Christmas, 2006

Christmas this year was - as always - exciting!

We finished painting and rearranging our living room just in time!


Our dining room, too....


Lauren and Leslie gave Mom their first afghan that they're making together.


Mom and Dad's main gift to the kids was a wonderful collection of Lamplighter books. We all love evenings when Mom reads out loud to us for sometimes an hour or more at a time. It's so cozy and homey!



Some friends sent each of the ladies in our family a lovely apron. (Thank you, Zimmermans!)


Dad took everyone on a lovely boat trip to a nearby island on Christmas Eve. We didn't even come close to having a white Christmas this year, since the temperatures were in the lower 70's almost everyday the second half of December!

This was the first day that we had Paton. Mom arranged to pick Paton up from her (Paton's) "birthplace" a few days before Christmas, and we kept her at a neighbor's house until Christmas Eve. The surprise for Dad was a complete success!


Isn't she perfectly adorable?


Don't let that innocent expression fool you! She's really a pain at times, but none of us can stay mad at her for long. Could anyone?

Mom is planning on posting our {belated} Christmas newsletter up here in the next few days.

Wishing each of you a very belated very merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves

Let's start by introducing each of us.

These are our parents, Mark and Wendy. The Lord has truly blessed us with wonderful parents!


Lauren is the oldest child in our family. Click the link here or on the sidebar to go to her blog, More Precious Than Rubies. Paton, the puppy, is the newest addition. We got her for Dad for Christmas!


Leslie is next.


Then Austin.


Almost finally, Shannon.


Last, but not least, is Bob. We call this baby "Bob" since we don't know whether "it" is a girl or a boy, and we're trying desperately to avoid using the insensitive pronoun "it."


The arrival of Bob is looked forward to with much anticipation and excitement. Lord willing, we will be introducing him - or her - to you in person very soon!

Well, Here We Are ...

Well, here we are with a blog all our own! The main reason we're starting this is to give our out-of-town friends and relatives a way to keep up-to-date with the goings-on of our family. But even that main reason is not the main reason. The main reason is to have an outlet for the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that we're going to take of the new baby! (Okay, we'll try to post them in moderation.)

Mom's due Valentine's Day, but we're expecting this baby to come sometime more like the end of January or beginning of February. Whatever God's timing is! I'll hopefully be live-blogging once Mom goes into labor, so this blog should be pretty current.

Looking forward to lots of great pictures, updates, and plenty of godly communication!