Day 1- We got a real tree this year! Thanks to the John and Rachel who picked it up for us. After some research (price checking to ensure the biggest bag for our buck) we opted for the non traditional approach to picking out a tree---the Home Depot. Whoever would have guessed that we could get a bigger better tree there vs. going out to a farm and cutting it ourselves (well the guys would have been doing the tree cutting). So one cold, wet, windy evening (in early Dec) John and Rachel headed out to get their tree and picked one up for us while they were there. (Actually we intended in going as well but ended up making a little trip to the ER with Zach with a high fever).
Our tree is on the right (picture courtesy of Rachel's blog)
Day 2- With our tree dried and ready to be brought inside we thought it was a great idea to decorate while watching the Civil War game (OSU vs UofO). This year they were playing for the Pac-10 title and a trip to the Rose bowl to play Ohio State. Its not often that the Oregon rivalry makes prime time! OSU put up a great fight but lost 33-37 in the end. Guess we'll be putting on some green and yellow for the Rose bowl.
Zachary really truly enjoys the games! He like it when all the players start moving (its hilarious to watch his reactions).
Day 3- The O-Club on base hosted a breakfast with Santa. This was Zachary's first encounter the the jolly red suited man. It only took a few seconds before Zach decided he wasn't so sure about this strange man with all this white hair.
Although this may look like a screaming little guy he wasn't. He was so shocked with Santa that he wasn't sure how to react. The tears came shortly after this and Santa tried to calm Zach down by softly singing Twinkle twinkle little star.
Day 5- Josh finished his class! The night of his final Zachary and I went to a cookie swap so we brought home a 7 dozen (or maybe it was 8) cookies to celebrate! Only 2 more classes to go and Josh will have his Masters degree!
Day 6-After all the preparation for my cookie swap it was time to start on our treats for our neighborhood friends. One Monday afternoon Josh calls me and surprised me by saying he was heading home (since it was before 3pm I was SHOCKED). He wanted to go out and do something as a family but I had a better idea :) We spent the afternoon, evening and our entire night working on all these wonderful goodies! This was the first time Josh had been home while I planned on making my aunts chocolate covered peanut butter balls....he was a HUGE help!
These were a new treat I made this year---chocolate covered pretzels dipped in melted candy cane kisses---my new favorite holiday treat!
Another new treat I attempted to make (not to bad, but VERY time consuming)
Day 7- Our holiday cards and letter! A HUGE thank you to Shelby for creating these amazing cards and to April for taking such wonderful pictures to share! We LOVE them!
Here is a copy of the letter we sent out to our family and friends!
What a year it’s been--we have now been back in the lower 48 for an entire year and along the road we have taken full advantage of the perks it offers. Our year has been filled with travel and lots of new adventures….
In February we welcomed into our lives Zachary Thomas, what a blessing he has been to our family! We cherish every moment with him. He seems to be growing much quicker than we would like. He is now 9 months--crawling all over the place, wanting to eat whatever you happen to be eating, talking up a storm (although we still don’t understand much), pulling himself up and getting stuck on all sorts of furniture. Zach has completed 12 airplane rides and a road trip (yep, we have done quite a bit of traveling)!
Back in January Josh started working for General Hoffman, Commander of Headquarters Air Force Materiel (that’s the correct spelling) Command in his Commander Action Group, which is referred to as the CAG. The new position has kept Josh very busy working lots of long days and some over night traveling. He truly has enjoyed this new position; we’re keeping our fingers crossed that his experience with the General will lead to a slot in the pilot training next year. Besides all this work Josh also has spent a good portion of the year working on and completing his CFI (certified flight instructor) certification. After 5 months of flying every chance he had and studying when he wasn’t flying Josh passed the written, oral, and practical exams in October!
Somewhere in all this Josh started a new hobby---triathlons (and duathlons)—yes, that’s right he thought he would try just one early in the season (May) and ended up competing in 4 by the end of the summer. Dana was cheerleader for all of Josh’s races and was so inspired that she started competing as well! Dana even managed to convince her friends to participate! In the end Dana completed one triathlon and organized a team who completed 4 duathlons! Not to bad for three moms who all had babies in the last 9 months! All this training had to lead us somewhere right? Josh and Dana decided last year that since moving to Wright-Patt AFB, home of the Air Force Marathon, that we wanted to participate in 2009. We completed our first half marathon in September!!! 13.1 miles wasn’t as bad as we thought, Dana has plans to run her second half marathon this coming April in Nashville and Josh is planning on running in the full AF Marathon next fall….26.2 miles!
