Christmas morning...

Merry Christmas! I hope that everyone had a wonderful day. We missed seeing our family, but we did have a very relaxing day and the kids were great. Santa hit a home run this year. :)

Not much news, but I just wanted to share our Christmas morning pictures. Enjoy...

Ian helping Will empty Will's stocking. Will wanted to play with everything so convincing him to open the next box was difficult. He was the last one finished.

Miss Laney and her baby. She pushed the stroller all day. Every now and then she stopped to feed the baby a bottle and she did help change the baby's diaper once as well. Its official--we have a girl in the house!

Papa giving Delaney a little help.Will's rocket ship. I couldn't get him to stand still for a picture so this was the only shot I got that wasn't blurry.

3-2-1 BLAST OFF!

Ian's castle. We all had fun playing with this today! Especially with the addition of dragons and "bad guys". Thank you O'Connors and Whites!

Ian and his giant penguin that he has named Sammy. Sammy stuck by Ian all day and even helped build a lego truck. He's a smart (and dexterous) penguin.

Everyone busy playing. We could hardly convince them to take a break to open the presents under the tree!

I hope that everyone is enjoying the holidays. We have a fun week ahead with Mike at home. We'll be busy with lots of things to do, but all for fun. The next week is going to fly by and then...2011. Another big year for us with the arrival of a new little one.

On that note, we had another ultrasound this last week (the baby just didn't cooperate for listening to the heartbeat) and we have another wiggly little person on the way. The doctor never even saw the heartbeat, but the baby was SO active she said she wasn't worried. It is always fun to see a picture of the progress especially now that I could see feet and hands. Amazing every time! We have a new doctor since my other doctor retired. I was very sad, but this is someone we met during my pregnancy with Ian. She would have delivered him if he hadn't been so relucant to show up! Anyway, I officially like her since she saved (my) Christmas with some anti-nausea medication. It has been such a relief to feel decent for the last few days...not to mention actually enjoy some Christmas cookies! :) :)

And that is all the happenings here. Wishing all the parents out there a few extra minutes of sleep tonight. If you are anything like us, you need it! :) Merry Christmas!

Will's performance

Will performing "ballet". This is not staged...he does this full "show" all the time so I finally caught it on camera. Usually the ballet, ballet, ballet part is more in depth, but cameras always throw things off. :)

Video translation: "Welcome to the show. Ballet, ballet, ballet. Thank you, you are very (un)kind."

Kicking off the Holidays!

I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. I am a bit late in getting to this, but the whole family came down with colds following a busy weekend of eating and family and shopping. We crammed a whole lot of Christmas into the days after Thanksgiving as well. We decorated the house, put up the tree and Ian and I went to the Nutcracker. It is officially Christmas at our house. The elf on the shelf has arrived and the boys are on their best behavior...sort of.

Enjoy the pictures of our weekend!


A break in the wrestling to smile for Mom.


Ian and Laney Beth playing in Laney's favorite chair. She loves to climb in and out and her brothers usually jump in with her.


Ian and Nana and their snowman cake. Ian loves to make cakes!

All dressed to go shopping on Friday and dancing to Christmas music while they wait! Dance parties in Laney's room are popular at our house. A family picture in front of Seattle's Christmas tree.Another family pic on the carousel. This is a tradition for us although this is the first time we all got to ride it. Laney was so excited to get on the horse until it started moving. She did NOT like it until Mike jumped on with her. The boys thought it was great!
Waiting for the tree lighting. The kids were a bit impatient through the half hour show that came first. They did enjoy the crowd singing jingle bells though. It was a long wait, but worth it!The tree lighting with fireworks! It was a great show!
After a long day of shopping and fireworks, matching Christmas pajamas were in order of course.

Finding our tree...

Me and the kids and our tree.

Mike doing the honors...

The boys watching the tree come down. Enjoying some cocoa and hot cider after the tree hunt.

The tree at home, decorated and getting the final touches. Ian remembers everything this year and did not forget that the tree topper is HIS job!


Ian and Mama on our date night to the Nutcracker. He had a great time and it held his attention! His favorite part was the battle--no surprises there! Merry Christmas to everyone!