Ganson Family Scrapbook: 2014

Cute note: Abby has picked up saying, "Of course!" It usually replaces any answer that normally would be "yes." (i.e. "Abby, do you want apple juice?" "Of course!" "Abby, do you need a diaper change?" "Of course!") She says it so perkily. :) Also, sometimes when she's in trouble (or we're playing and I pretend to cry), she says, "But you just love me!"

Prepping the Christmas tree:

Abby's going to miss the nativity scene:

I like our living room at Christmas-time: :)

Except I forgot to push in the couch cushions on the loveseat. Those things drive me nuts!

How Abby came out of her room the other day:

In her chef's costume: (and I think Caleb is acting as Vanna White:)

Much of December has still been sunny and often in the 50s or 60s. Nothing like grilling a week before Christmas!

Dancing with Daddy in the kitchen:

Micah took this picture while we made Christmas cookies. We took them around to our neighbors, including several we hadn't met yet. We have some really, really nice neighbors, most of whom have been here for quite a while. The older couple across the street came to our preview church service the week before last.

Playing in the kitchen at the Children's Museum. Abby loves to "cook":

We went with a friend to see the "singing bears" in the big Bank of America building in Charlotte. (One of the biggest skyscrapers there.) It is evidently a 50-year old holiday tradition or something. I was expecting something like the creepy animals from Chuck E Cheese, but these were much nicer. Abby and Caleb liked them. Micah was a little too old for them (or so he thought.) :) Abby has to be in the right mood to have her picture taken. Her mood was not cooperative here:

Abby wondering how the bear orchestra behind her works:

We sporadically went to the Billy Graham Library/museum afterward. This is the farm he grew up on, and they've made the barn into a big museum about his life and work. It was really, really cool. I could have stayed there a long time to enjoy the whole tour, but it was a little too much for Abby and Caleb, so we had to cut it short. In the evenings in December, they have a live nativity, so in the afternoon, the animals from the nativity are part of a "petting zoo". Micah and Caleb's favorite part was watching the camel regurgitate its cud. :)

The kids dressed up to go to a Christmas Eve service at a church in town. Afterward, we had a party at our house.

Abby liked her fancy shoes. She kept looking at them:

I told them to think about the fact that they get to open presents tomorrow. :) Abby is biting her nails (like her Daddy!)

Caleb had put a couple of presents under the tree. One was his old soccer ball "wrapped up" with computer paper and TONS of tape. I knew that one was for Ben. The other two were drawings he had done and wrapped up. When I was passing out presents, I asked Caleb if one was for me and one was for Daddy. He was like, "Um. No. They are both for Daddy." Ben had a good laugh about it. So later Micah wrote me this note:

Christmas morning:

Working on their Lego set:

Even Abby got a little Hello Kitty Lego set. :)

On my birthday, I had breakfast with Lindsey at Panera, then Carrie kept the kids so Ben and I could have lunch and see a movie. Then we went to the bookstore and had some cheesecake. Afterward, Ben left to pick up the kids and I did a little reading (I read the first bit of the new Mitford book, Mom! It looks good.) and a little shopping. When I got home around 6:30, Micah had written me this note. They had flowers and two cards waiting for me too. The one from Micah is the one with the monkey on the front. On the inside, it said "Even the monkey can't believe how old you are." The one from Caleb said, "My butt itches Just thought you'd like to know. Happy Birthday!" That is a birthday card made for Caleb if ever I've seen one.

We had a very lazy week last week. Ben worked a day and a half and then had the rest of the week off for the holiday. This week, he was supposed to work two and a half days then have off the rest of the week for New Years'. He ended up not working on Monday either though because Grandpa Ganson passed away from a stroke and the funeral was Monday. Ben and Carrie traveled up on Sunday and came back Monday after the funeral. We're thankful that this didn't happen a week later (or more) since this past Sunday was our last week of not having church services. (We start weekly services this coming Sunday, January 4, the first Sunday of 2015.) The bad news (besides Grandpa dying) is that Ben doesn't have any paid holidays OR vacations from Fast Signs. The good news is that we really enjoyed the lazy Christmas week, playing lots of games and watching movies and just being together.

Carrie said that the other day after Ben dropped the kids off at their house, Abby eventually kept saying, "Where's my Daddy?" Usually she doesn't care if we leave her at the Zieber's house, so Beth finally said, "why do you want Daddy?" Abby said, "Because I'm hungry!"

Abby didn't ask at all about Ben while he was in Ohio. :) About 10pm on the day that he left, Abby came to me and said, "Where's that?" (she was asking where a toy was or something.) I said, "Did you say 'Where's Dad?'" She said, "No. Where's THAT." (Pause) "Hey, where's Daddy???" I told her he was in Ohio and she just said, "Ok!" That was it until today at lunch when he came home from work and she saw him for the first time in 3 days. She was very happy to see him, but she's definitely still a Mommy's girl. Hopefully it won't be too rough on her when I'm gone for 4-5 days at the end of February to go to Haiti!

Wes and Joyce arrived this evening and will be staying (at the Zieber's house) until after church on Sunday. They brought a huge load of Christmas presents, so I think we'll have "Christmas" with them and the Ziebers on New Year's Day.

