Christmas 2011

...a time for family, fun, refocus, and eating.

We made lots of Christmas cookies this year.....to share!

Lana's long awaited Christmas present! She has even started her own picture blog......has to keep up with her Mom!

Asha with her new cozy Christmas blanket.

Luke and Jeffrey were excited for more Lego's and Lego flat pieces.

Even Rusty got a Christmas present. Santa's Little Yelper shirt. He is our little yelper!

We spent two days in Oregon with my Sister, her family, my Dad, and his new wife.

Sweet Aunika is growing up too fast!!!

Joyce and I took turns holding the baby!

Opa and Marissa singing Christmas carols by the fire.

The three musketeers.

The Lego boys....also bestest cousins. They have so much fun together!

Merry Christmas to all!

Jeffrey's 6th Birthday

Celebrating Jeffrey is such a joy and delight! As we went around our table at dinner and shared what we love about Jeffrey, here were some of the comments: "I love how Jeffrey plays Lego's with me, I love his smile, I love how he brings joy to our family, I love how he makes us laugh, I love his hugs....." As you can see, Jeffrey brings our family much happiness.

"Your under arrest!"

"Knock knock...whose there??"

"Come give me a kiss!"

"I'm six now!"

Jeffrey is really into two things right now.......Legos and playing the Wii. Both he enjoys doing with his big brother. For his birthday he got a Cars 2 Lego set and a new Lego Star Wars Wii game. So exciting!

Happy Birthday my little man!! You make my heart HAPPY everyday!!!!!

Oh, Christmas Tree

It's that time of year again!

Last Sunday we drove 30 minutes to a small Christmas tree farm.

It had rained all day....but stopped for the hour that we were at the farm (so thankful)!

We had a pretty hard time all agreeing on the "right" tree.

After some searching, we decided on this little beauty.

Luke is ready to cut it down!

Time to take the little guy home!

Lana wanted to take this Charlie Brown Christmas tree home.

We even got a ride on a tracker for a better view of the farm.

At home!

Under our tree I always put our nativity sets.

We added a new one this year.

The nativity set on the far left was my mothers.

I remember it at her house growing up...so priceless to have it at my house now.

The one on the right my parents brought back for us from Israel.

The Little People Nativity set is a must, and the kids still enjoy playing with it.

These are precious to me....and help me remember why we celebrate Christmas!!!

Rusty celebrating Christmas by the fire....where you will find him everyday!

Silly hot dog!

Thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm full with thankfulness and here is why:

my family got to be together for Thanksgiving

everyone was healthy

i got lots of help with the big turkey meal

my turkey that i fretted over turned out pretty good

my table was full of people i love dearly

laughter and thankful hearts

sweet times of reading the bible and sharing

a brother-in-law that loves to cut the turkey every year

a sister that makes awesome stuffing

a baby to spoil

lots of time with my newest niece

she loves her auntie colette!!!

SO THANKFUL.......

Family Pictures 2011

This Fall I asked my friend if she would take our family pictures again (this will be her second year doing this for us). She does a great job!! We took them at Carkeek Park this year. Here is her website if anyone out there is interested: http://letmecaptureyourmemories.blogspot.com/

Here are a few of my favorites:

Thanks Heather!!!!

I LOVE FALL

This is one of my favorite times of the year! The changing leaves around our area are so beautiful!

Sometimes in our backyard, if the wind is blowing just right, it looks like it is raining leaves. It's so amazing! The kids will run out and try to catch the falling leaves.

At the kid's school they have been playing in the leaves too....they spent hours last week building piles of leaves and jumping into it and then having leaf fights. Love these times!!

I remember one Fall when we lived in a small house in Illinois, it had a huge tree (can't remember what kind) in front that would dump leaves every Fall. We'd have 50 or more bags of leaves to rake each year. We would invite our friends over and have raking parties! Oh, fun memories!

Every year I enjoy finding colorful leaves throughout the Fall. I usually stick them in random books to press. Some of the pressed leaves end up on my table for Thanksgiving, but others I forget about and often find them weeks or years later still pressed in random books. Love that!

This morning the kids and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. Asha and I decided to try to capture some of the beauty around us with our cameras.

Our neighborhood! Beautiful!

Lana finding leaves!

Even Rusty enjoys Fall!

The tree above Asha had an amazing rich red color! Breathtaking!

Trick-or-treating

On Halloween we took the kids around to some of our neighbors to do trick-or-treating. The kids enjoyed putting together their costumes, and were literally doing the finishing touches on them minutes before we were out the door. I don't ever spend money on costumes, and have enjoyed watching to see what the kids will create from what we already have. Here is what they came up with this year:

Asha was a robber....she is way too sweet to be a burglar though!

Can you guess what Lana was? Yep, Princess Leia!

Luke was a ninja.....

Jeffrey was "Muscle Man"! What a hunk!