Happy New Years Eve

Cara wearing her new bathrobe after tub time last night

Mommy and Cara in our fuzzy robes

One of our Christmas presents was tickets to the last home Colts game from Mike and Lisa. We were very excited to have the opportunity to go to the game!

On our walk to Lucas Oil for the game we passed this destruction formerly known as the RCA Dome, it was imploded the week prior and was all a pile a rubble

Mommy and Daddy enjoying the game

Scott taking his picture, as you can see our seats were great

When will my family room look clean again???? We have yet to find a home for all the new toys for our princess since Christmas but SOON this room will look clean again!!

Hard to believe this will be our last post for 2008! We are really looking forward to see what 2009 holds for us. We are thankful to have had a happy and healthy last year.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!

Oh what a Christmas!!

I had worked all night and got home about 8am to find everyone still asleep! I am glad because they had strict orders not to allow Cara downstairs until I got home, so at least she was not up and anxiously waiting. I was tired and ready to get the festivities started, so I washed my face, brushed my teeth, hopped into pajamas and was ready to wake everyone up. I got a few pictures of the room before the chaos began!


The 4 stockings were hung by the chimney with care! One for Daddy, Mommy, Cara and for Panther the cat, in case you were wondering :)

We finally got Cara awake after multiple attempts, I kept telling her Santa had come and we should go see if he left anything. We finally got her awake by telling her that Grandma and Grandpa A were here! She popped right up!

Here she is walking into the family room for the first time and seeing all the presents!

She went to go see if Santa got his milk and cookies and he did of course!

Santa left a big red bag with his present in it, and here is Cara opening it! It was a Disney princess cash register!

And now opening presents from Mommy and Daddy

Opening presents from Grandma and Grandpa A

In her new Princess throne from Grandma and Grandpa

We turned on the laptop and got on skype and found Aunt Cyndi and Uncle Danilo home and waiting for us. They were able to watch Cara open her box of Princesses! A huge hit!!

After Mommy's nap (and Cara's too) we sat down to a nice Christmas feast. Grandma and Grandpa F came over to join us. We had a turkey and all the yummy sides!

We even gave Cara a fancy glass with sparkling grape juice to be like all the grown ups having wine! She thought this was GREAT!! Here she is saying CHEERS!!

We had the most magical wonderful holiday! It would have been absolutely perfect if I had not had to work (but that is just part of my career choice). Cara was so in awe of the whole thing! It was complete joy to watch her! She got so many new Princess toys!!!! We have decided to give her a new bedroom with a princess theme and she is so excited! Pink, frilly, girly! We can't wait! The bedding is ordered, next step is painting! I always wanted a Mickey nursery for our baby and it was pretty gender neutral so it is great to finally have a girly room! Especially to give her a room that she got to choose!

The only other thing that would have made Christmas perfect would have been a White Christmas, but lately Mother Nature has been a little confused on what season it is! We have a snowman building kit ready to go, just need some snow!

We hope everyone out there had a very Merry Christmas as well!

Christmas Eve

Grandma and Grandpa F hosted the gang for dinner and presents on Christmas Eve. We presented Grandma and Grandpa with pictures of the 5 grandkids together, which were a complete surprise to them! Here is a picture of Grandma opening her framed picture!

Cara received a doll house from them which she LOVES!!! She is totally enamored, it came with all the rooms furnished and a house full of people.

Here is Cara opening another present from Grandma and Grandpa F

We had a great time on Christmas Eve watching the little ones open their presents. Christmas is so fun with all 5 of them completely into it! After ripping into presents we also enjoyed a delicious dinner and yummy dessert! I didn't even take many pictures because it was so much fun watching I kept forgetting to grab the camera.

With a heavy heart and a tear in my eye I said goodbye to my family and headed off into work for the night! Cara and Daddy would have to get ready for Santa without me! Grandma and Grandpa A came down to stay at our house before Cara went to bed so they could be there in the morning. They put out milk and cookies and got the fireplace ready for Santa!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! These are our recent family pictures, hope you enjoy!!

It's Going to Be a Princess Christmas

The other day Cara was out shopping and came home with this Aurora dress! Then we were out shopping again and found this set with Princess shoes, gloves, and matching purse and she just had to have it! The price was right so we said okay, I know I know, Christmas is right around the corner, I am a weak! So here is our Princess who is so ready for Christmas. We were doing the Advent calendar the other day and I told Cara there were only 2 more days until Santa came and she yelled, "yeah, bring me princesses!".

Edwards Family Christmas Party

On Sunday afternoon we had the Edwards Family Christmas party. It included my grandmother, her 8 children, most of her 23 grandchildren, and most of her 38 great grandchildren! Needless to say we use a church hall instead of someone's home to gather!


Here is Cara opening one of her presents, this one is from Great Grandma E

It is a little apron with her name embroidered on it

We wanted a picture of all the great grandkids posing with their present from Great Grandma. With a little help from some elves they either got a Colts pillow, embroidered apron, or a fleece blanket for the little ones. Notice how Cara insists on being front and center for this picture

Then she turns around to start conducting her choir to sing Jingle Bells, do you think she has been to a few concerts recently??

