Saint Nicholas Day

In our house, we have a tradition of putting our shoes outside our bedroom door, the night of December 5th, in hopes of St. Nicholas coming. He comes and fills them with goodies. Growing up, that was a tradition adopted while we were living in Germany. We've made that a tradition in our home now and enjoy it. Making it more of a German tradition, I've made an effort to find German candy and chocolate. Dawson will hopefully get to enjoy some German chocolate next year. Not fun being a kid who can't have milk...


Here's a link to read more on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas_Day

Loving food!

Dawson is an awesome eater! He's loved food since day one of trying it at 4 months old. He's only really snubbed broccoli and bananas. He eats bananas now, but the first time wasn't quite the reaction as all his other firsts. We tried scrambled eggs tonight and definitely enjoyed them.

Christmas Cards

Christmas cards are made, addressed, stamped, and on their way!!! Growing up, we never did Christmas cards. My mom never had time, raising 8 kids, to do them. So, my this is my very first year doing them and I'm very excited! I didn't waste anytime getting them out either. I'm proud of myself. They turned out cute, but I think I will be going with a different company next year because I wasn't too thrilled of the printing quality. But I did them!!! I count that as success. People should be getting them - starting today.

FYI - Since this is my first year doing them, I only did enough for our families (brothers, sisters, parents, and grandparents.). Next year, I will do more and will include more people. Those that didn't get a card, here it is to share.

Family Portraits!!!

We got family portraits done this last month and they turned out really well. We LOVE them!!! We love them so much that we've decided we will do Bluebonnet pictures in the spring as well. Krista did such a awesome job!!! I'm not going to post many because we wanted to keep them as somewhat of a surprise for parents. I'll post a few of our favorites though. I love the faces that were captured of Dawson.

Our Family Reunion!!! - The Trip To

Where to start for our family reunion...?  Probably the beginning would work; however, I do have to mention one thing - we had a ton of fun!  The reunion was awesome and I think we all had a great time.  We even have some great laughs and wonderful memories, not to forget the inside jokes that won't be forgotten.  I'm going to try and marginalize the family reunion, that way we don't leave anything out and it gets evenly spread.  :o)

Our trip began for two of the families, traveling on Friday the 13th.  Great day!  At least a few of us see it that way.  

Of course!  We can't forget!  HAPPY 6 MONTHS to our sweet little guy!!!!!  He's growing up too quickly and I feel like it's going to fly by and I won't capture all of the moments.

We all had to drive two and a half hours away to get on the plane.  

Then, we arrived at the airport... 

Met up with Kevin, Ashley and Kimball.

Flew to Salt Lake City, waited for our next connection to Washington!

The SLC airport has the coolest drinking fountains now.  They allow for you to fill up water bottles with filtered water and fast!  It was very cool.  It also tells you how many water bottles have been saved from that one dispenser.  (Too much for this one convenience - back to the trip!)

Boarding the plane heading to Washington.

Once we landed in Washington, tired, 2 am our time and the kids were exhausted, but we had to document the trip.  Unfortunately, it's a tad blurry of us, but it's still a documented photo.

And then, the excitement of being at Grandma and Grandpa's house set in.

Little did we know, but 5 am was going to come early - with the sun.  We got lucky and Dawson slept longer than Kimball, who is programed to wake up with the sun.  We are spoiled to have the sun sleep longer at home, than in Washington.

We were the first to arrive for the reunion, but Jeremy, Laura and Zoey live there, and Justin, Christine, Brielle and Melanie live pretty close by.  Nate, Lachelle and their clan were flying in on Sunday evening.  

We were a complete family at the reunion and it was a blast!!!  Thanks Mom and Dad for making it possible for all of us to get together and make some wonderful memories!!!

Tongues!

Tongues are BIG!  They are fun, fascinating, and goofy!!!  AND EVERYONE HAS ONE!!!  Including DAWSON!

Here are just a BUNCH of fun photos from the weekend that stuck out most!