its that time of year - time to sift through all of the pictures from the year and get them printed in a book to celebrate 2008. It's a tough job, there are so many memories to sort through, (and i take a ton of pics!!) its hard to decide which ones to print and which ones to leave out - but ultimately it's fun to go through and remember everything that happened this past year - well everything i remembered to take pictures of! I'm guessing i don't have quite as many this year as i did last year because i've got 2 kids now! And not just 2 kids, 1 kid plus a TODDLER.... enough said.

Here's a pic of the kids boogeying to some music on Christmas Eve.

its been really quiet here for the past few days. everyone but Jayme is well now, he's apparently got Strep throat and is headed to doc today. the snow has all melted but for a small hill and a pile of decorations that used to be our snowman! well it was 65 degrees yesterday - a strange fluke of a day, and i opened all of the windows in the house. it felt like a spring day and it was wonderful. We've been playing some of Ava's new games, which has been so much fun - I have always loved to play board games, card games, any kind of games! and she is now old enough to enjoy many of them with me.

Smokey had her first night sleeping upstairs with all of us and she settled on various spots on our bed, usually right between Jayme and I where she was nice and cozy. It has been really nice having a pet in the house. Ava is in love with her, and Vann is a little jealous i think, but overall he's very tolerant of all the attention we give her. i cant believe the new year is right around the corner. Time to start thinking about those resolutions!

here i am! i havent forgotten to blog, just still buried under the plague of sicknesses STILL running through our house. We had to cancel our trip to Georgia because of the UGLY bug that keeps coming back - we're pretty sure it's the norovirus or 'cruise ship' virus, which has been going around here lately. Poor Vann just gets over being sick only to be hit with something else a couple days later. So we are quarantining ourselves at home over the holidays to try and eradicate the thing and get on with our lives!!! Jody and Scott came up over last weekend and we had a great time running around the city with them, but then they both got very ill at the airport on the way home!! I'm not sure they will ever come back!! We are really bummed not being able to travel to see family, especially since we stayed home for Thanksgiving as well!

We did had our first winter storm of the season come through and dump lots and lots of beautiful snow on us. Ava and I built a 'special' snowman. He looks a little like Jabba the Hut to me... Jayme and Vann watched from the window.

Here's a couple recent pics....

the saga continues with most of the house still sick - we've been giving Vann breathing treatments with the nebulizer for his terrible cold and wheeze in his lungs, he is making great improvement, and both kids have had the stomach bug again over the past few days (again!! ugh!!) It seems to be running thru the community as well, we know of lots of people getting it. But we will be getting better this week since Jody and Scott delayed their plans to come and visit us, we have to! i just found out one of the girls in her class has head lice, so now i'm praying she does not get that - i don't do well with small bugs eww!!!