Happy New Year!

It has been such a busy few weeks, but those weeks have been filled with so much joy, laughter and love! I hope you enjoyed your holidays as much as we did! Picking out our Christmas tree!

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration with Mike’s family the weekend before Christmas. It’s always so much fun to get the kids together with their cousins and watch them interact and play. It was a great time spent with his family. The kids (of course!) loved opening all of their presents and couldn’t wait to get home so we could rescue all of the toys from their packaging. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa F. for a wonderful start to our Christmas celebrations!!!

We had my parents and my grandma over at our house for dinner on Christmas Eve and then we all went to our church in Lansing. It was great to be home on Christmas Eve night to get things ready for the next morning. I always get just as excited as the kids and have a really hard time sleeping on Christmas Eve. But I did okay!

Our Christmas tree on Christmas morning

The kids were filled with excitement as they woke up Christmas morning. It was a race to get downstairs to see what Santa had left for them. Marina loves her dollhouse from Santa and Alexander loves his big boy bike! Way to go, Santa!! :O) We all had a wonderful morning and enjoyed the relaxed pace of getting through all of our gifts, eating breakfast and playing with all of our new toys! Later in the morning we went over to my parents’ house to have our Christmas celebration with my family, including my sister and her family from Iowa. How fun it was to see them! Again, the kids all had such a great time playing together and it was so much fun just to sit back and watch! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa M. for a wonderful day!

Marina loves her new dollhouse!

Alexander loves his new Lightning McQueen Power Wheels car!!!

The rest of the week was spent visiting family and friends. It was busy, but so much fun and the time went much too quickly! We had a quiet evening at home for New Year’s Eve and it was a perfect beginning to 2008!

We hope all of you enjoyed your celebrations with your family and friends and that you will be richly blessed in 2008!

Much love,
Mike, Kristen, Marina and Alexander