Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!

Hey guys,

Once again Christmas has come and gone and as usual, we are going to keep sporting the christmas tree until mid February just to make the season last as long as possible.  We luckily ended up having a white Christmas after many december high temps and unusual rain.  But much like the season so far, it all melted again...  We had a very merry Christmas this year and Anna has been spending the last few days playing with as many new toys as possible.  We have had a perfect 2011 and cannot wait to bring in the new year.  2012 has so many new adventures in store for us.  We are excited to share them with you.

See you next year!

With love,
Anna, Evan, and Gabby

Christmas comes multiple times this year

Hey guys,

Our holiday festivities have begun!  We had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with Evan's mom and siblings this past weekend.  It's always so much fun to get the whole gang together.  We ate awesome food, attempted to watch Christmas Vacation, exchanged wonderful gifts, played games, and just all around enjoy the company of the ones we love so dearly.  As anyone can imagine, a two year old gets quite spoiled during the holiday season, whether it's grandparents, aunts and uncles, parents, or Santa gifts fly in from everywhere.  We enjoyed a week full of playing with all her new goodies.  We had a very exciting opportunity for our little Anna to try out a product for one of our favorite companies.  Best Made is a USA based axe company and they just came out with a hand knit axe for children.  They were in need of a little boy or girl to test out the axe and document the child's play with the item.  Anna was the lucky little lady and for the past two weeks has been wielding this adorable little axe.  Keep an eye out in this week's photos for the axe and we will let everyone know when she is featured on the Best Made website.

With love,
Anna, Evan, and Gabby

Our Favorite Time of Year.

Hey guys,

This week was the calm before the storm.  We tried to lay low and enjoy the simple things in life because starting this coming week our holiday festivities begin.  We love living in Eau Claire, the only downside is the fact that our travel time for the holidays have increased significantly.  No matter how far we have to go though, it’s worth it to see our families during the holiday season.  This week, we had the opportunity to babysit Grace.  Anna was very cute with her little cousin.  She was constantly helping out, whether she felt Grace needed her pacifier or her shoe fell off.  It was a lot of fun and it was good to see Anna so excited to have her here.  Please enjoy this week's pictures.

With love,

Anna, Evan, and Gabby

PS.  We have reached another milestone with this week:  over 200 days finished!

Let it snow. Let it snow.

Hey guys,

Wow guys, what a week!  I don't even know where to begin.  Saturday, we got piled with a ton of snow. The following 4 days was on and off snow fall. I think i can safely say winter is here in full force.  We ended up taking an unexpected trip on Sunday to visit our Uncle Ron in the hospital.  He may be the strongest man I have had the privilege of knowing in my life.  I am also so proud to call that man my Godfather.  We ended the evening at Eric, Mae, and Grace's with the rest of the siblings to watch the nail biter of a Packer game.  It feels good to be 12-0.  Anna has really been enjoying playing in the snow and we try to get outside with her as much as possible and as much as she can handle the cold weather.  We end most days next to our fireplace with a good Christmas movie on the TV.  We love the holidays and could not be more excited that they are here.  Please enjoy this weeks photos.

With love,
Anna, Evan, and Gabby

Snowy Bottoms.

Hey guys,

While taking a picture every day is ingrained into our daily lives, we completely dropped the ball when it came to blogging on time.  This is a trend that we need to break.  As each day seems colder than the last, it is taking a lot of effort to get out from in front of the fire and venture outdoors.  Anna doesn't seem to really be digging the chilly weather either.  She likes to be out for maybe 20 minutes tops.  But we make the most of what we can do.  This week has been exciting because we are averaging about three packages a day coming to our house.  I decided to do a lot of our Christmas shopping online so that the days we actually get to see Evan don't have to be spent at stores.  He is working a mandatory 50 hours a week and we feel like we never see him.  Even on days when he gets home "early" (meaning 7pm), it already feels like the day is over since it's completely dark out.  We will not let that rain on our enjoyment of the season of giving.  We are really excited for Christmas to come!  It it so much more fun with a kiddo like Anna who gets excited about everything possible.  We hope you get excited, and enjoy, this week's photos.

With love,
Anna, Evan, and Gabby

Gobble Gobble Packwaukee

Hey guys,

Sorry about the late post.  Things get pretty crazy around here when the holidays hit and we got home very late on Thursday and Evan worked a long day yesterday.  This week was a lot of fun.  We put up our Christmas tree and other decorations.  Anna was really adorable helping out.  She hung a lot of the ornaments.  At some point each day she also takes a lot of the ornaments off the tree.  After awhile though we can play the "hang them back on the tree" game.  Then, of course, we ended our week with Thanksgiving.  We had the opportunity to visit with Evan's dad's side of the family as well as stop at my sister's for some tasty food and a short stay.  We are so thankful that we had the chance to make the trip and see everyone we could. And we are very thankful for all those we didn't have the opportunity to see.  Our little family is very blessed and we give thanks for all those incredible people we share our lives with.

Please enjoy this week photos.

With love,

Anna, Evan, and Gabby