Noah's first steps

This one's a few months past, but it's worth the wait.  He has now mastered walking and has less bumps and bruises on his head for the most part.  He enjoys chasing or following his siblings around, including SuzyCat.  He's a busy 14-month old but loves crawling up into your lap to have you read his favorite books.  His new goal is to crawl up and down the stairs any chance he can get. 

Froggy noise

I finally got the video stuff figured out!  This one is Ian displaying his new talent, one that AJ used to do as well.  He was pretty excited when he figured out how to do it on cue.

 

Sleepy head

It's been over 8 months since our family has been at the Schoenstatt Retreat Center where we spent a weekend every month for the past 4 years preparing for Jason's deacon ministry.  We brought the whole family almost every single month, as they provided sitters for the kids while class was in session.  It was a comfort to Jason to have us there, a much needed break for me to get a little rest & let others spoil the kids, and a great experience for the kids to be around great role models and to spend some time getting to know the Sisters as well.  I always knew it was such a blessing for us to be able to stay there every month and how much it felt like another home, but I miss it even more so now that it's no longer on our monthly schedule since Jason's ordination. 

Luckily for us, we get to go back once or twice a year for a retreat or continuing education.  We told the kids that we were going to see "the nuns" again & Ian started jumping up & down joyfully shouting, "I LOVE going to the nuns!  I can't wait to go to Sleepy Head!" 

I love the fact that he's excited to go & what's even cuter is that it's actually in the town of Sleepy EYE.

"Bear Stays Up"

This is the book that the kids chose for Jason to read for a bedtime story last night.  In this story, the bear's friends try to keep him up in anticipation of Christmas, determined to not let him miss out by sleeping.  But because it's winter, bears tend to like to sleep.  This is also the case for a Daddy that stayed up late and then woke up early and had his first day back at work.  By 7:30pm he was pretty much toast, but being a loving daddy, he cuddled up with the kids to read the book.  I think he realized how tired he was when the words he was reading no longer came out as words, but rather mumbling.  The kids looked at me puzzled at what he was saying and I laughed and commented that Daddy bear was the one falling asleep, and not the bear in the book and that we'd have to try to keep him awake so he could finish the book.  Needless to say, he was laughing so much after we caught him that he had no trouble staying up to finish it.

Mis familia maravillosa (Our wonderful family)

At least that's what I meant to say in Spanish...

 

Christmas brought lots of family time and enjoying being together after long stretches of being apart.

We had time with Jason's Mom's side where we had a day of almost seeing everyone.  There were probably over 70 family members there and only a few cousins that were missing.

Here's Jason with almost all of his cousins on his mom's side.

 

 

This is his grandparents and their 10 kids with their spouses (just one missing)

 

Here's our oldest niece getting in some snuggle time with Noah.

 

We also celebrated Christmas with Jason's parents and his siblings one night.  I forgot my camera that night, but someone has pictures from that (I think) and hopefully I can get some to share here.

 

 

For my side of the family, my brothers and their families met up with us at a hotel with a nice waterpark about half the distance from us all.  The kids had a blast running around in the water together and we had some (short) quality time together. 

 



 

This Christmas break has us enjoying time with family and friends.  We're getting in some much needed R & R and trying to take in all of our precious time together with the kids when they're still small and somewhat like being around us as parents.  Advent season brought us time to reflect on ourselves as well as our family and how we can continue to work and grow to build better relationships based on the bigger picture of what the gift of Christmas truly is, why we're here, and what we're here to do.  With less family members with us this season, and with Christ as our example, we think about how to value our time together, how to respect each other, and how that affects the world around us.  To all of our families...we love you & thank God for putting us here together!  Thank you for all you did for us in 2012 & have a Happy New Year!