Christmas Eve 2011

Merry Christmas to everyone! We girls wore our sparkly dresses to church and decided we needed to get our pictures taken in them. The rest of the crew cleaned up great as well!

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas from We5 to all of you! Last night we went to our church's Christmas service and were really impressed, once again, at how much time and talent goes into their message. Care Bear sat with Dada and I while the boys played in the kids' area. The music, lights, message, everything was all good, as usual. You can catch it today here: www.cedarcreek.tv at, I think, noon, 2, 4, 6, and 8 PM. Christmas Day showings will begin at 8 AM and run every two hours until 10 PM. We hope it blesses you, too! Just click on the iCampus link. You can even do it in your jammies. 0=)

This was our silly picture, followed by our "serious" picture, capped off by probably our best picture. You can see we laugh a lot as our family. When we're not trying to clobber each other. Anyway, Merry Christmas! May you enjoy the season and not forget the reason!

The night BEFORE the night before Christmas

This poor kid crashed right in our big chair. It was midafternoon and amidst all the noise, cleaning, rushing around that was happening he just conked out. Naturally, I had to take pictures!

His feet are almost as long as my entire hand already!

Such a sweet angel boy. Sleep sweetly, Liam!

Handsome men... and a fuzzy dog.

We like to snuggle around here. Someone is usually climbing on top of someone else and invading someone's space. Just fair warning for any visitors headed this way for the holidays.

And here's 2 of my 3 handsome men, showing off their coordinating jammies!

This little cheeseball knows exactly what to do when he sees the camera come out. He gets right on the other side of it and says, "chiiiiiiz!" So heart-melting. =)

New Duds

I think this was before church one of these weeks. Hard to tell, since both of them seem to use these clothes as their favorite outfits for just about everything. Liam will be wearing the same thing tonight for a Christmas service at church. Carrie will be wearing a dress, and is already griping about it...

Company holiday party 2011

WHY I didn't get any pictures of Dada this night is beyond me. He looked very sharp in his deep violet shirt, silky white tie, and jacket. We had a wonderful time with our friends Bob and Avril, and Lexi came to play with the kids. Wins all around!
Anyway, here's me. With our tree.

My helpers for decorating for the holidays...

And Liam got new-to-him tennies, but the old laces were just about destroyed. We headed to the shoe store to find new ones, and check out what he picked! He was bummed there weren't any yellow ones and that the ones with flames on them were waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long, so he got these instead!

And this is our SweetieDee before her holiday concert at school. Yes, she really is that slim, but I was trying to crop out the bag of potatoes at her feet. 0=)

Santa's Little Helpers

Check out these helpers! That Dratted Kitchen Fairy never seems to show up, but I have terrific vacuum helpers!

Scroll down fast, PaPa.

PaPa doesn't like snakes, so he can skip this entry while the rest of you see the kids petting a snake in the Reptile House. Bebeee and I had to step out. I don't mind snakes, but we WERE in a few layers and we were melting. I didn't feel like stripping him down while he was in the stroller just to put everything back on him again a few minutes later, so we wandered around outside and oogled the baby elephant while we waited for our crew to finish snuggling this pretty snake.

Lights Before Christmas 2011

It was SO nice this year to go while it was still warmish. As you can see, people were not in boots and 12 layers of warm clothes. We love this tradition of seeing the zoo lights at Christmas. These are the singing trees whose lights correspond to the music. The kids especially get a kick out of the "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas" song.

I believe that's what you call "blazing" lights, hehe!

Thanksgiving 2011

Apparently we were too busy eating to take many pictures, but suffice it to say that everyone had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving at aunt Sherri's once again! This is uncle Eric with Damon and Zach. Just boys, hangin' out in the kitchen!

The bean bag chair was a huge hit. Damon kept throwing himself into it with all his might, and needed fished back out so he could do it again. Though here he seems to be thinking, "ugh, should have done this BEFORE pie...."

Oodles of cousins! Neva is in the Gobble Gobble shirt with her daddy, uncle Rob. Liam is in yellow, of course, just like Carrie is in green. Lizzie is the beautiful young lady up front, Zach is in the red shirt with overalls, and Damon is squashing Mama. =) Good times!

Nobody does ice cream like this family. You can tell by the picture, right? ;)

Beautiful aunt Becky with Liam, and her kiddos, Zach and Lizzie.