2012 Favorites

Some favorite photos and memories from 2012.  I feel so blessed.  What a happy life.  They're in rough chronological order (except for the first photo, that one is in honor of cute girls, family parties, and doughnuts).  Love to all, love, me.

Okay, I know I said in order....these few little late summer pics got somehow mixed in at the end. 

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful, white Christmas this year!  The kids of course woke up bright and early and kept running in to give us updates as to what they got from Santa (Santa doesn't wrap our presents, the jury is out on this one).  We invited my father-in-law, his woman, and my sister-in-law just a couple of days before Christmas and it was nice having them here.  I was worried about the effect the extra Christmas chaos would have on them, but they were good sports.  :)  My sister-in-law thanked us later, saying that Christmas is so much better with little children.  I have to agree.  It was great having her and the others with us.

I was a little embarrassed to post this, because, frankly, there are starving children in Ethiopia and we have been so blessed.  With of course the biggest blessing those happy, bright, healthy little faces lit up with the wonder and excitement that only Christmas Day can bring.  (and as a side note, I realized, that yes, it looks like a lot, but we were doing Christmas for eleven people!  not so bad when I think of it that way)


(Enough gift wrapping cast offs to paper the planet, right here)

There were an abundance of pillow pets this year.  Even the baby was head-over heels for the pink and purple pillow pets; saying it must have felt good on his tongue, because the whole day, no matter what he was doing (playing trucks), he kept mindlessly saying "pi- oh- pet. pi-oh-pet."


(When I was trying to wrap this for one of my girls, this little boy kept loving on it and would not let me have it.  If I snuck it away for a second he would squeak loudly and take it right out of the box)

My girls caught me by surprise when they asked for a bow and arrow.  What?  (After a little sleuthing I have to place the pointing finger of blame in the direction of a cute fiery red-headed Scottish princess)  Fortunately they have a compassionate aunt.

(Photo bomber alert!)

I love her little face in this one.

Some of the toys pictured were not Christmas presents, just pulled from our toy box.

Do you think I'm obsessed with books and cookbooks?  These are my presents, lucky me.

How was your Christmas?  Does Santa wrap your gifts or leave them sitting out?

Rock On

If you must choose, the second video is probably the funniest (rockin' vampire at the first, uh huh). But the first was spontaneous, no parental guidance.



This is how we rock around here, apparently. I walked into my son's room and found the oldest four and their little "band." One of the mini-rockstars was even rocking out while wearing glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth. (A different child is wearing them in the second video, which was admittedly staged this time by yours truly so I could get them all at once)

Enjoy.