happy birthday, beautiful boy

 This was you a year ago, little and tiny.

And here you are now, Mr. Gorgeous.   Happy Birthday Buddy, sweet crazy You.   The whole family is better with you in it, and that's the truth.   love forever, Grandma and Grandpa

the family christmas party

 It was a wild, rowdy time.

 Yeah.  All perfect. Ahhhh, what a nice way to roll into the new year.  love you all so much, MOM and DAD too.

a few pictures from christmas day

Jay's little brother's family hosted the party.   The food is always pretty fantastic.  Barb is a very, very good cook.

Here's Grandpa with Kirby and Little Jay.

 Yep, the gang in the family room downstairs, cousins hanging out.

 Kirsten is hugging her cousin's little baby.  That baby is so darn cute. She's tiny, like her mom was, with a bright shiny face.

 Dannell and Grandma with the little guy:

 These guys:

 Gifts for the children--

Peaceful, easy Christmas, and as we head into 2013, that's perfect.    love you all, Val

christmas eve, 2012

Christmas Eve service was beautiful as always--Same old gospel readings we know by heart, same Christmas carols, communion and blessings. When we arrived the stained glass sparkled in the sun, and as the hour passed, the windows turned shadowy and finally completely dark.

Then we headed to my parents for the party.

 Right after this, he opened that gift and saw it was the light up pillow pet and screamed, "It's the jackpot!" over and over and waved it above his head.

These light up pillow pets were a huge hit.  My parents searched all over for just the right ones, and the kids were impressed enough to make it worthwhile.   They kept turning off lights to shine the stars on the ceiling, and oh my goodness.

This is the one and only photo of the hostess there in the red shirt.    I didn't even get a single picture of my dad.  Pitiful.  Just pitiful.  The house was decorated, the Swedish meatballs were delicious, everything perfect.

 Here we're trying to round them up for a picture in their new Christmas pajamas, and it was not easy.  Finally we kind of had them cornered in the bathroom.

 Awww, and p.j. kept kissing that cousin.  He didn't mind.

 Okay, here's a Sweetie posing also in the bathroom.  I think we normally never take pictures in there. 

 The Barbie house had to be put together when we got home.  Tim is good at assembly, thank God because I sure wasn't tackling it at midnight.    Then I told them to GO TO BED.     Tim pulled the front of his shirt out to make a pouch and they threw all the accessories in there and hauled the house upstairs.

 These were found on my camera, and Santa must have taken them.   This is looking up the stairway.  Probably he was listening to hear if they were still awake up there.

 And this one probably while he was eating the cookies.

And that was the end of a very, very lovely Christmas Eve.     love, Val