Christmas 2010

Our Christmas was wonderful this year. We had Krista and Josh down from Michigan and Nick of course lives down the street. Unfortunately Quinten and Kate and their family weren't able to come. We really missed having them (the girls especially missed them). We all received some amazing gifts and really enjoyed spending time together as a family. I really wanted some pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses so of course I had Krista capture a few. As you can see from the picture below Marlee wasn't too into the whole photo shoot at first. But after a little bribing she started cooperating.

I only wish this was how they acted towards each other everyday.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. Krista tried to pose Marlee which you would think would have been an impossible task. It must have been an "I'm going to listen to adults" day for her.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well. And Happy New Year!!

She's Five

I can't believe it but it's true. My little Rhaegan is 5 years old! I remember looking at her lying in my lap at 2 weeks of age thinking "she's never going to grow up." She is now my little lady, my #1 helper, my sidekick. She keeps me on my toes and helps me remember what is really important in life.

Her birthday was filled with many fun and exciting activities. She had incredibly long list of things she wanted to do and get for her birthday. We of course couldn't do them all (I mean lets be realistic here) but we did do a lot hopefully making this a birthday to remember. Rhaegan did say this was the best birthday ever.
(ok she says that about everything)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RHAEGAN!!

DC part II

Our Thanksgiving in DC continues...

On Thanksgiving Day we celebrated with some of the other temple workers/missionaries with a nice dinner at the church. It was nice to meet some of the wonderful people Reed and Jackie get to work with each day. As you can see Rhaegan warmed right up to some of the men. It was literally a room filled with "papas"

The food was delicious! There was enough to feed an army too.

After we ate it was time to hit the basketball court for a little three on three (or chasing the princess ball and playing keep away from Rhaegan)

We then decided to head downtown to do a little sightseeing. It wasn't crowded and the weather was pretty nice which made for a great evening.

More to come...

Thanksgiving in DC

This Thanksgiving we decided to head over to Washington DC to visit Shae's parents. They are on a mission at the DC temple. We are really excited to see them and celebrate the holiday with family. When we arrived we gave Marlee and nap and then headed out for a little pre-Thanksgiving shopping and a wonderful dinner and my favorite: The Cheesecake Factory!

On Thursday we decided to hit the Zoo (it's free by the way). We got there right as it opened and were able to see everything with the normal zoo crowd. It was cold but very fun. Thanks to my good friend Melissa we had a double stroller to help us.

The girls (especially Rhaegan) were so excited to see all the animals. Marlee was waiting patiently for the elephant exhibit.

This bridge extends all the way across the elephants. Luckily one of the elephants was out.

The best part of the whole thing was getting to see the panda (or Po from Kung Fu panda). As you can see from the pictures below he was extremely close. He was so cute.

This was just the first 24 hours of our trip. More pictures to come...

Nick's Birthday

We were so luckily to be able to celebrate Uncle Nick's birthday with him this year. Rhaegan is all about birthdays and everything that comes along with them so when we said we were having a birthday "party" for uncle Nick she was ready and willing to do whatever she could to help. She actually used her own money (one dollar) to buy him and present (king size Twix bar) and made him a cute card.

My mom made a delicious German chocolate cake (as you can see for the picture) and Nick was able to blow out all 31 candles!

You can't leave Marlee alone for two seconds with dessert of any kind close by or this is where you will find her.

We loved celebrating your day with you, Nick!!

Bye Bye Goldilocks

Well it happened! Rhaegan has been asking for a while now if she could get her hair cut. And when I say "cut" I mean chopped off. She's of course gotten trims here and there, but now it was time for the real deal. I had to work on the day my mom decided to take her so I gave specific instructions on the length and off she went. Below the collarbone was my only request.

As you can see my request was ignored. My mom tried to convince her to keep it longer but Rhaegan wanted it short. She actually wanted it even shorter than this but luckily my mom stayed strong.

When she came to work to show me I didn't even recognize her. That can not be my little Rhaegan was my first thought. I'm not going to lie, I was a little emotional about it at first. Now that I've had a week or so to get use to it, it has definitely grown on me. I actually love it and have to realize it's Rhaegan's hair not mine. If she loves it then that's all that matters (and she LOVES it).

Day two and three...

So here are the pictures from the rest of our Halloween. Sorry they are over a week late. Friday was Rhaegan's Halloween party at school which she was looking forward to for over a week. Below is a picture of her class all decked out int their adorable costumes. Their teacher, Mrs. Murray is such a fun lady. The kids just adore her.

Then Saturday was our "trick or treating" day. It was pretty chilly out so we drove around the neighborhoods collecting candy. Luckily Marlee's costume was super warm. Rhaegan, as you can see, was so excited about being allowed to wear makeup. She wore it proudly and acted like a typical preteen. Now I know the Bengals are not doing very well this year but being a Cincinnati fan we had to go with the Tiger costume for our little animal.

Luckily Krista was in town for Halloween and was able to come with us to all of our activities. She also brought along her wonderful camera and photography skills and captured some amazing pictures for us. For more pictures by Krista check out her blog, http://adamowfamily.blogspot.com

It was a great Halloween and I am really enjoying the candy stash we have now. Fortunately it's in our bedroom so we can keep an eye on how much our girls consume (they are candy monsters).