Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Snyder family.

We wish you a very blessed Christmas and pray that you will feel the love of Christ in it all.

Cheese

The stomach flu sidelined all four of us last week....keeping us home bound for nearly a week. It was a first for us and I hope it stays away for a long time! It was a nasty bug that caused none of us to eat much for a good five days.
So, when my already skinny minny (who had lost nearly 10% of her body weight by this point) asked me for, "not little cheese, mommy...BIG cheese", I totally obliged!

A question for Jesus

This was my conversation with Asher at bedtime the other night:

Asher: "Mommy, why did all of the dinosaurs have to die?"

Me: "I don't know Asher, that is a question we will have to ask Jesus one day"

Asher then sat up in bed and said, "Jesus.....Why did all of the dinosaurs have to die?"

Then there was silence for probably 10 seconds before he said, "Ok"

So, I asked him what Jesus had said

Asher: "So we can live"

Hmmmmm........

Makes sense to me.

Dancing

We even did some dancing at our family birthday party on Sunday!

Tatum & Daddy

Asher & Mommy

Reagan & Papa

Birthday pictures

Here are some pictures of our weekend celebrating Tatum's 2nd birthday!

Daddy made Tatum a Hello Kitty cake:)


Tatum had a GREAT time opening her presents!




The birthday girls



Ian, Tatum, Reagan & Asher....best friends and cousins.

Happy Birthday Tatum & GG

Two years ago today I waited just a little too long to head to the hospital..... My beautiful little girl was born just shy of two hours after arriving and my epidural took effect about two minutes after she was born! In retrospect, I'm actually kind of glad that I got to experience the whole thing with no drugs (crazy I know).

Two years later, Tatum has graced our lives with too much love, joy and laughter to count. She is a sweet sweet spirit. We were discussing love languages the other day and one of Tatum's is definitely physical touch. Nothing makes her happier than a little back or tummy rub! She loves her brother more than life and any time in our arms with her ni-night (blanket) is good. She loves to sing, read books, eat Pirate's Booty, and do whatever Asher is doing (to the letter).

Two years ago today was also my Grandma's (or GG as she is now called) birthday! She was in the room as her third great-grandchild was born. It was a very special moment. GG is SO wonderful with my kids and they are excited to see her (and her purse full of Fruit Loops and M&M's) anytime they get a chance!

So, today we celebrate two special and God-blessed lives!
We thank Him so much for both of them.

Happy 2nd and 81st birthday's Tatum & GG

***pics to come***

Happy Thanksgiving!

Keven, Asher, Tatum and I (Alicia) wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving day!

As we try to say in our house on a regular basis.....

God is good

All the time

All the time

God is good!

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving

and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all genertions.

Psalm 100

Greenwater Hike

We have had an absolutely beautiful fall so far here in Northwest Washington which has allowed us to continue our goal of being a hiking family! On this particular hike we roped my sister and family into coming with us. It was a great hike for kids and they did a fantastic job, hiking about
two miles total!










Refresing after the hike with a kit kat and some juice!

Halloween

Some pictures from Halloween...cookie decorating and trick or treating. A few pictures are from the festival we went to at my sister's church.

visitng GG (who supplied them with enough candy that we could have stopped there!)

Tatum as a horse

Asher is dressed as a dinosaur but you can't see his feet and he wouldn't wear the head:)

the only thing Tatum wanted to do all night!

running through the leaves

with Grandma & Papa

Sweet Feet

This is very often how we find Tatum when we check on her

before we go to bed.

Where's Papa?

This is the picture sent to us by my dad last night with the above caption.

He spent Friday afternoon (that is him in front) climbing a support cable on the Narrows Bridge.

NICE!!!!

Nobody knew he was doing this until we recieved the picture last night! My mom didn't even know he was doing it until he got home yesterday:)

Smart man.

He was a pilot in the airforce and I guess he was missing the rush of heights.

You're awesome dad!

Science Center

I have said before how much Asher loves dinosaurs. Not just loves dinosaurs, but is a bit obsessed with them. He plays with them, talks about them, reads about them and acts like them all day and then at night he dreams about them. His favorite library book right now is titled, "Scholastic Dinosaurs A to Z The Ultimate Dinosaur Encyclopedia". Keep in mind he is three years old. He looked at this book for an hour straight this morning. Seriously.

Anyway...we finally made it to the Pacific Science Center last friday to check out their Colossal Fossils exhibit! We had so much fun exploring all of the great things the science center has to offer. The fossil exhibit is really great and definitely worth seeing if you have any interest at all in dinosaurs.

Asher with Stegosaurus

Asher and Tatum with Allosaurus

digging for dinosaur bones!

testing her grip strength...

excavating some marbles

checking out one of the many butterflies in the butterfly house

Pumpkin Patch

We did our annual trek to the local Pumpkin Patch last weekend and although it was a beautiful, sunny day, there was still lots of mud to be found.
We are the parents who get the looks because we are allowing our boy be a boy in the mud! It is so fun and refreshing to watch him in his element. Tatum wasn't too interested in the mud at all but Asher did get his awesome cousin, Reagan, to join in on the fun.

Here are Reagan, Tatum and Asher checking things out

Should I???

I think so...

Come on Reagan, let's do it!

a boy and his mud

Asher giving Ian a tractor ride

They are saying "moo"

The picture of Tatum and the corn needs an explanation. She discovered, and fell in love with, corn on the cob this summer. After we were done wtih the pumpkins, we found Tatum standing next to this "pumpkin house" trying to eat the decorative corn on the cob. It was hilarious!