Merry Christmas!

It took a few days, but I finally have pictures to share of our family's first Christmas as a family of four.

As many of you know, however, we are actually a family of six.  Two of our precious children are not with us.  They are always in our hearts, but there are few tangible ways to memorialize them.  At Christmas, we remind ourselves of our "true" family of six and hang stockings for all of our children:

From left to right:  Jacob and Zachary (born and died March 14, 2008), Jon, me, Chelsea and our Joshua.

We took our children outside on Christmas Eve to enjoy a dusting of Christmas snow.  We assume this was Joshua's first experience being out in the snow.  He wasn't entirely happy with it, but didn't want to go inside, either!

After our Christmas eve festivities, our daughter Chelsea decided to begin hunting for Santa Claus, and her little brother joined them.  However, there was no Santa sighting.

On Christmas morning, our son woke first.  We were pleased with this, as we wanted to give him some time to himself.  However, even on Christmas, breakfast must come first.  Joshua still doesn't know that there is always food here, and he knows he should eat before he plays.

We couldn't have been more pleased to give Joshua his presents and watch him enjoy and examine each one.  

When my daughter woke up, she had a wonderful Christmas too.

until...

(note the left leg - it's the right in the picture)

And then...

A lovely pink cast a day later.  She suffered a broken ankle while descending the stairs in our home to retrieve a Christmas present from her bed.  It is the first broken bone we've ever experienced.  Thankfully, she's been an amazing trooper and will have the cast off before the end of January.  It was a shock to an otherwise happy Christmas

Despite the unfortunate injury to our precious girl, we were exceedingly blessed to have our family of four this Christmas.  We rejoiced over his arrival even as we prayed for those who do not have parents and may never know the love and care of families.  

Merry Christmas everyone!