New Year's Day - More Christmas Partying!

We had all the family come over on New Year's day to celebrate Christmas with Dan's parents, Carla & Richard (since they were in Utah over the holidays). It was so great! The kids especially loved celebrating again. After opening gifts the kids rode their bikes to the park with the moms, while all the guys took a nap. Then we had a very Texan Christmas dinner - grilled sausage wraps, potato salad, cole slaw,carrot salad and black beans, YUM!!

Thank you to everyone, both near and far, who made our holidays so memorable!

Ever have one of those days?

Little brothers are such fun to dress up!

This is definitely going into the file "pictures to show future girlfriends"

Christmas 2008

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Despite our recent move, Christmas was very merry for us this year. We set up all our decorations the first week in our house and then put all the rest of the unpacking on hold until after the holidays. That way we could just enjoy time together as a family and not feel stressed. It was great!

Tyler's first Christmas

Nathan actually cooperated with me!


What a face! Always makes me laugh :)

Our pretty girl :)

Red is Natalie's color!

I originally took these pictures for our Christmas card, but as you probably have now noticed - I never got around to doing Christmas cards this year. I figured everyone would understand.

We hope everyone had a wonderful and merry Christmas! We send our love to all of family and friends that we weren't able to see over the holidays and hope to see you in 2009. Happy New Year!

Nathan is THREE!

Our little man isn't so little anymore. In fact he's quite the big boy now! Nathan turned 3 on December 7th, the day after we moved into our house. Unfortunately for him we were all exhausted from moving so it was a pretty low-key day for him. However he did get to open his birthday gift from us (which was not wrapped b/c all the wrapping was of course still boxed up), so he had to find it playing the "hot/cold" game. He wasn't very impressed with trying to find his gift until he actually saw it...

A remote control car!!

Nathan absolutely loves anything that has a remote control, he couldn't wait to take his new all-terrain vehicle outside and try it out!



Nathan played nonstop with his new car (even slept with it!) for a week until it broke beyond repair. I'm glad I used my Kohl's cash to buy it :)

We had a family party for Nathan a few days later which he loved. He kept saying, "It's my birthday? I have a party!" I'll post pics of it once I get them (hint, hint Carla)

I can't believe that Nathan is already 3...here's a few highlights of our big boy...
December 7, 2005 - Nathan's birth day
Nathan turns 1!
Nathan turns 2!
Nathan enjoying his new "big boy" status

Seeing my little man in church today wearing a tie and looking oh-so-big as he headed off for his first day as a Sunbeam in Primary made me realize just how fast he's growing up. And all those things that I love about Nathan right now will probably change as he grows, but I hope to never forget them...

I love how he still likes to snuggle with me, especially when we watch movies on the couch.

I love that he needs his hot chocolate "fix" every morning as soon as he wakes up (although I don't always love getting out of bed to get it for him).

I love how he always asks for a second treat to give to Natalie whenever he gets a treat.

I love his high-pitched "baby" voice that he uses to talk to Tyler, and the sweet things he says to him. And how every time he hears Tyler crying he stops and says, "Oh! My baby crying!" and rushes to go see him.

I love how Nathan tries to pray whenever he hears anyone else praying, especially at church it always makes me crack up when Nathan will keep ending his prayer while the person at the pulpit keeps on (it's like his way of saying "that's enough already! hurry up!")

I love how Nathan brings me my glasses every morning when he comes in to wake me up (so I can see to make the hot chocolate of course)

Most of all, Nathan, we love having you in our family and your sweet tender spirit. You have blessed all of our lives in so many ways. You are so wonderful, we love you so so much! Happy birthday :)