Taylor's 4th Birthday

Christmas '08

frozen

"I've lived here a long time. There is great peace here...and freedom..."

Alexandra, I hear you...










-O' Pioneers! by Willa Cather p. 124

Coach Brad and Taylor May...time for fun?

Uncle Brad (aka Coach Brad) and Taylor have some fun, play time. Flipping and flapping around like a bird!

Time Off!

The kids pose...and wait

for Christmas!

Time off is always an adventure.

O'bama

Hmmmm.... Interesting:

From: O'bama signals break with Bush in new science team
9 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) —
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ikOg8OvhUN9QI5eFmt0piZrCSNjg

"...It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology.... The president-elect warned that promoting science is "about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology," an apparent reference to the Bush administration's response to research on global warming.

"It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient -- especially when it's inconvenient."

Well-
We like to camp.
These pictures
are from this summer at Estes Park. We took one weekend to get away and had a lot of fun hiking and tent camping with the kids. Enjoy.

Couldn't resist this one--obviously--at Grandma's

and not in the mountains. But so cute.

Merry Christmas!!!! Love you all!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Halloween and Christmas Concert

Early Morning...

How can it get much better than this?

The Tree...

SO...we put up the tree...Finally. We had some help from the cousins. Thank goodness...it went fast! Many helpful hands to put up the Christmas Icon. Hope














everyone had as much fun putting up their tree as we did!
Merry Christmas, yes CHRISTmas.
Bless you all!

Visiting Santa '08

Dylan and Taylor had fun visiting Santa on Saturday the 13th. I was able to attend and have some fun too! The kids are very excited for Christmas and so are J and I! We love to be able to see the kids and our family, spend some time together, without school, stress, and all those silly issues everyone deals with at the forefront of our lives... This time of year is a time for us to chill...
The kids were also able to ride the fire truck, and I believe that this is the first time that Taylor has done so. Note that J (aka Jack) also has decided that being a kid is not above him! That's why we all love him so much--he keeps all of us young and laughing (mostly at his expense--again another reason why we love him--he takes the teasing and laughter so well). Hopefully we can all learn from him and see the joy in laughing at yourself more often. I was reading in Time this week that if you surround yourself with people who laugh and are happy, who smile and look at the brighter side of life, then you are less likely to be depressed. Well, I have a husband who is definitely always urging me to look at the brighter side of life and not feel like the glass is half empty, but half full. I hope to be more like this...don't we all? Well, two posts for one day should update everyone...I'm going to try to not get on the computer for a few days! J has almost demanded it! I love my computers...we have an intimate relationship!

What I do...the aftermath...relax?

Okay...grad school...the aftermath of teaching and studying at the same time, for me looks like this...I don't know if anyone really realizes why they rarely hear from me during the semester...but I'm busy making this type of mess! Also, it does look worse because I have picked up a little since I completed my papers and my grading. You also don't see any toys mixed in because the kids pick up their toys at night. I guess I'm not making a lot of excuses for lack of communication---just one big one. The amazing thing is that this is fairly organized, in piles of all of the different papers I'm working on, in the different areas that I'm studying. I just realized that maybe everyone doesn't realize the reason why I'm sometimes in a bad mood, and sometimes not so good at being communicative...However, I never realized that it would be this hard to balance school, TA position, mother and wife, and side jobs whenever possible...but I think that it might be making me more resilient?? I've decided I care to much about what my students don't seem to care so much about...? Anyone else ever feel this way? Maybe it's just end of semester apathy or I'm just too involved in the things I shouldn't be...and don't care enough about the things I should??? Self-reflection is hard...?for lack of a better word. I seem to think that life will get easier, but I'm slowly realizing that it just keeps going on with different issues to deal with, celebrate, love, and learn from. Life...it happens...