Happy New Years and Shelby's new blog!!

Happy New Years everyone! 2008 went by so fast! It was a great year for our family and we had many good memories from this year. We are so blessed and I am thankful for everything we have and all the good times that we had in 2008! The Roost is hosting a New Years party and everyone is supposed to post their favorite pics from 2008-how fun!!

Here are some highlights

Ava graduated from kindergarten!! Our little girl is getting so big!!

Brock, Ava and I went to Wyoming to visit my Dad's ranch.

Ava and I inside a mammoth's jaw bone in Wyoming!

Brock played little league all summer. Graig was the team's coach. We went all over watching his games this summer.

Here's Ava and I before one of the games.

Brock and his friend Theo

My friend Sabrina and her family welcomed baby Eliza June in July. Eliza is such a sweet baby. I am going to love watching her grow up!!

Graig and I with Eliza in the hospitalWe spent many afternoons this summer at the pool in our town. Summer is my favorite season and Brock and Ava love to swim so we went to the pool a lot.

I know this picture is way off center but I love Ava in this picture. Sheer joy!!

Brock's best friend Trey moved to Washington State last year. The highlight of Brock's summer is when he came to visit!

I hoped you enjoyed my highlights from this past year. I hope 2009 brings many more memories, special times and fun!

In other exciting news my little sister, Shelby, started a blog today! I am so happy for her. I helped her set it up over the phone this morning and she posted 3 times today!! Please go over and tell her hi! Her blog is called Extension of Grace

Mini Vaca

We are back from our Mini vaca to Turning Stone Casino. I think the kids had a good time, they swam and spent a lot of time (and money!) in the arcade. I thought was relaxing just being away from home for a night.

Every time we got to a hotel Brock's favorite thing to do is to jump from bed to bed. He started doing this when he was about 2 and he loves it. I took a ton of pictures of him doing it, we all thought it was so funny he jumped so high.

Ava and I did a lot of exploring at the hotel. She (of course) loved the elevator, escalator, revolving door and fountains. They also had a great gingerbread house display and she loved that!

Ava in front of one of the fountains

Grandma Jan took Brock and Ava to an indoor water park for two nights as their Christmas present. They left this afternoon I think they will all have a great time! Here is Brock and Grandma Jan at Christmas. She also does Christmas envelopes every year. She fills up about 50 envelopes with different amounts of money. Brock and Ava have such a good time taking turns picking out their envelopes. Brock was so happy when he found a $10 bill in one.

Are you ready for some football??

One of Brock's Christmas presents this year was tickets to a New England Patriots game. Today Graig and Brock got up at 6:30 to drive to the game in Buffalo which is about 4 hours away. Last night Brock was so excited he couldn't fall asleep. I talked to Graig tonight and he said it was so cold and windy at the game, but he said Brock loved every minute of the game and the Patriots won!!

Here's Brock right before he left this morning. Doesn't he look tired?

Tonight they are spending the night in Buffalo and tomorrow Ava and I are going to meet them at Graig's favorite place in the whole world...Turning Stone Casino (Ava calls it Poker Stone, it's so cute). Anyway, we are all going to go for the night to swim, hang out and be together as a family. Graig (of course) wants to play poker and they have an amazing spa so we all should have a lot of fun!!

Today I took down almost all of our Christmas decorations. I am keeping up one small tree in our dining room and some garland on our mantle.We are having a New Year's Eve party so I want our house to look a little festive! I also started painting the trim in our living room white (now it's dark blue). It is going to take forever!! I only got our two little bookcases by our fireplace done today.

Here's one of the bookshelves that I painted white, it took about 5 coats because they were dark blue.

This is the only tree that we have up now, I took the other two down today.

I also finished painting this canvas for us today, I like how it turned out!

Christmas

On Christmas eve Ava's friend Madelyn came over. They both love American Girl Dolls and spent a lot of time looking at the latest American Girl doll catalog, and talking about which doll Santa was going to bring them. They were so cute!!

We went to Church on Christmas Eve. Ava dressed up like an Angel and was one of the dancers that danced to the Nativity Carol. It was so beautiful! Here is a picture of Ava and her friend Eliza before Church.After church I wanted to get a picture of Brock in front of the nativity. One year he was Joesph and helped put baby Jesus in the manger. He was so cute. So every year I try to get him in a picture in front of the Nativity.

Brock and Ava woke up at 6:30 on Christmas morning to open their presents from Santa. Grandma Jan spent the night with us so we were all up early to open presents. Here they are on the stairs before they opened presents. The first present Ava opened was her American Girl Doll! It's a "Just Like Me" doll and she named it Allison Ava

Ava loving on Allison Ava

Brock got a ton of sports themed gifts. Here he is opening some goalie gloves.