Later that night Daddy and Cara were cleaning up the basement, picking up toys so Daddy cleaned up Cara nd put her away in this tub, then carried her upstairs to show me

Cara thought it was pretty neat sitting in the tub

Daddy is home enjoying his Christmas break so far, 2 whole weeks off! Cara will love all the attention this week! We are really looking forward to Christmas! Can't wait to see her face when she sees what Santa and Mommy and Daddy, as well as both grandparents got her for Christmas! What a joy this is to experience through the eyes of a 2 year old!!

Cookie Day Saturday

We were supposed to head up north on Friday night to celerate Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa A at their house. We knew they got worse weather than we did during the night, but that doesn't usually stop us from driving in it, thank goodness for 4 wheel drives! What we didn't anticipate was a power outage due to the ice storm, so Christmas with them would have to wait!

So Cara and I took the opportunity for our "free" day to bake and decorate Christmas cookies!


Here we are using cookie cutters on our rolled out sugar cookie dough

Cara loved using her little rolling pin to help

We just got a tray of pillsbury sugar cookies out of the oven (we cheated with these, they were the take of the box and bake kind). Notice our matching aprons. I got these as a present last Christmas and put them up to save for this year and had forgotten about them until I mentioned to Grandma F on the phone what we were doing and she asked if we were wearing our aprons. We also have matching oven mitts too!

Time to start decorating the sugar cookies, here Cara is sampling the icing. By the looks of her mouth she ate more than she put on the cookies

Yeah, we loved our cookie baking day. We are sad that we could not celebrate Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa A yet, but made good on our extra time at home

And good news to report that after more than 2 days without electricity, it was finally restored to Grandma and Grandpa A. We were trying to convince them to just come down here but with the bitter cold they were worried about pipes freezing. We are very relieved that they have heat again (and hot water!).

A Blue Christmas Concert and a New Church

I am not sure where the last week went, this time of year is so busy with concerts, shopping, baking, and just enjoying the season! Last Sunday was Daddy's final Christmas concert of the season. It featured the Jazz bands and Jazz Choir and included some tasty desserts and coffee or hot chocolate too. Last year this event was snowed out and didn't happen until mid January, so it was nice the weather cooperated this year.


Cara giving Grandma A lots of cuddles when we got to school, she had fall asleep in the car and wasn't quite awake yet

Cara looked absolutely adorable wearing this Santa hat and her Christmas dress

Baby Cara came along in her matching dress too

Sitting pretty after the show

Trying to get some cute pictures with Grandma and Grandpa after the concert


Last Sunday we celebrated Mass for the last time at the old St Malachy Church. It was an emotional trip to say goodbye to the church in which we both made our First Communion, I graduated 8th grade (a big deal in the Catholic school), we got married, and Cara was baptized. So on Tuesday we attended the dedication of the brand new St Malachy Church! The Archbishop said Mass and we witnessed the dedication and anointing of the gorgeous new building. I did not feel right taking pictures during the Mass, but this is the outside as we were walking in, it was a snowy/sleeting night, but that didn't stop anyone from attending. It was a standing room only crowd even though the new church seats more than twice what the old one held. For us it was a once in a lifetime opportunity!

We look forward to attending the first Christmas Mass in the new church

Disney On Ice

On Saturday we headed downtown to watch Disney On Ice: 100 Years of Magic! I told Cara that we were going to watch Mickey, Minnie, and the Princesses ice skate. So she kept asking for the Princesses when the show started with Aladdin!



Here she is sitting on Daddy's lap watching the start of the show

Minnie and Mickey all dressed up and getting ready to introduce Belle

Here are Grandma and Grandpa F and Grandpa and Grandma A holding Cara watching the show

At intermission we bought Cara a snow cone in a Cinderella cup, she LOVES to eat ice so this was a really great treat

Bandleader Mickey out on the ice

We had a great time at the ice show! We had really good seats which was great because Cara could really see the characters. Cara is very into the Disney Princesses and they were the highlight of the day. We recorded that portion on video which Cara watched over and over on the way home! Cara was surrounded by all of her favorite people and we hope she remembers this special day!

Christmas Band Concert and Christmas with Friends

Thursday night was the annual Rossville Band concert, here is Scott conducting the High School ensemble

After the concert here is Cara running down her favorite ramp (her cheeks are BRIGHT pink because it was QUITE WARM in the auditorium)

Giving Daddy a hug after the show!!

Friday night we went to Dendra, Larry, and Zaina's to celebrate Christmas. Here is Cara opening a present of nail polish with nail stickers, she is very excited to try these out

Here is Zaina opening up her present from us, books from American Girl

And here is Cara opening her big gift, a shopping cart!

Grandma and Grandpa A were in town and also went with us for dinner and fun, but Grandma was quite content holding either of the new kitties in the house!

These were the only pictures take, guess once the food came out the cameras were put away :)

Thank you Larry and Dendra for hosting a great dinner! It was a lot of fun to share some wine, games, and great company!