Happy New Year..................

Here's hoping things will be great, for all of us in 2008!

It's been a rough couple of weeks. I can't believe my Dad's been gone for 2 weeks already. Reality has finally sunk in, now that we are all off "autopilot" and the wakes/memorial services/holidays are over.

We have though, managed to have some fun & laughs since then:

Here's Miss Mackie on Christmas morning with her new baby/backpack-

and here she is on New Years eve, enjoying not 1, but 2 desserts:


Here's Miss Kelsey opening up one of her favorite Christmas presents, lets call this the BEFORE picture:

and this the AFTER picture!

Which brings us to Mr. Ryan, who had a wonderful Christmas, got everything he wanted, but THESE pictures are too precious NOT to share:
Here he is at his friend's bowling birthday party 12/27:

This kid bowled a 79! Without ANY help! First time bowling.....EVER....he's unbelievable! :)

Here's the kids with Grammy on New Years Eve - as soon as I gave them the blowout horns, chaos was about to ensue!

Who can blow the hardest?! For the record, I don't normally dress them in matching pajamas, but my sister gave them to them for Christmas, so I couldn't resist!

Fighting to stay awake on New Years Eve - 11:20 pm:

11:45 - Oh so close, but nope - couldn't even wake them for the ball drop! Oh well, there's always next year!
In case you were wondering, Mark did have his surgery on Dec. 17, and came home on the 19th. They took out a 9 inch section of his intestines! YUCK! But, due to my dad being so ill, Mark had NO opportunity to rest or recover because I was either at the hospital or at my Mom's. Now , after finally getting some rest this week, he seems to be on the mend and is hoping to go back to work on Monday. Please keep him in your prayers. And my mom too who is fighting a terrible cold!

I went back to work today for the first time since my dad went back into the hospital. I ended up breaking into tears everytime someone asked me "how are you?". It almost became funny, how my boss and I were hoping that not every person who saw me would ask that question! Somehow though, I managed to get thru the day. I came home to find a new catalog had come in the mail -

Here are the clickable links to some of the pictures in the catalog!

http://www.flaghouse.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=38641+BLU
Catalog Page 76

http://www.flaghouse.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=7454
Catalog Page 132

These brought a big smile to my face! I just know that his Papa is so proud of Ryan!

Hope this new year brings all of you everything your hearts desire. :)