Merry Christmas All Ya'all

We have felt abundantly blessed this Christmas season.  Last year we spent Christmas cooking at the Ronald McDonald house with a few of our closest friends.  Fortunately we have had another year pass that we have not had to stay any time in the hospital or at the Ronald McDonald house.  While we have made a few visits to the hospital to visit friends and share with them our love, this year we stayed home and celebrated quietly with one another with good tidings and great joy giving God thanks for all we have.  If you don't get any further in this blog, please accept this message as a gift by clicking this link:

A Light unto All: A Christmas Gift

Their may be snow from Denver to Boston, but there's no place on Earth like Christmas in Austin!

Scott does a great solo act working hard to decorate the outside of the house.

These are some of our cute neighbors' houses that we have the view of from our front door.  

I love the contrast of black/white. Reminds me of old Christmases past.  Hanna and Scott decorated the tree this year.

 Starting off the holiday with a fun mother/daughter cookie party and Hanna getting her face painted as Rudolph.

My beautiful shirt my brother John brought back for me from his trip to India with my cute Rudolph.

Christmas morning Hanna woke us up excitedly early to point out that Santa had come and eaten his cookies and drank his milk.

Putting Santa to shame drinking all his milk.

Hanna made us all name place cards (can you find the pink squares ie. Hayden) to sit at the BIG table for dinner.

Wonderful cards from wonderful people.  Some of my favorite decorations.

My first time in 15 years to make all the trimmings from scratch:  spiral glazed ham, marinated turkey, sage sausage apple stuffing, brown sugar acorn squash, bacon brussel sprouts, mash & gravy, cranberry sauce & pecan pie.  Now I can check that off my bucket list:)

Scott's collection of snow villages.  We started collecting one annually the year before we left Denver.

When we moved to TX we had to collect the BBQ one of course.  The pink house on the right was this year's addition.

Santa stuffed our stockings.  No coal this year.  Even Domino got some greenies.

Hanna couldn't have had a better day.  Happy Birthday Jesus!

The attached link is a great Christmas message.  May you feel joy in your heart this season and take a few minutes to watch these great messages!

Wise Men Still Seek Him

Hanna turns 5

I can't believe how fast 5 years has gone.  My little girl is now a little lady.  She loves all things Princess.  So Scott and I set out cleaning out our garage to have a drop off Princess party.  Since it is winter and rainy in Texas, it has to be inside and the easiest thing to clean up is the garage.

Princess Hanna/Ariel

Our nurse, Christy, gave us the great idea of hiring an Ariel mermaid.  She was great!  She called Hanna the night before and told her she was coming.  Hanna was out of her mind with excitement.  For her birthday gift, we had purchase Hanna the official Ariel costume and wig at the Disney store when we were in NYC with light up slippers.  She was such a happy girl and as you can tell, so were her little princess friends.  

It was a lot of work to decorate, but so fun to do.  

 Hanna was able to invite her school friends, and her church friends.  We were sad to not invite the boys, but with a princess party, it was a girls only thing.

Later that night we took the kids to meet Santa.  Hayden was giving his Dad a big kiss for this one.

Hanna is not fond of Santa.  I wonder who has been a good boy and girl...

NYC marathon blog post

www.haydentrigg.blogspot.com

ING New York City Marathon Course Video

Hayden's last blog before NYC marathon

http://haydentrigg.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-our-way.html?spref=fb

October Field Trips

11 Days left to DONATE to the Spina Bifida Association for the NYC marathon!  Thanks to all of you for such generous support!  Please follow my updates on www.haydentrigg.blogspot.com.

Hanna and her BFF Canryn on a twin playdate.

I even had to style their hair the same.

Our Warrior walk advocating for NAMI.

My Capital to Coast Relay with 12 of my fellow mommies all running to honor and Live Like Trevor Searle who passed away at 17years old last April.  Between all 12 of us there were 47 kids left at home with their daddies.

Trevor's momma Stephanie in the middle wearing yellow.

Trevor's parents, Ryan and Stephanie running in Trevor's honor.  It was very touching. 

Running my last 7.8 mile stretch (total 21miles) in the hot Corpus Christy heat.  Can you say sweating much?

Getting goofy from exhaustion. But loving the wild flowers at sunrise.

Refueling at the grocery store.

Finishing 32 hours later with the fastest time for a all women's team.

In order of our relay leg.  This was a special moment.  So glad that I got to be part of it.

Hayden and Hanna's Rise school field trip.  It was a blast!

Good thing Hayden's teacher is strong enough to help him out.  He loved it!

Hanna is a strong monkey to do it all on her own.

This girl can climb anything.

After the field trip we made a stop to pick up our pumpkins.

Here is a sneak peak at the prototype of Hayden's Thomas the Train Wheelchair costume.  It was much harder than I expected but worth it for sure.  He loves it and will get to use it 3 times.

Hanna is of course Rapunzel with the beautiful wig that she got at Disneyland.

This was our early Halloween event at Ronald McDonald house for Spina Bifida Families.

Hayden and his BFF Josiah with Buz in the background.

Hayden's Blog was updated:

www.haydentrigg.blogspot.com
Please check it out for holiday shopping with a portion of retail proceeds going to SBA.