Meeting Santa!

Well, the kids got their first chance to meet Santa & Mrs. Claus!! We had a fun little Christmas party at The Saunders house & Santa happened to show up with a bag full of toys! Everyone got pictures taken in the sleigh by our good friend, Anna Vancleeve, who is a professional photographer & does an excellent job!

She caught Brady's hilarious expression perfectly~he was absolutely as excited as anyone could be to meet Santa~virtually no hesitation~his baby sister had somewhat of a different reaction! :)

Our little family

I can't get enough of these outfits!!!

Here is the progression with Brady~keep in mind folks, we literally have NEVER seen these expressions before!! :)

Telling Santa what he wanted (a toy combine & a Cars racetrack)

Livvy had one glance....and that was it!! :)

Some fun pictures from the night...

This was cute~all of us were holding someone else's baby~

Brady's 3rd Birthday!!!

Our little boy turned 3!!!!! I can hardly believe how fast the last 3 years have gone~Brady is such a joy in our lives...it's really hard to remember life before him! He is an incredibly kind, thoughtful and loving little boy. I just cherish every morning I get to go in & snuggle with him to wake him up~he just says some of the sweetest things that melt my heart on a daily basis. I love how he cares for me & how loving he is with me, how he looks up to his Daddy & has so much FUN with Daddy & how he truly loves his little sister & loves his role as a big brother now (almost too much! :)) We are just so lucky.

Anyhoo, we had a great time celebrating his birthday! Lez came up with Bryce & Jane so that made it even better!! They stayed with us, so the two little buddies (they are so cute together!) got to both have our traditional breakfast in bed! :) Then we had 15 of his closest little friends come for a super fun birthday party at the bouncy place! The kids had a blast & even though Brady was not feeling his best, he had a great time too.

The birthday boy eating breakfast in bed!

Pretty cool that Jane was there too!!


Livvy & Lez watching the breakfast

The Taylor Family at the party! Tahlia just gets cuter & cuter by the day! She is already a pound heavier than Liv & is 5 months younger!! :)

JT & Tahlia taking in the slide!

There was quite the crowd watching the action on the slide!

Lez & Livvy going down!!

Kendra, Paige & I with our girls in the Princess House! :)

The Holmquist girls going down together~Brady making his way up!

Brady taking a trip down with Daddy

Jane, Brady, Liv & I going down! There are about 8 of these huge blow up things!

A cute one of Jane & Brady

This was the end of one of the obstacle courses...I think I have more fun than the kids at this place!

Livvy was having a blast in the baby area~she is just so easy~totally goes with the flow!

The Best Thanksgiving!!

We honestly had the best Thanksgiving ever!!! :) Jeff & I felt so lucky to have both of our families together in Bozeman, along with Lezlee's boyfriend Bryce & his little girl Jane & Dusty's girlfriend Gina!! The only person missing was EJ's new FIANCEE Jenee!! (See Blog :))

Jane & Brady play really well together & have become good buddies~she is such a sweetheart.

Of course, we had to start the day with the Daws Family tradition of the Turkey Bowl. This was probably the most athletic Turkey Bowl as of yet & didn't disappoint. As usual, it came right down to the wire and had to be decided by field goal kicks...so much fun!!

A couple group photos

Brady was so excited to be involved in some plays & even scored a touchdown! He's been running football plays ever since!

Pretty good form by my hubby!

Hard to believe, but this was our MVP (Bryce) :) He almost broke my dad's finger on this crazy kick...at least you can see he really was putting his all into it!

Nana post kick!

Livvy was wearing her little Michigan State cheerleader outfit for her jersey!





The field was epic!

Nana took the kids sledding & swinging too!

Jane has this amazing motherly instinct & even though she is only 4, she is soooo good with Livvy!

My dad was generous enough to loan Doug one of his old practice jerseys from the Bobcats...apparently they used to wear onesies back in the early '70's!! :) Doug pulled it off!

Nana set up a special kids table & they looked like a little couple on a date!




Livvy & Gina!

Liv ate quite a bit of Thanksgiving dinner! Potatoes, stuffing & pie! Amazing what she can do with NO TEETH YET!! :)

Uncle EJ & Brady hanging out

Beautiful view!