{Merry Christmas}

We didn't send out Christmas cards last year because I intended to send out a birth announcement after Becker's arrival...that never happened!

So at least now I intended to send out Christmas cards including a picture of sweet little fella...and then we vacillated on sending them due to postage costs...and so, unfortunately, this gal that loves some snail mail, is not sending them out this year!  That darn USPS!!

A couple of weekend's ago we met our sweet friend P at a local park and she took some great pictures for us.  So now I can put our top 4 photos instead of just the one!

What a year 2012 has been.

Of course we are most thankful for the addition of Becker William Hatcher (3/15).

He is healthy & strong (for the most part ~ minus the fact that he's been sick in large part due to his preschool attending sister!!).  He is so sweet - we cannot get over how enjoyable he is or how quickly this time has gone by.  With Chase we remember just talking about how we hoped we would make it one year, and now with him he is already 9 months!  I now understand why people like babies!  

Sort of - we don't get the lack of sleep and the nights he stays awake all night long, totally randomly...

but other than that, he has been a true blessing!

He weighs 18 1/2 pounds and is in the 25% for weight and 32% for height.

He scoots around and gets everywhere he wants...he has started eating small cut up food in the last week.  He has 6 teeth (Chase had none til 14 months!)  He loves to clap.  He is delighted (and tormented) by his loving big sister!

One of the best parts of having a baby this year was that we had so much company!
It was wonderful.   Both sets of parents, aunts, uncles, dear friends, great grandparents, cousins...
we loved every minute that we got to spend with these people and were so very appreciative of all the help, care & love.

Our Chase is just growing and getting so big - she is now 4.  It's hard to believe that she is (hopefully) in her last year of preschool and will go next year to PEPP which is a transitional Kindergarten that we have here in our school district for those with birthdays July - December.  Although we recently found out that you have to get into our elementary school, which is 2 blocks from us, by lottery.  That was surprising since we pay extra property taxes to live in this neighborhood and attend these "great" schools!  But we are fairly certain that she will be able to get in.  This means kindergarten basically like when I attended.  There are half days, a lot more fun and play.  She gets to get used to a big school, 5 days a week, etc.

She'll be sad, I think, to leave her friends and school that she's been at for 3 years. 

Chase is so social and very verbal and emotional.  She loves her friends and pretty much anytime we have to leave them, she bursts at the seams and cries because she is just not ready.  She is very loving and thinks often of others and how they are feeling.

She loves going to church and seeing her friends there and she is getting better about sitting through half of the church service before going off to kids church.  She loves to sing and I think once she is reading she will be much more engaged in the church service.

She loves princesses, loves to collect things, loves stuffed animals...

she enjoys watching Spongebob Squarepants with her daddy every once in awhile...

she loves playing outside on her plasma car and bike with some neighbor girls...

she is becoming quite this little artist and is getting good at writing her letters.  

She often will ask me how to spell things.

We did some fun Christmas crafts and baking together this year and she is finally getting to the age where she if fun to do these things with.

John continues to work at Hewlett-Packard.  He still enjoys his job quite a bit, after 13 years there.

He is a dedicated, hard working employee for sure!  He primarily works on a team of 5 and is the lead of this little pack.  HP has definitely had some rough days this year.  Of course we are just thankful for the day that he has a job ~ one never knows what tomorrow can bring.  We've seen several friends struggle though unemployment and it is a hard time for them...for so many in this country.  We do not want to take employment for granted at all!  He continues to be a deacon in our church.  He recently joined the finance team at church and was really excited about a new area to serve in.  

This year he's taken up shooting baskets each day at work as a bit of a break in his day.  He enjoys sharing with us his percentage of accuracy each night.  Chase loves to ask him every day if he's "solved any problems" that day.  She gets a real kick out of that!

He is a busy daddy, not having much time to do stuff for himself.  He is such a help in the evenings and pretty much lets me do whatever I want/need over the weekends.  I'm so thankful for him and his involvement in our family.  He's pretty much known to all as having a baby strapped to him for the past 9 months with a baby bjorn!  

And I continue to be a busy mama!  

I've enjoyed keeping this blog as a baby book/journal for our family. 

I really backed out of all of my commitments for 2012, so it was definitely different for me.

I'm used to meetings out several times a month, email correspondence for responsibilities, and all of that stopped this year.  It was good for me, but I also felt a bit disconnected in all area of my life.

I really need some outlets to give of my time and energy - so will be figuring out soon where to give this next year.  

Besides running after the kids, I'm involved in a weekly bible study at our church.  John and I continue to teach the 5th graded Sunday School class also.  I've been putting a lot of time into my health and losing my pregnancy weight this year.  That's fun but hard to work in with a baby especially!

In the fall I joined a challenge group to encourage each other to lose weight.  I've purchased an at home product called Les Mills Pump.  It's been great for me.  I was a member of a gym that did these kinds of classes for a while and loved it, so I knew I would enjoy the workout.  I watched a woman totally transform herself with this series, so thought I'd give it a try.  It's been really fun and it's working.

And then I'm out and about a lot on playdates and getting together with other moms to encourage each other.  So, to say that I'm a stay at home mom, isn't totally true!  I'm mostly on the go!!

It's been a good year.

We've grown as a family for sure.

John &  I continue to spur one another on...we celebrate 10 years of marriage next week.

We think back at those beginning years and can't imagine what we did with all of that free time & money!  If only we knew then what we know now!  Oh well.

It's been a very good ride!  The Lord has been gracious to us.

