The beach

While we were in California, we decided to visit Doug's sister, Annie. She lives on a military base about 3 hours from Anaheim. We hit traffic through L.A. and had been driving 3 1/2 hours when I remembered I had taken my wallet (with my license) out of my purse and left it in our other hotel. We went on anyway and through luck or prayer I was able to get on anyway. I was so glad to get to see them and they were great to put up with us.

We went to see the ocean, but it was cold and so windy. In just the few minutes we were there, we were covered in sand.

The Happiest Place On Earth

Yes I know that Wendy (or was it Mary) used that same title, but I can't think of a better title for this entry. In the fall my dad started saying he wanted to take us all to Disneyland. Not everyone thought they could make it and my mom was ready to give up on the whole thing, but Mary's husband Sam told Mary "it's your family, it will never really happen." If you know my mom you know that she can't back down from a challenge. She went ahead with the plans and we all ended up going. 22 of us!! I have a ton of pictures, but here are some favorites.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

The weather was good, but still a little chilly. Abby spent the whole week wrapped up. Most of the pictures you can't even see her in. I told Doug that when she gets older, she won't even think she got to go. She will think we just carried a pink blanket around. This picture is proof that she was really there.

Dumbo is my dad's favorite ride. He said he would be happy to just take the grandkids around on that one all day.

Abby is under the pink blanket, once again she won't believe she was really there.

Mitchell was feeling bad because he had to miss some dance that he had been asked to at home. This is probably better than that.

The last thing we did at Disneyland was go to the Pixar Parade. You'll never guess who was leading the parade--Lightening McQueen. Seeing Luke's face when the car came around the corner was the highlight of the whole trip for us. I wish I had been on the other side of him to get a better picture of his face.

This is how we all felt by the end of each day.

Thanks Sam for challenging my mom, thanks Mary for telling her about it, thanks dad for coming up with the idea and taking us. Thank you mom for planning it and putting up with all the Kiboshers (is that how you spell it??).

Abby's blessing

I had been waiting for Terra to update her blog for quite a while. Then she finally did and I realized that it had been even longer since I updated my own blog. I have lots of fun pictures, but I just don't get on the internet very often and most of the time I don't have very long.





Luke still doesn't understand how to be soft with Abby, but he is very protective of her. When we go anywhere he asks me if the baby is coming too. He always wants me to set her up to the table when we eat dinner. He likes to hold her, but only for a couple of seconds. We have such a hard time getting a picture of it. My sister-in-law is doing our pictures this weekend so hopefully she'll be able to get a better one than this.





I wanted Abby's blessing dress to be something she could always treasure, but not something that you spend a ton of money on to just sit in a box. When we went to Colorado at Thanksgiving I asked my grandma to make her a dress. She ended up making two and letting me decide which one I wanted. Now the dress can be more of an heirloom for Abby because her great-grandma made it.



Here is Abby with her Grandma and Grandpa.


Aunt Annie made this cute bow. She sells them on her website. There is a link to her blog above.

Christmas Blessing

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. However, for us, Christmas began a week early. Baby Abby Jane was born December 18. She was three weeks early but weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz. I shutter to think how big she would have been by January, when she was due. She has big chubby cheeks and a head full of dark hair. We are so blessed to have her here and healthy.

Luke has not been as interested in the baby as I thought that he would be. Pretty much the only thing that he understands is that he has to be soft. He always points to the baby and tells me 'soft'.

Doug likes to talk about how he wanted another boy, but he is so proud of his little girl.
Luke got to be a shepherd in the family Christmas nativity. He just wandered around most of the time.

Doug got to be an elf this year. He made a rocking chair for Luke. Luke was so excited to see it Christmas morning.

It took Luke all day to open his presents and all of Abby's presents. He would get distracted playing with each one.

Check out the decorations on our tree. They don't start until you get about three feet off the ground. We had to redecorate after Luke broke three balls the first day.

Colorado

For Thanksgiving we went to Colorado with my family. We visited my grandparents in Boulder and spent a day touring in Denver. There were 21 of us in three cars. Everywhere we went it was like a caravan. Every time we stopped it took like an hour so the trip ended up being 12 hours in the car. Each car was completely loaded so that was a long time of being squished. I enjoyed the trip. Doug did not want to go with me 8 months pregnant, but he was a good sport about it. Luke traveled really well, but he would have been just as happy to stay home and go swimming.He loves to play with Uncle Mitchell.

We had to get up early to travel, this did make it so Luke would sleep a little more in the car.

Luke calls both of his uncles "Mitch". Chad is a good sport about it and responds when he calls him the wrong name.

We went to the Museum in Denver, they had lots of dinosaur stuff, but Luke's favorite was the animal display. Here a dinosaur is getting them.

This picture is over a year old, but we haven't had a family picture since. We took a bunch of pictures this day, but Doug just wanted one with our tractor. By the time we got to it, Luke was done taking pictures.

Finally

People are always telling me that I should get a blog. Well, HERE IT IS!! It will probably become evident very soon why I have waited so long. I enjoy looking at other people's blogs so I guess I will give it a try.