams without her busseling around the house cooking and hugging and singing and giving out presents. It was tough, especially on her children, but on us grandchildren as well.

We had a really great turn out, yet again, this year for the day. There were some missing for work reasons mostly, but all in all it was a nice time to get together with family and just share the memories for a while. ... Family Shots

Lord, help me to not take for granted those in my family and to appreciate and to love them always!

Merry Christmas... until next year

Christmas in Pennsylvania

well, i suppose i'm finally getting the hang of this blog thingy...

we're in PA for Christmas with matt's family for a couple days. what a nice break from harrisonburg living... we came up early friday morning, leaving the burg around 5:20am we made the 4 hour trek to quakertown, pa....

we were able to hang out with some family for a while and then some of matt's college and even highschool buddies on friday night. the schmidts even fed us dinner! what a treat!!! schmidty may have a hard time parting with a postage stamp, but he sure can provide a nice meal.... (you'd have to ask him about that one)

saturday - today that is- has been a real relaxing day! all morning we just hung out with the boys... ok so this is an older picture... i need to work on getting some newer ones- WHICH i did try today...only the littlest one you see here, was not very cooperative! :) These are 3 of our nephews... Jarod, Zachary, and Tyler...silly boys...

so, we spent part of the morning hanging out and playing games with them... then around lunch time headed over to Matt's parents for the rest of the day and evening...

truly a relaxing time filled with way more than enough good food, conversation, and wild boys running around! hahaha

now, here i am once again trying to get some tips on making a blog page... Nell-Marie, remember you said you were more than happy to help! I may be calling real soon...

Tonight we spent some time talking about traditions we've had growing up and thinking about what sort of traditions we might have with our kids... wow- lots of decisions... do you do the 'Easter Bunny' thing, the 'Tooth Fairy' thing, the 'Santa thing', you know all those'things' we grew up with as kids, but now we 'know better' and do we pass on that tradition for tradition sake, or not? i don't have the answer to all of these right now, but it has really got me thinking about how decisions like this that we begin to make, effect our children and most likely or children's children... Lord help us!

in between all the tradition talk, there was a constant poker game going on with matt and his older neice and nephew... i tell you what those kids know their game, only serious players need attend those games!

Welcome

Ok, well here it goes... my first attempt at blogging... i thought i would try and get a little jump start on finding a way to communicate a bit with friends and family. find a way that people that really do care can jump on and off as they please and browse around and see what's happening with landis life...a place to mainly see pix of what's been going on with us and our travels and our soon to be expanded family.

don't expect too much however, i don't anticipate daily posts, rather monthly or seasonly posts would probably be more like it. i would however check back for updated links to photo albums and pix for the latest news of well... landis life.

currently, we are expecting our first little landis, we are 17 weeks pregnant and our due date is may 28th. we have great aspirations for ourselves - yeah now don't be thinking that we think we know it all or anything- all i'm saying for now is that we are NOT going to find out the sex of our baby! part of me really can't belive it... WHY? because i've always been such the planner, and though this is a bit stretching, i'm really quite excited because i simply LOVE SURPRISES! and plus i figure this will be even more inspiration to push when the time comes... right? well, right?

i will be working on this blog thingy over the holidays- which include CHRISTmas and New Years, in hopes of getting some pix and some words in such a manner that are at least somewhat appealing to look at and puruse. so check back or check in for the first time and sit a spell... (as my grandmother would say)