The joy of getting what you wanted!

Christmas Day

Waiting patiently to open gifts. Carter Had many approaches to opening gifts. The traditional ripping of the paper,
biting the paper off,
and of course getting a better angle by sitting on the box.

More Xmas

Notice Carter is clutching his bag of Grandpa's cookies! Great Grandma and Carter
Grandpa John and the kids on Christmas Day

Santa Part II

Santa arrives Xmas eve at Jason's parentsJack got just close enough to get his present, no closer!
Carter wasn't sure what to think of Santa.

Thank God for Kids

I was listening to the radio and heard this song by the Oak Ridge Boys and thought it was really sweet. I thought the first line was particularly true:

"If it weren't for kids have you ever thought there wouldn't be any Santa Claus."


May we all "BELIEVE IN THE MAGIC" this Christmas like we did when we were children!

Christmas is my favorite holiday, but it used to be about me. Now I find my greatest joy comes from the excitement of being able to share the story of Christmas with my children and watching their excitement build as Christmas nears.


There truly is magic that surrounds everything when you get to share it with your child!

Random December Pictures

We have been so busy this month with all sorts of activities with the kids that it seems as though the camera hasn't hardly been shut off. Here are just a couple of cute pics from this week. Olivia's class went sledding for their Christmas party at school. They didn't have the traditional party with cookies and snacks because one of the girls in her has juvenile diabetes and she cannot have all the sweet treats. The picture of Jack is from the Kindergartners singing Wednesday at the nursing home. If you couldn't tell they are in the middle of Silent Night. The picture of Carter was just a funny one. He spent well over an hour the other night playing with the box that Mom's Christmas present came it. The fun ended however, when he was lying back in it and the box ripped open sending him tumbling backwards.

Visiting Santa

More pictures of the last few weeks. Here are pictures from the kids visiting Santa at Pizza Ranch. Michael of course thought he was too old to sit on Santa's lap and did it just to humor me, and Jack is scared of Santa (always has been) so I just played mean mommy and made him stand there! I need the picture for the scrapbook.

Chrismas Pictures

I posted Michael's Christmas picture we took by the tree on a post about him, but Andrea asked about the others so here are there pics. I think we will have to try and retake Carters because it is a little blurry, but it was really hard to get him to set still and look at the camera.

Decorating the Tree

Here are a few pictures from when we were decorating the tree. The kids had a lot of fun. It is nice as they get older and understand everything more, they get so excited about Christmas. I cannot remember what Jack was pouting about in his picture but it was a cute one. Carter spent the decorating time in his high chair eating a snack and keeping out of things!!

Cute Things Our Kids Say

Following in Jessica's footsteps, I decided that it would be fun to post things that the kids say that are really cute. It just so happened we had such a thing last night. At bedtime Michael wanted me to climb up on the top bunk of his bed with him and sing to him. I usually will sing but I hate to climb up there. The back story on this is that we have been thinking about moving Jack and Michael upstairs with Carter who is already up there with us, and Jason and I move downstairs into the boys' room. Anyway, I climbed up there and while we were talk he said to me, "Mommy, when we change rooms and you are in our room, do you think you are going to sleep on the top or bottom bunk?" I kindly explained to him that we would take his bed upstairs and bring ours down. He was a little disappointed that he wasn't getting the big bed upstairs.

Handsome Boy!!

Here are the pictures Carter had taken for his 1st Birthday. He did such a great job, even thought the studio was over an hour behind.