Just got our 2013 Christmas card ordered and it gave me the embed code to share it on our family blog. Sure, why not?!
Merry Christmas!

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.

A Year in Review

I was really hoping to review 2011 during December and start the new year anew here on our family blog; but try as i might, I don't think I slept in December, much less blogged. December flew by. I loved it, and the time I spent with family was so fun (more on that later), but now I'm left trying to play catch up (for no one else but myself, i guess). So, now I'm going to put together a 2011 Year in Review. We'll see how far I get. This may have to come in several posts :)

~January 2011~

Early in January we took a trip to Shreveport, LA for Bowman to compete in the Dustbuster Duathlon. Shreveport really isn't a far drive, and there is a great little science museum that we like to go to when we're there. Unfortunately all pics that day are of the Science museum. I guess someone (who will remain nameless) decided that her hotel bed was WAY more comfortable than waking up and then wrangling 4 little ones on a cold dark morning. Poor daddy had to go all by himself to the freezing duathlon. We are proud of you, Daddy! Later that day, we spent time enjoying Sci-Port.

Also in January...the Vidor 5K,

Pine Forest Elementary 1st Semester awards assembly,

and Nate the Great learning how to feed himself :)

~February 2011~

February must have been a pretty quiet month. Not too many pics to choose from. There were several of Nathan crawling--mostly into baskets. Before he could walk he would crawl over to the toy baskets and pull himself up. Sometimes we would find him inside of the basket unable to get himself out.

We also celebrated Groundhog Day. Just a silly little tradition--we help the kids make a version of dirt pudding and put a "groundhog" in it. They wanted tootsie roll groundhogs this year and decided that they'd use white icing to put on the faces. I think they were just trying to think of as many ways as possible to consume more sugar :)

But they sure were proud of their creations.

Last, but not least, I couldn't pass up Nate's haircut. How is it that babies grow up so fast when you give them a haircut?

Here's the before.

And now the after. See, doesn't he look older!

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My Little Runners

Over the years, these boys have put in a lot of miles as passengers in a baby jogger. Their spots in the baby jogger have since been taken by younger siblings. As our family loves to run/enter races together, we have always tried to juggle who runs, who watches the kids, which kids run the kids' race, etc. But now, Bowman (9) and Drew (7) have decided they are finally old enough and tough enough to enter the 5K. This was after completing their first 5K--The CASA 5K on October 15, 2011. They have since run two more 5K's. The last of which was the local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning!
I am proud of my little runners!

Trick-or-treat

Yep, the title is right. We are almost half-way through November, and I'm still posting Halloween pics. I didn't say I was good at blogging. I just wanted to start doing it again. At any rate, I'm shamelessly posting Halloween pictures for posterity sake. ( It has nothing to do with me adoring my children, I'm sure.)

Nate the Great as the adorable Hulk.
He doesn't even know who the Hulk is, but we were trying on old costumes from the ever-growing "bin o' dress-up clothes" and this one kind of stuck.

Claire as the beautiful Rapunzel

Claire saw Tangled during the summer and has loved talking about Rapunzel and her beautiful long hair ever since. She knew exactly what she wanted to be for Halloween. Before we left for the Ward party (where this photo was taken), I found Claire outside picking flowers out of the yard and putting them in her braided hair.

Bowman and Drew as spell-casting wizards from Hogwarts--Gryffindor, of course!

This summer I read the first book in the Harry Potter series to the boys. As part of our family summer vacation we took a trip to Orlando and went to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. They chose wands at Olivander's ...or did the wands choose them?... and they soon decided that they wanted to use them for Halloween, too!

One last photo for posterity...MeMa (Grandma Fawcett) and Nate at our Ward Halloween Party!
Oh, how I love this time of year! It does get a bit crazy, but having little ones to enjoy the holidays with is magical!

2011 Halloween

Two Hogwarts wizards

(inspired by the wands they got at Harry Potter World - Universal Studios
this summer), one darling Rapunzel, and the cutest Hulk I've ever seen!

More to come...

I've had a feeling lately that I needed to re-start our family blog.  I don't think I have anything important to say; I just feel like I don't have a good record of my kids growing up.  I want to remember the little things about raising my kids...and I want them to be able to look back and remember it, too.   So, in my attempt to keep a family journal, of sorts, I signed in to find out that it has been almost two years since we've posted anything.  Two years!  Where has the time gone?  In the last two years we've added another baby to the family (he's 20 months old now), and I've got hundreds, probably thousands, of pics of our family, vacations, races, accomplishments, events, holidays, etc. that are just sitting digitally stored on a hard drive.  Sad, I know.  So, I'm going to re-start blogging...

This one is for Mandi :)