Do I see a cat in our future?

Jovie did something I've never seen her do before tonight.  The lights were off in her bedroom, and we were singing and praying, and suddenly she got up on her little knees, pressed her palms and her fingertips together in the praying hands pose, squeezed her eyes shut, and lifted her face to the sky and prayed "Dear God, please, thank you, can you please, can you please, thank you, send a kitty cat to our house?  Amen."  Then plopped down in her crib again and snuggled under her blanket.  Then she looked up and me and said "God said no, because Mommy and Daddy don't like kitty cats."  It was the saddest, funniest, cutest thing I've seen in a long time.

I told Mike and we both laughed and he said "Oh no.  Are we going to have to get a cat someday?"

Happy New Year!

For our traditional New Year's Day hike, we invited friends along this year.  So we met at Rock Creek Park and had a really fun and lovely hike, stopping by to see the horse barn.

 Friends hiking- the little ones did a pretty good job!

 Jovie wasn't so sure about the horses...

Then we went to Cactus Cantina for lunch with the Mongelli's- delicious and fun.

Silly girls having fun together.

Good way to start the new year!

Christmas 2014

As per the usual, we went to Ohio for Christmas.  It was packed with family celebrations.  Here are some pictures recording the fun.

On the long drive there, Jovie fell asleep watching her movie with her headphones on.

 Jovie got lots of love from Grandparents

 The tradition with the Youngs- making cupcakes for Jesus

 Grandma was really anxious to give her a present when we arrived, so we let her choose one to open

 Hide and seek Olaf!

 Christmas Eve get together with the Hollanders

 Jovie and Simeon

 Jovie and Ella

 Christmas morning

  

Funny story- Jovie got this tent for Christmas. Grandpa started crawling through the tunnel, and got a little stuck.  That made us laugh hard enough, but then she tried to help him get out by grabbing his hair and pulling as hard as she could, which made him shout.  We all laughed for a VERY long time.

 Baby Jesus and Jovie hanging out in the Frozen tent

 Painting the cupcake bank

 Taking a nap in her new Frozen sleeping bag

 Family Christmas pictures after nap

 Jovie loves Baby Jesus

 More tent fun and hilarity

 Watching Polar Express with hot chocolate

 Grandma Susie has used this towel for all the grandkids- so cute!

 Jovie snuggles Biscuit

 Weldt family Christmas

 Tradition - decorating Christmas cookies at the Hoberts

Jovie likes to eat a lot of the decorations

 Caught!  (Both of us)

 The biggest and the littlest, working together

 What the men do while we decorate cookies- video games!

 Stockings with the grandkids

 I don't know why, but I think these are the cutest pics of Jovie from Christmas- squeezing her eyes shut while searching the stocking- don't peek!

 I like to try to get a Jeff an Biscuit picture once a year :)

 Picture with the uncles

The aunts' pic wasn't as successful

 Howie warming himself at the Youngs

 Young family Christmas- Defiance

 Watching a movie

 Reading with Grandma and Grandpa

 The dogs

 Wearing her robe back home