Bring it on!

It's 2014! Happy New Year. 

we ended last year visiting with family and began this year the same way.  Here is a little recap of our Christmas and events that led up to 2014.

This is how pictures go in our house...

good, but we forgot to take away the Binky.

that's decent

and then there are these:

Christmas Eve we went to church as we usually do and we had the opportunity to dress the girls alike.  I know we won't be able to do it for much longer.  After church we let Ava open a Christmas Eve box that had new pjs, a new movie, some popcorn and hot chocolate for us to enjoy after our dinner.  Ava loved being able to open something before Christmas day... she is all about presents (spoiled much?).

Me and my girls! 

 Ava had to have a silly picture... 

After we opened our presents we jumped in the car and headed south to Morgantown to see some of Nathan's family. (We missed seeing you Melinda & Jeff!)  We spent the day there and then headed home.  

Between Christmas and New Years we had a few snow falls and got to take Ava sled riding for the first time.  This also gave me the chance to try out my new zoom lens.

 the zoom lens is great, even though it doesn't look it they were really REALLY far away on a huge hill.

Instead of traveling all of the place this year we got lucky and some of our family came to us.  It was an incredibly nice experience after years of traveling over Christmas.  But it was until this Christmas that we kept Barbie out of our house.  Ava got a big surprise when Grandpa Fred, Amy, Danielle & the Boys brought her a Barbie Dream House.  My favorite thing about it was when Ava asked, "are there any animals in there?"  She loves her animals and has proceeded to use the dream house for them, specifically for her Princess Palace Pets.  She really isn't into Barbie, but I figure we'll get plenty of use out of it anyway. Oh, and Ken...  have you seen Ken lately?  He looks like a bad version of Justin Bieber... YUCK!

 Putting the dream house together.

 oooo, my bentwood rocker...  that was a surprise.  Growing up we had this beautiful bentwood rocking chair at our house on Judith.  I loved that chair.  I asked my Dad a while back if I could have it when he was ready to get rid of it.  I was thinking in, oh say, 20 years.  Sure enough, it was loaded into his truck and brought to me...  and we love it!  Thank you Daddy!

 just a little proof that Jack played with Hannah.

Hannah got several new toys. 

Can you see it? Ava is driving a reindeer pulled sleigh.  

The next day we had more visitors, Mimi and PawPaw came to see us and brought Nana with them.  Nana hasn't ever been to our house before, and we hadn't seen her in over a year (she lives on the farm in Va.) We are very glad she was able to meet Hannah, which also made it incredibly special.  We're looking forward to getting down there this spring with the rest of our extended family for some pictures and so all the new Great Grand Babies can meet.  

We rang in the New Year two days later, and we even managed to stay up to watch the ball drop.  We had great expectations of making it fun, playing some games, watching a movie and then the countdown, toasting with champagne, etc. But ultimately we were lazy and watched several episodes of the Big Bang Theory (love that show!), caught the countdown right at 30 seconds, forgot about the champagne (the bottle is still unopened), and then watched a little Conan before heading to bed. 

We wrapped up the week with a couple days of work before heading to WV to see the last of our family.  Unfortunately, we forgot our camera and didn't take any pictures.  So, I stole some from my cousins!

 Everyone LOVES Derek! 

(looking forward to having him as an official part of our family this coming August.)

 Aunt Linda is the best.

 Ava has to show Amanda the new dragon game and all the dragons she has created. 

We had a wonderful Christmas and a great time seeing our family over the holidays.  There are going to be lots of new things for us this year.  Another first birthday plus all of Hannah's firsts, the first day of kindergarten for Miss Ava, and much more.  So here's to 2014, may it be an even better year than 2013. 

Bring it on!