Christmas Day at Oma and Papa's House

A and Daddy praying after PaPa read the Christmas story from the Bible. There is something about this photo that I absolutely love!

The McCall clan goofing off!!Not as fun but nice! Both of my sister's and their children. My sister and brother in law from PA are standing next to T and I. Their 3 Haitian angels are on Oma and PaPa's laps and then in front of my other sister and brother in law who live in the Azores with my adorable 9 month old nephew J. He had his own ideas about smiling for the camera but is cute anyway.


The grandkid's (- H who was with her mommy)



K and her girls!

My aunt and uncle and my cousin along with her husband and son were all there for Christmas Day. There were a lot of people, lots of noise...but lots of fun too! We stayed a couple extra days and while it was fun it was sooooo nice to get back home and play with the Christmas toys that we had to leave behind when we went up to Oma and PaPa's house.

Christmas 2008 - Christmas Morning

L and A discovering Santa's special gifts on Christmas morning. Since they were bigger than L and A's stockings he put them in the fireplace. The kids put cookies out for Santa...two chocolate chocolate chip and two snickerdoodles. Santa prefers the chocolate chocolate chip cookies he left one snickerdoodle on the plate. Santa made a mess and knocked the snowmen on the mantle over....what to do about Santa????

Christmas Eve 2008

Wow! Where has time gone? It has been months since I last posted so here goes post 1 of 3 today~~~

Me and my boy!

The Brown and Holmlund clans having fun.

The entire family with Grandma Bent. She turned 99 this fall and is doing really well as you can see from the photo.


L and A with Great Grandma Bent.

That smile brings a smile to my face and warms my heart!

We had a fabulous time at Dad and Mom Brown's house!!!

The many faces of LB

My posts tonight are on the heels of cutting for a stamp camp and so they are totally random!

I was going through photos from our trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (formerly Marine World) and this series of photos caught my eye. L and I were going to ride on the swings and I was so excited to sit in front of her and take photos until the ride operator came by and squashed those hopes...fortunately I had taken these prior to giving up my camera. L celebrated her 7th birthday on July 29th and it seems like just yesterday I was holding a newborn baby girl. She is such a sweetie!

These photos capture different expressions and I love every one of them. They are so Miss L!

Of course I am biased but she is as sweet on the inside as on the outside and it is that that I am most proud of!

A Harvest of Our Own

My sister (chapter2lifetogether.blogspot.com) posted photos of carrots and tomatoes from her garden and it inspired me to get busy and post our own little garden story. We bought our house 3 years ago in May and the previous owners were French Nationals. As part of their CA experience they planted 2 varieties of grapes on the side of the house and numerous palm trees. As CA natives we promptly gave away those palm trees knowing how quickly they grow and what a pain they are to remove when they get big and worked on killing the grapes as we were not interested in the upkeep that was involved with them. That said, they are on the side of the house and it is an area off limits to our kids and while not off limits to us it is infrequently visited. Last weekend my sisters and their families (minus one brother in law and niece) were at our house and we discovered grapes on the side of the house...a true surprise. T brought in a bunch and our kids promptly ate them. He told me that we did not have anymore. My niece D (shown below) inquired about the location of the grapes and I went and showed the messy side yard to her. She and I looked and discovered lots and lots of grapes. It was exciting! For the rest of the afternoon all of the kids were eating these tiny red seedless grapes.

They were so sweet and tasty!

D and her harvest!
Nothing better than homegrown, ripe fruit!

So, rather than try and kill them we are now watering them, will be building trellises for them...whoever knew that we could have a vineyard in our backyard?

The last 3 weeks have been a blur (well, maybe the last 3 months or more) and I have so many fun photos of our kids with their cousins that will be appearing soon! Keep watching!

100 pounds plus on Daddy's shoulders.

Yep! 100 or more pounds on daddy's shoulders! The kids sure did like this. I caught the entire sequence with the camera and it is fun to see! L and A are all smiles...not sure about daddy.

Daddy Time and More Missing Teeth

L is a toothless wonder...check her out!

Daddy is so lucky to get so much attention. We have photos of him with his niece and nephews on his back right after we got married. Almost 10 years later it is our kids on his back.
Love that smile!

My goal is to update on a regular basis...not always so easy but tax time is over and hopefully there will be a few free moments here and there for computer time (that is when the kids are not monopolizing it........)