Last Night in Ohio

The kids had a farewell party with their best buddies.
Nothing better than pals, pizza, pop and playtime!

Austin Ahlborn, Emric Nakata and Jordan playing Nintendo.

Cameron Wilson, Xavier and Preston Miller having a Nerf gun war.

Preston Miller, Xavier and Annie Johnson watching a movie.

Zalyi, Brooklyn and Amelie playing with the dolls and dollhouse.

Girlfriends Amelie Nakata, Brooklyn Miller and Zalyi.

Saying Goodbye.

As you can see, we all had a lot of tears. But we will be tied to eachother forever now.
Love does that.

School Time

Jordan with Mrs. Brown

Xavier with Mrs. Radcliffe and Mrs. Long

Zalyi and her friends at River Preschool.

REUNITED!!!!

January 17th, 2009 11:55 AM
Kelly is safely home and reunited with her three precious children
and they with their amazing Mom.
This is a moment long to be remembered.

Happy New Year!!

We had a cookie decorating hour during the night. As you can imagine, there were some really imaginative creations. I'm not sure how much frosting actually made it onto the cookies compared to what went straight into the mouth!

We had a pinata for all of the kids. It was a tough one--everyone had about 4 turns before it finally broke--

About 12:30 AM January 1, 2009. They made it!

Christmastime Is Here

Kelly requested popcorn balls so we made three batches and sent them off to Afghanistan. The kids chose the colors. We made about 75 and Kelly said they didn't last long!

Hunting for the best Christmas Tree. Not quite the same as hiking in the mountains and cutting it down ourselves--but Xavier did stand guard on the one we liked while the rest of us made sure there weren't any better ones!

Zalyi and Xavier with Santa at the Ward Christmas Party. He must be telling some pretty good jokes!

The Sunday before Christmas.

Each year we make about 300 popcorn balls to give our neighbors and friends--along with a few to eat ourselves! And we always take a picture of the kids with the popcorn balls--we have pictures going back to when Nick was two--

Every Christmas Eve morning, we go to the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati and serve breakfast to the families that are there. The kids do the taking of orders and serving and they worked really hard. It's a great way to start the day--

Christmas Eve and the Christmas story from Luke. The cast is from left to right:
Tanner as a Shepherd, Dallin as the Angel Gabriel, Dane as the Donkey, Zalyi as Mary,
Jordan as Joseph, and Xavier as the Wise Man. It was a Nativity to remember!

All ready for bed and the longest night of the year!