We Have a New Uncle/Brother-in-law!

In the midst of some pretty challenging times, Curtis's sister Heather got married on December 5th!! Without going into all of the red tape we went through to get there, we were grateful to go to the wedding in Pittsburgh. Anna and Kate were flower girls and Drew was one of the ring bearers. They were all so excited (especially Kate, lol)!

Drew had the opportunity to walk with Dileshu's nephew Jason. I think it really helped him to have the confidence to walk down the aisle. Here they are practicing at the rehearsal.

Anna and Kate are naturals! They were also flower girls at Megan's (Curtis's other sister) wedding back in 2018.

And then the big day arrived. Here's our family all dressed up right before the ceremony. Heather had little notice about where her reception and ceremony would be because of COVID circumstances, but she did an amazing job planning and decorating for her wedding despite all the changes! I can't even imagine the stress she must have had. It was a beautiful wedding!

I liked this shot of Curtis and Drew in the welcome mirror.

Curtis and Megan walked up and set this rose in the appropriate seat where Karen (their mother) would have sat during the ceremony. She was truly missed and it was emotional.

Here was our view during the ceremony. Megan was the matron of honor and Curt co-officiated the ceremony with Dileshu's pastor.

Drew fell asleep shortly after walking down the aisle. It was his nap time and he wasn't going to miss it. He was even audibly snoring! When he woke up, he had a new uncle! :)

These girls were so precious. They stood up there so well together! I love that Anna put her arm around Kate.

Afterwards, we watched Heather and Dileshu have their first dance outside at a nearby park. It was freezing and we stayed in the van!

Here's the beautiful couple!! Dileshu and Heather Edwards!

Here's the big family picture with both Heather and Dileshu's families.

It was a quick trip, but we're ecstatic that we were able to go and participate! We love Dileshu already and we look forward to getting to know him more in the future at family gatherings. 

Thanksgiving & My Birthday

We have a lot to be thankful for this year and every year! Kate had a remote-learning activity to make a turkey and write what she was thankful for: God, mom & dad, and school.

We didn't have any additional guests for Thanksgiving this year. We kept it pretty low-key, but we had a lovely day. After FaceTiming with most of the family on both sides, we got to work! Curtis did a great job with the turkey this year.

I won't even tell you how often Anna talked to us about the wishbone. The girls were excited to see who would get the bigger side!

Kate won! 

In following the McDaniel tradition, we each wrote what we were thankful for on these colorful leaves. It is something we've also started to incorporate into RUF. I'm excited to see the final product with all the students' leaves when it is completed.

Anna insisted that she and Kate should have 3 leaves! 

My favorite that she wrote "I am thankful for God giving me faith and kindness."

Kate added some funny ones like "ice" and "glitter pens" though she had some very serious ones (similar to the beginning of this post). Her smile almost looks painful!

Drew is thankful for much - some of his specifics include "the Ghostbusters song," "trucks," "dancing" and "the Bible."

I mentioned I was thankful for our Friday family movie nights and some closer relationships that have happened during the pandemic. I love that our movie nights are one of the only things that have continued week-after-week this year without cancellations. :) I have some dear friends that have encouraged me in my walk with the Lord as we process everything going on in the world and what God is teaching us.

Curtis wrote a lot, but I'll mention a few. He shared that he was thankful for fun quarantining activities like Mario Kart, riding his bike, and "a God who always pursues me, loves me, and saves His people to the uttermost."

We watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving as a way to wrap up the day. The audience was entranced!

Then, we celebrated my birthday. Curtis and the kids did a great job working on this for me. :)

They were especially excited to eat the cake! My favorite gift this year was that the girls went back to school in person! It was a challenging few weeks doing remote-learning. My birthday was their first day back and I enjoyed my special time with Drew and the break from teaching. The girls were pretty excited to see their teacher and friends too!

Curtis and I celebrated a little early and went to Indianapolis together. It was a lovely birthday date; we ate at Cooper's Hawk and got some cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory! I felt very loved and I'm looking forward to another year of life!

 

In Memory of My Maternal Grandparents

This year has been a challenging one for everyone. One of my great losses this year was the death of both my grandmother (her obituary) in May and my grandfather (his obituary) in October. We had a private memorial service for both on November 7th that I was fortunate to be able to attend. My uncle made this special video to show various pictures throughout their lives. I thought he did a great job with the music and family pictures! It was played at the beginning of the memorial service. It was good to hear stories and reminisce with family! It was very special though it was emotional. 

It especially broke me when I was sharing about how I was named after my sweet Grandmom. She was very servant-hearted and hospitable. I have lots of memories of being greeted by her and told that she made rice crispy treats and "Margy Duff cookies" for us! 

