Merry Christmas!

Tonight we celebrated "our" family Christmas -- and had told Joshua that after dinner we would open presents. Thus . . . the clearing of the table (by Joshua), and wiping of the table (by Joshua), etc. Wow -- I wish there was this much help all the time!!!!

Getting ready to read the Christmas story!

I'll let you guess . . .do you think this was Kayla's present or Joshua's present????

Some explanation . . .I had read an idea somewhere that for young kids, take them to the dollar store and let them "select" any present for the parents. So -- Daddy received a very nice bow and arrow from Joshua and Mommy received a Spiderman missle launcher from Joshua. We were thrilled with "our" gifts!


Very excited about our "family" gift -- planning on watching it on our way to WI tomorrow!

Kayla and her nesting dolls. Can't believe this is the fourth Christmas now we've had with kids -- wow! It certainly makes the season come alive!

Christmas at M/D V's

We celebrated Christmas at my parents last weekend -- had a very fun evening! (Steve and Freya -- we missed you!) We opened stockings before dinner -- and Kayla had quite the time "modeling" her sunglasses while singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" . . . she KNEW she was the center of attention, too!

Two very happy, excited kids!

Our fam -- yes, that was the best pic of Joshua I had!

Aunt Bem & Uncle Steve

"The Boys" -- I wish they would just lighten up!

Ma & Pa

All of us minus Steve V.

It was really, really chilly on the way home! Holy Cow!

Trying to get caught up . . .

Somehow, blogging just doesn't seem to get done . . . so here's a quick snapshot! I just couldn't refuse taking a picture of the kids after church on Sunday. I played, so we were out the door by 6:45 -- they were pooped!


A family in the church gave us tickets to a KU game -- it was AWESOME! We weren't sure how the kids were going to do -- but they loved it! Kayla is still imitating how "Baby Jay" dances!

Wow!

First snow of the season -- Joshua just insisted that we needed to get the snow off of the driveway -- aka -- he wanted to play in the snow!

Not sure that the shovel was the most efficient choice . . .

Happy Birthday Joshua

OUR BABY TURNED FOUR!

I can't believe I'm just now blogging this -- it's been a little nutso around here. Anyway, earlier this month, our Joshua turned four. He wanted a "Cars" cake -- funny thing is, I don't think he ever had any of the cake . . . he only wanted the ice cream that came with it!


This was "THE" gift of the evening -- this super mega, rocket launcher from his aunt and uncle -- good thing we have high ceilings so we could test it out!

Reminds me of a good joke . . . "How many pollocks does it take . . .?" "The Men" did figure it out . . .eventually!

Uncle Ryan and Joshua

We got him a new bike . . . kind of a bummer in December, I know . . . but we did have one nice day to ride it!

Thanksgiving 08

OK . . . I just realized as I was looking at these pics, that I didn't get a single decent picture of the actual "dinner" -- so instead you get to see everything BUT the dinner!!!! Since my family wasn't getting together until Friday, the four of us spent THE ENTIRE DAY (except for my 8am CVS run) at home -- it was great!

Kayla -- always our comedian!

We got most of the Christmas decorations up -- nice to have that done!

Funny how the tree always ends up a little "bottom heavy" with ornaments . . .!

The FAVORITE thing to get out of the Christmas tubs was this house thing plays music and has blinking lights . . .
. . so most of the day, we heard the same 30-second sound byte being played! I should mentioned that about 30 seconds after this picture, Kayla totally WIPED OUT on the ceramic tiles with her socks on -- and got a super fat lip. Bummer. Now she specifically asks to take her socks off before playing the blinking light house!


I made the rolls for our family Thanksgiving -- Joshua told Bryan "Man . . . there's like hundreds of rolls!" (For the record, I think there were about 8 left after the meal was over -- big dinner!)

Since my brother and his wife were in town, we all headed to a very "family-friendly" eating establishment -- the kids loved it!

Aunt Bem and "Hen-ee" (pronunciation according to Kayla!)

Steve and Freya