More Christmas

As I started going through pictures for this post I realized that I haven't uploaded all our Christmas pictures yet.  But I figure that is okay, I'll just split it up into two posts anyway.

So while my mom was here we went to Branson for the weekend before Christmas.  While we were in Branson we were fortunate enough to have breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  What a treat the girls (especially Cami) expressions were priceless.

We got home on Christmas eve.  It was kind of exhausting and fast and furious, but we had a great time.  Christmas eve we unpacked from Branson & did laundry, made Christmas cookies for Santa, went to church and came home.   Matt made an extraordinary dinner and we all went off to bed with excitement for the magic of Christmas.

Mommy and her girls.  We are wearing matching sweatshirts that Grandma hand painted.  It is our official Christmas Eve tradition.

Cam and I baking cookies.  Luckily I thought ahead and made cookie dough before we left for Branson.  All we had to do was roll, cutout and decorate.

Nana and Cam decorating Cookies

Our sweeties all dressed in their Christmas Jammies

Reading the night before Christmas

Christmas KC Style

One of the greatest parts of living in a new place is discovering all the fun and unique things the area has to offer during each season.  One of those things in KC is the Plaza.  The Plaza is an upscale shopping and restaurant district.  It is a fun place to walk around and experience street music, delicious food and excellent shopping.  Not to mention all of the beautiful fountains and architecture.

The Plaza is especially special at Christmas time.  The entire plaza is illuminated with GORGEOUS lights to celebrate the season.  To top it all off you can take carriage rides to see the sights.  Well we just had to do it!

Thats our ride...the cinderella coach

Cami and Nana

My sweet family

Sorry Reese, I guess I was squishing you in this picture

You can tell by the look on Cami & Nana's face that it was a wonderful experience.

It snowed the day before, so it was truly idyllic.  What a special way to start of our Christmas celebration this year!

A Year in Review

Wow! I can't believe this year is over. Oh My.  Looking back this has been a very challenging year for us and I can't even begin to explain the stress and change we have experienced this year.  Do not take this as complaining but reflection.  We continue to be extremely blessed beyond measure, but this year the Lord was building our character as a family.  We experienced more major change in about 6 months  than most families experience in a decade.  I decided to pull a few of my favorite memories and meaningful events in picture to reminisce about our year.

JANUARY

In January we met the Williams family in KC to go to the Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark.  Matt had a meeting up here and Cam and I came along to spend time with the family.  Cami had a great time with all her cousins and man does she love to swim!

 FEBRUARY

At the end of January/ beginning of February Matt went to FL for the PGA show, we decided that it would be a great idea to send Cam with him to spend sometime with my dad whose health was failing.  This picture is from a quick trip to Sea World that they went to.  I was about 32 weeks pregnant.  Matt and I decided that it would be a great break for me to have some alone time and prep for the arrival of our sweet baby girl #2.

 MARCH

Sweet baby Reese Jilleann was born March 8th. What a special addition to our sweet family.  Not long after her birth Matt was offered a job and accepted.  So, our world went into hyper-speed with prep work for moving.

Happy Birthday Cami, our big girl turned 3!  We had a big party, which also turned into a fun going away shindig too!  

 APRIL

Moving day.  The start of our new life in KC.

Going away party.  The Burgess family threw us a wonderful going away party, it was a fantastic way to send us out.  We appreciated it so much and really felt so loved.

 MAY

Making New Friends.  We found a church that we felt really comfortable at and started developing relationships.  Here is Cami and her friend Livia.

sisters

Our first Royals game as a family.  Cami was the 'Fan of the Game'.

 JUNE

RJ's first bite of cereal

Exploring Kansas City.  KC area is so family friendly.  Its amazing how many wonderful activities that there are for free here.  It was one adventure after the other.  Kansas City is called the city of fountains, there are spray parks everywhere which is right up Cam's alley.

 JULY

My dad's health began to fail quickly in June, at the beginning of July Mom called and dad wanted me to bring the girls out one more time.  It was a very difficult trip for all of us.  We left August 5, Dad died 16 days later.

 AUGUST

We packed up the car and drove to El Paso to Celebrate my dad's life.  Here is a picture of him and I when I was a baby. He has been gone a while now, but I think and miss him everyday.  Thankful that he was able to know and love Cami so deeply and love, hold and rock Reese.

 SEPTEMBER

Matt qualified for his 15th USGA Championship.  He qualified for the USGA Mid-Am Championship in Chicago.  Matt's folks came with us. The golf didn't end up as we were hoping, but we had a great mini family vacation!

Cami also started Soccer in September.  It was fun.  We met some nice people.  Although I'm not sure soccer is going to be her sport.

 OCTOBER

We ran a 5K as a family.  It was COLD but a lot of fun. Very thankful to be near family!

 NOVEMBER

fall family photos 

 DECEMBER

lights and a carriage ride down at the Plaza.  

My mom came and spent the holidays with us.  We rode a carriage at the plaza, went to Branson and stayed at a hotel & waterpark and had a wonderful holiday season.


Overall we have so much to be thankful for during 2012!!!  We are especially thankful to our family and friends who supported us so fully throughout the year.  I'll do more blogging this week to catch up on the holidays ect.

5 Year Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to my Wonderful Husband of 5 years.  Love you

Daddy Daughter Date

The week after Thanksgiving, Matt and Cami went on their first official daddy/daughter date.  Matt and Cami had been talking about this for sometime and they finally found time to make it happen.  Matt is the greatest dad and wants his girls to know how special they are.

It was a big deal, Cami and Matt both got dressed up.  Cami got to pick where they were going.  She chose to go shopping at the legends, dinner at 'the cow place' and a movie.

They both had a great time and the next day and almost every day since Cami has asked when they can do another.

Thanksgiving

I know I said that I would be a better blogger, but really you should have known better.  Truthfully I had a little blogging difficulties.  User error I am sure.  Anyway, Christmas is upon us and the celebrations have started in the Williams household! YIPEE.  My mom arrived yesterday after a huge weather delay but we are already enjoying having Nana here.

As many of you have noticed, you haven't gotten a Christmas Card from us this year.  With everything that happened it was just one thing I couldn't manage.  Simplify.  Next year I will hopefully be more on the ball and send them out.

So here is Thanksgiving.  We went to Matt's folks house (a short 1 1/2 hour drive...much better than 12 + it use to be).  We spent time playing outside because of the mild weather, eating way to much and loving on our sweet family.

Here are a couple of pictures of the Williams cousins.

from L-R & T-B:  Parker (8) Carter (12)
Josh (3) Peyton (14) Reese (8 1/2 mos) Paige (10) Samuel (7 1/2 mos) & Cami (3)

Hope you al are enjoying your family and friends this holiday season.  I will post an end of the year blog as a substitute to my annual Christmas card.  I will also try and get caught up on blogging....he he

blog fail

Well, I don't know what to say except that I have been a complete and utter failure when it comes to blogging.  The kids had a rough november and have been sick a lot...which in turn means I have spent the whole month 'catching up'.

I have also been working frantically on crafting and sewing projects that I am trying to complete before Christmas.  I know there are a few pictures from Thanksgiving on my phone that I need to download.  I'll get to it eventually.

We are well and happy.

FYI, I will be doing a year in review blog this year as I opted not to send out Christmas cards this year. Call it an effort to simplify, being lazy or cheap... I just didn't want to take it on this year.