Welcome to the family!

As many of you who check this may know that this past weekend DM's brother Doug got married to the most amazing person! Stacey officially joined the klan on Saturday afternoon which was filled with many smiles and joyful tears! What a blessing she is to Doug and the rest of us! The picture above is of Stacey with her "new" (she has been around for a while) nephew Jake standing next to his dad Andy, DM and our soon to be brother in law Eric. What a wonderful thing to add another loving person to this beautiful family!

A Wonderful Life!

Our Princess on her first Christmas!

What must she think...

Our princess experienced her first Christmas these past couple of days and wow what a time we all had!

It all started with a wonderful Saturday evening at her "Auntie & Uncle" Cake's house for a new tradition...Christmakuh! Since their family celebrates both we joined them this year with some other friends and had a wonderful night. Bel got to meet another baby and they both stayed up way past their bed time.

The three of us slept in on Sunday morning and relaxed as we are all battling the winter sniffles. Baby Bel got to spend the very snowy evening with her Grandma JJ and Grandpa D so that DM and I could join his brother and soon to be sister in law (12-29-07) at the Vikings game. It was a bad game, but as always great dome dogs, malt cups and pretzels were eaten. We headed home to find a sleeping baby and a tired set of grandparents.

There is nothing greater then waking up to a white Minnesota Christmas. The Eve of our Saviors birth provided to be an eventful day. DM worked a half day while the baby and I stayed home and rested (no morning practice!) When he came home I left to run some last minute errands that left me in tears which seems to be a Christmas Eve theme. We got the little one all dressed up for our evening at Grandma JJ and Grandpa D's and headed down for the night. We had a great dinner with Auntie Jen, Uncle Nate, and Cousin Ella, Grandma JJ, Grandpa D, Great-Grandma and the three spotted puppies too. The girls were showered with many wonderful gifts which I'm sure their Grandpa and Grandma will allow them to grow accustom to and had a wonderful family Christmas. Bel, DH and I stayed around until late so we could head to church for Midnight Mass. Our baby girl slept until the trumpets played at 11:55pm, she spent the next hour and a half awake and taking her first beautiful Christmas all in. We headed home to rest for more!

Christmas morning started with the three of us with our furry baby opening gifts under our beautiful tree. Though the paper proved to be more exciting than anything else it was a wonderful morning! We headed to DM's brother and sister in laws for our annual breakfast. Minus one sibling this year (Bec traveled north to be with Eric's family), the rest of us had a nice breakfast and wonderful conversation. Grandma Leann, Joe, Auntie Pam, Uncle Andy, Jake, Uncle Doug and Auntie Stacey all entertained the princess as she had more wonderful gifts to open. We headed back to Grandpa D and Grandma JJ's for lunch where Great Grandma would also be joining us and ended up settling in for a nice (much needed) winters nap. As the sunlight grew shorter and the snow began to get deeper we headed back to our pup and to a house full of new toys, books, clothes and chocolate! We brought our bundle out into the snow for her first sled ride, she was amazed and loved it! There is nothing more enjoyable then experiencing life through your child's eyes!

Sharing

Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving - Mary Catherine Bateson

I have been thinking of new ways to SHARE everything in our lives lately and thought this may be a a useful way for us to do so. There have been many changes in our lives the past few years and many new demands. These demands have made it hard to reach out to each person in our lives and possibly this may be a way. I hope to keep this site "fresh" and open. I plan to share and hope you feel free to do so as well. I don't know what topics will arise or what thoughts or questions will get posted. Feel free to leave comments about what you think we should add. Feel free to grow.