Wenzel: Party of 4!

Being a mom of 2 kids is NO.JOKE.  Everyone told me that, and I believed them.  And I'm here to say they were preaching TRUTH.

And that's my excuse reason that it's been over 2 months since I posted here.

The other reason?  I've been living life as a mom with 2 kids.  It's the most challenging thing I've ever done -- but it's also the BEST.

And THAT'S the truth.

Okay, on to the point of this post.  I have a friend in our Connect Group at church that is a photographer, and she just happens to live in our neighborhood, right on the road behind ours.  She was sweet enough to come by one day before Jeff went back to work to take some family photos right after Natalie was born.

Deacon is 3 years and 4 months old in these photos, and Natalie is 12 days old...

Thanksgiving 2013...

I'm late with this post, but what's new?  It's the season to be behind, right?

No?

Well, I am.

But I'm doing the best I can with this massive to-do list I stare at every day.

And here's another thing I can cross off -- a post on our Thanksgiving this year!

We were home this year which is very rare.  We normally go to my parents' house in Lexington for Thanksgiving, but this year, Jeff's older brother and his family planned to come visit over the Thanksgiving holiday.  So we were here, and it was great!  I cooked the meal with the exception of the turkey, which my husband TOTALLY nailed.  So guess what?  He has that job FOR.LIFE.  If we're here, he's doing the turkey.

Until Jesus comes back.

He soaked our 14 lb turkey in a brine the night before.  The next morning, he put it in the oven at 500 degrees (I didn't even know my oven would get that hot!) for 1/2 an hour, and then threw it in a oil-less fryer for a few hours.  The rest of the meal came together wonderfully.  I made (ahem) homemade mashed potatoes that were so creamy, green bean casserole (in the oven, cuz that's the way Jeff likes it :), sweet potato casserole (which Jeff's brother said was "phenomenal"), rolls and gravy.

Oh, yeah.

We rocked that Thanksgiving meal.

Everyone enjoyed the meal and just being together.  Scott and his family live in Illinois (like almost everyone else in Jeff's family :) so we don't see them often.  We're grateful that they made the trip down to NC to visit.

And I'm grateful to my sister-in-law, Jill, who took all these awesome photos!

Father's Day weekend...

We went to spend last weekend with my family in Lexington for Father's Day, and we had a cookout Saturday evening with my mom & dad, my brother and his family and my grandparents.  It's always a good time when we can all get together and we usually do some pretty good eatin'.  :)

 

Even though it was Father's Day weekend, we didn't give my Daddy the day off (that was for the next day, Sunday ;).  He grilled the most awesome ribs for us -- a 3-2-1 deal.  So those ribs cooked for a total of SIX hours on his Traeger grill.  So worth the wait!

 

And we had other yummy stuff to eat with them...

 

 

Of course we brought Jeff's new ice cream maker with us to make our first batch of homemade (vanilla) ice cream for an after dinner treat.  It was soooo good!  It was pretty sweet (but isn't ice cream supposed to be??) but it was the perfect consistency and so creamy!

 

 

We celebrated the dads in our lives with some gifts:

 

 

My Buppa got a bag of books and crossword puzzles -- his favorite!

My Daddy got a basket full of all his favorite snacks + a gift card to Olive Garden.

Jeff and my brother each got a "redneck wine glass" from my parents --
ha, good stuff!

And then I had one more gift for Jeff from us -- a hand painted ice cream bowl!

 

A guy's gotta have a good bowl to eat that yummy homemade ice cream out of, right??

 

I think we made the day pretty special for the dads -- I hope they felt loved and appreciated!  I am so very proud of my Daddy and the example he's been, and still is, in my life.  I've always felt like he was on my side, supportive in whatever my current thing is.  Love you, Daddy!

And of course, I'm proud of the Daddy that Jeff is to Deacon, so proud of both my boys!  They are my heart.  :)

 

random Christmas-ness // part IV

Okay, here's the last of the photos I'm going to post from our time in IL over the Christmas holidays.  Seriously.  I'm ready to move on so I'm sure y'all are.  But I just couldn't resist posting some of these random shots of our time with family...

 

This was one of Jeff's favorite games growing up.  Deacon seemed to like it pretty well, too.

 

 

Tickles from Uncle Tim...guess you can tell he and Jeff are brothers, huh?  :)

 

 

We kept that fire going all day, every day.  I LOVED IT!

 

random Christmas-ness // part III

A sweet post for you today (and I promise, I'm almost done with this Christmas photo business).  :)

 

Deacon got to spend a fair amount of time with his great-grandparents while we were in IL so we caught some of that in photos...

