Holiday! Celebrate!

What a fantastic holiday season! The only thing that would've made it perfect was if we had some time with Larry's family, some time with Lauren and her family, and if Larry was able to take off work this week. BUT, we are thankful Larry has a job and L3 has work, so we are blessed. I have a new appreciation for all parents of families who celebrate with Santa. Whew! It's hard work preparing for his arrival and delivery of gifts! This year was a practice run for us...the bar is set for next year and I so hope we succeed. I'm taking notes. Leading up to Christmas Day we worked hard making and delivering gifts for friends and family to help teach Rya the true meaning of Christmas. She kept reminding us that it was Jesus' birthday. Even though she LOVED giving presents to everyone, I must admit, that the morning after Christmas Day she woke up asking for more presents for her to open. :) Santa was very good to our family this year. I was given a new washer and dryer (with steam function on both!) along with other items to make me a fantastic domestic diva and mother of two. Larry was given a beautiful guitar and some new electronics, clothes and photo keepsakes. And the kids were spoiled rotten with clothes and toys. Rya's favorite gift is a truck that Luke was given. And Luke's favorite toy is a Special Agent Oso car that Rya was given. Go figure. :)
Mom and I have been busting our bums since Thanksgiving getting ready to deliver the books to the children. We set out with 94 bags of books for children. We delivered almost all on Dec. 15th. We were unable to deliver to a few homes b/c the homes had been abandoned or a new family had moved into a house and the children we had on our list no longer were there, or we just couldn't find a particular address. Overall it was a success and we learned a lot about how we'll go about it next time. We are still being blessed with books and donations so we are planning for our next delivery to be sometime in March.
Rya is doing fantastic. She is just the sweetest thing. I think she is still worn out from Christmas. It's nice having her and Luke home this week from "school". I know it's only Monday, so that song might change by Thursday, but I do like it. We are trying to decide on preschool for the fall. Registration opens in February and we are already on a wait list for one school. I think we have it narrowed down, but ideas and thoughts keep popping in our heads so we'll have to keep thinking and praying about it over the next month or so.
Luke is now 9 months old, has two teeth (both on the bottom) and is working on his third (one of the big ones on top). This one must be a doozy b/c he is one unhappy camper. He is crawling and pulling up & cruising. I walked into the room he was playing in the other morning and he was just standing there...not holding onto anything...but I told him to cut that out b/c I'm not quite ready for him to be walking yet. He gets into EVERYTHING as it is...add walking and running on top of that and we just might have a disaster or two on our hands. He has his well baby tomorrow so hopefully I'll have some stats shortly. Here are some pictures from pre-Christmas celebration: