Christmas day- Marina-Joy is WALKING!

Along with the fire in our stove, we had the "log TV" going
Lilian gets her sleeping bag!
Wow!

Squirel Nutkin was also treated to a Christmas feast in our feeder. The birdbath is a "hot tub", heated birdbath above the feeder.

A Christmas suprise, SNOW!
Thanks Santa! Mimi-Joy is excited!!
Liliana opens a gift from Gandma Patty

Daddy's Christmas present from Grammie- a snow tube! This thing is FAST
A little sledding after opening gifts!
Liliana and Daddy head down the hill!

Liliana gets pulled up the hill instead of having to walk. Pulling her is a workout!

Mimi walking!!
A bedtime story

The day of Mimi-Joy's birthday party, after everyone had left she walked from Tim and I and back again, over and over. It was so exciting. Since then she is walking all over the place. When she walks she sticks her tongue out and her eyes get all big and she extends her arms. It is hilarious!

Christmas morning, Liliana woke up early. I was laying in bed and could hear a private dialogue with herself about what was under the tree. I got up and started some coffee. I then opened the window to discover a snowy winter wonderland outside. It snowed all day! We got about 6-8 inches of snow over what had already fallen on the ground the previous week. After the piles of presents. (and there were so many that after awhile Liliana refused to open anymore) We took the girls sledding at the nearby sledding hill. We finished up the day with naps, followed by a wonderful roast beef dinner. It was the perfect Christmas. One thing that I did realise that having two children born within a month of Christmas, and one on Christmas eve is an exercise in excess. I think we need to move a birthday to the summer.

The highlights in gifts were a cool picnic set from Todd and Michelle, which we will use this summer at Meadow Music on Mondays, a GPS system for me, and Tim's sledding tube, that we used at the sledding hill that day. Liliana loved her new light up slippers, that are just a hoot, from Uncle Cj and Aunt Ginger and her new princess sleeping bag from Cj and Ginger. She also got a ton of stickers, books and art stuff from Grandma Patty and her Aunt Cathy. Thanks for all of your wonderful gifts!

Marina-Joy's birthday party

Marina tries to grab at the flame while we sing to her

Liliana helps open presents


what a cool present!

Marina Joy turns one tomorrow! To mark the occasion, we had a birthday party to celebrate. Just like Liliana's one year party, I prepared a shameless amount of gourmet food and invited everyone that we knew. We had crab dip, bagels and lox, red and white chili, southwestern egg strata, and a multitude of homemade Christmas cookies, everyone drank a ton of champagne mimosas. Marina received some wonderful gifts

Christmas tree is set up

Marina helps with some decorations and Liliana provides the entertainment, and yes, that is some peanut butter and jelly on her face. She had a bath right after this photo was taken.

Liliana wears her Japanese outfit

For some reason Liliana was not happy about having her picture taken. Her Grandpa-chan gave her this outfit from Japan. It is so cute. But I was unable to get her to smile while wearing it.

Lights of December parade

Tim and I were married in the Lyons Parade of Lights 2001. Our ceremony was before the parade, our limo then led the parade after the bag pipers and the 21 gun salute by the VA association. Our wedding party threw rice at us as we rode by. (Its did not snow that year). The parade was followed by a fireworks display. This year we attended the parade as part of our anniversary tradition. It was really great. Lots of lights and the fireworks were fantastic. I have never seen fireworks in the snow before and the effect was was really cool to watch. There was a warming house that served hot coco and cookies. They also had fires lit in various stops throughout the park and hot coco stations all over. Marina rode in my backpack. I was having some camera and battery issues, so I did not get many pictures, but here are the ones that I did manage to take.

Setting up the tree

Tim went up to Flagstaff and cut a fresh tree. Here it is, it smells fantastic.

More beach photos

Ok, so here are just a bunch of photos from Florida. Marina has been sick and Tim went out of town so I have been so busy I have not had time to post much.

But, here they are. Uncle Frank is 95 and just loves the kids. It was very nice to visit him.

Dear Santa...

This was taken in FLA also. I will be uploading pictures from our trip for awhile since things have been very busy and I have not had a lot of time to download these pictures.

Liliana turns three while we are in Floridia

Liliana rode on the carnival rides to celebrate her 3rd birthday