Aw Waw Waw

Hannah's latest trick

Hut, Hut, Hike!

Matthew playing football. You can't really see it in this video, but when he does his "Hut, Hut, Hike!" he throws the football amazingly well. Doesn't quite spiral, but he throws it perfectly straight.

Boys will be Boys

Matthew and Ayden playing with their drills.

The Big Goodbye

You know how you mean to take tons of pictures throughout the week, and then realize you didn't. Well, that always happens to me, so right before Jaclyn left we took tons of pictures.

Jaclyn and Hannah

Hannah, Matthew and Jonah

Jonah's first time in the snow

Steve and Jonah

Jaclyn, Steve and Jonah

Jonah and I

Jaclyn and Matthew

Jaclyn, Steve, Matthew and Hannah

Jonah, Hannah and I

Jaclyn with Hannah and Jonah

Jaclyn and Jonah

Mom and Jonah

Mom with Matthew and Jonah

Mom with Hannah and Jonah

Mom with all three

Jaclyn and I

Family pictures

Since this was one of those rare occurrences when all of us where together, my dad decided he wanted to take family pictures. It's great having a photographer in the family, and Jess did an excellent job. She hasn't finished editing the large group photo. I'm surprised we got a picture of Matthew smiling. He is very against having his picture taken lately. We bribed him with marshmallows the whole time to even be in front of the camera. After the pictures, my mom took all the girls out for pedicures, which was lots of fun. 

The boys

The girls

The babies

The unhappy grandchildren

The Robisons

My immediate family

Christmas

The festivities began at our house on Christmas Eve. Jaclyn's flight arrived around noon, and I picked them up at the airport. I got to meet Jonah for the first time. He sure is cute. He's much bigger than my little Hannah. And he had just started walking a few days previous. It was fun to see the difference between Jonah and Hannah with just the six week age gape. Jonah reminded me of Matthew at that age - standing and walking and voicing his opinion. Hannah is a bit more reserved, though she likes to squawk whenever one of the boys annoyed her. I guess that's the difference between the oldest and the second child. Jonah sure was fun to have around. The babies got along great, and Jonah loved watching Matthew and Ayden play. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were basically just all of us hanging out eating some good food. I just love spending time with my family.

Jess and Jonah

Jaclyn and Steve

Melissa and Hannah

Hannah's ornament

Matthew's Shamu ornament

Waking up Benjamin

Jonah

"Give Hannah a hug"

Jonah and Hannah

Jonah

Miss Hannah

Hannah and I

Me, Hannah, Mark and Matthew

Matthew

Jonah

Mark got me pearl earrings

Hannah having fun upside down

Mom, Matthew, Hannah and Ayden

Aunt Christine and Hannah

Matthew, Jonah and Hannah

Christmas Preparations

With all my family coming for Christmas, I spent the time between my birthday and Christmas cleaning the house. I did get around to letting Matthew fingerpaint for the first time. We made some cute Christmas handprint/footprint projects, and then I let him paint on a blank sheet of paper. At first he would just use one color, and then he accidentally touched another color, so he added that one. He was very particular about using one color at a time. I also made Hannah a stocking all by myself, though with some advice from my sister-in-law. I've participated in making all the stockings, but this is the first one I've sewed. I even broke out the awesome sewing machine my in-laws bought me for my birthday last year.

Snowflakes

Our Christmas art projects

The Stockings - Hannah, Matthew, Me, and Mark

Hannah's first tooth

Matthew's preferred method of eating waffles: 

sit on the counter and eat them as they come out

Michael reading Matthew's bedtime book "My Safari Christmas"