Anatomy of a Frown
This was Sunday morning and I asked Delaney to stand in front of the tree for a picture with her Christmas dress on. She blinked on the first try, so I asked her to smile again. She blinked again, so I asked for one more try. You can see she was not in the mood!

December in Review

December is now almost over, but it has been a good month for our family. We celebrated Liam's 4th birthday, as well as my 32nd birthday on the same day. It was a medeival theme and Liam is really enjoying his new "castle" with all the knights and horses. I'm enjoying my new fluffy robe and gift cards. We also had a breakfast with Santa here in Brentwood at the community center, and we visited the Smith Family farm to get our Christmas tree. It was a lot funner than driving over to Home Depot and throwing it in the back of the truck. Gavin and Delaney both had Christmas programs at their school that we enjoyed as a family, despite Caedmon's wiggles. The kids got together with the Barton kids and sold mistletoe again this year. We drove around downtown looking in trees until we found some and asked to cut it down. It was a fun way for them to do a little work and make a lot of money. They even learned how to budget so they could buy presents for each other and their friends. We had our church Christmas banquet, and I sang in a women's ensemble for Christmas. We baked for two days straight with friends and with Grandma Joni and did some last minute shopping. And then there was Christmas Eve with Ryan's family, and Christmas day with mine. I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Getting the Christmas Tree

Breakfast with Santa

Liam's 4th Birthday









Gavin & Delaney's Christmas Programs

Christmas Eve at the Rippees

Christmas Day at the Grandma Pam & Grandpa John's house

More Cruise Pictures

Delaney and Gavin on the rock climbing wall.

Liam with some things he won at the Adventure Ocean kids program.

A day excursion to Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

We went swimming with the stingrays while we were at Grand Cayman Island. Gavin is holding one and he even gave it a kiss.

We're back in business!
I guess you just wait 2 months and then Blogger decides to work again. Well this was my test photo. This was our first day on the cruise and we managed to get all the kids to sit and take a photo for us. Grandma Joni bought the cute outfits. From the left: Nikolai, Liam, Delaney, Anneliese, Aleksei, Caedmon, Gavin and Caleb. We had such a great time, the kids are still asking if we could go back on the cruise ship. They liked being served at meals and having their room picked up and beds turned down. They especially liked going to the kids club and playing the special cruise ship game, "Gaga ball".

Well, you might have noticed that their are no pictures with our last post. I haven't quite figured out what the problem is, but Blogger is having issues. I'll try to get it up and running soon.

Cruising in the Caribbean
We've been planning since last Christmas, and our family cruise has finally come..and gone. We're sad it's over, but we'll share some of our photos with you. When I say "family cruise", I mean the entire Rippee side of our family... all 17 of us! Traveling with 8 kids, 6 of them age 4 and under is all the things you can imagine, but we did manage to have a lot of fun. We visited Ocho Rios, Jamaica, swam with the stingrays at Grand Cayman Island, and relaxed on the beach in Cozumel, Mexico.

Caedmon's First Birthday

Plans had to be postponed for Caedmon and Keira's party after he came down with the stomach flu. But we did manage to get together and celebrate anyways!