Daddy and his boys
Me and Mary
2007 - what a year...- January - Walt Disney World for my mom's 60th birthday - what a great trip!
- February - Grant turned 3
- March - Bill turned 30
- April - Easter in Tennessee with the Fields. Kathy began blogging. : )
- May - Mary's dedication; A 10 foot alligator visits our neighborhood.
- June - Boys begin swimming lessons at the local Y. Bill trades in his motorcycle for something more "track worthy." We all discover how Gulf Coast summer humidity feels, what black widows look like, and how to avoid poisonous snakes.
- July - Visit to Minnesota
- August - Trip to TN for Bill's brother, Roper's 40th surprise party. Ivan turned 5
- September - Ivan starts Kindergarten; Grant begins 3's preschool, Mary turned 1 year
- October - Halloween as the Neverland crew: Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Tinkerbell
- November - Thanksgiving in California
- December - My parents flew down to be Mr. and Mrs. Claus for our squadron's kids' Christmas party. This month marked our one year anniversary of living in Mississippi.
God bless you and your families in 2008!
Grant on the playground back at school
Miss Jackie gave each child a new book - The Stable.
Mary loved to be in the boys' classrooms. All ready for Kindergarten! Just a few more years...
Well, after a good explanation about why our tree needs to come down soon (dried up, brittle, curling branches, you know - may go up in flames at any moment), I think the boys were able to go to sleep last night. They are sad that Christmas is over. I told Ivan, "Well, isn't it great that it comes every year? We can celebrate Jesus' birthday again next year!" He said, "Tomorrow?!!!" I said, "No, next year." pause... "How many days is that?" I replied, "365, honey." Ivan's reply was a surrendering, "UGH," as he fell back onto his bed. I remember feeling the let down of Christmas festivities coming to an end as a kid. I still feel it. Although... I am looking forward to having the holiday pace slow down and get my house back in order!
We had set a pair of Spider man slippers in the boys' room for them to wake up to. When they finally noticed, Grant exclaimed, "Santa was in HERE too! WOW!" As they were slipping them onto their feet, Grant looked up and said very seriously, "...I love Jesus too, Mom." Thanks for the reassurance, buddy.
Mary slept through the stocking opening, but joined us later on. : )
After the stockings had been rummaged through, we sat down for a snowman breakfast. 
After breakfast, we all sat on the couch and read the Christmas Story out of my old Children's Bible. We explained that we exchange gifts to celebrate God's gift to us - Jesus. We took a different approach to the gifts this year and scaled down. Each kid only got three gifts from us. However, as you can see in the first picture... they made out pretty well, thanks to all of their grandparents, aunts and uncles!
Games, games, games. This was the year for games! 
Here's Mary with her new American Girl, "Bitty Baby" doll. Thanks, Grandma!
I love my new baby!
Uncle Dave, we might have another coffee drinker in the family!
A BUZZ SHOOTER! (Buzz Lightyear - Grant is still a loyal fan)
Ivan has been collecting the Playmobile Pirate sets. We've begun the knights collection for Grant - they will sit for hours, QUIETLY, and play together with these! It's so nice that they are both getting to ages where they can play creatively together. 
Mary's favorite present this year was her "Little People" airplane. She pushes it all over the place, and will bring it to me so I can push the little person and make it play music. Then she stands and dances until it stops! 
After gifts were all done and the chaos subsided, we had a birthday party.
Like I said in the previous post... we've learned to be flexible, even during Christmastime! I had made a big lunch, so we decided to eat out before going to the candlelight service at our church on Christmas Eve. As we were going by it on the highway, I was glancing at the sign - one of those lit-up signs that blinks only part of a sentence at a time. We hadn't been sure if the service was at 5 or 6 p.m. I looked back and said, "Great! It's at six. Let's eat first and then head over to church." The only thing open that would have quick enough service was Applebee's. We finished eating, and headed over to church, with plenty of time to spare. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, until we arrived to find out that we'd missed the entire service! Bill went in with the boys to check... and came out with an amused look on his face, saying, "Great. We relied on our only family member who wears contacts to read the sign." (cringe) Oops. So... we drove around, looking at Christmas lights and singing Christmas carols together in the van instead.
