Brian and Krista: January 2013

At the beginning of December we make our yearly trek to Illuminations at Botanica. I don't think we could have asked for better weather that day.....it was gorgeous outside! Last year we froze our butts off, this year the high of the day was something around 60. Perfect weather for walking around outside looking at Christmas lights....especially since we apparently fail to buy gloves for our children every year:) Illminations gets more fun every year as the kids get older and more into it. We also met our bffs (along with cousins!) so the kids were thrilled. The only hiccup we experienced was running into "santa" when we first got there. Kamdyn was more than a little freaked out by him and was afraid we were going to run into him all night long. Needless to say, she didn't leave our sides much the rest of the night:)

Excuse the blurry pictures.....I'm still trying to figure out night mode on my camera....the shutter speed is way to slow for my subjects:)

In an effort to get myself somewhat caught up and so you can all see the happenings in our life from the past, oh, two months, I'm doing things a bit out of order. This is very much not my style, and will probably drive me crazy:) I'm a routine/order kind of girl......But I gotta show off the most recent cute stuff first!

Christmas has come and gone. It was fabulous, as it usually is, but it was also busy and very exhausting. Throw in there a lot of sickness this year and it made it even more draining, but we all still had a great holiday regardless. It was nice to get a break from our daily grind and routine and not have anywhere we had to go for a couple of weeks with Eli out of school and all our other activities on a break. Plus, the kids got to have daddy home for 2 1/2 weeks so they were thrilled. I think they get tired of seeing mommy all the time:)

When it was all said and done, by the end of the month we celebrated Christmas 5 times and had two birthday dinners/get togethers in there. All in a two week period! Busy busy busy. So much fun though. The kids had a blast and are really starting to enjoy holidays. It's so cute to watch them open their gifts and get so excited about their new things. It's not so much fun to deal with all the fighting we've been dealing with because they are possessive of their new things and don't want to share.....Sharing.....such a tough concept at all ages really:)

Sadly, while we had all those awesome get togethers, I only got pictures at our first "christmas" at granny and papa's house. Actually the truth is, I just stopped taking my camera. It was so hard to even get pictures that first time with three small kids to wrangle and help with gifts that I just stopped bothering lugging the huge thing around. The rest of the family Christmas memories are just going to have to be stored in my head hard drive:)

Some pictures from our Christmas (at granny and papa's house)

My two handsome little men.....love these boys!

Cousins! Our kids go crazy when they get to spend any time with their cousins. So thankful that we live close and they get to grow up together. Kamdyn was being less than cooperative (like normal....I think she's a lot like me with the camera), but we always say it's having the bodies in the pictures that count!