i’ve wanted to do this for so long! joey met up with us at my favorite place to take pictures back home, the boys weren’t very cooperative, but we managed to get a few that i LOVE…

here are my favorites, so far:
taken by joey, edited by me…

my sister, jess, came along to hang out with the boys so eric and i could have some pictures together. there are TONS that i love, but here are just a few for now…

i can’t tell you how happy i am to have some pictures of me and all three of my boys!
thanks joey!

8 days after his due date, and 33 hours of labor,
i became a momma to the most beautiful boy in the world.
the greatest gift i have ever received.
it’s amazing how it seems that the moment he took his first breath, my life began.

a couple of hours old with me

in the shower with daddy

looking like a doll baby at 6 months

and a couple of days ago.

he has the sweetest heart.
so caring and compassionate.
so eager to learn everything he can about his interests that include:
squid, sharks, dinosaurs, squid, and more squid.
i’m not sure how he got “instrested” in squid, but that’s pretty much what he thinks about.
the more i learn with him the more interesting they are to me, too:)
he LOVES to do “dot com’s” which means play on the computer.
lately his favorite is to search youtube for videos about squid.
he is well on his way to reading. we have been working on combination sounds like “th” and “ch”.
he LOVES preschool, and his teacher, miss virginia is amazing.
eli and dylan are best friends. it’s so fun to see their relationship grow as they get older, and the age gap closes. i couldn’t imagine it being any other way.
i just can’t believe he’s 5.

we celebrated mister eli’s birth by going out to breakfast with family before the holiday festivities. happy face pancakes and ice cream for breakfast. he was in heaven!!

i hope everyone has a blessed christmas today, as we celebrate the birth of our King.

we woke up on wednesday to snow!
under normal circumstances, we would be SO excited…but we are supposed to leave tomorrow morning for california for christmas. and we got dumped on again last night. they are saying another storm is supposed to hit overnight tonight! i’m not sure what we are going to do, but i know it will work out one way or another…no matter where we are, christmas is still coming, and eli’s birthday is still on the 24th. celebrations are in the near future!
here are some pictures of my sweet boys playing on wednseday:

keep us in your prayers!

it wasn’t as easy as you would think.
we drove for almost four hours searching for a tree that wasn’t 200 feet tall, but also wasn’t crazy looking.
we finally found one pretty close tho the road we were on, and after passing it and driving for another 30miles or so, we turned around to cut it down.
dylan was D. O. N. E.
so here are a few pictures of eric cutting it down.

lovin this picture…

their reactions in this picture took on a new meaning when we got the tree home and measured it.
it was a mere 16 feet tall.
eric had to cut four feet off the bottom just to get it in the house. and to think that we were worried that it was too small.
it just looked little next to all of the BIG trees in the woods, we lost our perspective on what was a “normal” size tree:)

it turned out to be perfect. we had to remove furniture form the living room just to accomodate this beautiful monstrosity.
here are the pictures of us decorating on tuesday…

oh, and if you haven’t seen matt and paula’s pics…
you HAVE to scroll down…

they came up on monday so we could take some engagement pictures, and lucky for us, the sun decided to make an appearance:)
i had the boys with me, and they were extremely cooperative. we were able to get some awesome shots of the two of them!
i’m not sure they could be any cuter:)
thanks guys for asking me to do this! i can’t wait for the wedding!

look at these eyes…

congrats matt and paula…we love you!

on sunday, eric took eli shopping, and dylan and i finished up the holiday decorating.
or should i say, dylan perfected his hot chocolate mustache while i finished up the decorating:)
this kid seriously cracks me up. he doesn’t even have to say anything, and he is funny…
when he was just a little baby we could tell he had timing, it’s fun to see his personality come out even more as he is able to put words to his antics.
have you ever seen a better mustache (besides on the GOT MILK advertisments)?

i can wait a few (20) years at least before there is a real mustache on this perfect little face.