4th of July

even though the chickens had fevers we still tried to celebrate

with a few fireworks and a picnic.

happy fourth of july...

let freedom ring.

Happy Fathers Day

to the most amazing father i know...

Easter

The Easter Bunny snuck into our house and hid baskets for us to find after church.

sneaky rabbit.

Finley's first Easter and he looks mighty fine

hello friend.

Genevieve found the loot

pretend food for her kitchen

miniature piano

and a new friend for Fin.

daddy knows how to make one mean sandwich, yum.

genevieve was channeling Linus from charlie brown.

noon = terrible lighting

taking pictures of these two, impossible.

bad lighting

horrible background

the attention span of a knat

nap time 

and that's a wrap...

we'll settle for this.

Happy Easter

 (never mind it was a few weeks ago)

more to come.

more christmas, ugh.

more hawaii, i know its valentines day.

i'm slacking, i'm trying to get through Christmas.

new years resolution... to stay caught up.

i snapped some pictures of my babes on the beach.

family christmas card picture...

seriously more than hundred of these ridiculous pictures 

and really not one turned out great...

these are the top two contenders. 

playing catch... christmas

I really, really don't like being behind in my journaling.  If the blog gets behind so does the book.

So to say its February and I still haven't written about christmas is disheartening.

Well, here it goes.  I'm about to catch up.

Christmas Eve...

we celebrated Christmas a week before the actual day because of our trip to Hawaii

Santa came early and did not disappoint.

This was our first Christmas to celebrate just "us".

Joe and my little family.

We carried on the tradition of Christmas jammies on Christmas eve

and started our own with cinnamon rolls, the blow up mattress in the family room and christmas movies.

It was magical and so surreal Joe and I were celebrating Christmas with our own family

carrying on traditions from both our families and starting our own.

We set cinnamon rolls and milk out for Santa

 tucked the kids into bed

and waited for Christmas to arrive.

christmas morn

everything a little boy and girl could want

"pincess shoes"

 just what she has always wanted

the aftermath. 

last year with santa

i couldn't find a post from our santa session last year

so if I did already post these pictures in 2010 I apologize.

but really, they are just too funny not to share again.

my how far we have come...

finley was a wee little peanut in my tummy

and genevieve was just a babe.

the magic of santa

remember this (first christmas)

oh she was so tiny.

I need to get last years picture of genevieve from my mom

she bawled her eyes out, it was darling. I'll post that soon.

this was genevieve's third, Fin's first and my 26th year to see this Santa

the "real, real" santa.

genevieve was timid but made sure to tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas...

"presents"