He's Electric!!!!!

So, Troy got his braces on today. It took 2 hours and he's having an interesting time getting used to them. He's already counting the 12-16 months it will take before he gets them off!

Before braces...what a handsome kid!

After braces...still handsome and now with an electrifying smile! ;)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas friends and family! We have had such a wonderful time this week and we hope that each of you had a wonderful Christmas too.

On Sunday, we had Sam, Gwen and Amber and Brian, Julie and Ewan over for dinner. Amber is such a cutie and so small still. After lifting Tyson, I was afraid I was going to throw her through the ceiling! :O) We had lots of fun laughing and eating and just enjoying each other's company. Annie just couldn't get enough of Amber and held her as often as we'd let her.

Monday was a family day. After my appointment to get a toenail removed, we all went to see "National Treasure: Book of Secrets". What a cool movie. We loved it and had so much fun watching it. Even Taylor and Annie sat through the whole thing, and I don't think there was one swear word the entire movie (wow!).

Monday evening brought our traditional candle light dinner and reading of the Christmas Story. Tyson loved the candles so much he kept trying to grab them. We let the kids set out Santa's cookies and a coke and some carrots for the reindeer and then we sent them to bed. Holy Cow! I forgot how hard it is to go to sleep on Christmas Eve when you are little, but finally everyone dozed off. Of course they were up at 4:30 in the morning. We banned them from going downstairs and from waking us up before 7:00, so they were leaning over the railing with Troy's binoculars trying to scope out the gifts. What a bunch of goofy kids!

Tyson loved opening the gifts and eating the paper. We tried really hard to keep the paper in a bag, but the little stinker got to the bag before we did and dumped paper everywhere. I'm sure to him it was baby heaven, but what a mess!

Taylor just loved his Transformer jammies. I'm not sure why this picture is sideways...I'll have to figure that out. During the picture he was being Optimus Prime and yelling "Awesome dude!". I love the face. In the background, you can see Annie playing with her new MP3 player. She and I set it up yesterday afternoon, so she has her tunes (and already has them so loud that she doesn't hear us talking to her...I thought that came later in her life!?!?!?!).
Troy also got some new jammies which is a good thing. His others are pretty bad. I can't believe how big he is getting. He's now taller than me (not hard I know), and his feet are bigger than Kevin's and I'm sure he is not through growing yet. We had so much fun playing with the kids and they loved all of their gifts. It was so fun to watch them go from gift to gift and play with each one. We finally figured out it was bedtime after we saw Daddy half asleep at the table. He looks a little tired don't you think? :)
So, we finally got everyone to bed and we were amazed at how quickly they went to sleep. They were totally worn out, but had a great day.

We hope that each of you had just as much fun as we did, and we appreciate all the gifts and goodies. How blessed we are to have each of you in our lives.

Merry Christmas and we hope each of you have an "Awesome" new year!

Busy day...

What a fun and busy day!

One thing you think we would have learned is that you never go to the mall 10 days before Christmas. But no, we forgot from last year (and the year before that, and the year before that, etc.) and we braved the crowds. We parked in the back 40 and hiked in for some good deals and got our Christmas shopping completed. Yay!!! Now we get to sit back and enjoy the rest of the season.

Before hitting the mall, we lunched with Julie, Brian, and Ewan at our favorite Mexican food restaurant. Yummy.

We also went to Grandma's house to see the villiage that she and Aunt Carol put out every year. It's absolutely amazing what they do and the work that goes into it. The kids just love the train and the airport and the diner and well, just all of it.

Our last stop of the night was an open house for a hobby train collector. His backyard was full of tracks, trains, tunnels, bridges, and just everything. The kids had so much fun waiting and watching. It was pretty cold for desert standards and we all got cold fingers and red noses, but hot chocolate fixed us right up and we finished off the day with nice, warm bubble baths.

It was so nice to be able to go around to these places and take the kids and enjoy their company. Enjoy the pictures from the day!

Our Family

Howdy!

Hi Friends and Family!

I decided to start this blog because so much happens in our lives and it's hard to keep everyone up to date. So, for now, I'm just getting it set up, but hopefully soon (and probably with a little help) I'll get it running.

See you soon!!!