Just a Hanging out at Home!

One afternoon I caught the three kids sharing one chair tightly as they watched TV and I couldn't help but take a picture of the sweet, fightless, loving moment. SHOCKING!

Occassionally, we're blessed to have friends or family visitors such as my sister, Megan. The kids love her and her computer!

Not only is she a wonderful aunt to my children, but she's a great sister and friend to me. I'm so very blessed to have her in my life! She's such an example to me of peace, love, charity, ingenuity, and character.

Very regular moments with people very dear to my heart.

Chinese New Year

We were able to celebrate the Chinese New Year as a family for a first time at a nearby restaurant. It was quite an adventure that I've never experienced before. The food was, of course, excellent, but the exciting part was the dragon dance midway through the evening. Two men wear a large dragon costume and maneuver their hands, backs, and entire bodies to make the movement of the dragon so lifelike. They have a drummer that accompanies them in their dragon dance and movement which is very loud. We were seated right where the dance began and the noise was quite shocking, as you can see in the faces of Dave and Bevan.



The dancing and drumming was so amazing and loud that it was all we could do to not watch the dragon dance. We all had similar looks on our faces.




As the dragon made his way around the room, Harris, Halen, Brigden, and cousin Jasen could "feed the dragon" by putting tips into his mouth. It was a bit scary, but they enjoyed the thrill of it.

It was a very enjoyable and different experience we're sure to repeat in the future.

Family Sledding

It rarely happens that we go sledding as an entire family, and even if we do, that we all sled, but this time it happened! This was Bevan's first sledding trip where she could actually sled and she was apprehensious, but actually loved it! It was more of a battle to get her scary snow pants on her than it was to get her to sit on a sled. She kept trying to go on her own over and over. She wasn't scared at all after her first time down. It was really fun to watch her enjoy it so much.

Halen and Bevan went down quite a few times together. What sweet sisterly love!

Speaking of sweet, this is a look we are given by Bevan frequently. We call it the "stink eye." She frequently doesn't want to pose for a picture or do what we ask of her and in these cases she turns on the "stink eye." She's a very good girl as long as she is able to be independent and mobile.


The sledding day was so much fun for the kids. Harris, Halen, and Brigden were all smiles the entire time. Even if they didn't stay on their sleds.



You can only imagine what happened after he jumped on the sled above as Harris laughs his head off at Brigden's misfortune.

We are so grateful for such cheerful wonderful children! You just can't beat smiles like these!

A very successful day at the sledhill. What a wonderful family event.

Bevan's 2nd Birthday!

Bevan enjoyed her 2nd birthday on January 29th, just a few weeks after Christmas. Christmas was not the standard pleasant present opening experience for Bevan because she was too afraid to open her presents since she didn't know what she would find underneath the wrapping paper of each present. She finally opened a present hours after everyone else had with some kind coersion to get her to open them. As a result of this fear, she almost wouldn't open her birthday presents either. We started out with letting her brothers and sisters open her presents and little by little Bevan began to get involved. Quite frequently, Bevan will give us these funny looks and we were lucky enough to capture one of them with the camera. Sometimes we'll ask her to smile and we'll get something resembling a smile.

She was very excited to receive her Leap Frog Reader, Mr. Potato Head, Elmo, and a few other toys.

One thing she was for sure excited about was the Princess figurines placed upon her cupcakes.

She had no problem enjoying the frosting off of each of them.

Bevan has changed a great deal in the last 6 months. We've enjoyed watching her grow. She's amazingly perceptive and very keen for her age. She is a pure joy to be around. She loves to jump on her sister Halen's bed, play with Barbie dolls, shake her booty whenever desired, eat, eat, eat, brush her teeth, wear her favorite princess pj's, eat, eat, and eat.