[warming their hands by the fire  |  horsey ride! (Great Grandpa Wenzel is 87!)]

 

[they had the best time playing with trucks...and each other :)]

 

 [Great Grandma Buss]

 

And not that she's a great grandma, but she IS a great Grandma Sherry to our Deacon...

 



random Christmas-ness // part I

Oh, wow...I'm still carrying on with these Christmas adventures??  Well, yeah.  That's what happens when you take a week and a half off from work to spend with family you don't see often.  You cram A.BUNCH. of stuff into one week.

So we had all the Christmas celebrations, but then we had other stuff (festivities, fun activities, etc.) going on, too.  So stayed tuned, cuz I do have a few more posts to share on our time in IL.

This post will be on Christmas Eve.  We arrived in IL on Christmas Eve around lunchtime.  Jeff's brother, Scott, picked us up from the airport and we hung out with them in Palatine (a few hours from where Jeff's parents live) until their Christmas Eve started at their church, Willow Creek Community.

Awesome service, by the way.

So these photos are from our time with them on Christmas Eve...

 

Can you see the residual chocolate around his mouth?  That Uncle Scott...

 

 

 

Aunt Jill was brave to let Deacon mess around with her presents.  :)

 

 

Walking out to the car for the service -- it was pretty slick on the sidewalk.

 

On the 4th day of Christmas...

...we were in Lexington, NC!

 

We got together with my family in Lexington the weekend after we got back from IL, so we celebrated Christmas with them -- there were 11 of us -- on Jan 4.

 

We did actually eat breakfast first, which doesn't usually happen (we usually tear into those gifts as soon as we can get everyone gathered :). But my mom made a scrumptious meal and we enjoyed sitting around the table eating good food and catching up.

 

Next came the gifts.  We've always done stockings in my family until this year.  The young kids -- Cora Beth, Bear and Deacon -- still had them but the adults didn't.  Kind of a bummer but it was fun to watch the kids open theirs, and because we didn't have any to open, we were able to see their reactions to a lot of the stuff they found in their stocking.  They did pretty well finding everything and figuring out what it all was, but things began to get mixed up due to the "one-for-each-of-them" thing + everything ending up on the floor instead of back in the bag -- er, I mean, stocking.  (I can't even tell you the last time we had an actual stocking w/gifts in it -- those just don't hold much.)

 

Anyway, we got everything sorted out with some "hey, is that yours, buddy, or does that belong to Bear?" and that was that.  And with the exception of a very cranky ready-but-not-ready-to-take-a-nap-Deacon (who got put down for a nap shortly thereafter), we had a nice time opening the regular gifts, seeing what everyone got.  That's how we roll in the McAfee house -- we usually go around and everyone opens their gifts one at a time, so we can see what they get, their reaction, etc.  It takes us a while, but it's fun.

 

I live fairly close to my family, considering how far Jeff is from him, so we do get to see them much more.  However, everyone is so busy with their own lives that we really don't get to see as much of each other as you would think, given the 4 hour distance that separates us.  So time with my family is precious when we're able to gather for a special occasion, not the least of which is Jesus' birthday.  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

...from Gram & Buppa (Deacon's great-grandparents)... 

 

 

...Bear & Deacon both got one!

[Bear, 23 mos  |  Deacon, 26 mos]

 

...so precious -- I missed Deacon's hug for Gram, but captured this tender-hearted moment of thanks for Gram from Bear...

 

 

Whew!  So yeah, 4 days of Christmas celebrating, over the span of 2 weeks.  We so enjoyed being able to spend time with both of our families this year.  I hope y'all had an equally wonderful Christmas season.  Here's to a new year in 2013 -- be blessed!

On the 3rd day of Christmas...

...we were in Freeport, IL!

 

We spent the week we were in IL with Jeff's mom & dad, in his hometown of Freeport.  We celebrated Christmas with his immediate family -- the 13 of us + 3 dogs -- on Saturday, Dec 29.  Jeff has 3 brothers, one older and two younger, and we were all able to be there for Christmas so it was a full house, but we all enjoyed being together.

 

Grandpa Duane (Jeff's dad) and Deacon played Santa, handing out presents to everyone and then we all tore in.  We got some really great things, but it was just nice to be with all of Jeff's brothers and their families for the day.  Deacon entertained us all, of course, but we enjoyed spending time by the fire, eating good food, building puzzles & playing cards.  We all get along great and it's always nice to spend time with them...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ clock that Jeff made for his mom ]

 

 

 

 

[ Grandpa Duane & Grandma Sherry with their grandkids ]