On Christmas night we all went to see Marley and Me. It was such a sweet movie! You have got to go see it. The dog in the movie reminded us of our dog Daisy, who is a devil (just like Marley!)

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas filled with family, friends, and fun!! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cuteness!

Today was my last day of work and Brock and Ava's last day of school until Jan. 5! We are all so excited that our Christmas vacation has started!! Tonight Ava had her gymnastics team party, Brock and Graig went to the high school basketball game and my friend Allison brought me over these wonderful Christmas gifts!

I love Yankee Candles! This scent smells so good!

Allison also brought me this adorable Christmas platter, I love it!!

Ialso made this tonight, I wanted to make something to display our Christmas card and this is what I came up with. I think it turned out pretty cute!

I also found this pail at the dollar spot at Target. I added some polka dots and ribbon, I don't know what I am going to put in it yet but I think it is so cute!! (Allison, Ava made one of these for you and she was so upset that I forgot to give it to you tonight, I will make sure you get it soon!!)

I also changed our dining room table centerpiece. I love these ornaments, I got them all at Michael's for $5!

Tonight, Brock is having his best friend Thomas sleep over. They want to use my laptop so they can IM girls in their class, how cute is that?? They have been sharing the computer in our office but they say they each need a computer. I told them they could use my computer if they posed for a picture.

Sledding Sunday!

Since we have a ton of snow from the storm on Friday this afternoon we decided to go sledding with two other families this afternoon. We were outside for 2 1/2 hours today, the weather was perfect for sledding!

Here's Ava with two of her friends ready to go down the hill!Graig and Brock before going down the hill. Brock also snowboarded for the first time today, I didn't get any pictures of him doing it but he loved it!

This tube sled was the fastest! It was so fun going down the hill on this sled!

The girls made a tube train and went down the hill all together.

Tonight we went to Wal-Mart because I had to get a few last minute things for our Christmas dinner. Yesterday, Grandpa Larry gave Brock and Ava their Christmas money. Brock is saving his money but Ava couldn't wait to spend hers! Tonight she picked out this Cabbage Patch doll. Ava also picked the winner of my 100th post giveaway. Katie is the winner! Congrats Katie!!

100th post giveaway!!

ETA: I am going to do the drawing on Sunday, December 21 because of the Home Tours this week. I am going to post this again on Friday so lots of people will have time to sign up for this great giveaway. After Brock and Ava choose a winner I'll ship it out on Monday morning. Good luck!!

In honor of my 100th post I am going to giveaway a Vera Bradley Villager Bag in Mod Floral Pink! This pattern is my favorite!! I have had so much fun blogging and I love catching up with my favorite bloggers everyday. Post a comment and you will be entered to win, post a link to this giveaway on your blog and you will get two chances to win! Brock and Ava will pick a winner on Sunday night! Good luck!

Winter Snow!

Today we had our first big winter snow storm! I love when it snows so today was a fun day. Brock and Ava got out of school at noon and so we went home early and had a relaxing afternoon. Brock and our neighbor Joe decided to go to around our neighborhood to see if anyone wanted their driveways shoveled. He made $10, he was so happy! He takes after Graig so much, he loves making money. (ha!) He is going to go out again tomorrow morning!

While Graig was shoveling Ava and I went outside to see all the snow!

Ava making a snow angel

Look at all the snow coming down!

Christmas Tour!

Wow, I am doing three house tours!! Boo Mama, Hooked on Houses and A Soft Place to Land. I love decorating for the Holidays and I put all of our decorations the day after Thanksgiving. I can't wait to see everyone's homes all decked out for the holidays!

I know some people do theme trees but my trees aren't themed. My favorite ornaments are the one's the Brock and Ava make and the ones I collect on when we travel. When we went to my Dad's ranch in Wyoming this summer I got 8 new ornaments for your tree!

I love our tree you can see if from the dining room and sun room too. It's new this year and it looks real!! Before people come over I spray a little pine scented Glade around it and people think it's a real tree (just kidding I don't do that but I love that stuff!)

Our Christmas MantleI love these pillows Graig's Aunt Carol made for us, I put them out every year!This cute little snow sign is on top of armoire in our living room

Office

Brock and Ava love colored lights so I put up this tree just for them in our office.


Dining Room

I love these snowflakes hanging from our dining room light

Our Christmas Table

My friend Sabrina and I got this at a yard sale we painted it and I think it looks perfect in our dining room. Mistletoe, I always wanted some and I found this at Michael's for 50% off!The arrangement in the middle I had on our table but I like it better over here. Our little tree in our dining room. Sun Room

This is my favorite Christmas candle ever! It's from Bath and Body Works. It smells so good!!

I hope you enjoyed looking at our Christmas home! Don't forget to sign up for my Vera Bradley giveaway, Brock and Ava are going to choose a winner on Sunday night!!