Audrey's Birthday & Aunt Lynda and Uncle Brad come to visit!

This is Audrey on the morning of her 9th birthday before she left for school!


We let the kids go to school for only a 1/2 day on Audrey's birhtday because Aunt Lynda and Uncle Brad were here visiting. So Audrey wanted to go to this place called Bananas that has huge inflatables to play on....so thats what we did and the kids loved it!! William loved it the most...he didn't want to leave even after being there for 2 hours!








Here is Aunt Lynda with the kids! Isn't she cute?? :)


William running to go climb back onto the inflatable with the big slide...obviously not waiting for anyone... :)










Uncle Brad going Bananas at "Bananas!"


Birthday Girl Audrey with Aunt Lynda

William decides to turn his body into a real work of art...

Yet another adventure with William....I caught him as he was about to take off his clothes so he could "get his legs better!"

Austin's FAMILY birthday party..... :)

Austin blowing out the candles to his 2nd #12 birthday cake celebration!


Austin wanted steak, shrimp, and potatoes for his family birthday dinner...I'd say he's all boy with that menu selection! :)

Austin's Birthday Party....but he turns 12 on Feb 6th!

Austin had a GREAT PARTY!! He and his friends made marshmellow catapults and then had a marshmellow fight. They made their own pizzas...and went through 6 liters of soda (I kid you not!!). Then they had a Super Mario Brawl tournament on the Wii. And last but not least they had ice cream and cake! It was a FUN time! (And YES Gene made the cake!)

Snow Days

Normally I wouldn't post so many pics, but the kids didn't want me to leave one picture out! :)

The kids had 4 "snow days" last week...they loved it! But Austin did say that he no longer REALLY LOVES snow...now he just loves it...he didn't enjoy all the snow shoveling of the driveway and walkway. He was a good Scout though and shoveled our neighbors walks too, without being asked!

Here is the mound of clothing I had to "tend" to everytime they decided to go out and play in the snow!

Cheeto SNEAKER....

....AND bandaid sneaker, frozen chocolate chip cookie sneaker, candy from his brothers and sisters rooms sneaker.... He knows just when to do it too...when Mom answers the phone, when Mom tries to cook, when Mom tries to do laundry, and especially when Mom is trying to talk to Dad about something! What a boy!! :)

William says family prayer....

I have to write this down before I forget....and since I haven't even started a scrapbook for William the blog will have to do! :)

So, we just had family prayer before putting the kids to bed. William said it and here is a portion of what he said...

"...please bless the missionaries, and oh my GOSH please bless us to be good!"

OF COURSE all of us (except William) snickered through the rest of his prayer trying to control the laughter!

WHAT A BOY!!! Only 2 years old.....

Silly William

So, last night Audrey and Austin got a "time-out" on the stairs for having a screaming match with each other.

They hadn't been on their time out for more than a minute when William walks over and sits between them on the stairs. He pats them on their backs and in his little 2 year old voice says, "C'mon guys, lets talk about deez feelings."

We all laughed, (including Austin and Audrey) and then William said, "Wow, you guys are happy now, I think you can come off "time-out!" :)

Christmas Day!

We had a nice Christmas! Santa brought us a Wii! And at 8:00p.m. Christmas night we had to give all the kids (except William) a dose of ibuprophen because their legs and arms were aching from playing Wii games NON STOP!! And then they went right back at it the next day! lol!

Christmas Eve

Keeping with "tradition"....one that started when we moved to N.C. back in 2001....we went out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve at a new place (new to us) that was highly recommended. And turns out the food was great! BUT the bright orange walls and flouresent lighting wasn't the nicest atmosphere! So next year we'll just get take out I think! lol!











So, we got home from our early afternoon Chinese dinner and the kids wanted to get in the tub and put on their new P.J.'s.....at 4:30 p.m.! By 5:00 p.m. they were ready to read the Nativity Story and do our family gift exchange! Gene and I just went with it! And silly William, after seeing Audrey's new ballet dress that she got from Austin (pic below) decided he wanted to be a ballerina too!?? :) P.S. I can NEVER get William to look at me when I'm taking a picture....what to do????




Gene and I always look goofy in pics together because we are trying to smile and talk through our teeth to tell/remind Austin how to use the camera!! Oh well...its all good! lol!

More Gingerbread Houses.... :)

We had tons of gingerbread dough leftover from the gingerbread houses made at the elementary schools....so Daddy let the kids go to work! We never got a final picture of the houses, but the ones posted are pretty close to being done....hopefully the kids will forgive their Mom for not getting pics of their materpieces completed!!! It was a GOOD time though! William sure loved having COMPLETE control over the icing bags! lol!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We want to wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas from the crazy Ahlborns! :) We sincerely hope all is well with everyone, and that despite whats going on all around us, its our wish that each of you will feel the hope and love that our Savior has to give, not only during this Season but throughout the years.

And YES, this pic is from last year, but with all we have had going on this year, not only did we not have a family picture made, but we aren't going to get out any Christmas cards either! Not that we have been very good at the Christmas Card thing anyway! lol!

2008 Gingerbread Houses!!!

Many of you know that every year at this time Gene goes to each of our elementary school aged kids classes to teach them how to make a gingerbread house. Then the class gives the teacher the finished product. Its a fun tradition and here are this years gingerbread houses...... :)

Audrey with her 3rd Grade teacher Mr. Thomas


Isaac with his 1st Grade teacher Mrs. Martin

SNOW DAY!!!

When we woke up on Saturday morning it was snowing like crazy, the ground was dusted with snow, and it was STICKING this time!! The kids were so excited! Needless to say, they spent the better part of the day IN the snow playing...and it snowed ALL day! My kids LOVE living where it snows!! Now we just need to find a good hill for sledding!!