Happy New Year!

I am very ready to be done with the 'aughts'. They have not been kind to me and my family. I have had many blessings, but much of the time, those blessings have been overshadowed by some darkness.

So, 2010. I'm ready. I'm ready for a year (or decade) to be boring, monotonous, and uneventful. My family is beautiful, and loving, and wonderful.

May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain found in your yesterdays.

Snow!

We took Katie to play in the snow today!

At first she was hesitant. She didn't want to get her feet messy.


In fact, she would rather sit and pout than go out into the yard.


What can I say? She's her mother's daughter.

But then she decided that Tiny looked like he was having fun, so maybe she could, too.


And in fact, she really liked stomping in the snow, kicking it, and throwing snowballs.


And we ended up with very snowy boots, after all.

Merry Christmas!

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year! Richard and his family came into town this year, so it was a busy holiday, filled with family fun! And my brother came up a few days before Christmas to visit--a holiday surprise!

Katie was so much fun at Christmas this year! She understands what presents are, now, and happily tears into them! Santa brought her a toy kitchen, and my brother and his wife got her a little bike.



Inpecting her Tiny ornament...


Santa came!


Watching the Grinch on Christmas Eve


Helping Mama decorate

'Tis the season...

...to get all bundled up!





You'd never know it from the picture, but all she has on under Mama's coat is a diaper, a tank top and her rain boots. She's got style!

'Tis the season...

..for yummy, warm crockpot soups to gobble up!





Mmmm...good! As Katie says.

'Tis the season...

...for visits to Santa.

Jonnelle sweet-talked Jared into playing Santa for her preschool Christmas party. After, we tried to get some pictures of Santa with Katie. Unfortunately, Katie didn't want anything to do with the man in red until he took off the white beard and turned into her daddy.




That's Gracie planting a kiss on Uncle Santa's cheek!

Complex mornings

They are confusing. School was delayed 2 hours this morning, Jared made waffles for breakfast, Mama slept in, then threw some stuff into the crockpot for dinner. Yum.

But then I got to school: it's icy, rainy, icky out. The guest speaker for today cancelled. So I was in the cabinet pulling out a video for them, and as I was shutting it, the photo tripod that was on top of the cabinets came tumbling down, and landed right on the bridge of my nose! A little blood, a little bruising, and I think I'm ok. Ugh. At least I haven't fallen on campus--yet.