The End of Our Trip

On New Year's Eve, we took the kids (minus Celeste) to the Children's Museum. I'm sure my mom enjoyed a quiet morning while the kids were away playing.

All the boys grocery shopping, now why can't they be this happy when I go grocery shopping. They hate real shopping.

Wade--thank goodness that's just a pretend knife.

This was Shawn's first visit to this children's museum and he played right along with all the kids. Oops, someone forgot their smock.

Here are all the kids dressed for painting.

Wade is building a tall tower just to knock it down.

Treyton kicking his tower down.

Treyton is milking a cow. Mom, does this bring back memories?

We only stayed at the museum for the morning. We traveled down to my sister's house to spend New Year's Eve at her house with my Dad. We had a fun time playing games and eating way too much food.

During the Christmas break, the kids all had a lot of fun playing together and getting presents and playing and playing some more. The adults were able to play games at night together and we stayed up way late. A big Thanks to my mom who got up with the kids while we all slept in. Our visits together now will be much less often now that we live soo far away. We left on Jan. 3 to travel home and Becky woke up very sick that day. Let me tell you, it is NOT fun to travel when you have strep throat.

Gingerbread Houses

Each kid was able to decorate a portion of the gingerbread house. Here is Treyton working on his part.

My sister's kids Luke and Lindsey working hard on theirs.

Ethan and Wade

Wade just looking cute.

We never actually got the house made into a house, but here are all the pieces. Plus, there are some gingerbread men wonderfully decorated.

Sunday Pictures

Here are our famous family pictures that we take after church and sitting on the stairs. I remember doing this at my Grandma and Grandpa Harston's house.

This is my sister's family (Melinda).

Here is our family.

Here we are trying to get 6 kids in a picture with Grandma.

Mission accomplished! Not everyone has smiles, but they are all looking!!

Real Christmas Morning

My 'cutie' Celeste checking out her stocking on Christmas morning.

My little brother Mitchell joined us later in the day. He is unwrapping his gifts while the kids watch. He is really good with the kids and hopefully he'll come around more often when we come to visit Illinois. Mitchell is one of those favorite uncle types who'll get down and play with the nieces and nephews. It was so good to visit with him on Christmas.

For those that know my oldest brother Mike, doesn't Mitchell look a lot like him in this picture?

Here are few of the kids posing with Uncle Mitchell.

In the afternoon on Christmas day, we traveled to my sister's house to celebrate Christmas with my dad. I forgot to bring his Christmas gift with me to my sister's house, so he got it on New Year's Eve.

Here is Celeste in her adorable Christmas dress. I had big plans on taking cute pictures of her in this dress before we left for Illinois, but that didn't happen. Looks like this is the best picture I got of her in this dress--how sad! My sister gave me the same dress in 18 months, so I'm hoping next year she'll still fit into it and I can take cute pictures next year.

After looking through my pictures I realized I have very few pictures of us opening presents this year. Not taking pictures of a big holiday like Christmas is very unlike me. Maybe next year when Celeste is more interested in presents, I'll be able to sit back and play photographer. Also, I was very impressed with my children this year. In years past, my parents usually gave my kids and my sister's kids basically the same toys. I was excited to see that my mom and my dad each gave my sister's kids and my kids different toys for Christmas this year. But most impressive is that none of the kids fussed or complained about what someone else received. Wade just had a birthday at the beginning of December and there was indeed complaining, hence my great surprise when no one complained at Christmas.

Illinois Christmas Eve

We left to travel to Illinois on Tuesday, Dec. 23, stayed the night in Missouri and then got to my mom's house on Christmas Eve. My sister and her family came up Christmas Eve and here are the kids dressed up as they acted out the nativity story. Wade and Lindsey are Mary and Joseph.
Ethan, Treyton and Luke were the three wise men. Celeste was off playing and I was lucky to get her in this picture. As you can tell in the picture she is on her way off to play again. (So sorry for not editing my pictures, I'm just trying to catch up on my posts)

Celeste never took a bottle, so she really liked the doll's bottle.

This is my sister, Melinda, who is 9 months pregnant. This is what I looked like last year at Thanksgiving when I was weeks (actually days) away from giving birth. Melinda is actually due in just over a month. So glad it was her pregnant and not me.

