Happy New Year!

Grandma brought little personalized picture books for everyone. They love looking at pictures of themselves!


We were thrilled to have Jed's mom and brother Ryan come out to spend New Years with us. The kids had been asking why Grandma wasn't coming for Christmas and were so thrilled to learn that she would be here the very next week. The boys were just sure that Ryan would be AWESOME at building legos and they were right. Kate also loved that he would sit and eat dinner with her at her pink table. Ryan, thank you for being a good example of kindness to our boys who sometimes brush their little sis aside. Other highlights included drawing pictures, playing in the sink full of water, reading "The Magic Tree house" and other books, Grandma feeding Gracie her first oatmeal and Jed and I even got a chance to go out on a date (we went to dinner and saw "The Blind Side"--I loved it!). We all can't wait for them to come again...based on their driving experience I think it will be in warm weather!

Christmas '09

January is almost over and I am really feeling the pressure to post something about our Christmas. First off...thank you to all of you who thought of us with your cards and gifts...we are so blessed. I decided this year to embrace our family theme and really SIMPLIFY the holiday. Thus, no cards or letters were sent from our home. Now you can breath a sigh of relief...you are not off our mailing list. :)

So here you have our Christmas highlights in a nutshell:

Owen: LOVED his lego set from Santa! He spent most of the afternoon working on it. He could barely sleep the night before because he was so excited. He also thoroughly loved Mr Bean's Christmas special...I think he nearly wet his pants he was laughing so hard.

Davis: Also LOVED his lego set from Santa. He was thrilled that we spent Christmas Eve with his buddy Aiden and wasn't so excited to watch Mr Kruger's Christmas that night. He impatiently requested that we switch to a "paintball show" that Daddy and Mr Shae introduced him too. Now there's the Christmas Spirit in action.

Kate: Nearly hyperventilated opening her Sleeping Beauty doll and horse. It was adorable. She really got into this whole gift thing and LOVED what she bought for Gracie.

Gracie: Enjoyed playing in the wrapping paper and watching all of the action. It is always fun to watch a baby on their first Christmas. Like the others in years past, she really had no idea what was going on, but was a sweet reminder to us of the reason for the season.

Jed and I: We enjoyed having a day with no where to go. We didn't force the kids to eat anything that they didn't want to and let them stay in their pjs all day...that was my favorite part. We both commented on how magical it is to watch the kids on Christmas. They made our day.

Again, thank you to all of you who added to our Christmas 2009!

Filling in the gaps...Our girls are getting so big!

Now that it is the New Year, I am really feeling the pressure to get caught up on my blog. In an attempt to do so, I have posted several things out of order in an attempt to "Fill in the gaps".

With this post I really just wanted to document how big my girls are getting.Doesn't Kate look so old in these pictures?
It took 3+ months, but we finally got Gracie to successfully take a pacifier and now she loves it...thank you to the inventor of the pacifier!