Quick January Highlights

January has been a little bit of a lazy month around here. Mommy has felt extra tired during this last part of the pregnancy and we have had a lot of stay at home days, trying to be super creative inside. But, we did have some exceptionally beautiful warm days and took advantage by going to the zoo and wondering downtown a bit. This was nonetheless followed by our first Maryland snow!

With baby in belly, this is one strong lion!

So bundled, they can hardly move!

A 2011 Family Christmas

We had such a fun time at Christmas and had so many visitors - 19 for Christmas dinner! A big thanks to Aunt Christine, Aunt Valerie and Monie for all of their cooking. Grandpa came all the way from Oregon to help us celebrate too. Then Auntie, Uncle Tony and Amelie flew down to help bring in 2012 with us. These pictures are just a few highlights of our Merry Christmas-time. We have such a wonderful family, thank you everybody.

Look at my new shopping cart Daddy!

Daddy and his Christmas girl.

Cousins in DC

Almost the whole family!

Blake and Addie with their favorite baby cousin, Amelie.

Dad and AB in DC

Having fun in Annapolis

Merry Christmas Serenade

Blake just started dancing and singing this song the other night at dinner, and Addie tried joining in too with her own special dance moves.

In case you can't make out some of the lyrics:

I'm a very fat Christmas Tree

Here your branches to decorate me

First you put the star on top

Make sure the ornaments don't drop

Choo-Choo

In case you ever wondered what B & O Railroad stood for (besides hearing it from Monopoly), it is short for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. So right here we are lucky enough to have the oldest surviving train station plus the original 1 mile of train tracks.

Trainmaster Blake

 Dark, but a fun shot of mommy & her babies riding the first 1 mile of train track!

Happy Birthday To Our Little Ones

As it happens every year, Thanksgiving also means a week a week of birthdays here in our house. 

This year our little man turned 4 and our little princess turned 2!

Blake was our first born little man. He lit up our world instantly and we were immediately in love. Watching him grow into a little boy has been so much fun. He is such a cuddlebug who loves to read, play sports and be crazy. We love him with all our hearts. 

Adelyn is our adorable baby girl, with attitude of course! She has been our little angel since day one. Having a little girl has been so exciting. Her cute, feminine moves and gestures just crack us up, especially the way she plays with her hair. The way she adores her big brother just melts your heart. We just love everything about her!

A glimpse at when our little ones first popped out.

Fast forward two years and here are our little ones now.

We all enjoyed a combination birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's with family and friends.

Blowing out the candles together on what was supposed to be a pirate cake!

Beautiful Birthday girl Addie playing on the jungle gym

Our birthday boy and a very pregnant looking mommy

Some of our group helping us celebrate

Addie the rockin' firefighter

My new rocket ship!

Happy Thanksgiving

We had lots of family come into town to help us celebrate Thanksgiving. We visited the most perfect little town of Annapolis one day with everyone and got some good shots. Unfortunately, we weren't good about taking too many pictures otherwise, but here are a few fun ones.  I am a little biased to my new adorable niece, so there are more of her than anyone else!

Blake is madly in love with his new cousin

Two beauties-Amelie and her mommy

Still so in love after being together for almost 19 years-YIKES!

Our family climbing a statue at the Naval Academy

Adorable Amelie all bundled for our walk

Monie and Addie

Grammie and Amelie

Also, Blake's school put on a Thanksgiving program, which just about made me cry because it was so precious. I had a huge smile on my face from the second he entered the auditorium to when he left. He sung every song and did every hand gesture to go with the words. It just made my heart melt. I forgot my camera, so here is one from my phone to give you an idea of our little performer in action.

Pure concentration watching the teacher for the next move

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and gave thanks to the many blessings we each have.

Halloween/Fall Fun

The leaves have all changed and are blanketing our grass, there's a chill in the air and you just know that fall is upon us. We visited a few local pumpkin patches to get in the spirit.

Daddy and his babies

Daddy and his little princess in her tutu

Feeding the chickens together

We joined some of our new neighbors and went trick-or treating after enjoying a little Halloween parade at Blake's school.

School Halloween Parade

Pirate Blake and Pumpkin Addie

They love each other so much!

So typical: a crazy Blake and a bashful, sweet Addie

Pirate Blake was a perfect matey and our little Addie was the cutest pumpkin ever!

Oregon...The Sad

As most of you already know, our family lost a very special loved one last month. Polly was such an amazing person, a lady of beauty, grace, strong morals and character. She was the person who so many of us admired because she was always so poised, so kind and gentle, so courageous and so dedicated. She never spoke an ill word of anyone and always tried to find the positive in anyone or anything.

I was fortunate to have had Polly in my life ever since I was a little girl. She always thought of my sister and me as her own children. She always tried to be a part of everything in our lives and help as much as she could from a distance. As grandchildren began to be born into our family, that's when we saw Polly light up even more. Her love of the three little ones was so strong and special.

I have so many memories with my Dad and Polly and to me, they will always be a unit. As happens with life, time will continue on, but we will always realize how lucky we were to be blessed and loved by Polly and we know she is an angel up in heaven now.

Thank you Polly for all of wonderful memories you gave to us. We are all better people because we had you. We can only hope we gave as much to you as you gave to us. We will forever miss and love you with all of our hearts.

Oregon...The Good

We made a trip out to Oregon at the beginning of October and we thoroughly enjoyed our first few days there with Dad, Polly, Amanda and baby Amelie. Before we get to the real reason why we were there, please enjoy some of these fun photos of our happy times before our sadness occurred.

Grandma with her newest little love

Blake loving his new baby cousin, Amelie

Our little pumpkin, Addie

Yee-haw cowboy Blake

The three grandchildren (notice pirate Amelie!!!)

Enjoying the Oregon pumpkin patch

Such a fun one, kids running up to the barn

First tractor driving lessons from cousin Jess and Grandpa

I think Blake has this tractor thing mastered!

Cuddle time with mommy

I love playing with tractors out West! Mt. Shasta in the background-wow!

Blake's sidekick in California-cousin Oliver