November 2008 and a little of Dec

In November my sister-in-law threw us a shower for CJ. It was very lovely and most of my family and friends were able to attend. We were so blessed by all of the gifts. There wasn't much that we needed, but it was nice to be showered. One of the greatest things was that she also held a raffle for all of those who brought diapers in addition to their gifts, so now we have probably a 6 month supply of diapers, what a blessing.


My sister drawing a baby on a paper plate, she was competing with my step-mom in a tiebreaker.



This onesie is specifically in honor of Steve. His mom found it and couldn't pass it up. So cute!


The spread, great food for brunch.


Thanksgiving this year was at Steve's parents house. Unfortunately, I got a really bad cold 5 days before and so we came late and left early. I thought the food was great, esp. since it had been the first real meal in a few days. There were lots of family there, we were a bit crowded to say the least.


With dinner a little crazy this was about the only photo we took the whole night. Steve's parents house is a grandchild heaven. They have almost every toy you could want.

After Thanksgiving we started to decorate the house for xmas. It was really great to get all of our stuff out, we hadn't seen it in two years! We got our first live tree, which was almost a Clark Griswald moment. After some trimming and rearranging of furniture we were able to make it fit. A new addition to the decorations this year was a motorized train for the bottom of the tree. Growing up my Dad always had one around the tree. This one is mostly for PJ, but I admit it feels more like xmas to have one running around the presents.


Our mantle, I love it. The only thing I am dreaming of is matching stockings. They weren't really in the budget and our family may not be done growing yet, so maybe in the next couple of years.


PJ is very unhappy that he has to wait to put up the train. Poor guy.


Sheer delight as we unpacked the box and he got to touch and move the train cars.

The first weekend of December we had the cousins over to decorate cookies. This may become a tradition, it was lots of fun. Kya (who is the oldest) is a great artist and very creative. Aliyah (Kya's sister) was happy to mix red and white to make pink. Ivy was very calculated in her movements and only really loved to decorate the star ones. PJ...hmmm... he loved to make a mess. His frosting became brown and camouflaged, I should have made army men cutouts. He also loved to eat the icing the most.


The table is all set for the little ones to make a mess!


Ivy concentrating hard on spreading the icing.


Some of their finished creations.


Just cause Kya is so cute!


PJ and Aliyah having some fun with frosting.

If you have made it all the way to the end, congrats. Obviously you love us very much. Now that I am all caught up hopefully I will continue to update the blog. I will be posting a Christmas letter soon and PJ turns 2 tomorrow! Crazy.