Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours - Merry Christmas! How beautiful is the gift of Christ for all of us to recieve. He is the greatest love of all and it is our prayer that you feel the warmth of His amazing love wrapped around you this Christmas. And may you have the most wonderful year to come filled with gifts money can't buy and may be some that can too. :)

happy birthday baby girl

We've been busy....
saturday was our little sweetheart's birthday. We decided to keep it as a simple family party (plus our adopted-neighbor daughter). My little girl LOVES dino's so that was the theme. Dino's are her babies - no interest in dolls!?! We even went as far as renting a dino bouncehouse to top off the day. It was a blast -Happy 2nd Birthday baby girl!

Her favorite gift was her 2nd baby dino. It's not soft or cuddly, but she gives him kisses and he sleeps with her in bed.

last day of pre-K

My son has been in pre-k for a year. He started at 3 (which was early for me). His articulation needed some help so we opted to send him to school so he could work with a speech pathologist and hopefully speak more clearly by kindergarden. He made so many improvements so fast that he finally tested out of the program, which was great and a bit sad. Yay for early-intervention and farewell to Mrs. O, Mrs. A and school friends - my son will miss you!

fancy shoes!

My daughter is a sucker for shiny shoes! Last year she had a similar pair of shiny black shoes for her Christmas outfit and LOVED them. This year, well...we're at it again. She wants to wear these shoes all the time (even when she rides her scooter) and with everything (even when she's just in her diaper!). She is really not all that girly of a girl, but don't you mess with her fancy shoes!

christmas cookies

Another family tradition, like in many other families, is making sugar cookies. It was my daughter's first time and she really did well. (Boys & girls really are different) We had a messy blast! :)





I thought i'd throw in a picture of my son dressed up like santa. When I was little my parents dressed up my brother as santa & me as mrs. santa for our guests Christmas Eve. Thanks mom for saving the suit for my little guy to play with. :)

o christmas tree...

Last weekend we decorated our christmas tree. I must admit that the kids & I LOVE Christmas time!! It's from my parents always making it such a great time of year for us kids when we were growing up. This year was extra fun since our little girl is older and understands what we are doing and can participate more. Here are some pictures that capture the evening.



The treat of the night this year was GF (Gluten-Free) cupcakes, which are pretty good! My son was so funny because I brought them out before we started decorating and thought about offering them then, until he said "these are for AFTER we decorate - right mommy!" So I agreed surprised that he would not dare break tradition even for junk food!
A tradition we have all month long is to read Christmas stories by the tree before bed. My son had to go to bed early since he chose to melt down. Oh well there will be many more nights!

good friends...

There is nothing like a good friend to make the happiest day. I am so thankful for some good friends who came to visit this last week. You know a good friend when they can move away and visit a year later as if they never left. Our boys have played together since they were very little. Since they moved, my son has not found a friend quite like this one. So they loved playing together again! We did catch them punching each other, but it was only because they wanted to box each other!! I love boys! Thank you friends for coming to visit – it meant the world to us!!