Grandmom meeting Anna for the 1st time (4 generations!)

This picture of Kate and Grandmom is one of my favorites!

Granddaddy meeting Kate for the 1st time

My Granddaddy was very musically-inclined with a great sense of humor. I shared about how he would try to connect to his grandchildren by coming up with funny things to say to us each time we saw him. I also shared about how I was able to see how Granddaddy depended on God for an upcoming medical procedure back in 2004 by requesting his family to come and pray with him. It clearly made an impression since I still remember it!

This was the last time that I saw Granddaddy - it was in June when we had a drive-by parade for his 90th birthday. He was able to meet Drew this way!

Every single grandchild that shared memories at the memorial talked about our fun visits in the mountains in Etowah, North Carolina. My brothers and I really looked forward to the 4-wheeler rides there! 

Their ashes were sprinkled in the Garden of Hope at the Penney Farms Cemetery. Here's a close-up picture with their names (Richard & Margaret Leinecker), but they haven't updated it to reflect their deaths in 2020 yet.  

Here's a zoomed out picture so you can see what it looks like. Every name has been/will be sprinkled into the same rock garden.

I will truly miss them and I am thankful for the impact they both had in my life.

Fall 2020

Here's some snippets of life from August to mid-November. The fall season is one of my favorite parts of living in Indiana. I feel like I appreciate the outdoors more now than I did growing up in Florida. I'm sure it is because I am pretty much limited to only being outside about half the year up here!

One Saturday in August, we had amazing weather and we went to the Celery Bog. It's not far from our house and it was lovely to be able to walk the trails without carrying a child or pushing a stroller!

Drew had his first haircut. He looks so much older to me now!

Aunt Heather gifted us money at Christmas to do a family activity and we finally decided how we'd use it in September! We went to a huge local farm called Fair Oaks Farm.

The kids were able to see how they care for their cows and milk them.

Anna and Curtis climbed the milk carton!

We almost forgot to take a picture of the 5 of us, but we squeaked one in. Do you see that big pillow looking thing on the left? We all enjoyed jumping on that together! 

Not pictured: We had a delicious farm-to-table lunch and their homemade fresh ice cream. A highlight for Curtis was being able to watch the Florida football game while we had lunch!

One day while the girls were in school, I took Drew to a local place called Hillside Acres with a friend. We played in the corn pit, saw some farm animals, slid on burlap down a big tube slide, and enjoyed an apple cider slushy. We rode the tractor to the pumpkin patch.

Drew enjoyed picking pumpkins! We brought back some 3 tiny pumpkins/gourds for each child. It was a sweet memory.

I snapped this picture at Columbian Park when we were at a birthday party. I just love the foliage!

I may not be able to go to Purdue's campus, but I am still able to meet one-on-one with RUF students! This picture was taken as Drew and I were meeting with a new student. 

The girls and I went to Exploration Acres to celebrate a 7th birthday. This sweet family has been in our life since we first moved here. Anna and Hannah have been great friends ever since Hannah was born. We enjoyed her costume party and galavanting through the corn maze!

I took this one as I was biking!

It was a family affair to rake the falling leaves. All of us were delighted to fill up the jack-o-lantern leaf bags. I have memories of doing this as a child and I was ecstatic to share it with my own kids!

Here are the final products. :)  I can't believe how big our kids are getting!

Since the kids and I are unable to participate in RUF this semester (due to Purdue's restrictions during the pandemic), we had our own pumpkin carving event.

This RUF pumpkin was the finished product that Curtis made from the RUF pumpkin painting event that we had to miss.

One of the reasons our family loves to carve pumpkins is so we can then roast pumpkin seeds and eat them! Our favorite flavors this year included italian, salt and pepper, cinnamon sugar, and spicy.

I also had my own fun at MOPS decorating a fake pumpkin with some new friends!

Here's a closer up (after I darkened the letters) - I made it so that I could change it as the season progressed. It goes from "Hello Fall" to

..."Thankful" in preparation for Thanksgiving! I was thankful for the help from the other ladies because I am limited in my creativity skills.

Halloween came and we tried to safely trick-or-treat at a few businesses including Pay-Less Supermarkets (part of the Kroger family).

We then took on some neighborhoods and only went to the homes that passed out candy in a way that we felt comfortable. (It's amazing how this pandemic is impacting everything!)

As November arrived, we tried to take advantage of any times we could get outside. Drew and I had a blast playing in the leaves during a recent speech therapy session!

(Side note: He has been really improving in his speech!)

I love this one!

You know, I think we have made the most of this year! This was very therapeutic for me to go back through these pictures and see all the fun we had! Here's one final picture of our kiddos all on the recliner. I sure love these 3!