Christmas Card Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peak at our Christmas card this year (created on Shutterfly.com).

Peppermint Dots Christmas Card

Personalize the christmas season with Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Snail Mail Picture Cards

At our house, we truly enjoy receiving Christmas cards from all of our friends and family members. We hang up the cards around the door frame in the dining room and use them as decorations throughout the holiday season.

When Christmas time passes and it's time to take them down, I pull out all of the picture cards and place them in a scrapbook. I have a scrapbook compiled starting in 2005 (the year we got married), and have many extra pages to continue to expand our collection.

We enjoy sending photo cards of our family out as well so that our friends and loved ones can see our family grow and expand, but also so that our smiling faces might possibly bring a smile to someone else. Usually Chris likes to create, print and cut our own cards...but that takes a lot of time! To save time this year (pluse it's way more convenient), we plan to use Shutterfly to create our cards. We plan to use a card with two pictures on it, similar to one of these found at http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationary/christmas-photo-cards.

We plan to include a picture of the three of us, along with a picture of the little tyke who is on the way! Chris loves to manipulate photos, so stay tuned to see what our card will actually look like!

Olivia is very photogenic, so I'm excited to see what her face will look like on our Christmas card. I also look forward to seeing smiling faces come in the mail so we can hang them up, then add them to our scrapbook at the end of December.

This year we also plan to give other photo gifts for our parents. I don't want to post exactly what I've picked out so far (because my mother and mother-in-law might read this), but I'll tell you what we've done in the past! We have created personalized calendars for our parents to see the grandkids throughout the entire year. We made them at http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars. It was relatively easy to upload and insert pictures and I highly recommend this - especially if you and your kids live far away from grandparents. There's nothing better then your mom or dad being able to see their smiling faces every day!

I am currently pregnant and expect to deliver sometime in March. When this happens, Chris will use his talents to create a birth announcement that we will most likely create at http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationary/birth-announcements. March seems so far away, but I'm sure the time will pass before we know it!

Look for our card in the mail...and I'll look for yours!

Changes, Helping, and the Williams County Fair!

Life in the Midwest has definitely brought change for the Kannel family throughout the past four months! The house we have been renting is a huge blessing to us and it's amazing to think that we moved from a one bedroom apartment to a three bedroom house! Even more amazing...we had so much furniture crammed into that tiny apartment and in our storage units that our new, big house is already overflowing with furniture! Olivia loves to play in the back yard and likes to look for frogs and toads with her daddy.

She also likes to spend time helping us pull weeds and enjoys riding on the lawn mower with Chris. It seems like these are simple, mundane tasks...but when you haven't had to do it in about ten years, it's kind of nice to get back outside and take care of a yard. Things like that are often taken for granted, but we lived in a place for six years that had no yard and no garden...so seeing the fresh green grass out back is quite refreshing every day.

Olivia's "helping" doesn't always end up being so helpful, and in fact, this time it actually gave Chris a little bit more work to do since he could only use one hand!

Yes, she's asleep!

Olivia turned two on August 26 and we had an Olivia the pig birthday party with friends and family. She was very excited about her piggy cake! (I accidentally scraped off one of the nostrils on the top of the fridge...I promise it started with two!)

Chris and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on August 27...my how time flies! We celebrated by going to the drive-in movie....it's been so long since we'd been to a drive in, and it was a lot of fun!

5 year anniversay picture

More changes? After we have the house unpacked and everything seems to have a nice little home....we're planning to move again! We're making a few changes and moving across town in mid-October. So, everything will get packed away again and we'll make a new home some place else!

More, you ask? Baby Kannel #2 is due in March! I'm 16 weeks pregnant, have an expanding waistline, and am feeling great! Olivia likes to poke her finger in my belly button to tickle the baby who is "hiding inside from Olivia!" :)

12 Week Sonogram

Chris is working full time for his dad at the insurance office and is also working on some architectural projects on the side. He is still involved with the church building project in New York where we attended, and was also involved in a major project with the firm he worked for in New York. He traveled back to New York twice in September to attend some very important meetings and make presentations to councils for his projects. And, he's headed back again several times within the next few months!

A side note...check out the new website Chris designed for the family business: http://www.kannelinsurance.com/.

Three generations at Kannel Superior Agency, Inc.

He is also doing some architecture work for a few organizations here in town and is trying his best to get his name out as a local architect. If you know of someone who needs an architect, send him/her our way!

We haven't found a church home yet and we are constantly still searching. We've visited several and have ruled some out. But we just haven't been able to put our finger on the right one yet. We're praying that God lead us to the right decision so that we may grow in Christ and also teach our kids about God and His sacrifice for us. We'll find the right one eventually.

Montpelier hosted the Williams County Fair in September! Because it was right here in town, I decided to buy a weekly pass and we went to the fair almost every day. Olivia really enjoyed walking around, riding in the stroller, seeing the animals, watching the rides, and looking at all the people. It's been a great outing for us all week, either going in the morning before lunch or after nap time....and sometimes both!

This is the goat that wouldn't stop eating her pants! The next time we went to see it, it ate her stroller!

She cried/screamed through the first two laps of the pony ride...but then sat happily and (mostly) enjoyed herself after that.

Olivia is slurping down the last few drops of her daddy's Dairy Producers Chocolate Milkshake...don't miss a drop!

Stay tuned as we prepare to move again, remodel a house, decorate, and make more changes to our lives! It seems never-ending!

A Whirlwind!

The last several months seemed to be a whirlwind for Chris, Olivia, and me. I went back to work three days a week in October, and although I loved my job, it was very hectic! I was working part time but had a full time caseload. Needless to say, when I got home from work in the evenings, I had just enough energy to fix dinner, play with Olivia, and spend a little time with Chris before heading to bed. I then spend one day a week with a mother’s group (Westchester MOPS) and one day a week playing catch up!

Work was supposed to be a three month commitment while another lady was out on maternity leave. However, things changed and I ended up being there for seven months! Olivia attended day care while I was at work – and this was a great experience for her. She was able to learn to interact with peers, and had the opportunity to learn so much more in this amazing environment. There were 10 kids ranging in age from 15 months to 4 years old. So, while the older kids were learning from a preschool curriculum, Olivia picked up the information like a sponge! She can say her ABC’s, count to 20, and knows her shapes and colors. She also has a variety of songs and signs memorized. She never ceases to amaze us!

Meanwhile, Chris was still working on the new building design for our church family, the Westchester Church of Christ, and I was heavily involved with the moms and kids at our local MOPS group, Westchester MOPS. These two groups/organizations were huge blessings to us and made an everlasting impression on our hearts.

The Lord blessed us with selling our apartment in New York in May, and we moved back to Ohio in June. We’d been working on a selling arrangement since last October, so we when winter ended and spring rolled around, we began to wonder what the Lord truly had in store for our future. But, alas the sale went through and both of our families helped us relocate to Ohio.

We’ve been in Ohio for about 7 weeks, and it’s been quite an adjustment period! The way of life is definitely different, the cost of living is less, the income is different, the pace is slower…but it’s home! It is such a blessing to be making new friends, to have a roof over our heads, to have family nearby, and to be content with our new situation.