We have been fortunate enough to spend lots of time with family this year—our first visitor was Grams (Dana’s mom) she came out for her spring break to meet Zachary. Shortly after her visit we flew to Oregon to spend Easter with Dana’s extend family. Zachary spent the time meeting his grandpa, great grandparents, great aunts/uncles, all of his second cousins and lots of close friends. Then just a couple of weeks after our return Josh’s folks came out to see the little guy! They timed their visit so they could also be here to celebrate Josh’s promotion to Captain! Then over the summer Grams retuned to spend several weeks with us, together we explored Ohio! She also spent a week taking care of Zachary while Josh and Dana headed off on a belated honeymoon to Antigua! Oh, it was BEAUTIFUL! (You should google it!) For Labor Day weekend we took a road trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Ever since Dana lived there a few years ago she has held a soft spot in her heart for the south and openly shares this passion, so much so that our neighbors joined us on the trip! Then in October Dana and Zachary headed out west for to visit family again (he met his Uncle JJ for the first time). We spent Thanksgiving in South Dakota introducing Zachary to all of Josh’s family! Zach met his great great grandmother, its not often that 5 generations get together. It was a great trip to finish off our year!
Now we are home for the holidays!!!! As we look back on the past year we are grateful for the all ways our lives have been blessed. We are thankful to all our family and friends that have joined us along the way and look forward to 2010 with excitement and joy!
From our family to yours, Happy Holidays!
Josh, Dana & Zachary
Day 8- Parties, parties and more parties. Each holiday season it seems like we are busier and busier. Zachary had the chance to sit on Santa's lap three times before the 15th! Zachary even got a gift from the his last time on Santa's lap---it was his Christmas pjs! Look how excited he was to get a new sleeper (actually he liked the tags)!
At Josh's holiday party luncheon
Day 9-Traditions, some new and some old....
Last year Josh and I got this book and read it each night. We continued the tradition this year with just the two of us and will bring Zach in next year, when he will have a little more patience to listen to the stories. We have found this to be a great tool for keep Christ in the forefront of our minds during the holidays.
We started Zachary's ornament collection! It was always a tradition in my family that we all got one new ornament a year. I was thrilled when I discovered this is the new series from Hallmark, we can add to Zach's collection each year (plus these will go great with my current ornaments)
My all time favorite holiday classic! Its one of two holiday DVDs that we own
This was on Zachary's "wish list" and it came as an early gift from Grams and Grandpa so we could enjoy it the entire Christmas season. Zach's favorite pieces---the sheep and the cow (mostly because when he would play with them Josh & I would add some sound effects)
Day 10- A family picture in front of our tree. We took this after our church holiday program. We knew that we would be staying pretty casual come Christmas morning.
Day 11- For some odd reason I decided to try and be a little crafty this holiday season....note to self if I plan on this again start in June! It was pretty time consuming but worth it in the end! Here are a few of my recent little projects.
Holiday stars---three of the seven stars that I made this fall and winter. Pictured is my fall, Christmas and winter stars. I made Christmas stars for my mom, Josh's mom and his Grandma too (but forgot to take pictures of them).
My first ever apron! A new apron was on Kerrie's (Josh's mom) wish list and I thought I could try that. It was far from perfect but not too bad for my first one.
As part of my gift from Josh I got a Cricut! We got it a couple of weeks ago and Josh wrapped all my accessories up but he didn't wrap the actual Cricut. Rachel was also getting a Cricut but she had all her accessories out so with our combined tools I made holiday tags for all of our treat bags. I LOVE my new toy! There are some many things I want to do now I just need to pick a place to begin!
Day 12- And so the season comes to an end.....Christmas morning! Zach LOVED all the bows! He just wanted to pull all the bows off and play with them. Since we had tried to open a gift previously we knew that wrapping all his gifts would not be a great idea so Santa set most of the toys out for Zach to play with them immediately. When we did get him to open a gift we had to play with it for a bit before moving on to the next.
Reading a new book he got from Grandpa---they are on the last page where there is a cow that says "mooo" its Zach's favorite part of the whole story!
He got this about half way open and realized he could play with it in the paper! Its his alligator xylophone
Funny story---Josh was opening this up and once he discovered it was a DVD he proclaim," what on earth could it be?" I began laughing and once he finished opening it he understood why!
Zachary is done for the day!
1 comment:
Awesome post! I love the 12 days of Christmas idea.
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