A few more additions (from Ben's phone):

Ben and Micah went to a Browns vs. Panthers game in Charlotte. Micah is REALLY REALLY into football right now. Everyone in the family has to guess every week what teams will win, and Micah keeps score of who is winning. (Caleb usually picks whatever state he likes best... and yes, he has actually done well. I think he even won one week.) The Browns lost, but it was a close game, and Micah was on cloud 9.

In the parking lot after the game, another Browns fan told Micah, "Just stay loyal, man!" :) Poor Browns fans. :)

Face painting at a community dinner around Thanksgiving:

Enjoying the basketball hoop in our cul de sac:

Mike and Sharon Jette, a really great couple who have joined our church, wanted to grill out for all the construction workers who were working so much in their community. (It's a brand new community... lots of new houses everywhere, and most of the workers are from Mexico or Central America. They were working on Thanksgiving because they didn't have families to go home to.) We helped out with the day. We got several remarks about how sweet Micah was and how much of a help he was. (I was pleasantly surprised at how he enjoyed himself.)

Morning Bible reading:

Great-Grandma Ganson gave each kid $10 to Walmart. Caleb picked out a Transformers shirt and a Superman hat. He never takes a serious picture:

Time for an update!

This is currently my favorite room in our house. The view of the backyard is really pretty too, although you can't tell from this picture. All I need is an old-fashioned globe, and we would have one studious-looking homeschool room. :)

At a friend's birthday party... it was a Pirate and Princess Fairy party. :) Maddox Bucher is photo-bombing. Abby is once again mad that I'm taking her picture.

A very non-typical homeschool picture:

One Tuesday after CC, I decided we had already missed too many beautiful days in October while we were busy moving, so we stopped at the library to pick up some books, then we went to Glencairn Gardens to walk around, feed the ducks, and do some reading.

Caleb holding his book about Alaska. We sat outside in beautiful 70-degree weather and read about 40-below-zero dark days in Alaska. Yuck!

Playing with the statues at Glencairn:

The next week we enjoyed a perfect fall day at the Charlotte Nature Museum. We had never been there before but everyone loved it.

Micah shaking his fist at the chicken. The chicken gave him a mean little peck earlier when Micah tried to pet it:

The chipmunks were hilarious!

Enjoying the outdoor playground at the Nature Museum:

This was right after one of Abby's famous meltdowns. She kept trying to take a toy from Caleb after I warned her not to, and her punishment resulted in her having a 40-minute full-out tantrum. At least it was in the outdoor playground. We just stayed in one side on a picnic table while the boys kept playing. I told her she couldn't leave the picnic table until she was all done fussing. When she started to wind down, I picked her up and we started walking away. Then she said, "Uh oh! I not done fussing!" and started to cry again. So we waited on the picnic table some more. :)

We got a front row seat to a snake getting his once-every-other-week meal. It was quite the event. Afterward, we were walking through the spot where the other snake cages were. Micah was in the room alone when they started opening up EVERY cage and throwing in mice. I just heard him yelling, "Mom!!! Mom!!! They are feeding ALL the snakes!!" He was a little excited to run around from cage to cage watching them all eat their dinner.

Us Gansons are pretty classy folk:

We thought it would be funny to make Ben hold a sign on his first day at Fast Signs like the boys had to on their first day of school. It says, "First day of working at Fast Signs. When I grow up, I want to be a pastor."

The first two-and-a-half weeks of working at Fast Signs, Ben had to work overtime (over 40 hours a week) for training in Charlotte, plus he had to write his sermon for our second preview service and do his other church work. It made for a LOOOONG two-and-a-half weeks, but then we got to go to Maryland and Ohio on vacation (for Thanksgiving) right after that. Perfect timing for a break! When we get back to South Carolina, Ben will start working 30 hours a week in Rock Hill.

Lunch at Chic Fila. Karl was working on putting new countertops in our kitchen so it seemed like a good day to eat out. We also took schoolwork and did most of Micah's work there while Abby and Caleb played in the play area.

Our friend Deb brought us a tub of stuff she had leftover from teaching childcare. Caleb was a little excited about his handwriting book that is all about Alaska!

We got to babysit Joshua for another weekend. Abby helped him beautify.

Playing in the leaves:

Abby dressed herself:

And like any diva, she doesn't like the paparazzi:

Abby woke up with a stomach bug a couple weeks ago. It only lasted less than a day, and no one else got it, thank goodness!

Trying to figure out how to get on the roof to clean the gutters:

Had to upgrade to a bigger ladder:

We served at a community Thanksgiving dinner. I face-painted most of the time. Caleb wanted his face to look like a shark's mouth. One of the Zieber girls painted it for him:

Abby's rainbow:

Micah free-handed drawing the USA. He got bored with it after the east coast, and things got a little out of proportion, but otherwise, he did a great job!

Or homeschool group singing their memory verses:

We learned about the different parts and systems of our body. Each kid got to put together a model of their body:

Our trip to Maryland. We had a lot of delays once we hit the mountains in Virginia (because of snow), but then didn't see snow again until we got to Cooper's Rock. We aren't in South Carolina any more!

Possibly the kids favorite part of Maryland:

Possible Abby's favorite part of Maryland. She literally sat on the chair holding the kitty for about an hour and a half.

Day two of tubing:

Caleb's quote of the weekend: My Dad got a deer and had it hanging up in the machine shed, already skinned. Caleb saw it and said, "Wow, that deer is SUPER dead!"

On to Ohio. We went with Grandma Kaufman to the mall. She treated the kids to a train ride: