Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful holiday spending time with family. We actually had three days of Christmas this year. Sunday we spent time with my side and had our gift exchange and meal and then on Christmas eve we had dinner and a gift exchange with Steve's family and then on Christmas morning we had our own gift exchange with the children and then spent the rest of the day at my parents house. The kids got so many nice gifts and they are having a lot of fun playing with all of them. Yesterday we "placed the icing on the cake" by taking the kids to the mall and going through Build A Bear with them. They loved it so much that it was worth navigating the crowds. I have never seen the mall so crowded. Steve thought the floors were shaking because of so many people moving around! (i didn't feel it but okay) :o) We also got to spend a couple of gift cards and that is always fun! Here are a few pictures from the holiday:

Dylan with Steve watching the gift exchange, i think it was a bit overwhelming for him at times:

Candace in her cute new dress opening her present:


Alexcis and Brittney opening gifts, they actually opened a lot of Dylan and Candace's
gifts this year too so they really enjoyed the gift opening!



Dylan sitting among the wrapping paper. He liked the toys that he got but he didn't
really like to open them. Next year I know he will enjoy it a lot more.



Brittney opening her Dora bowling game, this thing takes to many batteries which we still need to get but it looks really cool!


I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. Happy New Year!

Home Five Months

Candace has been home for five months today. We arrived home in the early morning hours of July 18th. She fell asleep on the way home from the airport and went right into her bed and slept until late into the morning. Alexcis and Brittney wanted us to wake her up because they were so excited to meet her. Candace adjusted to our family as if she had been with us since birth. She is doing great. She is generally a happy baby. Walking, laughing and we are just waiting to hear those first words. Here she is watching it start to snow:And all dressed up so pretty for church and our Christmas dinner!
She is a precious little girl and we are so thankful that the Lord designed for her to a part of our family! Happy five months home Candace!

Christmas is almost here!

The official countdown has begun here in our home! Alexcis and Brittney have marked the calendar with stickers and they check it everyday so that they can remind me many times throughout the day just how many days are left until Christmas! It is really neat to see them so excited. I think we are all ready for Christmas here at our house. Christmas cards sent out: check. Decorations up: check. Lights hung: check. Gifts bought: check (well almost done) Gifts wrapped: check, check. Cookies made: oops missed that one, thanks for the cookies you gave us Tawana!: check! Now we can enjoy the season!

This past weekend we had two Christmas dinners to attend. one on Saturday evening and one on Sunday afternoon. It was nice to see everyone and we had a good time. Candace was sick and i took her to the doctor on Monday morning and she has a sinus infection and an upper respiratory infection. This is the first time she has been really sick since she is home! She does not like to be sick and she lets us know that by crying non-stop. I'm hoping she doesn't get sick very often!
Alexcis also had a dentist appointment yesterday and for the first time she was a "member of the no cavity club"! She has had nine or ten cavities already and it was so nice to finally hear 'no cavities!' She was very proud of herself and promptly asked for a cookie when we got home. Wonder where she is getting all these cavities from???
Well off to get dinner started! have a great week!