Trying to get a cute picture in front of my mom's tree. Yes the boys are holding Celeste up, she can't really stand alone yet, but mainly they were trying to keep her in still.

Grandma with her two little princesses.

Our bathing beauties. Some day Celeste might grow enough hair to actually look like a girl.

Santa made a surprise visit to Grandma's house on Christmas Eve.

Santa asked the kids to help put the gifts under the tree. I think Mrs. Claus had Santa come early so she wouldn't have to stay up late to put the gifts under the tree.

Treyton and Wade posing with Santa.

Now it's off to bed for the wee little ones.

First Christmas Morning

This was after we put out all the presents before going to bed.
Now the stockings are hung and full.

Celeste got her first toothbrush and toothpaste in her stocking. Oops is one too old to start brushing her teeth--to my defense she only has two teeth. You'll see later how much she really loved her toothpaste.

Posing by the tree before tearing into all the gifts. Of course the boys finished opening all their gifts and Celeste's gifts, before opening mom and dad's presents too. (notice toothbrush and toothpaste still in hands)

Nothing better than seeing pure excitement on their little faces on Christmas morning. I realize you can't really see their excited faces, but trust me they were excited.

There weren't any toys that could make her forget about her toothpaste.

This was one of the last pictures taken during Christmas morning and notice what is still in her hands--the toothpaste!

Christmas Newsletter

This past year has been a great year. One that our family is very thankful for. We have been blessed in so many ways and are grateful to have such wonderful family and friends. The year started with our family in Chicago, where it was very cold and a lot of snow. All the snow was fun the first couple of times but when it seemed like it was never going to go away it wasn't as exciting to see. The boys really enjoyed going out into the snow to play. In the spring Shawn started looking for his permanent position within International Truck and Engine Corp. For a while we thought we were going to stay in the Chicago area. When we realized that trying to buy a home in Chicago was out of our price range and the commute to Shawn's work would have been an hour each way, we decided to see what other options were available for Shawn. He talked to his boss and things fell into place that Shawn could go work down in the Dallas area. This has been a great blessing to our family. It was hard to leave friends in Chicago and also leaving family that was so close to us, but we realized this was going to be the best thing for our family.

So in May, on Mother's day weekend, Shawn, Becky, and Celeste took a trip to Dallas to find a home. We had one day to look at houses and that same night to decide if we wanted to make an offer on a house. We looked at about 15 houses and when we came to one of the houses, we walked in and saw our house. We loved the layout of the house, the yard was a decent size, and it was easy to see ourselves living in the house. That same day we made an offer then the next morning we flew home and found out that they had counter offered. So, we made another offer and they accepted.

In June we had a lot going on. For starters we drove out of Utah for the Hammond family reunion. We were able to see Becky's family in the Salt Lake area and spend some time with them before driving down to St. George to see Shawn's family and have the reunion. It was very fun to see family and friends. It was really fun for Treyton and Wade to meet cousins that they had never met before. Everyone had a great time.

The end of June was a hectic time. We had the movers come and pack all of our stuff and then we started our drive down to Texas. It was a long drive and we were all excited to be moving into a house and out of the small apartment that we were living in.

Since we have moved to Texas we have been able to take a trip Branson, Missouri, celebrate Celeste's one year birthday, have Becky's mom for Thanksgiving, go to a Sarah Brightman concert, celebrate Wade's 4 year birthday go to Dallas Mavericks game, and travel to Becky's mom's house for Christmas. We really enjoyed going back to Illinois to visit family and for the kids to play with their cousins. The weather even cooperated with us.

Santa Claus was very nice to the kids and our family. The kids got a trampoline for Christmas and since we have gotten back from Illinois the boys have really enjoyed going out and jumping on the trampoline.

Treyton has started Kindergarten this year and really loves school. He is learning to read, write, and do many other things. He enjoys playing with his brother Wade and he helps mom with Celeste.

Wade has started preschool with three other kids. He enoys going to preschool and does very well with learning his letters, coloring, drawing, and all the other fun activities in preschool. He loves to play with his brother and to tease his little sister.

Celeste is such a wonderful baby. She learns to do new things almost everyday. She has recently started standing up in the middle of the floor and we suspect will start walking soon. She just got her top two teeth and she loves to play with her brothers even though they don't like her getting into their toys.

We want to thank everyone for blessing our family in so many ways. Thank you and we love you.