Polar Bear

Nana Blair made all the grand kids super cute animal hats for Christmas. Jackson has a shark, Sunny has a frog, Lila has a cat, Griffin has a monkey (my personal fav), and Cam has a polar bear.

We took a cute picture of her with all the grand kids wearing their hats the other night, but Cameron was asleep and didn't get to be in the picture.

That's okay...he prefers to steal the spotlight rather than share it anyway!

He's adorable...I know!

We are growing out Griffin's hair this winter. Usually we just put some gel in it and it looks kind of shaggy. This weekend G-man asked if I would give him a mohawk. He really likes getting his hair done. Probably because he has two big sisters and he watches them getting theirs done.

Anyway, his mohawk is freakishly huge. He loves it. Ryan and I...not so much.

Fail

I totally failed at getting a good picture of the kids this Christmas. On Christmas Sunday, we can home from church we put the camera on automatic, I had everyone posed perfectly, the flash went off, and no picture. Not knowing what went wrong, I gathered everyone up and we tried again. Same thing happened. Seems like the timer thing on my camera is broken.

I was pretty disappointed at this point and the kids had scattered to their rooms to change clothes. I called them down one last time and threw them all on the couch. No one was happy. It was miserable and I was yelling at them to smile.

I guess it is what it is. Instead of the perfect Christmas picture I envisioned in my mind, I got these.

Good thing I'm not an over achiever :)

Cousins

Griffin with "Fenry".

me: Huh, Huh, Henry
Griffin: Huh, Huh, Fenry

Classic!

She loves her sweet little cousin.

I know...they're so cute it's ridiculous!

First time holding baby Henry. Oldest and youngest grandchildren.

This picture is just awesome. For those of you who know Cameron in real life, he is a pretty scrawny little guy. Not big at all. However, he looks like a giant compared to Henry. It's amazing what 3 months will do! These guys are going to have a great time growing up together.

Christmas 2011

One picture...that's all I got. Good thing it's a cute one. Minus the fact that it was taken at 6:00 in the morning and is missing Cameron because he was still asleep.

We did Christmas a little different this year. I want to share our experience, but I want to make sure to mention that it was really made possible by the fact that our children have such wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents. We are truly blessed in the family department!

This Christmas season we have really tried to focus on giving and sharing. The kids all say their favorite thing we did was that instead of Ryan and I buying the kids presents, we donated that money to an orphan in the Ukraine. They talk about her (and the little boy we donated to also) all the time. For some reason it really made an impact on them and I am so glad. We also had several other opportunities to give to other and I was so proud of the kindness and generosity of our children.

Then we decided that maybe we hadn't done enough. We really wanted our children to learn a lesson, and to feel like they were sacrificing something. We talked to the kids about how there are other children all over the world who have never received presents. As a family, we decided that we would write Santa a letter asking him to please skip bringing presents to our house this year and give them to children who really needed them. The kids were pretty excited about this and so was I.

On Christmas Eve we set out the kids stocking and filled them with a few cool things that my Dad had gotten them, and some candy. (They knew that Ryan and I were doing stocking and not Santa.) Then, I wrote a note from Santa to the kids about how proud he was of them and how kind they were, and left it on top of a game that he brought for the kids to share. I had a little moment of panic and wondered if this was really okay and if it would scar my kids for life :)

Christmas morning wasn't big and flashy, but it was wonderful. It was truly the best Christmas we have ever had. The kids came downstairs and read the note. They were thrilled that Santa had come and had left them a game, and they were also thrilled that somewhere, some children were receiving "their" presents.

Then we had a great time opening all the presents under our tree from Mimi and Bear, Nana Blair, and Mok and Pok. We have such wonderful family! They got everything on their wish lists and more.

They have already asked if we can do the same things again next year. I think I breathed a sigh of relief that things went so well. I have been blessed with the most wonderful, caring, generous children that I could ever imagine. We have been so blessed this year!

Mom, Dad, Josh, Jess, and Henry all stopped by around lunch time to visit and see the kids new toys. This is the first picture of Mom and Dad with all SIX of their grandchildren.

We Love Babies!

I think it is possible that Sunny loves babies as much as her mother!

We both especially love little Henry. He is precious and looks very much like his Dad...well, there might be a smidgen of his Mom in him too :)

And...we had no Internet yesterday and it has been in and out today. So, if it works well enough, you can look forward to a blog post with several more adorable pictures like the one above. (Except Joshy photo shopped that one, so mine won't look that good...whatever :)

Snow Day

Arghhh! My pictures posted all out of order again. I cannot figure out what is up with Blogger. So, the first picture is supposed to be Sunny, Lila and Griffin playing on the computer.

On the Wednesday before school got out, Sunny woke up complaining of a stomach ache (a magically disappearing stomach ache at that :) so I let her stay home from school. For awhile she played with the little kids while it snowed outside. I could tell they were starting to get bored, so I asked if they wanted to play in the snow.

YES, YES, YES!

Griffin only played in the snow once last year, and obviously he was so young he doesn't remember. He thought it was wonderful. I love the look of joy on his face. I think Ryan might have a little snowboarding buddy on his hands.

The three amigos. I really wish I would've kept Jackson home too. The roads were so bad it took me 3 times as long as it normally does to get him to school and he had to miss all the fun.

Obviously the "before" snow picture. Still cute, but the computer just can't compare to fresh falling snow.

Snow Angels