We are blessed and we are thankful.  

We get to see both sides of all of our immediate family this Christmas.

We are very excited! 

It's a new thing for us - we'll be spending about 5 days in Portland with my family & about a week in Seattle with John's family.  It'll be colder & wetter than we are used to for sure!

Chase is super excited to see everyone!

So to whoever reads this: Merry Christmas and many blessings in 2013.

Thanks for keeping up a bit with our life!

{this moment}

A moment I want to pause, savor,  and remember.

Today we said good-bye to dear Ms. Baldwin.  Chase has been with her for 1 1/2 years of her little life.  

Here you can see the first day of 3 year old preschool with Ms. Baldwin.

A new position just fell into her lap as the Director of a Preschool ~ and so she is off.

We wish her all the best!  We will miss her.

I think the kids are much more resilient then the parents!  Their new teacher has been in with them for the past few weeks.  So they feel pretty comfortable with her.

Let the Christmas vacation BEGIN!!

Jungle Bells

 On Saturday we decided to break out of our North County bubble and head into the city to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo.

At Christmas they have a holiday themed program called Jungle Bells - lights, shows, etc.

We were really proud of ourselves!

 It was light out and cool when we arrived and by the time we left it was dark and COLD!!

It was good practice for our upcoming trip.

We definitely need layers and coats!

It was a fun night as a family of 4.  Life is always easier with two parents so I especially enjoyed myself having John there with the kids.  You don't have to juggle a baby to take the preschooler to the bathroom, etc.

:the very closest we can get her to Santa:

Good-Bye Zoo!

See you next year...

::The Nutcracker::

Chasey & I got to have a fun mommy-daughter date on Sunday.

We came across a good deal for some tickets to the Nutcracker, so thought it would be a good opportunity to try out the theatre experience with her.

She hasn't been to any sort of a movie or live theatre, so I didn't know how it would go.

After church, we grabbed a quick lunch to eat in the car and headed downtown San Diego.

We easily got down there and found a great parking space and walked a few blocks to the theatre.

Chase was giddy with excitement.  I'm pretty sure it was also that she had me to herself :)

We were meeting up with 3 other moms and their little girls there.

The wait...

Finding her friends...

Little girls...

Practicing their curtsies...

Posing with the ballerinas was almost as much fun as posing with princesses at Disneyland...

Then we climbed up to our seat.  We almost needed oxygen we were so high...

But amazingly, for as high as we were and as hard as it was to see & connect with what was going on on the stage and in the story, for a 4 year old, she did AWESOME!

She said some really cute things during the show, but now I can't remember them all.  

When the orchestra started and played for a couple of minutes before the dancers came out, she was confused and wondered why she wasn't seeing anything.  I told her it was the introduction and that that meant it was like a little taste of what was to come.  I think she got it.  When Act II started up and they did it again, she said, "again, we get another taste?"

She was thrilled with the binoculars that I brought and loved passing them to her friends to see also.  Every once in a while she wanted to look through them "bleary"(blurry).

During intermission...

Act II seemed to be easier for her to connect with as it is the Candy Suite and all the different international dancers and the Sugar Plum Fairy.  I loved it!  We especially loved when Madame Ginger came out with the big skirt and all of her little children popped out from under her skirt!  She thought that was hilarious especially because John had told her about it.

Photos afterwards ~ The Russian dancers

Clara & the Prince

What a fun day we had!!  It was a great experience for her.

We will definitely do it again one day.

{Life Lately}

Hello!  

I've been occupied with a new fun "thing"...Instagram!

This is a fun app that has filters and it's sort of like Facebook as far as social media and connecting with folks goes.  It's been fun for me to connect with friends afar and also some bloggers that I enjoy.

So, anyway, it seems that these days I'm taking photos mostly with my phone.

Which means that I'm not taking tons with a camera and uploading them to my computer, etc.

Here's a rundown of life in the past month or so.

::sweet little Sammy~2 weeks older than Beck::

::buddies~ Caleb & Chase::

::sweet fella::

::relaxing at daddy's work::

::supergirl::

::Steph's big birthday bash in wine country::

::breakfast in bethlehem:: 

::the BIG game day~UGA lost::

::he's all over the place::

::friends and sweets::

::wearing her 14 year old cousin's dress::

::she got a letter from Santa::

::reading our nightly Advent Book~fun new tradition::

Our Thanksgiving

I'm sorry it's been so long since I last posted.

I had a bit of a problem with space on here, but have that all cleared up now!

Thanksgiving....it seems so long ago, but here we go!

We had such a lovely day.  We had our good friends, The C's, over.

It was low key, casual, delicious and healthy!  

This is only the second time we've been able to host, so I had SO MUCH FUN decorating our tables.

Beck is so on the move these days...here he was in such a hurry that his pants fell off!

Here is our outdoor appetizer table.  So delish!

The little triplets of course!  They had so much fun playing together.

Starting to get a little tired...

The impressive turkey cooked by JOHN!!

Our delicious spread...

Photo taken by Chase

We have so much to be thankful for this year.

The list goes on and on...I'm so very thankful for our newest member of our family.

He is dear and precious (and cut four teeth this night!)

How wanted he was and now to have him in our lives, we are thankful!

We have good health, a warm house over our heads, food in our tummies, dear friends, sweet family...John & I are celebrating 10 years of marriage in a couple of weeks.  I'm so thankful for him and our marriage.  I could go on and on...

I hope you all are continuing to count your blessings!