Merry Christmas, Happy Chinese New year, and Happy Birthday!

I wrote this about a week ago and was waiting to get my video to upload before I posted it. Well, that hasn't worked so here it is!


It has been a long time again since I have posted. But here are some photos of the past month. I have a few photos of Christmas. For some reason, we didn't really take a lot on Christmas morning, but we did do some video. We went to Derek's parent's house Christmas day and then we went to Gulf Shores to visit my family the day after Christmas. We were at the beach for about 10 days. As usual, I wanted to pack up everything and move to Gulf Shores after our visit! We are going to have to find a way to get Chapman Drugs down there!! The kids are at such a fun age to celebrate Christmas. It was a lot of fun this year.

Gross boy tidbit: Ben said today that he wished his nose was a cave and he could pick out the stalagtites and the stalagmites ! Are all boys this gross???

The kids ready to go downstairs to see what Santa brought

Ava admiring her new blowdryer

The boys sitting in their new chairs and showing off some new "stuff"

Ava enjoying grandmama's Christmas cinnamon rolls

The weather was great!

Ben loves to chase the birds

Peter didn't bother going where the water was shallow to get to the sand bar

I love his happy face in the picture

The boys love the beach

The start of our massage train

Is Ben going to join us?

Fun at the condo


Happy Chinese New Year

Jonathan and Susan came over with their girls so we could celebrate Chinese New Year. We made dumplings, decorated with paper lanterns and dressed the kids up. We had a lot of fun. We were not very successful in getting a group picture.

Ava checks out Eleanor

Ava checking on LilyKate

Oh well...not looking good

Happy Birthday Ted, Lee, Derek and Christa

The birthday group

Daddy and his little girl

Lee opening his exciting birthday presents

Ted with his Georgia shirt and black and red gift bag

Ava helping Christa with her presents

My boys

The wild party crew...I didn't get the one of them dancing on the tables.

Ted, Jaime (with baby Tripp) and Terry



Awards Day at St. Johns

Peter got the responsibility award this semester at school. We are so proud of him. Ben was upset that he didn't get an award also. I told him that next year he will be eligible for honor roll and Principle's list since it is the first year he will get "real" grades. They also get acknowledged on awards day. Maybe this will motivate him to keep doing well in school.

Peter receiving his award from Ms. Vogtner

Peter and the other kindergarten award winners

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

Peter lost one if his front teeth a couple of weeks ago, the same night his magical elf came. He lost his other front tooth last night, so he had a visit from both Santa and the tooth fairy. He likes for his magical creatures to come in pairs. I will post more about Christmas later. The kids are having one of the best Christmases. They are having so much fun! Merry Christmas everyone!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I know we are going to have a great Christmas. The kids are SO excited. Peter can hardly stand it. He woke up this morning and said that he wishes we were in China so we would be going to bed soon. Ben is also trying to figure out how to make the time go by quickly. We have to go get a ham for work and a few other errands and Derek will be home early today. I have everything that I need for Christmas! I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!

One Year, One Month, and One Day

I'm a month and a day late to celebrate "gotcha day" but we have a lot to celebrate. We recently had a medical scare with Ava and we just found out that she is ok. She had an MRI of her brain in November because of her physical/developmental delays and they found a cyst on her cerebellum. The radiology report said that the cyst was having a mass effect and we were sent to see a neurosurgeon, but it took ~6 weeks before we were able to see him. That was a long, worry filled 6 weeks!! We finally saw the neurosurgeon last week and he said that it was a small cyst and that it was not affecting her and that we would get another MRI in a year to make sure it isn't getting bigger (he doesn't think that it will). He said that a lot of people are walking around with cysts like these and don't know it unless they happen to have an MRI for another reason. I am so thankful that she is not going to have BRAIN SURGERY!!! She has had enough surgery in her 4 years!! We are so thankful that we are lucky enough to be this sweet, loving little girl's parents. Thanks to everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers. This has been a difficult time for us and it was so nice to know that there were people out there thinking and praying for us. Keep her in your prayers. She has come a long way, but she also has a lot of catching up to do.



It is nice to have such great news during this time of year. Not only do we celebrate Christmas this time of year, but we also have three December birthdays in our family. Peter turned 6 on the 12th and he had a penguin, winter wonderland birthday. He picked out his cup cakes and he helped me decorate the dining room into Winter Wonderland...he was so excited! We started the celebration at The Varsity and had hot dogs and onion rings and then headed to our house for present opening and cake. He was so funny during his present opening...he didn't act excited about any present he opened, but he really loves all of them. His favorite present was Martian Matter (he has been making martians every day!), but he has played with everything he got. Peter is one of the happiest people I know!

Bring on the grease!

Welcome to Winter Wonderland

The Birthday Boys


Grandaddy celebrated his 75th birthday!!!

I'm also going to post some pictures of the Secret Santa Shop at the boy's school. Every year the kids get an opportunity to shop for their friends and family. Kids can come in with any amount of money and buy gifts. I helped one little boy buy 9 gifts for five dollars. It is such a fun experience for the kids and they feel so good about picking out presents for their family. It was also a fun experience for all of the helper elves that got to help the kids and wrap their presents. The mom who was in charge of this no longer has kids at the school so this was her last year and she has passed the Head Elf job to me. This is what will be keeping me busy shopping at the after Christmas sales coming up and wrapping presents throughout the year.

All of the gifts

The first group of shoppers

Elves Yasna and Karen

Elves turning the shop back in to the science lab

Happy Thanksgiving

The kids have been keeping us busy lately. Here are some pictures of the last couple of weeks.

Parents were asked to read to Peter's kindergarten class one day. Peter was so excited that I came to read.

This is Ben after his hip hop performance at school. Here he is with two of his best friends, Blake and Leo.


Ava's pre-k class gave a performance for Thanksgiving.


The next four pictures are from our Cub Scout field trip to the police station...the boys LOVED it!

Here is Peter at Race for Education Day at school. This was during our week of sickness. Peter was just getting over his cold and Ava and Ben are sick at home.

I just added this because it is so cute.

Here is a video from Ben's hip hop performance to "Beat It" and a video of Ava's class Thanksgiving show. I couldn't get them to up load onto blogger so I here are links to the videos on You tube. Please keep Ava in your prayers. We see the neurosurgeon Dec. 8th.