Merry Christmas 2012

It was another wonderful Christmas this year!  We had a special Christmas Eve with the Hardings.  We went to church together and then came back to our house for dinner.  The cousins even decorated some festive sugar cookies for dessert! 

On Christmas Day, we had a fun morning with the kids as they opened their presents from Santa and from each of us to one another.  Afterwards, we spent some great quality time at Grammy and Grandpa Brown's house, and we wrapped up the Christmas festivities with a fun stay at a cabin to celebrate with the Reder crew.  Here are some pictures of all the fun celebrations!

Grammy and Grandpa Brown's house

 

 

  

Big Sky Cabin with the Reder Family

 

Celebrating the Season

We have enjoyed lots of festivities in these weeks leading up to Christmas.  Cassidy joined the Irish Dance club at school this year and their group put on a show called "A Christmas Ceili."  Grammy and Grandpa Brown joined us in the audience and we loved seeing all that Cassidy has learned so far!  Each dancer stepped out for a little solo part - we took a video and posted it here (linked from youtube).

At the end of the show, each dancer had a family member join them to learn a special 4-square group dance.  It was very fun to learn a few steps and I loved being Cassidy's dance partner!

We also had fun at an event called "Breakfast with Santa."  The school gym is set up with a breakfast buffet, crafts and goodies, and midway through the morning a special visitor shows up - Santa!  He takes a seat in an armchair on stage and all the kids get a turn to sit on his lap and chat with him about their wish list.

Both kids also performed in a special Christmas show for school.  Gavin's class sang songs, and Cassidy's class put on a play of the Nativity.  Cassidy was a member of the angel band and she sang her parts "loud and proud," just as her teachers asked them to do.  She actually loves to sing (and seems to be able to hold a great tune, in fact!  Much better than mom).  We are very proud of our little performers and their special shows really put us in the Christmas spirit.

 

Lastly, I just have to share the picture I took of Cassidy's Christmas card to her kindergarten teacher, Miss Orth.  These are her words, I just wrote them as she said them.  Our sweet Cassidy - she warms my heart!

Thanksgiving 2012

What a wonderful Thanksgiving - we have so much to be thankful for!  Having little Tyler arrive to complete our family has been such a special blessing.  We are really excited for a fun holiday season this year.  Thanksgiving kicked things off, and we started by spending the day at Grammy and Grandpa Brown's house.  We arrived before lunch and spent the day playing with toys, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV (and the annual dog show!), and enjoying all the wonderful smells that came from the kitchen.  Mel, Aaron and Jackson arrived later that day and we had a lovely meal, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, jello, etc.!  It was delicious.

The next day, we drove to Lafayette, IN for our second Thanksgiving meal at the Harding house.  Tracy and Steve are such great chefs and are very kind to host the Reder crew for the second year in a row.  We missed Grandma and Grandpa Reder of course, but we'll get to see them in a few short weeks at Christmas.  Meanwhile, we had a great turkey celebration with the Harding and Burkholder families!  We feasted on turkey, squash casserole, mashed potatoes, rice pudding, stuffing, etc.!  And of course plenty of pies for dessert.

New Family Photos

When Tyler was a week old, we had a photographer (friend-of-friend) come to the house to take some family pictures.  It always feels weird to me to have family photos hung up where someone is missing, so we needed new ones with little Tyler!  Here are a few of our favorites.