The end of another year...

I always find New Years to be a bitter sweet holiday. I'm excited for the fresh start of a new year but also sad to see another year gone. We have had a roller coaster of a year and I can honestly say I'm glad we survived it. But We had some milestones this year that I can't believe I'm even old enough to experience. Alexys turned 16 and that just still blows my mind. Only two more months and she will be 17 and I will be counting down the last year of my baby being a child. =( It's a dirty trick that gets played on us parents....

Anyway here is my last post of 2011 and I hope you all have a great New Years celebration. Be safe and live it up!!

Looking for our Christmas tree.

Craig and Katie while looking for our Christmas tree.

It was quite the trek for us. We no longer have our Suburban so we had to go at it on foot this year. =( =)
Alexys taking a break after having walked all the way to the bottom of the canyon and back again. The rest of us only made it halfway to the bottom.

Christmas Morning!
This is the first year that Alexys was awake before me and Craig. I was actually sound asleep at 6:30 and that is amazing for me. I'm usually up waiting for the kids to get up. It was fun to be on the other end for once. We also managed to keep the opening frenzy at bay. We took just over an hour to open everything. It was a great morning.
Katie got some pretend ice cream cones so we had to take an ice cream eating break while we were opening gifts.


Craig got a new Tampa Bay football jersey and also a rugby ball. He loves both sports so it make sense to us. =)

Alexys had a good morning but she didn't get much sleep. Katie slept with her and woke up every hour to ask if Santa had come yet. LOL!! So we have Katie to thank for our wake up call. This is Alexys with her new zebra and bongo drum her Dad got for her.

Katie had a super fun morning. We had to calm her down a few times. She would have just opened all the gifts on her own otherwise. This is her with her giant caterpillar.

This was the final gift for all of us. The girls already knew what it was but they were still excited to finally get to open it and use it.

We finally joined the club of modern LCD televisions. We decided to go all out though and get the 3D one. It is pretty cool and I have to say that we live in an amazing time.

I got lucky on our countdown on the computer today and got a picture of this moment in time. My family will understand why I was so excited to see it. I love you all and hope that this next year brings great things!!

Happy New year!!!!