hoping yours was merry and bright

The BEST part about this Christmas was having a full house.  The WORST part about this Christmas was when everybody left.

Favorite Traditions

Growing up, one of my very favorite days of the year was the Saturday after Thanksgiving when our family of nine would pile into the big blue van to go cut down our Christmas tree.  The best part?  Hot chocolate, treats, and being together.  We're trying to make this a favorite day in our little family, too!

Thankful

We have much, much, much for which we are thankful!  Right now we are especially grateful we were able to spend Thanksgiving in Austin with Rob and Jenifer and Grandmother Christensen.  Lots of good eats, playing, and rest.

Halloween

Even though I really do not care for insects of all kinds, I found these ones to be especially cute.

Kaia = cutest bumblebee & Zoey = cutest butterfly

Not the greatest pictures, but the best we could do.

One of our favorite friends, Benjamin, and Zoey

We invited several friends over on Halloween to trick or treat and sit by the fire pit - it was fun but cold! See the snow on the ground?  That's just WRONG to have so much snow on Halloween.

Zoey at her preschool Halloween Party

Zoey with her teacher, Mrs. Drew.  I seriously LOVE this woman!

Happy 4th of July

We celebrated the 4th in Vermont a couple days early because some of the husbands had to travel back to work on the 4th.

These little critters turned into this deliciousness:

I've never had lobster before today and it was fantastic. Thanks, Uncle Bobby! The next morning the little girls asked where the lobsters went... eye contact was averted and giggles were suppressed.

Zoey and her cousin Maya received matching cowgirl hats from Tia.

easter pictures

We were spoiled this year for Easter.  Brian's mom was here, we were invited to a beautiful egg hunt, and we had a special evening with our good friends.

The scenery behind the Bayless's house is, well, scenic.  This is our third consecutive year at their annual egg hunt and they really outdid themselves this time around.  The weather was georgous, the food was yummy, and the hidden eggs were plentiful!  To make it even more special, Zoey was able to hunt for eggs with her grandma.  So fun!

Our dear friend, Cami, helped make our Easter evening very special by helping the Easter Bunny hide Zoey-sized and Kaia-sized eggs all over their living room.  Zoey was thrilled to have a little hunt all to herself and especially loved the note and the stickers from the Easter Bunny.

the one with some love

Happy Valentine's Day to the people we love the most!

the christmas with no pictures

These are the only two pictures we took the entire day of Christmas. In our defense, we had a very sick, very miserable little girl and so most of the day was spent cuddling, crying, and sleeping.

Ten days later, after antibiotics for the ear infections and lots of rest, we posed a fake Christmas picture. Hey, it's the best we could do.

the one with some gratitude

Zoey, yesterday (Wednesday) I had my first day off of work in a long time. The anticipation of spending the entire day with only you had me giddy all week. Sadly, when you woke up in the morning you thought it was the "Turkey Party Day" and that you would be spending the entire day with me and daddy. Since daddy had to go to work, you cried all day long - over shoes, over clothes, over every single time I said no, over food, over nearly everything. Your crying had me in tears of frustration. So, for lunch I made a special treat: a chocolate rice cake topped with peanut butter and bananas (thanks, Christie!) and it was the ONLY time ALL day you were happy and smiling for more than 5 consecutive minutes.

After I finished my deliciousness for lunch, I sat and watched you enjoy yours and was overwhelmed with gratitude for you. You try so hard to be good and to listen to mommy and daddy. You make me laugh every single day of my life. You are so, so beautiful and so, so smart. You try to keep everything clean. See how you are drinking your milk because your hands are covered in peanut butter? You have been doing that since you were tiny tiny. You are so precious to me, Zoey. I love you.

And you, Brian. Thank you for spending all your time off doing "stuffs" for Zoey and me. Thank you for painting and putting up shelves and fixing doorknobs and cooking stuffing and baking bubble loaf and cleaning and bringing up Christmas bins and taking down fall bins and hanging lights on the tree and hanging lights outside and buying me ice cream and bending over for me every 3 minutes and playing with Zoey and letting me sleep in and letting me take naps and for everything else I am forgetting. I love you, too.

the one with some pumpkins

We love the fall!

the one where zoey spills the beans

Happy New Year

My New Year's resolution? To post more meaningfully and frequently. Now you can sleep better tonight, having this peace of mind.

Just kidding. I don't have the time to post more meaningfully and frequently. I am lucky if the dishes get done and the house looks somewhat decent. That's just my life right now.

But, I couldn't pass by the opportunity to share a few (dozen) pictures of our past week.

Christmas decorations? Check.

Too much snow? Check.

House clean? Check.

Jen and Rob arrive? Finally!

Table set? Check.

Christmas Eve dinner? Oh-my-delicious.

Stockings? Check.

Santa? Check.

Christmas morning awe? Check.

First pigtails? Check.

Lots of fun? Check.

Dora cellphone? Check.

Cutest little girl? Check.

We are so grateful Jen and Rob came to spend Christmas with us and so happy we were able to spend lots of time together as a family.

Please, don't ask me how I feel about going back to work on Monday.