Family Moments

As I think about the New Year and reflect about the one that is coming to an end, I keep going back to feeling so blessed and fortunate to have Tom for my husband, such a loving man to me and our 3 beautiful children. My life would be so different had I not gone on that blind date 6 years ago. I cant even imagine my life without Tom, Hayden, Logan and Claire. I treasure them. I took tons of photos this month to add to my ever growing collection, but these are some of my favorites. Just everyday photos around the house. I cant wait to see what moments I capture in 2009.

Christmas Morning

This Christmas will always be remembered for some very special reasons. We are blessed and lucky to have 3 beautiful and VERY active children who could not wait for this special day to arrive. Hayden woke up first and when exiting his bedroom on the second floor he can look down and see the Christmas tree. We heard him stirring about, open the door and yell "mom, dad...Santa dropped a whole bunch of presents!" Tom gathered them in our bedroom while I ran downstairs, turned on all the lights, woke up Grandma Pat and got the movie camera ready. Logan comes to look down and lets out a huge scream....(think "Home Alone" with the hands clasping the face!!). It was priceless and was a great way to start things off. Now...back to having 3 VERY active children...it is another story entirely opening gifts with 3. Everyone is tearing into things at the same time, cant see if this present was meant for that person, the tags are all pulled off too fast....it left Tom and I breathless. The smart idea we came up with this year was to set up "part-one" in the living room. When everything was opened the kids thought we were done...we actually sat down to eat breakfast and catch our breath. Then I yelled..."what about the stockings...where did santa put them...we better check the new room." We opened the door and surprised everyone to "part-two" where stockings, tree house and air hockey table were waiting. The energy and excitement was magical and heartwarming. We were fortunate to have beautiful warm weather and the kids burned off some energy playing outside later that day. Many times we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and fondly remembered my dad...our first Christmas without him. We joined our friends, The Garcia Family for their annual dinner at the local Chinese restaurant. We loved celebrating with them and not having to cook! Merry Christmas from our home to yours!

Hayden's Gingerbread House

This year we built our very first Gingerbread House. Logan was really only excited about eating the candy. This allowed Hayden to have full range of artistic freedom. Daddy helped out with building the structure and I whipped up the icing but Hayden can claim this house as his own masterpiece. This was really so much fun and we look forward to adding this to our list of holiday traditions.