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!!

Thanksgiving at the Ladle's House

Our Thanksgiving this year was nice. Our neighbors Bruce and Lisa Ladle invited us over, along with the missionaries from church and the Daniels family. We played games, and the kids ran around having a ball with each other. We brought homemade rolls, twice baked potatoes, squash casserole and pies and everyone else brought the rest. It was a midday feast so it was nice to be able to go home in the afternoon and just relax and set up the Christmas tree (will get up pics of that later). We thought of all our family scattered about the country and hope you all had a wonderfull Thanksgiving too!

As a side note, Isaac is not in any of these pics because he was playing a game in the basement and didn't come upstairs until he absolutely had to. AND I (Sheri) am not in any pics either, because I was doing the picture taking! :)




Below is the beautiful Kara Ladle. She can play any sport, and any musical instrument. She is our current babysitter and we just love her! We kinda think she should marry Josh Harris because she too is a middle child and so easy going.... :) She starts BYU in the Fall of 09!













The pics below are of Bruce and Lisa Ladle, who were our kind hosts for Thanksgiving. They live just around the corner from us in the same neighborhood and they go to our church also. Their little girls get together with Audrey for playdates all the time.

The Best Pet

Our neighbors cat, "Who-Day" (What they yell at all the bangals games here in OH), comes over and scratches at our door to come in all the time.... One day we let him in and the kids loved on him for about 15 mins...then we let him back out. Now he comes over everyday and the kids love on him for a little bit and then we let him out! Couldn't ask for a better pet...don't cha agree?? And he is SO SWEET!

Too-Late O'Clock

William: "Moooooom! Can you help me with my sticker? Its stuck!"
Mom: "I'll help you in just a minute ok?"

5 mins later Mom goes to help William with his stickers...

Mom: "What can I help you with buddy?"
William: "Its too-late o'clock. I did it BY-MY-SELF!"

Mom will work on being On-Time O'Clock! :)

Our Baker Man

Gene made this cake last night for his boss Fred's 60th b-day today. Another guy from work "doodled" the cartoon image of him on the trike and Gene was able to copy it onto the cake. His boss Fred is an avid biker....which is why they put him on a bike/trike! IS THAT A GREAT CAKE OR WHAT?? Good Job Love!! And we are all hoping there is some cake left for us...because he put gonosh in between the layers!!!
Yum-OOOO!! :)

My Baby....

Both Gene and I say out-loud when we are looking for William, "Where's my baby??" And then William will run to find us and say, "Here I am!" And William LOVES this silly tradition that we have.....for now anyway! :)

So here's "My Baby" painting. He loves to paint, in fact, it is the ONE thing he will do for a half hour or more so that Mommy can rush around and get something done without having to worry about wether "My Baby" is trying to climb up onto the kitchen counters to find some marshmellows, or deciding to resort the laundry for me, or washing his hands "really really good with lots of bubbles" etc. etc... You get the picture.... :)

Local Church Craft Shows...LOVE EM!

Is that not the cutest turkey you ever saw?? It was a fun surprise to find him again in my "Thanksgiving Decor" box this year. I bought him this time last year in N.C. just down the road from my house at the Holland's Methodist Church Craft Show. Gene let me go by myself and I just drooled over the beautiful quilts and crafts the sweet ladies at the church had spent the entire year making....all so they could help their church raise funds for worthy endevors. I felt pretty good about taking this cute lil turkey off their hands!!! :)

WE WON!!! :)

Some of you know that we had to file a lawsuit against the people/realtor that sold us our house in N.C. They lied about so many things and went out of their way to deceive us just to make the "sale." And we didn't even realize just HOW badly we were deceived until we tried to sell the house so we could move to Ohio....our realtor (who helped us sell the house) went digging in to the "history" of that house and uncovered all the lies.

Sooooo, because we had to pay LOTS of money to get the house to where it needed to be to sell it, we had no other way to get our money back....lawsuit was the only option. We TRIED to work a deal with these people (realtors) before having to get a lawyer but they wouldn't budge.

And on Friday we found out that WE WON!!!

It feels SO GREAT to know that these people DIDN'T get away with their greediness AND LIES! And for those of you out there selling/buying a house....PLEASE research your realtor, get references, call the Realtor Commissioners office to find out if they have a bad record etc. etc. etc. Because this whole experience WAS NOT FUN!!

TRUNK OR TREAT

We had our Trunk or Treat at the church last night. The kids had fun and came home with lots of candy!! Definetly enough to share with sick William... William is in the thick of a nasty cold so he didn't go. But he didn't mind...because ALL he wanted to do was sit on Mom's lap and watch Blues Clues! :)


Here is Isaac the "Young Aniken."


Audrey, the "80's Rocker-Chick".... :)


Austin, a "Star Wars Jedi Master."