Happy Birthday Ryan!

Yeah, our singing is REALLY bad!

Pretending there are candles

Blowing out the Yankee Candle

My baby turned 24 last Sunday. It is so hard to believe that he is that old! I guess I say that every year but I mean it every year too! He met us for lunch after his get-together with his friends got rained out and then came back over to the house for a little while. We had cake before Savanna left for work and then he left to go to dinner with one of his friends. I could not find any birthday candles at the store - I looked where the birthday cake supplies were and they didn't have any - and I was just too tired to stop anywhere else so he didn't get any candles. That is what it is like when your birthday is in December.

Christmas Decorating

My beautiful daughter

Savanna did a great job!

Um, where's Roxie?

Look at Mama!

Umm, excuse me! She's gone agan!

Finally!

Things sure change when the kids are grown. We used to have an evening set aside when everyone would decorate the tree. We would all go to choose the tree from the local Christmas tree lot and then the next evening Brad would put the tree up and the lights on and then the rest of us would decorate. The kids would typically fight over who got to hang each ornament - Christmas music played and it was a good family time. Fast forward to this year. Brad put up the fake tree on Monday so that Savanna and I could decorate after she got off work on Tuesday. We did play Christmas music - once we were able to get Matt to turn off his game - I hung my special ornament and Savanna did the rest, while I took pictures. After the tree was finished we needed to get the annual Christmas picture of the dogs in front of the Christmas tree. That was a little more challenging than usual because Roxie was in a really frisky mood. But, once Savanna got her calmed down we were able to get a cute picture of the girls.

Jack's First Christmas

Jack with his daddy - Steve

He loved the toy that Santa gave him

Quick power nap

Nonnie (LeeAnn) with Jack

Santa, Gina and Jack

I went with LeeAnn, Nan, Gina, and Steve and of course Jack to Lake Taylor's Breakfast with Santa this morning. LeeAnn is the Human Resource director at the hospital and her department is in charge of the activities for the employees. They put on a great breakfast with Santa. I was along as Jack's personal photographer - haha! Lee is so sweet to share her little grandson with me, he is absolutely one of the best babies I've ever seen. They say he gets cranky but I've never seen it. He can be passed around by relatives and strangers alike and still smile and be sweet. When he gets tired he pops his thumb in his mouth, takes a quick power nap and he is good to go for another few hours. I saw him at Nick's wedding get passed around like crazy and he never complained - what a trooper. Here are some of the pictures I took - he is a cutie! And much cuter than the dogs which is what you usually get on here! LOL

Beautiful November Sunset

We set aside this evening to take our Christmas card picture. I'm not REAL happy with the way they turned out but I went ahead and used them and got the cards ordered. I need to get them out early this year since we once again have a new address. Since the sunset was so gorgeous we walked down to the neighborhood fishing pier and took these pictures. Getting the dogs to look at the camera without someone over there talking to them wasn't easy but we did get one fairly good one of all of us. These aren't the pictures I used for the Christmas card although I like them better :-)

Thanksgiving '09

We have had a good day. Very busy morning and early afternoon and a very quiet late afternoon. The kids had their fourth annual Thanksgiving Paintball game early this morning. I went along to take some pictures and Brad played the first two rounds. Brad and I then had to head back to the house to finish dinner. The kids started strolling back in about 1:30 and we wound up eating about 2:30. Poor Lance had another dinner to go to with some friends so he was probably still pretty full by the time he had to eat again.

We wound up with 8 for dinner, which was fun. We enjoyed using our dining room table. It was refinished back in the spring and we hadn't used it because I didn't have a pad for it. I got a pad this week, so we could use it. We were pretty squeezed around it though. I need to have a couple more leaves made. Anyway, here's some pictures from the Paintball extravaganza. Brad won the final round of paintball. Well, the final round that he played, we had to leave early.

The whole gang

Ryan

Ben

Brad

Ryan being Ryan

Ryan helping out his sister

Savanna looking big and bad

Savanna in action

Ryan in action

Savanna had a paintball to hit her helmet and splash in her hair

Victorious Brad

Savanna and Lance

Brad and Ryan

The dogs love Thanksgiving too

More in the facebook album http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=123376&id=701749222&l=0bcb2de92f

One more from the wedding

I actually stole this picture off CeCe's facebook. I added my own little touches (like making it black and white and bringing up the exposure). But, I thought it was a good pic of the four of us and wanted to share :-)

Nick and CeCe got married!

The last stop on our 10 day trip was Simsbury, Connecticut. That part of the trip was actually the only one that had been planned since about September. The DC trip didn't come up until the middle of October and of course we didn't plan on Niagara Falls until the day we left to go up there.

CeCe was a beautiful bride and Nick a handsome groom. Nick is my friend, Lee's oldest son. He met CeCe (her full name is Catherine Cecelia - I don't know if that is spelled right), last fall and they knew pretty quickly that they were THE ONES :-) CeCe is not only beautiful on the outside but on the inside as well, Lee is quite the lucky lady!

The wedding was at The Riverview and it was a beautiful venue. I had a great time just being a guest this time. Although of course I had one of my cameras with me and managed to take a few shots. I tried my best to stay out of the way of the paid photographer, I know how frustrating it is when the guests with cameras are in the way. I didn't get yelled at so I guess I was out of the way enough :-) Here's a few shots from the wedding the rest are in my facebook album http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119474&id=701749222&l=de3ec6a574

The Kiss!

Dave and Jack

Lee and Dave with Jack

Lee dancing with her handsome son, Nick

Admiring the ring

Lee with her daughter, Gina

Dave and Lee