what an amazing couple of days we have had here.  the sun has made a much welcomed visit.  and much fun, laughter, play and creating has taken place.  it’s so interesting to see what a little sun and warmth can inspire:)

dylan is VERY serious about his hopscotch.  i just love all of the expressions that cross his perfect little face when he is concentrating:)

while i like to think of myself as a somewhat creative person, i’m not great at coming up with fun activities for my boys off of the top of my head.  and i LOVE when we can have an activity that pairs creativity with learning that doesn’t require a run to the store to gather supplies.  that’s where “The Games Book” comes in.  i found it before christmas and thought it would make a great stocking stuffer.  (but i of course hid it too well, and couldn’t find it when christmas eve rolled around:)  so we are just now digging into it.  in the last three days we have played TONS of “the games of yesterday”.  there are so many games in this book that eric and i played as kids, but we have since forgotten about them, or if we remembered, we needed a refresher on the rules.  as simple as “shadow tag” and as complex as “capture the flag” and everything in between.

the four of us spent about an hour last night playing “sardines” with the boys before bed.  like hide and go seek, but different because when you find a person you hide with them until the other seeker finds all of you.  in our little 1300 square foot house, there aren’t a lot of hiding spaces, but let me tell you, the boys were extremely creative in their ideas, and every round ended with screams and laughs that i will remember for the rest of my life.  so incredidbly simple, but i can already hear an older eli or dylan saying “remember when we all used to play sardines before bed?”

at the end of each round dylan kept saying “can we play ONE MORE hand? pleeease!?”  we usually end the evening with a few hands of UNO in which that question is expected, but i loved that it made sense to him to say it for sardines!

okay, now that i have completely gotten off subject…here is some more of friday afternoon.  the boys got these model kits from their aunt jamie and uncle matt for christmas.  it was a perfect activity to finish the afternoon outside…

here’s hoping we get some more sunny days…but even if the sun doesn’t cast it’s warm glow on us for awhile, that we create our own warm glow by just playing and loving eachother….simply ;)

after settling in from church this morning i was taking a break at my computer, checking out what etsy had listed on the front page, and i looked over and this is what i saw:

my life all piled onto one little chair (it really is verrrrry little:).  they were watching some football before heading outside to get some work done.  (well, the boys were watching football, miss jaydah {my kitty} was gazing out the window.)

i am one blessed woman.  i really am.   i get to look into those three beautiful faces each and every day.  what a view.

it doesn’t get much better than this.

we celebrate eli’s birthday by going out to breakfast on christmas eve  morning so eli gets his moment apart from the holiday festivities.  this year we met eric’s family at elmers.  the food was yummy, and eli was perfectly happy with his chocolate chip pancakes:)

dylan giving his gift to eli.  don’t you love his little handwriting on the bag?

these are taken at eric’s parents house after breakfast.  we got eli a microscope for his birthday.  he is SO incredibly excited about it!  he came out of the dining room announcing that he was a “mad scientist”, so i had to take that picture of him and his aunt jamie:)

i love you mister eli!

how is it possible that tomorrow is christmas eve?  and my baby will be 6?  i haven’t even gotten through thanksgiving pictures…i was just sitting here looking at our tree, and thought it might be good to post about our tree hunting trip.  it was a beautiful morning.  but SUPER cold!  we packed up donuts and hot chocolate and headed up the mountain in search of a perfect tree.  now, i always have a perfect idea of what these outings should be like, and let’s just say that it’s full of a little more complaining and crying than i planned for.  but memories were made, and that’s what it’s all about, right?

the ice mixed with the morning sun made for some pretty little masterpieces for us to marvel at:

here are the boys digging in.  and of course spilling their hot chocolate all over the back of the truck ;)

eric caught this of my eli and i.  love it.  even if i do look extra tired, and my face is make-upless:)

i used the hood of our truck to get this family picture.  everyone always complains when i ask to take a picture of all of us, but i’m glad i insisted this time.  i LOVE this picture of us!

after our stop for refreshments, we strapped back in to the truck and continued up the mountain.  this here is one of dylan’s happier moments.  he found a piece of snow (ice) that was shaped like a heart.  he was pretty excited:)

and then we found it.  the tree of our 2009 dreams.  and well to be honest, i was tired of dylan crying, eli kicking ice on dylan, and a caravan of people had just gotten stuck about 200 feet in front of us.  we couldn’t go much further:)  my handsome strong man proceeded to cut it down when the saw broke mid cut.  but he prevailed, and here he is single handedly cutting, dragging and lifting our 12 foot christmas tree.  (much better than the 16 footer that we came home with last year:)

here you can see some pics 2008 and 2007 tree hunting.

i had the opportunity to photograph these handsome brothers yesterday afternoon.  other than the extremely cold weather, we had a great time, and i’m excited about the final result.  so here’s a peek for mom and dad…there will be more to see soon…

today i got to hang out with these two beauties for the second time this month.  we had met up a couple of weeks ago, but things didn’t go as planned, and it happened to be one of the darkest days of the year.   i have to say, i’m SO glad that it all worked out.  we got some beautiful pictures of these precious girls, and we had a great time:)  thanks trent and kari for being available today!  i hope you love the pictures:)

and one of each of their big brothers from our last meeting.  such a gorgeous family!

we just got home from a perfectly perfect thanksgiving at the beach with my family.  we were blessed with unbelievable weather, and of course food, family and fun:)

i am thankful for…

my savior.

my boys.

my wonderful, loving husband.

my sweet family, and that we got to spend this special time with them.

our health, our home, and our freedom.

i will leave you with one of my favorite images from the beach.  more to come…

i’m not sure i can put into words how much i love this family.  toni is one of my favorite people in the whole world.  and she has been extra patient with me waiting for these pictures.  i promised that they would be worth it…i’m pretty sure that they are.  i was on the phone with her a few minutes ago as she got the first look…

and here are my favorites for your viewing:

can you say HOT?!?!

like i said…i love this family!

my new favorite shot.