2008 in Review

I've seen this done on several other blogs this week and I thought it was a great idea so here's my version. Of course, this post is really long with lots of pictures, but it was fun for me to go back and look at what has happened over the past year. I tried to post picture's that had not made it onto the blog previously, if possible.

JANUARY brought with it, cute outfits from Laos, the stomach bug, and Alena's first haircut.


FEBRUARY brought with it a trip to the zoo, Valentine's day with breakfast at Krispy Kreme, and Alena eating her very first "cookie."



MARCH brought with it, snow, a trip to VA so Nae could lay our bamboo floors (yeah!), Easter, and Gabe's very first soccer season.




APRIL brought with it Nae taking (and passing) his PE exam, lots of trips to the park, and a volcano eruption.


May brought with it a tadpole releasing party, a camping trip, the building of the "banging wall," and Alena's first birthday which I cannot find any pictures of at the moment and that is quite concerning. Carrie, do you happen to have any?


JUNE brought with it lots of time spent outside in the backyard, Nae's birthday (no pictures), the annual NES picnic, and our first trip to Dallas with a stop over in Arkansas to see all the Soundaras.


JULY brought with it lots of water play, planting flowers (finally) in our yard (only to have to dig them up a few months later) and the stomach bug (AGAIN!)


AUGUST brought with it our annual beach trip, our only trip of the year to see the Sounds (minor league baseball) play, and the last trip to the lake for the year.



SEPTEMBER brought with it Alena's first real injury (from a falling toy) and an evening trip to Centennial Park to feed the ducks.


OCTOBER brought with it Mya's birthday, a trip to the Pumpkin patch, and Alena's first time as an only child while Gabe and Mya stayed in VA with my parents.


NOVEMBER brought with it my birthday (of course there are no pictures), Gabe's birthday, and Thanksgiving.

DECEMBER brought with it the first snow of the season, lots of crafts, and of course, Christmas!

Can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for us.

A Great Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. All the kids were well which is no small miracle and we didn't have to travel. Grandmama, Grandaddy and Emma came to us and then for Christmas dinner we all went over to Pathu's and Mathu's. Here are a few pictures from the last few days.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Merry Christmas, everyone.

We're having a wonderful Christmas. Hope everyone else is to. Enjoy the rest of the day.

Christmas cheer

We finally made it to the Opryland Hotel this afternoon to see the Christmas lights and decorations. It was actually, a very enjoyable trip the best one we've ever had with children involved. Here's a few pictures even thought the lighting (and our camera) isn't the best.

Here the kids are waiting on Daddy. He dropped us off and then drove to Opry Mills (the mall), parked, and walked over to avoid the $18 parking fee. Who in the world would pay that much to park?
One thing that made our trip much easier was the absence of the stroller. I'm not sure why we've never done this before, but it was so much easier to have Alena in the Ergo than to be walking around trying to find an elevator.
Okay, I know Gabe looks like an old man with those pants and tennis shoes on but I didn't dare laugh at him or there would be no more wearing khaki pants!
Gabe took this picture in front of the huge poinsettia Christmas tree. They even had white poinsettias going around to look like a ribbon.
Can you see the fountains shooting up? This was the only bad part about going in the day before it got dark, there's a really neat area with lots of water spraying up at different heights and intervals and in the dark you can see all these spotlights that make the water look different colors. The ceiling above is glass, though so the sun was too bright for us to see the colors. They still enjoyed watching the water.
The kids are singing, "O Come all Ye Faithful" at the Christmas Eve service Wednesday and since I doubt they will sing this well or this loudly there, I wanted to make sure and get a video. The little entertainer will not be singing (even though she knows the chorus very well) but isn't it a shame that she's so timid and shy. :)

Sun, finally!

Last Friday, the kids were doing this:

and, this Friday they were doing this. There is nothing like 2 weeks of rainy, cold (and sometimes snowy) weather to make you really appreciate a random warm day. It was just what we all needed - to get out of the house and burn off some energy.

Mya is finally tall enough to push around on this little no pedals, no training wheels bike. I had picked up a "girls" bike at the thrift store for Mya to ride, but it's a little taller and she's just not quite big enough so she's back to the "boy's" bike that has been well worth the $5 I paid. Mya's so cautious it's going to take her a while to get brave enough to actually glide but since she's only 3 we have plenty of time.
Gabe is a great bike rider now. In fact maybe a little too good as he was being a little dare devil and took a couple of spills.

Alena wasted lots of energy pushing this tricycle around. Just like her older brother she's not really into being pushed but instead wants to fly unassisted down the hill or push herself. She can't even see over the top of the thing.

Early morning SNOW

So, what were you doing at 8am this morning. Bet it wasn't this:

There was much excitement at our house late yesterday evening when it started to snow and the excitement continued on into this morning when Gabe was up at 6:30 wanting to go out. I managed to hold them off long enough to eat breakfast and get dressed and then they were ready to go.
This was really Mya's first time in the snow since last year she was too little to enjoy doing much. She stayed out as long as Gabe did even though she had this look on her face that said, "I'm not sure about this." Oh, and she has Vaseline on her face to keep it from getting chapped; I know it looks like snot.

Not sure what Gabe was doing with his eyes in this picture. It looks kind of creepy.

Alena and I chose to stay inside where it was warm. Or actually, I chose for Alena and she wasn't too happy about it. Nothing a granola bar couldn't cure, though.

By 10 the snow was melting and by lunch time it was all gone which is just fine by me. I used to feel sad for my kids that this is the only snow they would ever know - an inch or so once or twice a year, but now I think the less snow the better. We'll visit Grandmama and Grandaddy if we want to see real snow.