Christmas Celebration in VA with Family

On December 26th, the four of us traveled to Virginia to celebrate Christmas with Kathy’s family.  We had a wonderful day! Kara so enjoyed helping Papa pass out the presents to everyone! We enjoyed a delicious meal together with all the fixings—turkey, ham, stuffing, garlic grits (family recipe), green beans, mac & cheese, etc…. Kara played with her cousins, ran around, and was a happy, energetic child throughout the day. We traveled back home that evening, and Kara spent as much time in her new playroom as possible before bedtime.  Kathy, Tim, Samantha, and all of their family members will remember Christmas 2009 as a time when Kara was exceptionally happy and full of life.  She loved all of the Christmas decorations and lights, playing outside in the snow (and we had LOTS of it), and playing inside with her new kitchen, dolls, nursery, and games she received as gifts for Christmas.  We will choose to focus on the beautiful memories that we made with Kara on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and during the day of the 26th. We love you dearly our sweet, angel Kara.

 

Christmas Day 2009

Today marked another wonderful Christmas celebration for our family of four! Kara verified that Santa visited our home when she saw that the milk and cookie she left out were gone…just a few crumbs left. 

We opened our stockings from Santa first, and then the gifts to each other.  Everyone made out pretty well, so we must have been ‘good’ this year. :)  Tim loves his new range bag, and will put it to good use when he takes his new firearms to the range.  Kathy loves her new kindle, and has already downloaded books to read.  And, Samantha loves her new IPod touch, and has been adding new music and apps to it already.

The grand finale was Kara’s gifts from Santa inside her new playroom!  The funny thing is that Kara has never been in the back room at the end of the hallway, so she had no idea where she was going at first.  Kara was very surprised (shocked is probably a better word) to see a room full of familiar and new toys when we opened the door!   The morning ended with us enjoying a delicious breakfast of waffles, ghutta (family recipe) and bacon.

It was not an easy feat to get Kara out of the playroom, and so she ate her lunch in there at her little table. She enjoyed having mommy, daddy or Samantha stay and play with her, but was also happy & content to play by herself. 

Christmas Eve 2009

HUGE December Snow!

Well, the weather forecasters actually got it right. They said 10-20 inches yesterday when there was not a snowflake in sight.  As you can see from one of the pictures below, we are at 21 inches on Saturday evening! The snow is still falling slowly.  Kara had a great time playing in the snow again, but it wasn’t the best kind of snow for a snowman—too dry.  This has definitely been the biggest snowfall Tim and Kathy have experienced since the one in Springfield, VA in the 80’s.  We love that it happened on the weekend again so that we could enjoy it without having to worry about getting to work.  Although, today was our nephew Sean’s 5th birthday party, and we unfortunately had to miss it.  Samantha is visiting with her grandparents in Maryland, and is happy about the fact that school has already been cancelled on Monday.

 

Leo & his new buddy, Ryder!

We have a new addition to our family, and his name is Ryder! He is a 12-week old retriever-mix puppy.  Ryder is very sweet and laid-back…lucky for us!  He reminds me of a newborn—lots of sleeping, pooping and peeing. :)

Kara's first visit with Santa!

Snow & Lights

Today was the first snowfall of the season, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time.  It’s Saturday and we had nowhere we had to go. Tim, Kara and Kathy enjoyed playing in the snow and making a snowman!  We also took some pictures of the front of the house with the Christmas lights and decorations.