Hey, I just realized that if you click on the scrapbook page (in post below), it will enlarge! You just gotta see them! I love, love, love those pictures!

If you give me cute pictures...

I will scrapbook them! Ray's dad just recently gave me a treasure trove of pictures. While looking through some of them, I came across some really cute pictures of Ray, his older brother Mike, and his younger sister Tanya (for those of you who don't know who's who). So, of course, I had to turn them into a scrapbook page...





I tried to make it bigger so you could see it better, but it got really blurry when I did that, but aren't they cute!! After I print it out, I'm going to swipe purple paint around the edges.


I just love having pictures like these to celebrate Ray's younger years. Sometimes I feel like I've known him forever, but he did have a life before he met me and before Hannah and Emily were born, so I feel like these pictures help me get to know the Ray I never got to meet.

And I just have to say, "Thanks, Mike, for the pictures!" There will certainly be more scrapbook pages to come! ;-)

Always full of surprises

That would be Ray. So many times he can be a real pain in my you-know-what, but every so often, he surprises me. Like today. When I got out of the shower this afternoon (I purposely made this a day where we go nowhere), I heard him giving lunch to Hannah and Emily and their two friends. But, when I came into the kitchen, I found this:

Yep, those are cookies baking in the oven. The boy baked cookies for the girls and their friends. Now, how sweet is that?! And right now, he is making us dinner.

There are many things I can say about Ray to show how rotten he can be, but lately, and little by little, he has been letting sweet, tender things leak out proving that maybe, deep inside he is one tasty morsel!

Christmas Eve pictures

Here are some cute pictures from last night:

First, Hannah and Emily in front of Grandma Heckle's tiny tree...



Me and Hannah and Emily in front of said tiny tree...



The four grandkids (Hannah, Lauren, Emily, and Aaron) on the couch...



Aunt Jo with her nieces and nephew...



Grandma with her grandchildren (same order as above)...



And me with my godson Aaron...

Merry, merry Christmas!

It was most certainly a merry, merry Christmas at our house this morning. It all started last night when the girls were super excited to don their new pajamas and go to bed (a first) so that Santa could come.

At about 4:00 this morning, Emily woke up wanting to open her presents. This is the first year she has gotten out of bed before 7:00 or 8:00. I coaxed her back to bed, telling her it was much too early to get up. "Can't I just go down there to see if he has come yet?" she asked as I guided her back to her room.

"But Emily, if he hasn't come, and he's trying to come, he won't be able to come because you are awake." That sealed the deal until 6:00.

"Can we open them now?" an anxious child begged.

"Not until 7:00. How about you sleep in my bed?" She agreed, and I was glad. I was tired of getting out of my bed to usher that one back to hers. She woke at 7:21 and I managed to keep her in bed (checking the clock every minute) until 7:30. That's when she jumped out of our bed, ran to Hannah's room (who was still sleeping), and together bolted down the stairs. We could hear their excited squeals all the way upstairs.

One of the first presents they opened was the American Girl Doll they each asked for. I think this picture here adequately sums up how they felt about this gift and all the others to come:

Hannah danced when she opened her bookbag on wheels:

And they both enjoyed their webkins:

Knowing Emily has a penchant for building herself tents out of blankets and chairs, he brought her a pretty cool tent. The funny thing is, she wasn't very happy about it when she opened it. The look on her face gave it away. "Dora????" she asked. She thought it was going to be something babyish (and so did I, to tell you the truth, since I wasn't aware of this gift brought by Santa), that is until Daddy put it up in the basement:

IT'S HUGE!!!!!

They can stand in there without touching the top.

After all was said and done, I sat on the couch, looking at the girls and their toys, the fire blazing in the fireplace, and Ray putting stuff together, and felt so blessed. I mean, I look at these 2 and see all their joy and excitement and innocence, and the worries and the stress and the irritations melt away.

And I watch Ray so involved with their interests and their girl toys and my heart melts (believe that or not--Ray melts my heart!) ;-)

Ahh, what a wonderful life it is indeed!