Happy New Year!

I did not get pictures of the family in time for Christmas cards, but at least my blog readers can see our smiling faces as we wish you a Happy New Year!

(Lydia at 2 1/2 years)

(Henry at 8 1/2 months)

We are excited to see how God directs your family 2011.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and he will make your paths straight." ~Proverbs 3:5-6

Christmas Presents

Christmas morning in pictures!

Family Fun

Look who came to visit! Amy and her family came from Seattle for a week before Christmas. We did lots of fun things with our kids for a few days, and then we packed up the new van and headed to Corpus Christi for Christmas at Mom and Dad DeSutter's house. Here's a quick recap with pictures.

Hide and seek with Cole and Lydia.

Bath Fun

Pony Rides at First Baptist Church Candy Cane Lane

Bounce house fun

Jesus Birthday Party with Grams and Grandy

Blowing out the Birthday Cake Candle

Grams (with Blake) and Grandy (with Henry), meeting the babies

Aquarium fun in Corpus

Visiting Brian's family in Colorado Springs

This post is way late. In November, we took a long weekend trip to visit Brian, Lauren, Emily and Ryan in their new home in Colorado Springs. It was Lydia's first time playing in snow. She loved it, but did not like her hands getting cold! Emily and Lydia played so sweetly together.

Snuggles with Uncle Brian.

Some pictures from a beautiful trip to Garden of the Gods!

(notice Lauren is bundled with an extra fleece around her waist...she was so cold!)

Brian's makeshift baby carrier for Ryan.

Party in NYC

This picture shows the Temple of Dendur displayed in NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And this picture shows the same room as it looked for Dan's company party on Thursday night!

It was a pretty cool setting for a party. I would have taken more pictures...but I didn't want to look like a completely nerdy tourist with a party full of NYC locals.

I couldn't resist a picture of the cake!

Lydia and Henry spent four days with Nanny and Pops (Dan's parents). When we got home Friday night around 8pm, Lydia was all prepped for a "surprise." WE were the surprise, but she's a smart cookie and wanted a real surprise. It's a good thing we picked up a lipsmackers in CVS (I needed to warm up halfway through our 9 block walk to Bloomingdale's....it was COLD) that morning. Lydia's first "lipstick" was a big hit!

New this week

Henry has been mobile for over two months with an interesting inchworm technique!

This week he finally started real crawling.

Adios twenties!

Dan's 30th Birthday is just around the corner! We had a fiesta to celebrate. Fajitas, margaritas, and mariachi. We had so much fun.

Stephanie set up a Fiesta Foto station to take funny pictures.

Me and Stephanie

Adam and the Mariachi players

Stephanie joins the band

Dan with his parents and brothers

Bill and Sandra

Steve and Nancy

David and Dan playing...

Melissa, Renee, Jacquie, and Jessica

The birthday boy

Happy Birthday, Dan!

Thanks to all our family, friends, and awesome neighbors for celebrating with us!

Visiting Amy

I took the kids to visit Amy, Jeremy, Cole, and Blake in Seattle at the end of September. The flight was so much better than I anticipated. We sat for over 4.5 hours, and Lydia never once asked to use the restroom. Whew!

Amy's new house had lots of play space and lots of new toys from Cole's recent 2nd birthday. Lydia and Cole were the BEST playmates. They shared, took turns, played together, talked, asked and answered each others' questions...it was fabulous. They played all day long for 7 days. Needless to say, both were very sad when we had to leave.

Henry and Blake (6 months old and only two days apart) were a little less playful. Henry only wanted to crawl on Blake and "eat" his face or grab his hair. Blake was a trooper though (I don't think he ever cried during the maulings). He did manage to get on top during the wrestling matches though!

Henry loved the train set and even tried to move the trains around.

We enjoyed the outdoors every day. Amy lives within walking distance of several parks. We explored the parks, paths, sidewalks (a treat for Lydia), reservoir, bridges, zoo etc.

Amy and Jeremy made my visit so relaxing and comfortable. Thanks guys, I can't wait to come back!